The Ramsey Show - App - Wealth Magnifies Who You Already Are

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host for the Dr. John Deloney show and number one best-selling author. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Heather's in Fairfax, Virginia. Hi Heather, how are you? Hi, good thank you. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well I'm just wondering if there is any way or hope to get an 18 year old to budget when they are surrounded by wealth and not limited by regular constraints. They have no debt,

they're not paying for college, They're not paying for cars. Who's 18 year old? My 18 year old. So you put some givens in there of which you control all of them. I don't. Her family, the in-laws will give her money whenever she asks. She knows this. We homeschooled her and she was taught very good values about money and morals, but then in high school we allowed her to go into a high school, a brick and mortar, where people will drive a different car to school every day just to show off their wealth and that's what she's been surrounded by for four years

and so she does not she thinks everybody should get their own car she thinks everybody no 18 year old needs to budget and she's off to college next year and and we're trying to pays for college well her father will pay for it there there's her father married to you yes okay so we will pay for her college yes and yeah so we can't really say if you don't do this then we won't pay for college why she knows she knows he will pay for the college. Oh. So you don't have a daughter problem, you have a husband problem. Yeah. Yeah, well I'm, yeah. Yeah.

So let me put it this way, she's acting like an 18 year old. And I wouldn't begrudge her a second, because she's acting exactly developmentally appropriate. Dave just nailed it. You have a husband problem. And it's his parents that are the twerps, right? Yeah. Yeah. So he needs to tell his mom and dad stop it you're screwing up my kid and he needs to stop

screwing up his kid. Yeah I think so. No you don't. Yeah. Why are you hesitant? I do. Well because I've been against it for many years asking to limit the money and to allow me to know what money is going to her so that we can at least put it in an account and we know what money is flowing to her so we know what money is coming out how she's spending it we can discuss with her her decisions and your husband will not

participate with you in parenting no he thinks that oh you know she's old enough you have to give her you know she's 18's old enough, you have to give her, you know, she's 18, she's an adult, you have to let her make the mistakes and... Not with my money, I don't. Right. Let me just say this, after working with 18 year olds... Now, she's doing heroin, let's make sure we fund that. Yeah, let me tell you, after working with 18 year olds for two decades plus, a never-ending checking account is a recipe for a disaster. I'm just telling

you right now prep yourself be prepared to wake up at 2 a.m. with a phone call from a Dean of Students of some college because it's coming. Well and that's how I was raised I did not have an I was poor okay so I'm not from this and then I tell that to my husband he says well I had never-ending checking account until I got you know out of law school and then I started that to my husband, he says, well, I had never ending checking account until I got, you know, out of law school, and then I started paying for my own stuff and I turned out just fine. So, it's hard to conclude something. I would question that conclusion.

Exactly. Yes. And maybe, and I don't think being poor is the answer either. I think that educational message, the only thing I can tell you to do in this situation, obviously, your husband doesn't care what you think. And so you've got a marriage challenge. And the only thing I can possibly see here is you take your daughter out and start right now and start a weekly, we're going to breakfast, just mom and daughter until she graduates and leaves your house. And it's not gonna be a you have to, you have to, it's you transitioning to,

I'm gonna tell you some things about when I was 18 year old that your dad was an 18 year old woman, like I was, I'm gonna tell you about stuff. I'm gonna tell you about boys, I'm gonna tell you about dating, I'm gonna tell you about how hard it is, I'm gonna tell you the scary moments. And all you're doing is planting seeds

so that when she gets over her head at 19, she will remember, I can trust my mom. That's your best case here. I cannot stress to you enough what a tough situation this young woman is about to enter into. Yeah. And I don't want to gender it, but I would even suggest that she will have a tougher time than he did. Oh, I know she will. 100%. Well, and here's the thing. In that regard... This gets me fired up, Dave. Makes me so mad, man. Here's the problem, okay?

Who's gonna want to marry this girl? I'm not signing up for this. Nobody with common sense is gonna look at Princess Girl and say I'm not signing up for this. Well, she's a very good actor. Nobody with common sense is going to look at Princess Girl and say that she's never known a single boundary and anytime she smiles she's supposed to get behanded money. This is a disaster of a wife. Yeah, but she'll be married and she'll end up getting divorced when they find out who she really is.

She's a very good little actress. Good God Almighty! I mean, I'm sorry. Wow. Wow. You feel so powerless. Yeah. You're just watching.

You feel like you're fatalistic, like you're just watching this car wreck happen and have nothing to do to stop it. I got to tell you, if I'm you, I'm in marriage counselor's office real soon because your husband is a twerp. And what he's doing to you is unconscionable. And what he's doing, allowing it to happen to her while you stand by and watch and go, well, she'll just go through a divorce.

Well, she'll just, now instead you go to those breakfasts John's talking about, you insert yourself into her life, and you insert yourself into this marriage crisis that you have very proactively or you stand back and be fatalistic about that too and well it's just the way it is his parents did that and I can't do anything with him. Well then we can't help you. Yeah. The answer to your question that you called about is proactivity. And it's going down kicking and screaming. Yeah. That's it.

Proactivity. You're not taking my daughter from me. I'm throwing a duck fit Daylight I man I can't tell you the number of students that just I Sat with it. They didn't understand they don't have dignity But they don't know people that don't have a boundary and personal self-discipline No, they've been yeah, they've been stolen from. They don't have dignity. They don't understand self-respect because no one's ever given them a lot of them to have it.

It's a sponge with no brains. There is no consequence. I'll just go to another college. I'll just get a new car. I'll just get another apartment. I'll get another house. And it's just not how the world works. I hate it, man.

I hate this for you. It's awful, horrible. But here's the thing, you can't fix her. You can only put some things in place that make her struggle. I'll say this, Dave, I heard this about six months ago and it rang true with me. It was a guy on a stage and it was just a clip, but he said, I don't want to hear another conversation about

these kids these days. Kids have never changed, it's the adults that have. The adults are the ones that are letting these kids just run amok and saying it's for their good and it's just simply not. That kid's acting 18. He's acting 18. Yeah, Rachel said when we started on this student loan stuff many years ago when we were doing the documentary, Borrowed Future, we don't have a student loan crisis, we have a parenting crisis. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Stand around watching your kid completely bury themselves in student loans to get a degree in left-handed puppetry. That's a parenting problem. That's not a student loan problem. I would go down kicking and screaming on this one Heather. That's my baby girl man. Or just screaming and kicking.

Dr. John Delaney Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Alright I want to settle a couple of scores here, okay? Uh-oh. Number one, a lot of the time when I'm doing a VIP thing with our customers that have become Baby Steps millionaires, like when we were on the Ramsay Cruise, this happened a lot, and we're doing a Q&A, it often comes up, okay, I've built wealth and I'm concerned I'm going to ruin my children. And let me assure you that you building wealth will not ruin your children. It will expose the fact that you already ruined them. Or not. Correct. Yeah. So the wealth doesn't do the, wealth is not the problem.

The problem is the parenting. And so, because I meet lots of wealthy families who have extremely functional, high achieving, highly relational, high relational IQ children that do very, very well as adults. The money did not ruin their children because their children were not ruined. And so, what the money does is it puts extra pressure on you as a parent to make sure you're doing your job of growing character, self-discipline,

kindness, compassion, contentment, gratitude, not entitlement, hard work, not I was born on third base and thought I hit a triple. No, the opposite of that. And so the Ramsey kids, they had it tough growing up, not because we didn't have any money, but because we had money. Because old Dave is not going to let this crap happen. And you know you be working you be a Ramsey kid I mean we're sending you the freaking salt mines I mean it's ridiculous we they'll tell you story after story after story of crap we made them do for money because we want them to associate hard work and

calluses and sweat on your brow with money. And then when they get to college, I have an unlimited budget. They don't. So one of my kids, when we got a new car, one time we got an upgrade car and it's the first time we got in a decent car in a long time because we were kind of coming up through the stuff, right? And he leaned, Daniel leans back in the back seat and says, we're doing pretty good. So we aren't doing anything, you're broke. I'm doing pretty good. So we aren't doing anything you're broke. I'm doing pretty good. You get to ride in my car. That's how this works buddy. And so we don't get to have and you don't get to I'm not buying you a car when you

turn 16 either. I will match it we had 401 Dave and we matched it. Whatever you save I'll put with it. So if you save nothing I hope you enjoy your bicycle because you get nothing honey, nothing. And we did this all the way up through there growing up here so when they go to college they had a set budget per month of cash that I put into their account. If they wanted more than that you know where they got it? Working. Right. None of them died, and none of them are in counseling for that,

to my knowledge. They're in counseling for other things, but not that, not that. Well, let's just double click on the exposure. This happened in my house. Hank, my oldest, he's 15, he grew up in the Tale of Two Cities. And to this day, he will still pull me aside in a restaurant and say, hey, dad, and he's

very respectful about it. Hey, I'm still hungry. Can I get another taco? And I'll be like, buddy, yes, of course, man. And my wife backed into our car several months ago and just getting out of the driveway because I'm a terrible parker. It was my fault. Yeah, right.

And Josephine, my nine year old said, well, looks like we gotta go get a new one. And I looked at her and said, that's not how that works, right? But what I realized is my son cleans horse stalls and my daughter's growing up in a different world than my son did. And so my wife and I, it was a good moment.

We gotta be extra intentional now, right? It just, the tide went out. Create teachable moments that create grit. That's it. That create contentment. That create gratitude and and then the money is just a sidebar issue. But this unlimited is not good for any human at any age. Just ask Congress. I mean, there's no off-spicket, right? I mean, I had a pug dog that did not have an off button for food. And so if we kept the food out and it free-ranged, the dog would get,

it would be like a complete sphere. It would be so fat that it rolled instead of walked. And we were killing our dog. So we had to take up the food. And we're like, no, just because you're down at the lake house chasing jet skis and you run your fat off in the summer doesn't mean that you get to get fat every winter. So no, we're going to cut the food off

because we're killing you, the animal that we love, with an unlimited supply. Hello, there we go. And so this is, but never fear parents that you are ruining your children by becoming financially successful. Yourself. You can have five hundred million dollars and not ruin your children. You can have five dollars and ruin your children. Because it hasn't got anything to do with the money. The money's not the variable. Right. And it's just a reflection of all the other crap that's going on, the dysfunction that's going on or isn't going on in the family. And so wealth just magnifies.

