The Ramsey Show - App - What To Do In the Middle of a Hurricane (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: The expense of having a child in the NICU, Why you have to get mad at your debt to get rid of it, The importance of life insurance, How much does it actually cost to have kids? Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today as we talk about your life and your money. It is a free call at 888-825-5225. Some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. 888-825-5225. It's free. George Campbell, as I said, is my co-host today.

He's the host of The Fine Print and also the host of Entree Leadership, the Entree Leadership podcast. Both podcasts are very popular, and he's here to answer questions for you today. We'll be talking to you about your relationships, about your money, about your careers, about your mental health, about everything. We weave all of it together. It's called life, and we do it right here on The Ramsey Show with you every day. Carice is with us in Rockford, Illinois. Hi, Carice. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I just had a baby near me. She was born 12 weeks early. She's currently in a NICU in Madison. And we found out that she has a rare disease. One in 100,000 children have that disease. It's a congenital disease,

disorder of glycosylation. So basically the doctors don't know for sure how long she's going to be there. They have to treat symptom by symptom. So I guess my question today is I'm a teacher. I'm not sure exactly when to go back to work. My husband and I are on baby step three. We had saved up our emergency fund, but we have about a month left of it before we are kind of out. So I'm not sure what to do when I have to be there daily. I'm sorry.

That's very hard. What does your husband make? He is at $35,000 a year, so he brings in about $1,800 a month. And how much vacation did you have from teaching? I used it all up. It was about six weeks worth. So now you're either back in the classroom or you're without pay. Yes.

And you need to be there with the baby, so you're going to be without pay. And what do you make? Yeah. I'm at $ to be without a baby. What do you make? Yeah. I'm at $61,000 a year, which is about $3,500 a month. What's he do? My husband is a mechanic. Okay.

Well, you are square in the middle of a hurricane kiddo and you knew that you didn't need me to tell you that so how much is your house payment it's $1,500 a month how many other kids have you got we have one 9 year old and that is our houses are only that we were getting ready to be on baby steps four five and six um we are going to be doing that next so okay so what we teach folks when they're in a financial

crisis and you're walking towards one um is to take care of necessities first and only. In your case, it's definitely only. So you start making a list of things in their order of importance. And so I'll help you. Foods first. Keep food in the house. Utilities are second. Keep the lights on.

And house payments third. And when you finish with that, you are already out of money yeah with his income versus $1,500 house payment so your burn rates really really fast how much you got left in the emergency fund I have about a month's worth about $4,000. About $4,000. Okay. And so if we keep the lights on and we eat and we pay the house payment, you've got to put a little gas in the car to get to work. If we quit paying everything else, what would that be? It would probably be we had barely anything left after that um i know but if you don't pay anything else there shouldn't be a lot of other necessities bills have you got have you got

non-necessity bills that i'm not you don't have any debt that's good no we don't have any debt we just have our house payment we have transportation um we have life insurance um and just paying the medical bills as they come in don't pay any medical bills okay don't pay a medical bill right now you can pay them later but you're not paying right now um because i want to keep the money for food lights and shelter and car gas and make it last as long as i can make it last there um and then we've got to think about and i don't know, George, if you've got any ideas on what we can do to get some

income coming in. Are you a member of a good church in the area? Yes, we are. I'd let your pastor know of the need. And see if they can't raise some money for you guys just to keep you afloat. They have done that a little bit for us to help us get back and forth

to Madison because it's about an hour and a half drive. So that's been very helpful. We have really kind people around us. No, that's good. Because, I mean, $10,000 changes this whole situation dramatically. Yeah. $20,000 changes it a lot. You don't need $100,000 to turn the corner here

because you've got insurance to cover NICU, and you've got medical bills that will pile up, and you can get to the medical bills later when you get back to $100,000 income when you're back in the classroom. Right. Okay. So fundraising is one thing that comes to mind. The other thing that comes to mind is you guys may have to figure out

where can we get income, and it sounds to me like he's working extra to me. Yeah, he does. He gets all the side jobs he can. Yeah, okay. And even more now. He's only able to go up to Madison twice a week. Are you both going, or is it just one of you? I'm going seven days a week.

He's just going on the weekends when he's off of work. What do you teach? I teach sixth grade science. Have you got the bandwidth emotionally? I wouldn't. But do you have the bandwidth emotionally to take on a couple of kids to tutor at $25 an hour? Possibly.

Mentally, I'm not sure if I'm ready to go back to the classroom right now. I don't want you going in the classroom. I'm just saying if you took two kids a week for two hours that'd be a couple hundred bucks a week that's true but it's but it's if you can do it i i truthfully i can't breathe and this is i don't even know you but i mean little babies in nicu just puts my puts yeah my stomach in my throat i just um yeah and you guys are really facing some real challenges and so i don't want to be unkind or anything this is not just you need to go get an extra job dave you know that's not what i'm saying

at all i get it i don't know if you can do that but i'm just trying to keep you afloat because if you can keep the basics going if you if you could come out of this and all you got's a pile of medical bills and you're behind on a couple of odds and ends because you've got just enough in to supplement his income and keep the house payment paid and lights and water and food, you're going to be set up to turn this around financially really quick. Yeah, we will too. We just don't want to go backwards. So I want you to stay on top of it because it's easy to stick your head in the sand during these times.