That's all it does. It makes you more of what you are. And so if you're a grouch, you become super grouchy. If you're kind, you become super kind. If you have a temper, you become a rageaholic and it's, don't you know who I am? That kind of junk, right? And anybody that gets in your way, you know, that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And so that's what wealth does to people, all of us. And so if you're a giver, it turns you into a philanthropist. Wealth, it magnifies whatever's going on good or bad in the family dysfunction or function and in the individual. And so please enjoy your financial success with no fear of the money having ruined your child. It's just about communicating this, how blessed we are and this blessing comes at a cost. This is how hard we have to work and this is what reality looks like.

And by the way, you can tell your kids how hard we're working. They have to experience that. They've got to experience hard work. Even if you can afford to have a professional do it, even if it's a pain in the butt and you don't want to go up and down the stairs and check their room seven times, that's part of parenting. Whether you have no money or a ton of money, there's just some basic things that kids need to experience. And calling out that last caller, Dave, being poor isn't the

solution either, right? I wouldn't wish that on anybody. You can look at any health and relationship metrics. That's not the solution either. The solution is to continue to focus on those lessons like you just mentioned. Whether you have little, whether you got a lot, man. And you cannot, don't steal from your kids. You said to us, Caller, if you just give an unlimited amount of money to a teenager, you're robbing them of their own dignity, of their own ability to stand up on their own two feet. It's criminal.

And often, it is parents propping themselves up, look what I can do for my kid, instead of let me teach my kid to stand up tall. And it's just, I don't say it's abusive, but it's really close, man. So our kids attend a school like hers. That kid attended a high school in this area. Well, Williamson County, the county that we're in, is the wealthiest county in Tennessee. It's the 11th wealthiest county in the United States. It's full of country

music people, tech people, hospital executives that are a healthcare boom in Nashville, and there's some extreme wealth in this county. and there's lots of these kids that people give a fifteen-year-old a brand new BMW which is the definition of stupid by the way because they're gonna hit it like 30 minutes after you give it to them against a tree or their friend's car so you might as well not tear up a good car while you're learning to drive, okay? So anyway, this is the environment that our kids are in and our net worth and income is likely higher than most of those people that are doing that. And our kids are driving cars, way substandard to that because they could only buy a car with the money they had saved plus what

we doubled. And so it wasn't the fanciest car. But can I say, Hank's, my son's 15, he's heading into that season, the temptation is on me. Oh yeah? Because I want to just go get him a really cool, nice thing. And we look at trucks now and we're driving, we come to stoplights, we're like, man, that truck, look at that. And I want to be able to just go write a check for it and get it for him. And I have to know I'm stealing from him if I do that. Because he's got, you know, most, especially guys are the worst.

We get great pride out of our first car story. Yes! 88 Tercel EZ Hatchback. My buddies called it the Roller Skate. I look like Fred Flintstone. 74 Monte Carlo land yacht. Dude, I could start mine with a rope, Dave. Paid cash for it with, or paid for it with a loan and a down payment I got from cutting grass and painting houses.

Mine went me me me me. This is the Ramsey Show. This morning John and I were on stage in an empty Ramsey event center with our live events team walking through what we're going to be doing on the money and relationships tour. So if you're signed up for one of these, here's what you're going to get and here's what if you haven't signed up you need to get signed up. We're going to put about 20 topics that either are John or Dave or John and Dave on an app when you walk in and you're going to vote and based on your votes that night that's what we're going to

talk about. We're going to run we're going to let you do the set list in other words. You get to put you get to do your choose the songs you want sung although there will be no singing. John Although there will be no singing John thing will be no singing bro. Neither of us need neither of us need to be saying particularly Me, but it's already a chaotic time in America. They don't need that Talk radio for a reason talk radio. Yeah, anyway, so there's all kinds of stuff on there Like we're gonna talk, you know, marriage and we're going to talk about, of course, we're going to talk about kids, we're going to talk about wealth building, we'll talk about debt, we could talk about whatever you

want to talk about. We're going to put up a whole bunch of stuff. We tried to guess what you might want to talk about and then we thought we'd just let you pick it. So that's what we're doing. Starts this coming Monday in Louisville, Kentucky. There are some seats left this coming Monday April the 21st. Durham, North Carolina, April the 23rd, Wednesday,

Atlanta, Georgia, April the 25th. As I said here at this moment, that's a week from tomorrow. And so that's the first three cities of our six-city tour. And you can get your tickets at ramsysolutions.com slash tour. And of course then we're going to go out in May 5th, will be Phoenix on a Monday, Fort Worth on May 7, and Kansas City on May 9. Oddly enough, Fort Worth and Kansas City are the two that are almost sold out. The last two. So if you guys want to get in on those, you better go

ahead and get your tickets. You're gonna miss that one. Okay, they're about to reach sellout and the others are not. You can get your tickets, but go ahead and get them. We would appreciate that and we'd love to see y'all. It's gonna be a lot of fun, be a lot of interaction, and we would just come on out. So ramsysolutions.com slash tour or if you're tuning in on YouTube or podcast, click the link in the show notes, please. Karen's in Huntsville. Hi Karen welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi thank you guys for taking my call. Sure what's up? So I have a question, more of a moral question. Uh, my stepmom, she passed away in February.

And thank you. I was her life insurance beneficiary. Um, so we had had a conversation in November about it. So I was expecting to, to be a beneficiary, but the problem now is, is that, um, now my stepdad technically he was my stepdad married to my mom for a couple years. My stepmom is technically his ex-wife, but I just, you know, she came into my life at the same time and he was expecting to get this money and-

From his divorced wife's death? I'm sorry what his divorced wife yes weird I it's the funny part about it and they have been married for 20 plus years I she basically took care everything for him he never paid a bill he never but they weren't married anymore no how long have they been divorced oh I don't even think they were legally married but she had helped raise his kids how long have they been split up kid probably 2012 2013 okay so 2012-2013. Okay, so 15 years they've been apart. How old are you? I'm 27. Okay, and

this goob calls you up and says he has rights to this morally? So the problem is now is that his health had been declining the last about five years and so she he was living with her. he moved back in with her and she was essentially taking care of everything for him food doctors appointments all that recently and yes yeah so when she died he lived in her house living with her when she died he lived in her house yes yep what mess. And she was married? She had never been married. Okay. How much did she leave you? She left me with 419,000 and she did actually end up having him be the beneficiary of her 401k which turned out to be about 135,000. Okay so this guy's what 50 or 60, 55, 60 years old? He is, my stepdad

is 61, 62. Okay how is he your stepdad? She was your stepmom. So that's, that's, where's your dad? I'm not affectionately my stepmom, but she really was just always in his life even when he married my mom for a couple years. So he really was my stepdad and still is. But I more affectionately call her my stepmom. God, this is so confusing. Alright, stop a second. I gotta get this figured out because it's intriguing All right, so the lady that died the lady that died did she raise you I? Lived with her when I went to college why they were very very close. How did you so your mom? See I'm sorry she is she technically your stepmother you just called her that I Just call her that okay I just called her that.

Okay, so she was not. So your mom and dad don't have anything to do with these people? Nope. So my mom and my technical stepdad, they had been separated now for a good couple years. So this is just a woman that you met while you were in college, you lived with her, y'all got close, and she left you just south of half a million dollars when she died. Correct. And then some guy who she kept.

And he's not your stepdad either. Who has no relationship to you, who he's been freeloading for the last 20 years on this woman. And it's not like he was just freeloading, she was also carrying him around in the wheelbarrow. He called and said, whoa. I want that money, too Well he was my stepdad he was married to my mom for a couple years But they've been divorced for a while and he essentially so was he married to your mom before? Or after this between this lady I bet What year was he married what year did he divorce your mom? Oh that was probably 2013 I'd say. It's been a while. I thought the

lady that died was with him in 2013. No, just my stepdad and my mom, their marriage was only a couple years, pretty short. My stepdad was with his ex-wife who I call my stepmom. I do wild family situations for a living and this makes me want to drink. for a living and this makes me want to drink. I'm. Yeah, I know. On air. On air, yeah. I'm trying to see if there's a flask under the desk here.

Quickly, somebody get John a bourbon. Okay, all right, so the answer to your question then is now that we've gotten through all of that. Have we gotten through it? I'm through it as far as I'm gonna get. Tangled web we weave, okay? And the problem is that you are caught up amongst all these spiders.

And these spiders all have sticky stuff and they all interact and intersect, but none of it is your fault, nor is any of it your obligation. And so when you had a conversation with her before she died she said I'm gonna make you the beneficiary on my life insurance is that correct correct okay and then that was her wish the lady that died left life insurance to the person she wanted it to go to. End of story.

By the way, she- Bubba the Parasite gets nothing. But she, no, no, she picked some money for him too, so she was very thoughtful in how she did it. No, but he doesn't get any of this 419. No. Zero. That's what I'm struggling with. You don't need to struggle.

No struggle. You don't need to struggle. Struggle's over, that's why you called us. Are you living in the house with this guy? No, no. Good. Me and my husband are- Oh, good. Struggle struggles over. That's why you called us. Are you living in the house with this guy? You have a life and you're gonna try to like be normal people and pay your house off with this money congratulations Yeah, you know you do not owe this guy a dime not morally ethically as a matter of fact quite the contrary It would be immoral and unethical to give him any of it because the lady that died left it to you immoral and unethical to give him any of it because the lady that died left it to you intentionally if she wanted him to have it she had an opportunity to do

that in December when she was making these decisions before she died no it would be wrong to give him the money don't struggle with this he's a he's a guilt she's a travel agent for guilt trips get away from him this is the Ramsey show Dr. John Delaney Ramsey personality is my co-host today New York City Nick is calling hi Nick how are you? Hi Dave thanks for taking the call. Sure what's up? So I just recently purchased an engagement ring for my long-term girlfriend. Yay! Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Yeah, very excited and just looking forward to this next chapter. So basically how I did it was I had an introductory credit card offer from the good people of Bank of America. Boo! credit card offer from the good people of Bank of America and exactly yeah there's some good people I guess but anyway I received it all for promotional offer from Bank of America where qualifying purchase through this new credit card would warrant a 0% interest on any debt that's paid within the first 60 days of purchasing and opening the credit card. I have no intentions of putting anything else on the credit card and essentially it's been

purchased through the card and it's just a cash outflow question as far as managing my monthly payments. I originally intended to... How much is on the card? So I currently owe $11,000 for the ring. How much money do you have in savings? So I have about $25,000 in a high-yield savings account. Write a check today and pay off the card and place scissors across it and cut it up. Ta-da! That's it. You shouldn't have done this. It was dumb. You did a sweet good thing a dumb bad way. Mm-hmm. Dude, no one in the millionaire study that we said got rich by using

zero interest credit cards and leaving their money in a high-yield savings account on 11,000 freaking dollars. Do you know how much money you made in sixty days on this? Enough to buy a biscuit. You didn't make any money. You did all these mental gymnastics and burn all these calories thinking you were beating Bank of America. Believe me, you don't beat Bank of America. The only way you beat Bank of America is only way you beat Bank of America stay away from them okay why does it make you nervous you have $25,000 in the in the bank you'll have 14 grand in cash left yeah I think the point I was thinking about it was if you get below the $25,000 deposit it goes down to I'm

making about 4% yield on that savings account. It goes down to less than 1% of the savings account. Hey, let me ask you something. What's 4% of $10,000? Do you know? That would be what? $400. Yeah. Okay. Divided by 12. Yeah. That'd be less than 40 bucks.

Times two. You can't buy a pizza! Yeah, not in New York. You're acting like this math matters. It doesn't matter. There's no math here that matters. There's not enough money and time involved for these interest rates to be relevant.

Yeah, how much do you make an hour right now on your job? Well, I'm salaried, but I make probably about 3,500 paycheck yeah okay so this wasn't worth your hourly wage you use the hours you have spent screwing with this in your mind you made a dollar 16 on it per hour screwing with this paid off dude dude

don't do not play with these snakes they will bite you this is a big ugly snake called Bank of America big ugly snake it will not only bite you it will eat you and your future young no no no no no no the good news is you've got the money to pay this off and still have a whole bunch of bad news is I'm not sure I convinced you and you're still kind of I don't know about this or not yeah you need to do this Nick you need because you don't want to be putting that ring on her finger and be going thank you Bank of America. Gross! That makes me, I

got a little throw up in my mouth right now. Well here's what's gonna happen, she's gonna say, well hey I want to do pony rides at the wedding, but they need a cash deposit, or I want, and I don't know what people do at weddings. I don't know, George rolled in on a camel, I don't know what these youngsters. Well he is a camel. I know, I don't know what people do at weddings. I don't know, George rolled in on a camel. I don't know what these youngsters. Well he is a camel. I know, but these young weddings are out of control. But he's gonna have $25,000 in the bank

and his sweet new fiance is gonna say, hey we need a cash deposit. He's gonna give it to her and he's gonna say, okay I'm just gonna float this for one month. And then it's gonna float for one more month. This is what Bank of America counts on. That's exactly right. This is what they're counting on.

Once they've got your head in the noose, they pull the rope! Yeah, that's how it works. All right, our question of the day is brought to you by WhyRefi. WhyRefi refinances defaulted private student loans, which are different than federal student loans. These are private loans that are in default. If you got one of those, they can get you out and they can get you on payments you can do and a good interest rate and get you out and get the things up and current, get it off of your credit, all that stuff. Go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter y, r, e, f, y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Erica in Delaware. Erica writes, how can I respect my partner when we have significantly different views on money? He believes living paycheck to paycheck is justified because you get experiences before you die. Because, I know, dude, I'm just, Dave, we're gonna have work forever. Forever. We're always gonna have a job. We're geniuses. We are the smartest men who've ever lived. Do you know what we do for a living?

We convince people to live on less than they make. Go ahead, finish. How big is this building? Is it 650,000 square feet? Just finish, finish the email. Golly. Please. Because I've been following your principles for a year and I'm on baby step four,

which is investing for the future. I totally disagree with him. Help. All right, here for the future. I totally disagree with him. Help! Here's the deal. You already don't respect him because this isn't about different views on money. This is about living in reality or not living in reality. And so let's don't blame money. This is about being a grown-up or being a child. That's right. So this is this partner of yours is a child. That's exactly right.

I want experiences. That's right. And by the way, we just went on a boat with a bunch of millionaires all like, for eight days. 3,000 of them. And it was an insane experience. It was quite an experience. It was quite an experience, but they had the money.

They had the money. That's right. So the idea that having a budget and following principles keeps you from experiences is nonsense It just magnifies how rad your experiences can be for a long time It's just it's it's it's not living in reality. Yeah, it's YOLO. It's what I expect my nine-year-old daughter to How she should view the world your problem Erica is you're dating a little boy not a man. That's right

That's the problem and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. So, I mean, adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. And that's what we have here. One adult and one child. And so, it's not a matter of what you can do to respect him. It's a matter of if you ever will, you won't because you're who you are. You're wise and you're old, an older soul, regardless of your actual chronological age and you've got wisdom and you know, you're looking at a guy who he might be cute.

He might be fun. He probably is fun, but, fun, but he's not a good man to spend your life with and you already know that. And by the way, I guarantee you this is not just money. This has to do with everything. Everything. How much we're gonna drink, raising kids, where we're gonna live, what are we gonna do for vacations. Like this impacts everything Dave, I'm hearing this more and more, people want to dump this on the baby steps or dump their the global marriage challenge they have inside their house or their dating relationship on a plan. The plan just exposes what's already there.

So what we're saying, what John's saying earlier is right, Erica, I think you don't respect him until he becomes a person of maturity. One definition of maturity is the ability to delay pleasure, live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else, so that you can have experiences like you said, John. If you've got $10 million, your experience options are a lot different than when you're a broke person saying, I like experiences. It's a lot different. I mean one throws a frisbee the other one goes on a worldwide cruise. Yeah exactly. One gets a bunch of like of banquet beers and the other jumps out of a plane with his buddy Dave

because Dave's great at peer pressure. Like it just changes. Yeah. It didn't cause that. You think I can control your decisions? No, honestly, honestly, here's what happened. You said, hey, who wants to jump out of a plane? And Ken Coleman said, absolutely not. George Campbell said, no way. And I was like, I have to now. That was peer pressure.

There it is. You didn't cause that. That was my own insecurity. Ah, okay. But what a great experience. It was, it was fun. It's better than throwing a frisbee. No, it's the same. I'm gonna drive home today and see some It's better than throwing a frisbee. I'm gonna

drive home today and see some guy in the park throwing a frisbee. I'm gonna be like, I should have got on a budget. I'm gonna judge his frisbee throwing activity. I mean you could do competition frisbee I guess. No, no, no, no, no, cuz then you have to wear socks and crocs or whatever. Really? It comes with a whole outfit. It does. It's got a uniform. Yeah, that's something James does. No competition. James does that? Of course, he plays a Fender. There it is. This is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people It's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, PhD in counseling, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. 888-825-5225. John's in Springfield, Michigan. Hey John, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good. How are you guys? Better than I deserve. What's up? So me and my wife took your FPU class maybe about a year and a half, two years ago, and I thought we'd been doing good, but she keeps overdrafting her bank account and it started off 50, maybe

a hundred bucks here and there. But in the past month, she overdrafted it $700 twice. And I'm not sure what to do anymore. When you call her out on it what does she say? Well I asked her about it and everything she told me she don't know what she spent the money on and she told me that it shouldn't matter what she spent it on either. So you guys flunked Financial Peace University. You flunked the class you have to go back and take it again because in the class in the class we taught you to combine all of your income and Combine all of your assets and operate out of one checking account and do a budget every month that you both agree to and stick to

Does that sound familiar at all? Yeah, it does. Okay, you you I say this like I don't like saying this, this isn't fun for me. You've got serious marriage issues if she responds to an agreed upon set of values that y'all agreed on when you say, hey, what's going on here? You're $1,500 overdrawn. And she says, stay away, get out of my business.

Like your marriage is in trouble, is what I'm telling you. Okay. Do you have access to these purchases? Or does she have her own checking account? It's her own checking account. We can see each other's checking accounts and bank accounts and all that. So you can look and you know exactly what she spent it on. And what she get.

I have no idea because she pulled the money out in cash when she did it. That dude, I can't, every alarm I have is going off right now, whether it's for a hotel room, whether it's for alcohol, whether it's for drugs, I think y'all got a mess on your hands. Okay. I've just done this for long enough now and Dave's done it for way longer than me. When people start pulling cash out and the first thing when their partner says and their husband or wife says hey We agreed on this thing what about this money in the first question the first response is you back off

You don't you shouldn't even apply to you. I don't have any say in this whoo, buddy That screams guilt. That's right And let me give you another picture. I have gone before a hunting trip to a place in town to buy camouflage gear. It's obnoxious. My wife calls it my outfits. And I have told her, I'm going to go spend a ton of money in here, and it was in the budget. And on the way home, I said, hey, please don't look. It's not good. It's embarrassing how much I just spent on clothes, right?

That's the one thing. And we sit down and she goes, oh my gosh. And she laughs and I laugh and she pokes fun at me for a couple of months or a couple of years. But we had agreed upon it. And they talked about it and it was completely transparent. That's a completely different scenario. And it's not an over graph. No, you hear the difference? Yeah, and I had the transparent. That's a completely different scenario. And it's not an over graph.

No, you hear the difference? Yeah, and I had the money. That's the other difference. Yeah, I hear the difference. So has she ever been addicted to anything that you know of? I mean, she's been addicted to alcohol, but she got over that. So as far as I know, nothing. Maybe about a year, year and a half ago, she got over that. So as far as I know, nothing.

Maybe about year, year and a half ago, she got over that. Okay, I'm just telling you right now, this is that moment to turn all the lights on, turn the music off, all the little games y'all play, all the avoiding of the hard conversations. I'm worried about her health right now. Okay. That's the behavior of somebody who's struggling.

Where else is she doing this? This is not just isolated to money. Where else is she hiding from you? I'm honestly not sure. I know we have a budget and- No, I mean, is she late from work? Yeah, does she flip her phone over every time you come in? She changed her passcodes on social media?

Like, you get what I'm saying? Where else is this showing up? Yeah, yeah. She did change her passcode on her phone over every time you come in. She changed her passcodes on social media. Like you get what I'm saying? Where else is this showing up? Yeah, yeah. She did change her passcode on her phone. I noticed that. Okay. Yeah. Last night I had mentioned I needed to look at some pictures so I can put some money in

the budget. And she grabbed her phone real quick and said, give me a minute. Yeah. So you, hey, listen, you know, right? You know. Yeah. And I'll just tell you right now, I'm heartbroken with you man. I hate this. This is so sad. Yeah, it breaks my heart for you. This is not a, this is not an overdraft problem dude. You got real serious stuff she's gotten into. Yeah. And I'm afraid, I'm afraid of what you're

gonna find. Yeah. For a minute I thought it was alcohol, but I just changed my mind. Wow. Dave, I mean, you're the one who taught me this, but man, when people start hiding money. It's always a symptom. It's always a symptom. It's not the problem. Right, right, right.

Money problems are the problem, they're not the symptom. Whatever they are, but hiding it is a whole different thing, and there's a whole series of, uh, whole pieces of research and data that indicates that, you know, what's going on there. And so, um, it is one of the beauties of the cleanliness and the high level of communication, connectivity, and alignment of value systems and so forth, that doing a budget together that is completely transparent where every dollar for the entire household is spent in the Every Dollar Budget app and both of you have a vote on where it goes, equal votes, we can argue about it, we can whatever, but when we put it down

there then it becomes a contract and we stick to it. It increases communication because Jesus said where your treasure is your heart is also it also therefore is aligning your values you're agreeing on your fears that's right you're agreeing on your dreams you're agreeing on family dysfunction where we're going for Easter you know you're agreeing because it all shows up right there in the EveryDollar app and we have to agree on it. There's a cleanliness to that. Sure, or understands it even.

My wife doesn't know why I buy camouflage gear that it costs that much. But the point is we sat down and talked about it and we don't hide from each other, right? And obviously camouflage is just me making something up. But yeah, this one ends in a pretty tough situation. Yeah. It's, we had one guy in a financial

issue university many years ago. He goes, you know, it's really pretty impossible to have an affair when you're doing a budget and every dollar spent. Cause you can't really put a category in that says honey. Yeah. This is the problem. Yeah.

This is the problem. And let's say we talk about, hey, you need to share a checking problem. Yeah. This is the problem. And let's say we talk about, hey, you need to share a checking account. If one of you has to make a passcode on your phone that your husband or wife can't see, that's a problem. That's a problem. If you reach over to grab your spouse's phone and they freak out and grab it from you, that's a problem. And it serves

the same dysfunction as not sharing checking accounts, not being aligned on how you spend your money because it's this idea that I've got my own life and you can't see a photo, you can't see the message. And that means, hey, what is, what it just, it shines a light on who is this person that shares a bed with me? Like why? Why can't I see your photos? Why can't I see this stuff? If you have to hide from your partner, then your marriage relationship is in a big mess. Jade said the other day, she said if Sam won't put his iPhone locator, if I can't know where he is, he can't share my bed. That was Jade. It's pretty hardcore. Only Jade. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey guys, thank you so much for the number of you that have embraced the new book, Build a Business You Love. It's officially here, it came out this week, and the number of pre-sales and the number of sales this week are off the charts. We appreciate you very, very much. This is not just another business book. I started this company with nothing, with a card table in my living room.

How did I do it? How did we build it? How did we build Ramsey? What's the process we used? What are the five stages of business that we've observed here and the 10,000 small businesses that we have coached in the last 20 years as well? So business is hard but we're going to show you the clear steps to get there just like we did with the baby steps in

total money makeover. This is like the baby steps for small business right? And business is hard but climbing a hill is easier when you know what's going to happen when you get on top. The strain is worth it because you know you're going somewhere it's a proven system. So ramsay solutions dot com slash store or click the link in the description on YouTube or podcast to get

the new book Build a Business You Love. We appreciate you getting it this week. It's been a big help to our marketing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Carlos is with us in Los Angeles. Hey Carlos, what's up? Hey, thank you. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. So, I'm on Baby Step 4, 5, and 6, and I recently met with a financial advisor about opening up a 529 plan for my daughter and She went over all the fees and the stuff and then I started wondering if it's better for me to just open a plan Directly like to Vanguard or something like that instead of meeting the advisors to stay home see my life

I don't know what your opinion on that. I would use your advisor. The fees shouldn't be substantial. They should be very small. Little to nothing. And here's the thing, the 529 plans are so... some of them suck beyond belief. And you could stumble into one of those if you're not careful and if you don't have somebody coaching you along the way on this and teaching you about it. Because the only 529 plan we would recommend is one where you control them and select the mutual funds and they don't automatically change they don't they're not automatically selected for you based on the age of the kid and you know there's just a handful of those out there that are done that way and that's

the type you want to get involved in and I would always keep an advisor in my corner I do I use an advisor and I'm the guy that tells everybody what to do with their money. So and the fees on that stuff are not it's not it's not much. I mean they're very small and it's not like they're taking half your money or something in commissions. It's not and it's worth every bit of it to have all of your stuff in one place with one advisor so they're keeping a watch on your whole, at least your entire mutual fund portfolio. Mine does.

Mine's all in one place, by the way. All the mutual funds. Now, real estate's separate, obviously, but that's the thing to do there. Mason's in Sacramento. Hi, Mason. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure, how can we help? So my partner and I just, we're about to close on a house in early May, our first house, and we want to know

like about how much we should expect to be putting into renovations. We plan on selling in about five years. How much work needs to be done? So not a lot. It's in pretty good condition. There's a couple of things. The roof needs to get done, but the seller is doing a credit for that. The other thing that is pretty imperative is just the, uh, there's a little bit of a pest eradication to do. And I don't expect that to be super expensive. So what renovation are you talking about doing? Um, neither one of those are even renovations. Those are just repairs.

Yeah, you gotta do that. Yeah, those are just fixing it up. Yeah. So we wanted to make it, um, the kitchen is pretty small. We want to maybe make the kitchen more appealing, at least up here bigger. So we want to like lighten it up. And then we were thinking of doing the bathroom as well, like re-tiling and maybe the floor. We don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. So okay so the homes in a five block radius of that, do their kitchens look like you want the kitchen to look or do they look like the kitchen you're buying? I think they're a little they're

a little bigger. They're the houses are not super nice right there so they're not you know they're not super big it was a $315,000 house it's our first house at the three bedroom and it's not it's not very big but I'm really glad you're buying this house yeah good for you this is a good this is a good a good modest purchase to get you started I really like that Mason here's the thing what you're looking for on repairs is if you're doing repairs for you to enjoy, but they don't increase the value of the home, that's not a repair or a renovation you're going to do if you're only holding the home five years. But the reason I asked about the kitchen or the bathrooms in the area is if most of the homes in the area have gone through a renovation and have a nice kitchen and have a nice bath, then you probably will get your money out by doing your

kitchen and your bath. If most of the homes in the area have a bath and a kitchen the way yours looks today and you go make yours nicer than the rest of the area, you will not even get your money back on that renovation cost. It will not increase the value of your home equivalent to what you spend. And can I tell you something just to put in your back pocket? Five years ago, I was the Chief Academic Officer, I mean, Student Affairs Officer at a university. Five years before that I was two cities away in another state. Why do I tell you that? Me being a YouTuber was not on my radar.

And so I always hesitate when people say, we wanna do a thing, but we're gonna sell in three years, we're gonna sell in five years. Because dude, none of us know what's coming in three years or in five years. And so if you've, yeah, Dave, let me ask you this. If you have an outstanding mortgage, and let's say Mason bought it in the right way financially, you've got cash, does it matter? Do you have a ratio for that?

Or do you want to pay down the house a certain amount? Or you want to get the house paid off before you start renovating stuff? No, I think if you're in baby steps four, five, and six, and you want to fix up your house, that's fine. But anytime you're doing an improvement to the property, you've got to ask yourself, does it increase the value of the home equal to what I'm spending? So I feel like if I'm going to redo my bathroom and it's not- Bathrooms and kitchens are the most expensive things to do in a house.

But I mean, I want it paid off if it's going gonna outsize the market and it's just something you don't You don't want to outsize the market. That's what I was just saying Yeah, but but if I want it just it's my house me and my wife live in and we just want to make a cool bathroom I need to be have the house paid off and just have some extra money to burn in the living room, right? Yeah, if you're doing it and it's not increasing the value of the home or what you're spending It should be you should have it paid off first, right? Okay Yeah, whatever the renovation is so I want to add 6,000 square foot of Garage because I want to collect no

You're not gonna you're not gonna get your money back, right? And that's a that's a luxury purchase and you're going to you know I want to put the only pool in a six block radius behind my house That pool is not gonna add a diamond value to that house because pools are not normative in your neighborhood. And so you're about to drop, you know. Literally bury 50 grand in your backyard. Yeah, at least at a minimum.

And you're not gonna get it out. It's not gonna increase the value of the home. Yeah, but if you have a paid off house and that's where your kids live, that's where your schools are, and you guys want a pool. Fine. You're not gonna, okay. And the home. Yeah, but if you have a paid off house and that's where your kids live, that's where your schools are, and you guys want a pool. Fine. You're not gonna, okay.

And you're gonna pay cash for it, fine. I like that, I like that. But don't do it and call it a return on investment because you're not. It's a consumption item. Do you have a gut feeling on how many people call the show and say, I'm gonna do X in three to five years, and they don't?

No, because I never hear back from them. You never hear back from them? I don't know what they're doing. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. I'm with you though on that idea, because the average home turns every 5.6 years in America. Five and a half years. That's how long.

All right, so Mason's probably right. That's the average. Okay. Okay. But this first time home purchase for them, they're buying something modest, they're probably not gonna stay five. That's fair. They're probably gonna move up.

People that do a move up generally do it faster than that. And we are talking California real estate here. Yeah, so 315's a small house in California. Oh, it's a tiny, modest home, yes. It's a wonderful entry purchase. In other places it might be a big house but it's certainly not in Sacramento. So, wow. The median house price in America this week is 412,000 for those of you that don't know. You can check out all this stuff, the stats on real estate at ramsysolutions.com. Check out the housing, the home website that we've got within our

site. I don't even know what you call the stupid thing, but okay, it's there. All kinds of stuff. I'm looking at the stats on it right now. It's pretty impressive. This is cool. in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage Jonathan and Charlie are with us hey guys how are you hey doing well how about you better than I deserve welcome where you guys from Knoxville Tennessee all right well welcome to Nashville and how much debt have you two paid off? 122,186 dollars and 52 cents. Excellent, how long did that take? 18 months.

Good for you. And your range of income during that year and a half? Started around 130,000 up to 215,000. Whoa, nice jump in a year and a half. What do y'all do for a living? I work in tech. Stay at home homeschool mom. I like it, good for y'all. Well the tech world's treating you well brother. Yep, working hard. I bet you are. Good for you man. This is good stuff. What

kind of debt was the hundred and twenty two? It was a lot of everything. So credit cards, personal loan, HELOC, IRS debt, family loan, yeah car loan. Y'all are normal. Yeah, student loans. Really normal? Like more normal than anybody would ever wanna be. Ooh, gross. So what happened 18 months ago? What was the wake up call?

Class at church. So as he says, anything that the church is doing, I end up wanting to do it. And he was a little hesitant, but we decided to jump in and go ahead and do it. Financial Peace University. Yes. Oh good okay excellent. So you went into the class and it's like whoa mind blown. I mean because this is a dramatic change right here. Yeah. You went from borrowing on everything to paying off everything. Yes. So what happened in the class? That's

interesting. Well it's kind of how we wanted to live life. It was just kind of the fire that we needed to get going, the push that we needed. And I guess I always thought I would never be able to retire. And I don't even think I went to the first class, maybe do a scheduling conflict. But at the second class, went home, calculated some numbers and said, hmm, maybe I can retire. Maybe we can do this. Yep. Maybe it'll work.

It's called hope, right? Yep. Yeah, good for y'all. Very cool. What's your church called? Central Church of Christ. Oh, excellent. Okay, good.

Good, well, man, that's incredible. I'm so proud of y'all. Wow. Okay, so I have a question that's gonna sound like a backhanded dig and it's not, okay? Same team, good? Yes. Okay. You make a quarter million dollars as a tech person.

What that tells me is your problem solving ability is far exceeds mine. And you're able to think logically, right? That's the guys who are building apps here, I drive them crazy because they're like, that's not logical, John, right? What is it about that thinking that doesn't translate to borrowing, taking another loan, the tax debt, let's just put the house like, there's a gap there, right? And I think it's easy when you're listening to a story like this to be like, well, duh.

But you were in the middle of it. Well, as soon as he took that thinking and applied it, it went boom. It went boom, it's gone. Yeah. But what's that gap between just, this is just the way things are, yet when I go to work, I'm able to put on such a logical process-driven hat

and do really well at it. I think for me, so I've worked, I've actually thought that before. I've worked as product manager and to like driving products to market. And I can manage those budgets, but when it came to my own personal finance, it was just like scared deer in the headlights.

I don't want to look at it. Be better just not to look at it. So it was intimidating. Yep. Interesting. That means there's personal stories or childhood stuff attached to that budget. Maybe.

I actually grew up in a Dave Ramsey household. My parents both were listening to you every day. Okay. But I didn't really want to hear it too much. I got you. That's fair. That's fair. That can happen.

And then you end up going to church class, financial piece university at church and your parents are like, yes! I love it. What's the hardest thing you sold? Your trailer maybe? I mean nothing too much, it was just sold stuff. We still have stuff we're still trying to get rid of

but I think the hardest thing to get rid of was her Sam's Club credit card and for me was my Lowe's credit card. I'm with you on that one dude. But the good news is both those places take cash. Yep. Yeah. Good news you can buy whatever you want now that you got some money because you don't need debt. How long y'all been married? Little over six years. Okay, and have you ever been debt free in the six years? No, until, well, now. Until now, but I mean prior to that,

this is your first taste of freedom. Yep. How's it feel? It's great. How sacrificial, you got a house full of kids. I mean, how much did y'all have to cut? How tough was this? We cut a lot. Um, they, the kids play a song about how Dave Ramsey stole Christmas.

So we've heard that a few times, but the kids all fully on board. And if we ever did go do something like, aren't we supposed to be getting out of debt right now? Whoa. I love it, okay. So it was a deep enough cut that everybody in the family saw it, felt it, got involved, and now enjoys the freedom. Yep. Very good.

Proud of you guys. Thank you. Way to go, so cool, so cool. All right, now you're here, and there's a couple just like you guys that's normal that's listening or watching right now on YouTube out there and they could be where you are in 18 months. What do you tell them the secret is? What was the thing that changed everything? Being on the same team And even if you make mistakes not just completely jumping ship

Staying consistent working together and definitely having that budget. Yeah for sure Yeah, I think it's when you wrote it down and saw it could happen yep We actually made a yeah where there is no vision that people perish and you got a vision We had a Grafana dashboard that showed you know like what we've been doing versus... I don't even know what that means. The predicted amount of when we get out of debt and that really I think has inspired Charlie. Yeah. I was like just pull up the dashboard I want to see where we are on the graph now and just watching the little cursor move down the graph and now it's moving towards paying off our house and when we become Baby Step Millionaires. I like this. Congratulations guys. I like this. So how far out to

pay off the house? Three years. Wow very good and how far out to be Baby Step Millionaires? Five years or five or six years. Okay, from today, so that's gonna be under 10 years from the time you started. Wow, powerful. They're good. Yeah, it's amazing guys, congratulations. You guys are powerful, very good. So you brought the tribe with you?

Yep. And I'm sure they've been practicing. So if they do a Dave Ramsey screwed up Christmas, they gotta have a debt-free scream. They better. Okay, they better have that right. Okay, so get them up here and let's hear their names and ages.

Come on up, guys. Get in the thing. Get in the picture here so we can see you. What are their names and ages? We have Bella, 14, Amelia, 14, Natalie, 14. We have Caleb, 11, Tristan, 12. And Georgie, nine months. All right! And we also have one more at home that's working and at public school right now. Very good. Good job. Wow. Good family. Well done, you guys. Well, you kiddos, your mom and dad are

heroes. They've changed your whole family tree. They've changed your life with their sacrifice and forcing you to sacrifice. And this year you get Christmas back, y'all. heroes they've changed your whole family tree they've changed your life with their sacrifice and forcing you to sacrifice and this year you get christmas back y'all it's coming Christmas is back good news is christmas is going to come back in 2025 all right Jonathan and Charlie and tribe 122 000 paid off in 18 months making 130 to 215 count down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free! Yeah! I love it! Well done! Man, see you can't hit what you're not aiming at. And they have exactly figured out when the house is gonna be paid off

and when they're gonna cross a million dollar net worth. Be baby steps millionaires. They're gonna hit it. And I'll give you another predictor. 100% chance they do it sooner. Much, absolutely. Yeah, 100% chance they do it sooner. So whether you're out there and you can build a app

that can show you when you're going to pay office or if you do it like I did with construction paper and a pen, get yourself a vision and then go chase it down. The Ramsey Network app is the only place to get all the episodes of The Ramsey Show. It's free, we never charge for it, and there's a lot of other cool stuff on there too. So download the Ramsey Network app. You can get the link in your show notes or you can just go to the app store and type in Ramsey Network and show up. And you can get everything that happens on this show. There's another hour of content actually every day that is

not out on the standard podcast so jump over there on the Ramsey Network app and you can see and watch and listen and you can search it you can send us emails on it you can do all kinds of stuff there so download that app and check it out by the way I mentioned it's free it's free Erica is with us in Los Angeles hi Erica how are you hi Dave I am super thankful and inspired by you and thankful for you for inspiring myself my friends and for giving my son a good foundation for for his financials at the ripe old age of 15. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Wow.

You get the high five because you're out there doing it and making it work. Way to go kiddo, proud of you. Good. How can we help? Oh yeah, so I'm in a good situation. I have a lot of retirement, about 700,000. I only owe 275 on my house.

That's a value of 900,000. I only owe 275 on my house. That's a value of 900,000. But I put my three to six months of savings I had into an account for my son for college. So I'm starting all over and it's been really tight. And I was wondering, in your opinion, what is the best order to do things? Do I pause on putting into retirement and build my three to six months? Yes. Do I? Yes. Okay. That's it. Yeah. Here's why. If you don't and you have an emergency, you'll use some of your retirement, which you don't want to cash out for an emergency. So I don't want you to get into that. I don't want you to cause a

problem with that. Or worse than that, sometimes people will go put it on a credit card if they don't have any money or worse than that They'll borrow against their home if they don't have any money And we don't want to do any of that because if you have a car engine blow up or heat and air go out on the house Or some kind of other thing happen, and you don't have any money. You're asking for trouble So let's stop and let's get that buffer in. I call the emergency fund Murphy repellent because it keeps Murphy, you know, if it can go wrong, it will, it keeps him away.

You ever notice that folks, when you're broke, that your life looks like a country song, like everything can go wrong will? Like the dog got hit in the street and everything else. I mean, everything happens, right? Always. When you're broke is, but when you've got a buffer when you got ten or fifteen twenty thousand dollars or whatever your three to six months is and

it just it turns an emergency into an inconvenience and that's the deal so that's the route I would go yes definitely Rob is in Tampa hey Rob how are you good Dave thanks for having me on. Absolutely. How can I help? Well, instead of asking how can I get out of my debt problems and whatnot, kind of the opposite. We're both retired and have a nice nest egg saved. Quite comfortable actually. How much? How much in the nest egg we got 500k in a 403 B got 25,000 in the Schwab account got 30,000 in a checking and savings account and we take in probably 9100 a a month net. Wow. Good for you. Well done. How old are you?

64. Good job. Good play. Good job. Proud of you. House is paid for. Both houses are paid for. So you're a millionaire. I never thought I'd get to this point in my life actually. But you are. So I'm sorry. Then what is your question? You've done a great job. Well, we had my wife and I, we have a great team together and we had plans on traveling and doing things like that of that nature and the past year and a half or so, she's come down with some cognitive issues and yep, and she's changed.

She doesn't do her regular things anymore that she liked to do. She needs familiarity. She does not like to be anywhere where she's unfamiliar with. And so, I guess my question is, for the future, I know that healthcare health care is a cost of health care is just astronomical and I'm going to take care of her and I

just Do I save all this money in case for future care I Guess that's my question How do you about do I navigate this disease, if you will? I'm so sorry. How long have y'all been married? 32 years. Do y'all have, have you went and run the battery test and gotten a clinical diagnosis yet? Or is this just you guys experiencing this in real time?

We did see a doctor about six months ago and we were not, I was not happy with it. It was just a routine office visit type thing. So, but we're gonna, we've got plans in the mid-May to, with a different doctor to determine what road we should take or any medicine should be taken. Truthfully, depending on what the cause is, there's some medication that slows this dramatically. Am I right, John? Yeah, and sometimes there's medication

that actually causes some sort of just the cognitive fog. And so yeah, going into the battery of tests, it's worth the money and it's worth the, you'll be, it's nerve wracking, but it's worth it because you'll get some clearer answers here. Yeah if she's on medication that could be causing it they could be one thing is what he's saying and then the other is sometimes there's some things that can depending on what you know how this is diagnosed we're not neither one medical doctors but we both are around the

edges of this stuff all the time because of what we do. So, yeah, take the time and go deep on this. Don't just accept it as generally this is where it is. Because you might be able to do either some slowing or even some reversal. It's possible. That's the good news. Okay, now, then back to your original question. I'll tell you what I'm thinking about these days and what we've told each other now because we've got the money and you've got the money. Sharon and I have figured out that we can hire full-time staff in our home that ends up being net-net, 24-7, that ends up being net-net-net cheaper than nursing home. I just hire a full-time freaking nurse just to live with.

If it gets to where you can't do the care, that's an option versus nursing home or memory care units or whatever. Again, it just depends, because like you just said, familiarity keeps her calm and helps her to have enjoyment. And so the opposite of that is a memory care unit somewhere and so maybe a stair step that you can get by with six to eight hours of care for the next two to three years maybe you don't need it at all for a while right but you know you've got you know you got a hundred and thirty thousand hundred forty

thousand dollars a year coming in there already and income and you've got 500k and no debt and two paid off houses yeah and so it doesn't take you much to live and so if your household budget was 4k and you staffed budget and you staff the thing for 5k a month you know later on not not today but if that's where you end up five years from now that might be in my it might take you a long way through this and a high quality of life for you and her. That sounds like a good idea. I mean, our monthly leases are under $1,500 a month. Yeah, I thought you could live on 4k. Yeah, so I never thought of it that way.

Yeah. And Rob, does she have good days? thought of it that way. Yeah. And Rob, does she have good days? Yes, there's a good days. It's just the repeating constantly. She does, she doesn't want to drive anymore. She doesn't read anymore. But she's a, she's a happy person. It's just, I see what's coming down the road and I'm just trying to prepare myself for all this. I was going to recommend if you haven't already,

and it's possible for you too, and every situation is different, plan something fun. Okay. That you have some photographs, that you've got some memories, even if it's a, I don't wanna say it's a last ride, because it's certainly not there yet,

but plan something fun. My inclination would be to pucker up and to just watch every penny. You're okay financially, but plan something fun. My inclination would be to pucker up and to just watch every penny. You're okay financially, but plan something fun. Yeah, spend some money on some fun right now while you can, and then start mapping out and budgeting out what in-home care looks like. And then, you know, worst-case scenario, you can always go the other direction, the more standard directions later, and you've got the money to do all of it. You're gonna be fine. Wow.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Jacob is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Jacob. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

How are y'all? Hey, good man. We're good, man. Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? Well, I am weeks away from proposing to my girlfriend. I bought the ring and everything and just trying to find the right time, but my question is... So her father is very successful and has set up a trust fund for her. And, you know, my parents are you know middle class upper

middle class and I just don't want this to be a point of contention in our marriage going forward and I just wondered if you had any advice on how kind of we structure our financial future going forward. You're already intimidated by it how come? Very much so. Why? Well no I mean he's just he's a he's a very intelligent and obviously successful man. Forget all that, forget all that. You're comparing yourself to her dad. Yes, sir.

You mentioned his money, now you're mentioning his brain. Is she bringing this up and kind of using it to dangle over your head? Why are you walking into this marriage feeling insecure? She's not bringing it up necessarily. So is this your baggage that you're bringing? Yes sir, for sure. Is she gonna say yes when you ask her to marry you? Yes sir. Does she lie to you? No, no. She tells you the truth? Always, yeah. Okay, then you're gonna have to commit to practicing trusting her. Mm-hmm. Otherwise you're gonna sabot to commit to practicing trusting her. Mm-hmm.

Otherwise you're gonna sabotage and burn this whole thing to the ground, not because it doesn't have the potential to be incredible and amazing, and awesome. You guys are gonna be on some good footing. If you were calling to show and saying, hey, I'm about to marry this girl, she's got this trust fund that she said I could never spend one penny of even though I'm her husband, Dave and I both tell you to run. Right, she hasn't said that but I'm just wondering in the future if that issue comes up where I think that this is what we should do with this money that we've been blessed with and then... Okay, so how much is in the trust fund? I don't know the cash value, but there's three houses and a boat and there's a few different things.

A boat? It's a sailboat. It's a Morris sailboat that they have up in Maine. Why is it in their daughter's name? They put it in the trust for her and her brother. What about Bob? I'm sailing. Here's the thing, dude.

You're going to have, you're going to have, forget the trust for a second. That's too heavy and complicated. You're going to have ideas about what dog to buy. You're going to have disagre about what dog to buy. You're going to have disagreements on what color couch to buy. You're going to have disagreements on what schools you want your kids to go to. So this needs to be, you'll need to have discussions before you get married about how are we going to solve problems when I'm bringing this idea to the table and you're bringing that idea

to the table. And this is a big one, no question about it. You're talking about millions and millions of dollars. So, well not necessarily. So what is the, I mean maybe a million dollars, but it sounds like it's also split with her brother. Yes sir, yep. So what does she receive from the trust annually? Anything? Not until she turns 35, until she gets full access to the trust. And she's how old? She's 26. Okay, so you've

got ten years to act like this thing doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and then when it does exist and she gets access to it, it'll be to her and her brother and her portion can be sold off and put cash in the hand of the couple, you and her, right? Correct. Yes, sir. I want to verify all that with her and even with her dad and just go because I want to make sure that we live out what it was you all were trying to accomplish here together. But I'm sure you were building out her future gang here. And so I want to be, I'm obviously going to be part of that future. So then you start talking to her about, okay, when you turn 35, this is going to be our money. And we are going to make these

decisions together just like we make decisions about kids and we make decisions about house and we make decisions about what dog to buy and so on, right? Yeah, so Dave, I want to ask Dave a question, Jacob, on your behalf because I'm curious too. So, Dave, imagine Winston, before he married Rachel, sits down and says, hey Dave, I know you've got some financial security, I want to go ahead and get on the table now, what it's going to be like married to you. That feels like that would be awkward.

Or that if I'm you, I'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. No, I mean, hey Dave, what am I signing up for here? Okay. Is Winston saying that? And you know, hey Dave, what, um, you know, uh, what are your intentions? I want to, I want to graft into this family. I don't want to be on the outside and I also don't want to be on the

inside throwing grenades. There you go. So I want to participate and be aligned with what the goals are here. So I need to understand them. Okay. And, uh, because I'm going to be part of it if I'm gonna be here and that's not belligerent. And of course, you know, I'm like, yeah, she's now your problem. That was my answer to Winston.

It's like, Winston, I hope you can solve drama. I'm writing a check, bye. But I mean, that's, yeah. So I think it's a valid conversation and it's a manly conversation for you to have Not only with your future fiance But you might even talk about that when you ask her dad for his blessing if you haven't already I have but I guess that can be a conversation. I have with them in the future Well, yeah, you could just swing back by and say hey, I want to have a cup of coffee and

I'm learning about this and I want to be part of your dream for your daughter. And so tell me how you want this trust thing to unfold and what's your vision for it was. And I just want to be aligned on it. And you know, how I would probably ask it, Dave, tell me if his son's right. Jacob, I would probably sit down with him and say, I don't come from a whole lot. Yeah.

And I don't know how to do this. I would love for you to teach me over the next four or five, 10 years, like walk alongside me as I learned how to be a good steward of this. I think that's a good idea. That's usually honoring. Yeah, because then it doesn't sound like I'm coming for your money and your daughter. It sounds like, hey, I want to love her more than you did or as much as you did

will you teach me how to handle this part of it because this is just new for me. And I want you to get in the habit of doing what I think is a very hard thing for men to do but if they can figure it out and you're about to be a newlywed, be able to sit down and say, hey, this particular thing, whatever this thing is, makes me feel over my head and it makes me, I don't know how to do it. And tell your wife that. Tell your fiance that. Okay? Being able to say, for me saying to my wife, hey, we're headed to your house where there's goats and horses and chicks. I grew up in the city.

I feel over my skis here. And so when I ask questions, like, no, I'm not trying to make fun of you. I just don't know what I'm doing here. I'm nervous to be on this farm. And that was my situation, but being able to say that and put that on the table, man, that clears the air and it clears a lot of drama

and actually brings you closer together. You got a cow phobia? I have, I just didn't know what I didn't know. A you closer together. You got a cow phobia? I have, I just didn't know what I didn't know. A goat phobia? I got a horse phobia. Really? I don't like camels bigger than me. No, I've always had a thing about it.

Interesting. No wonder you're worried about George's camel. I'm clumsy. No, you're worried about George's camel. Well, he comes walking in here on last month, slightly lower than February. And if this trend continues, home buying could become more affordable. Median home price went up a bit to 424 last month, a normal trend in the spring. Total homes for sale increased to 890,000 nationwide. Up from last year, there's still houses on the market but not enough to meet demand. To

buy or sell your home with confidence, find a Ramsey trusted real estate agent at ramsysolutions.com slash agent and you can click the link in the description if you want on YouTube or podcast. Maria is with us in Philadelphia. Hi Maria, how are you? I am good, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up? Hi, so long story short, after I became unemployed in 2022, I'm in the tech industry and I was laid off for about seven months. I received some compensation and instead of using the money to get myself a float during the time that I was searching for a new job,

I used the whole money to upgrade my kitchen. And ever since then I found a new job, but ever since then I never really was able to get out of that. And it just, at this point, long story short, now my mortgage is late now for the fourth month consecutive have over $30,000 in debt. Several of them are part of collections at this point. And I started already with the first step, which is having the $1,000 on a savings account. I just started this process a few months back and I have that already set aside. But besides that, I am just, I don't know what to do. Like I'm

afraid of losing my home. I'm tired of getting collection calls. I just want to get out of this, but I just don't know. Sounds really scary. Yes. So what are you making now 85 500 $85,000 yes okay and how much is your house payment 1500 okay good all right and so you're six thousand dollars behind on the house? Yes. Okay. And what kind of debt is the 30,000? It's a mix of house projects financed through like warehouse stores, also regular consumer credit card. The highest credit card debt that I have is about $2,300 in one.

And then the other ones vary between like $1,500, $1,800, all the way down to $300 is the cheapest one. Okay. And what do you owe on your car? On my car, I owe $20,000. Okay. So the majority of your your 30,000 is the car. Oh, I am really sorry. I am not counting on my car debt. So that would be actually $50,000. Oh, so you have 30,000 in credit card debt. Yes. Plus the 20 on my car. Okay. And the, how far behind are you on your car? I'm not behind on my car,

but you're behind on the credit cards. Yes. Okay Okay and you use the credit cards to do the kitchen too. So you really did this kitchen up? Yes. Wow. What right. So here's the thing. There's a couple things we can do. I always like to work through my worst-case scenarios and then we'll try to improve it from there. Is that okay? Yes. So worst-case scenario is you don't get caught up and at six or eight months behind they will actually begin a foreclosure and you'll put the house on the market and you will sell it before it gets foreclosed on and you will be

debt-free and renting. Working towards buying another house again someday but you will not get foreclosed on. That's our worst case scenario. Okay. So you're not going to lose your house. You may sell your house before they take it. That's our absolute worst horrible case. Okay. Okay. Now let's get backward from there. The way we work through this is we build what we call the four walls of your home. And it's eighth grade civics when I was in school said what are the differences in needs and wants. Needs are food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and

utilities. Everything else is a want. So eating out is off the table. Vacations are off the table. Extra work, lots of extra work. Side hustle, overtime, wherever you can make extra money. You're gonna live on beans and rice, rice and beans until we get current because your life sucks right now. It is a pile of anxiety. Does that sound fair? Yeah. Okay. We're gonna put you on an every dollar budget and I'm gonna hook you up with a Ramsey coach for free. I'm not gonna charge you a dime because I've been where you are and I know how scared it is. Thank you so much. Okay you're gonna be okay but I'm gonna kick your butt in the process

okay? No it's fine I just appreciate the help. I prayed so much for this help. Okay you got the help. You're taken care of. Now, so what we're going to do is we're going to buy food first, and that's food that we make at home because we're not going out, and it's food to take our lunch to work. That's the only food we're buying. Food is first in your budget. You have the money to buy food, don't you? Say yes. Yes. Okay. Are you behind on your utilities? Yes, I am. Good. Next thing is we're gonna get current on those and you have the money to do that this month because you're

not gonna do anything until you are current on your utilities and you buy food. You don't pay another dime to anyone until you do that. So your paycheck will bring you current in one month on your utilities so your lights not going to cut off your water is not going to get cut off okay okay because you can bring a hundred percent current with one paycheck can't you with a whole paycheck? if it takes that

you gotta get current. I think I can get cut up with the gas bill well okay gas too. All your utilities. I want you to get caught up with all your utilities. What's it take to do that? Do you know? I would say a paycheck and a half.

Okay. Just because it's between the gas bill. So that's inside of one month. Inside of one month. Yes. And so if all we do is eat and get current on those utilities in one month I'm good put you in a lot better place than you're in today okay the next month what

are we gonna do well we're gonna make sure the car is current so you got to catch up because you're about to get one car payment behind if you don't have enough to pay the car payment and the utilities so food shelter clothing and utilities we hadn't gotten to shelter yet but payment and the utilities. So food, shelter, clothing, and utilities. We haven't gotten to shelter yet, but food, shelter, clothing, utilities. You don't need clothes. You got enough clothes. Don't buy anymore. You're wearing the ones you got. All right? I paid my car yesterday. You paid your car yesterday. Okay. So good. So you got 30 days before you got to pay it.

So now we're going to be current on our utilities, on our car and current on Food food shelter clothing transportation utilities before we do anything else and listen if the phone rings and it's credit card people Just don't answer it Because you're not gonna pay them this month Just don't even answer it. They're not gonna do anything for a year and a half screw them Okay, then the next thing we're going to do is we're going to get you on what's called a forbearance plan where you start paying double or triple house payments until you're current. Okay. And you work that with your mortgage company and the Ramsey coach can help you book that deal with them. They will do what's called a

forbearance plan which is a workout plan where you say I'm going to do three payments a month, I'm going to eat, I'm going to keep my utilities on and I'm not going to pay a dime on the credit cards until I'm current on my house. Because if you got your house current, you got lights, water, gas and you got food, you are emotionally now stable and sustainable to fight the rest of the way through this. And you'll plow through those credit cards in no time. But if you're worried about being homeless and the water getting cut off

because of some stupid but credit card getting paid, you did it backward. Credit cards are the bottom of the list. They're an unsecured creditor and they don't have much power in this scenario. We're gonna get to them, but we're gonna get to them last. After we get your house current, your utilities current, your food current, and your car stays current. And then you get control of your life and then we

work our way through these credit cards. We're gonna show you how to do every bit of that. You hang on kiddo, we got your back and you call me if you need more help. This is The Ramsey Show. This is the Ramsey Show. Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Edward is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hi Edward, how are you? Better than I deserve, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. Can you speak direct into your phone? It's kinda fuzzy sounding. Is this better? Yes yes sir thank you hey I'll keep it I'll keep it brief I got two

questions I'm 23 I just suffered on rice and beans and paid off $50,000 in student loans good for you I just graduated graduated school school. Thank you. Um, I guess the job I have now paid me really well. Uh, it does me, has good benefits. What do you make? I lived to SAE. I'm sorry. What do you make? Uh, one 10 after taxes.

Cool. What are you doing? I'm doing solar. So I live in, I've been moved to really remote places in the nation and, uh, stay there for about a year and a half. So it kind of goes over what I wanted to talk about is the job is great, but, uh, I've suffered through some depression through this job. There's not a lot of people to meet. I'm not a lot of places to go.

My question is what, well, I guess what's the balance between being happy and then being financially stable? I don't know if you've heard of other people in this particular community, but well happy is kind of just stuck. I guess happy is different than happy is not the opposite of depressed. So if you've got clinical depression, that's a totally different ballgame, brother. If you are finding yourself on these job sites where they're writing you big checks, but the reason they're writing these big checks is A, the work is hard, but B, they need somebody to go work on the moon for 18 months at a time,

then that's a different ballgame. Yep, that's not depression, it's just depressing. Yeah, it's lonely, it's isolating, it's just depressing. Yeah it's it's lonely it's isolating it's boring it's you get the difference there? Right yeah and then I don't mean to abuse that word I just sure I don't know I just feel kind of stuck I don't know and then also if I do plan on leaving this job you know after this contract and which is in about a year. Should I, I'm on baby step three right now, should I go ahead and I'm really good at saving

money, I saved probably 50% of my paycheck. Should I go ahead and increase my 401k contribution up to maybe 30, 25%? No. So what are you gonna do when you leave? I want to be... I used to do trail work. Kind of just live in the woods and cut down trees for fire fuel and fire breaks. And it was a lot of fun. I made decent money and I was just happy. So sounds like a teenager job. Yeah. That doesn't sound like a real grown-up job. It sounds like something you're retreating to back to your teenage years. I see. What do you want to be when you're 30 that's studly and making a lot of money and gives

you the quality of life you want? I guess I'm too young to know that now. I'm just kind of working through life right now. No you're not. Who do you want to help? Who do I want to know that now. I'm just kind of... No, you're not....working through life right now. No, you're not. Who do you want to help? Who do I want to help? Yeah. I went to school for environmental,

I guess environmental practices. I went into renewable energy and then also sustainable development. So you got a four-year degree. Yes, sir. In what? What's the degree called? It's called sustainable development. Oh and they go clean trails. Okay. For the four-year degree you chop bushes. Yeah okay. It sounds like you're doing what you went to school to do. No he's not doing that right now.

Right now he's selling solar. This right is what I learned in school. Oh the solar is? Yes, they're renewable energy basically. Okay, are you selling solar panels? Is that what you're doing? No, I'm working on the largest solar farm in the nation right now. Doing what? I'm a field engineer. Oh, okay. Oh.

Yeah. See here's what I've found. I've two important things. Number one, I want every person in your situation who's in their 20s to not cash out just because they don't have any responsibility. I want you to go searching for responsibilities, because what you're going to find in your 20s is that's when you're going to get really strong. That's when you're going to learn how to carry things. And the house I live in now is built on a foundation that I developed in my 20s through trying to get all my graduate school done and working full-time and, and, and, and, and. And so I don't want you retreating just because it's easy or because quote unquote, you're not having fun anymore.

Or to use your words, I just don't feel happy right now. I want you to work like bananas, but I want it to be towards something. You get what I'm saying? And if you want to continue down a path of renewable energy and you want to own your own firm when you're 30, dude, grinding it out in the fields at the largest solar firm, I mean the largest solar field in the United States in your early 20s is exactly where

you need to be, especially if they're paying you six figures to do it. So when Dave asked you, like, what do you want to do when you're 30? And what are the steps to get there? Yeah, you want to own your own firm? Do you want to blow off renewable energy because you got a degree you don't like it anymore? Like what is your picture when you're 30 years old? You have a kid, you have family, like what's that picture? And then start working towards that and then you don't feel so stuck because right now you just feel stuck. You feel

like I'm trading my life for money. That's it. Because I'm on the moon and there's nothing here but solar panels and pile of cash. And you're trading that and you're saying I don't want to be doing that 10 years from now. Well, that's a good decision. Then retreating and doing something that's a no brain, no pay thing is not the answer to this. The answer is find something that pays a hundred and fifty thousand that's in an environment that you want to be in and in a situation where you've got the social interactions and things that you desire and that's you know happiness is not the

opposite of a good paying job. You don't have to trade happiness to have a good paying job. I have a great paying job and happiness, both. And you can too, and everybody can. Happiness is often underneath the squat bar. And what I mean by that is happiness is doing really hard things in pursuit of something that is meaningful to you. Oh yeah.

Or as Arthur Brooks calls it, purpose. You've gotta have purpose in your work towards something. And Dave, I just hear it over and over, is 20 year old saying, oh, I got my job and I'm not happy. Or this is hard. Or, eh, you know, I just wanna go back and I wanna tell him, man, if you'll hit the gas in your 20s and not be miserable,

not hate your life or whatever. And of course, if you've got clinical psychiatric issues, you gotta go address those. But man, if you want to have a career in anything, then you're gonna have to have a season like he's in right now, which is, I gotta go out and turn wrenches and see how this thing works from the inside out.

But what I'm pointing to is this idea that there's two ends of the spectrum. One end of the spectrum is I'm gonna be happy, the other end of the spectrum is I have a good job. As if they're polar opposites. Exactly. And instead they're congruent when you do it properly. So happiness is a good job.

Right, but a good job doesn't mean a frictionless job. No, it doesn't mean it's not hard. Right. It doesn't mean it's not heavy and those kinds of things. But in his case, he just lives in the middle of nowhere. Yes, and I get that. Absolutely no social. He's 23 years old and single as nobody to talk to.

I mean, no thank you. Totally get that. I get that I'm not going to do that. Yes. OK, that's like being deployed to the sandbox in Iraq or something. Exactly. I mean, only there you've got a band of brothers.

You don't got comrades here. That's right. That's right. So I mean, it's. So ask yourself where you want to be after this contract's up. Exactly. I mean, only there you've got a band of brothers. You don't got comrades here, that's right, that's right. So, I mean, it's... So ask yourself where you wanna be after this contract's up. Exactly. Yeah. And where you should, the answer should be

is the first step towards where you wanna be when you're 30. That's right. That's the answer to where you wanna be at the end of this contract, but it's not cleaning trails. Right. Because you don't wanna be a 30-year-old trail cleaner.

Yeah. Maybe you wanna direct the folks who clean trails, or you wanna help with fire breaks, you want to get into whatever you want to get into but do that hard exercise. Run research projects about the efficacy of that or something but not I'm going to chop branches because that at least I've got some people to talk to. That's just opting out. That's opting out.

That's escapism. So that's why I called it a teenager job. There are actually grownups that do it, but I mean, in his case, it's what he did before, and the last time he was comfortable, but he didn't make any money. So he thinks that's the way the spectrum works, and that's not the way the spectrum works.

But every career with successful folks, there's a season of pay and dues, and that's what's happening right now. You're a field engineer, you're turning wrenches, it's hot, it's lonely, and I get it. Get through this contract and then take the next step to where you want to go. Our scripture of the day, Romans 5a, but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Fulton Sheen said unless there is Good Friday in your life there can be no

Easter Sunday. Joseph is in England. Hi Joseph, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi Dave, hi John, thanks so much for taking my call. Our pleasure, how can we help? So we have a budget in our household, myself and my partner, with a lot of inspiration from your show. And that covers all of our fixed expenses, a number of fixed budgets and thinking funds. And my question to you is, where do you draw the line when it comes to those thinking funds? Do we have one for every reasonable future expense or do we just plan for the most logical ones? Or should there be a categorical hard line between savings and your budget? What we have done is we take the big items and make them sinking funds and

then we cash flow the other items in the future and so in the old days for us Christmas was a sinking fund. We would save for it throughout the year. And it would be a little separate hard line item over here that we didn't touch because if we touched it, there'd be no Christmas, right? And so that's a hard line sinking fund. Today we cashflow Christmas,

but back then that's what we would do because we couldn't. And so, I think that's the answer is what can you in your current state in this calendar year, not cash flow and you need to save up for it. And then that thing would be because if you can't handle it in a monthly swing, if you can't just put it down as a line item in a given month or a given couple of months then you probably need to save up for it which is in essence what a sinking fund is in the every dollar app and so um what me me and my wife I'm probably closer to your end of the spectrum wealth wise what I have found is when I want to save up for a

Frigerator and for a car and for a dishwasher and for a bicycle, right? It ends up if I just map it out It's gonna take 14 years before because we're throwing 20 bucks over here and 150 dollars over here So every year my wife and I just look at and say what do we want for this year and we go and order. Yeah. Yeah. We've done that too. But what you want to avoid is this miscellaneous savings account in air quotes that does not

have any sense of planning or system to it because what it becomes is a very large put and take account. Put it in, take it out, put it in, take it out. And it's very, it's like a large impulse thing. And that's what we're trying to avoid. Exactly the position we're in at the moment. We save a thousand pounds a month for saving the line. I can just refer to our savings. Yeah, that's going to be a problem.

Yeah. That's a lot of money to put in miscellaneous. That's like a miscellaneous account that's just large. You know, and so yeah, you need to break some of that out. And it could be you just force rank it. Like if you had that list of, that list that John just had, you just say, okay, what do we want first? Do we want the refrigerator first or the truck first

or upgrade mom's car first or whatever, and you just go, I'm going to work my way through that, and we're going to do it. And the first thing that's saving, the first time we can get enough money in the savings account to do something, it's for the refrigerator. Then the next time it's for the X, and the third time it's for the Y. And you can do it that way, a little forced ranking, or you can just, You don't want 27 little mini accounts. It'll drive you nuts and like me like I said You end up saving 20 years $20 a year $20 a month or something. That's not healthy But you know if you look up and go hey the roof on the house is gonna have to be replaced next year

It's gonna be $18,000 You know we got 18 months to do that that's our thousand dollars that's our thousand pounds a month right and I'm using dollars which are using pounds but still that this is the same same principle so yeah I think if it's a big item like that it can it justifies its own

account and if you got more than five of those you probably got too much going on yeah I like it was actually George Campbell the one that gave me the like I think you're right on that Which is if you try to do everything at once you don't get anywhere and I like force ranking is the way we do it Yeah, that's a that's a good. That's a good process. I like that good question Joseph. Appreciate you joining us Ashley is next she's in Dallas. Hi Ashley. How are you? I'm okay. Thank you. How are you the end day? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

So I am moving from apartment to apartment this summer. I just don't feel safe in this apartment. There's mold, gunshots. I don't like it. So my question is, should I stop Baby 2, I'm sorry, pause Baby 2 and just do minimums on my debt and stack cash or come up with another plan yeah you're gonna have to cover the move that's what you're saying yes and how much is it gonna take you to move um my move in is about two grand after that monthly is 16. Mm hmm. Okay. So, and you've got to move and you've got some utility deposits that have to be

shifted over, right? That's true. Um, I am hiring movers. Um, I have to look into see how much that's going to be. The only reason I'm doing movers is because last time I, it was just me and my dad and he's getting too old And I don't really have anyone else to help me And you're moving why There's mold in my apartment and um, the leasing office has

Basically said that there's no mold in here. Um, and then there's been gunshots around this neighborhood I just I live by myself and I don't feel safe over here. So I want to switch studies. Okay. All right. Um, what do you, what's your take on pay? Um, I make 65 a year, so it's about, I want to say like 18, 19 a month. I'm sorry. Uh, 40, would that say like 18 19 a month I'm sorry 40 would that be 4300 a month yeah okay that sounds right and you're signing up for a $1,400 rent

so I'm signing up for a $1,600 I'm I have a $1 hundred dollar right now I'm going to sixteen hundred dollars okay okay yeah yes you do stop your baby step two and you need to stack three grand because you're gonna need two grand for your move in and you're gonna need another grand and somebody to move whatever are you in a good church, Ashley? I am. I'm actually becoming a member this weekend. Good.

I want you to plug in with your pastor, your singles pastor there, and tell him you're going to need some help this summer and see if some of the people in that ministry won't help you move. Okay. That's a really good idea. What's your total debt, Ashley? How much do you owe? I have 19 in my Toyota and I have 12,000, I'm sorry, 12,000 in the credit card debt.

Okay, have you cut up the credit card? I have not, but I will. When? I need to get the I will. When? I need to get the scissors. When? I can do it right now. Okay, go get scissors and do it right now, okay? Yes, sir. All right, you got to stop playing around with this. How old are you? 22? I'm 26. 26, okay. All right. Yeah, keep pushing through this. 1600 bucks is, I understand the apartment market there in Dallas and so I know that's tough, but man, 1600 dollars a month is a big chunk of that 4000 bucks you bring home. Yeah. You're probably, once you get resettled, you're probably looking at some extra work or

maybe even before you get resettled to temporarily increase your income to knock out some of these credit cards and then begin to knock out the Toyota. Because you're carrying a lot in this budget and it sounds like you're carrying it by yourself. and you just feel very vulnerable to me. And I want you to get a community around you and I want you to get rid of this debt and get a pile of money away from this debt, get your emergency fund in place. And I'm more concerned about that than the mold that they don't see that you see.

That's concerning. So yeah, and gunshots around the neighborhood, it's Dallas. Yeah, it sounds like you want to get out of this apartment and fair. What I don't want you to do is move into a new place and find a new problem in four months and go back and do the same cycle again. Absolutely. So get where you're going to go. And settle in and finish the fight.

There you go. Yeah. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.