And we'll be praying for you. If you need anything, you call us. We'll help you any way we can here, okay? Okay. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. Imagine a world where people never have to worry about money ever again. At Ramsey Solutions, our mission is to teach people how to get out of debt and build lasting wealth. And if that means we have to take on the toxic money culture that says you need debt to get ahead,

then we're okay with that. We've seen millions of lives changed, and we will continue to create digital products and services to help people transform their lives. If you want to join me and over 1,000 other team members on this crusade, we're currently on the hunt for web developers, UX designers, and SEO and content marketing specialists. To find out about these positions and more here at Ramsey Solutions, visit ramsesolutions.com slash careers.

That's ramsesolutions.com slash careers that's ramsey solutions.com slash careers together we will disrupt the toxic money culture in america and change lives visit ramsey solutions.com slash careers for more information George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today on the phone in Dallas, Texas is Logan and Aaron. I'm sorry, Aaron is with us. And I'm here to do a debt-free scream according to my screen. How much have you guys paid off? We paid off $119,424. Way to go.

How long did this take? Right at 24 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? We started about $58,000, went up to $135,000, and now we're about $95,000. Cool. Good for you. Very good.

So what do you guys do for a living? I'm a full-time firefighter. I'm a trauma ICU nurse. Oh, wow. Very good. What kind of debt was your 119 000 well unfortunately we were very normal so it was we we had uh we had both of us had student loan debts uh that we that we kept putting off so we had a bunch of interest with that we had two vehicles we had medical debt a family loan um a lawnmower oh how much you own your

lawnmower we i owed um 3 500 on the lawnmower that's not as bad as i've heard so i'm i'm glad that's still it's still like i mean that's much as i borrowed from my first car but yeah nothing no big deal but yeah oh my gosh you guys how long have y'all been married we've been married uh 10 years this past december so what happened two years ago that put you on this ramsey journey um well um again unfortunately so when we got married um so like i said 10 years ago my father-in-law came to us and uh or whenever i asked him to marry aaron he said you've got to do two things for me. He said, you need to love the Lord God with all your heart, body, and soul,

and you've got to go through financial peace. I like this man. Yes, sir. And the unfortunate part is he forgot to say that we had to do what the lessons taught. That was assumed. So we kind of forgot that part. No box checking. we actually have to implement yeah okay you were davish oh not even yeah you just went you just anything to get the

girl i got i know what you're doing all right yes sir that's right so we ended up um in october of 19 uh i was going back and forth to uh uh to dallas we live a little east of Dallas and had a pretty good commute. So I started listening to the show again. And it was that point of I was stressed out. We had two car payments. Aaron wasn't working at that time. I was absolutely stressed out. And it was just one of those, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I've had enough. And I came back and talked to Erin that evening. I was like, hey, we've been doing this wrong this whole time. Let's finally do it. And she was like, you know, God was putting on my heart to let's do this again, too. And it was game on after that. Wow. So what did you guys do? Did you go back through FPU,

read a book? What kind of got you back on track and motivated? So I have a copy of Financial Peace, and I read that again. And then we did go through or get Ramsey Plus again, went through the lessons. Our church was putting on the class at the time, so we also got plugged in with that. I jumped on the Facebook group, which was really awesome just because we were able to get encouragement, get feedback, see other people's questions and stuff, and that was really motivational for us in getting through that two-year grind. So the Ramsey Baby Steps Facebook group.

Yes, sir, correct. Okay. They're awesome in there. So what's this income jump? You went up to $135,000, back down to $95,000. Correct. Okay. They're awesome in there. So what's this income jump? You went up to 135 back down to 95. What was going on there? I went back full time as a nurse and just not that like COVID was a blessing by any means, but they were in dire need of nurses. And so they were paying well, and we made the decision to put me back full time for to help us get out of wow yeah that

was one of them and then we did a few other things we sold we sold just about everything the kids are basically all we kept that's all you need at the end of the day yeah oh that's that's right and uh my i actually got several raises um at work and then Erin went to PRN, which is just a very limited part-time because she wanted to go back, be back at home. Her mom was battling ALS at the time, and she wanted to go back and be with her. So we were willing to take that pay cut going back down. Yeah, once you got free yeah for sure yeah very cool that's good well the good news about nursing is you can jump in and you can jump

out and then jump back in i mean you can do whatever you need to do and that's beauty of of her situation and you guys just decided game on and knocked it out what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is um my my key and our key for it was i have two was get mad at it you have to get mad at it um you you can't give up the fight you can't get lazy you can't look at what anybody else is doing you have to look at your spouse or if you're single look at yourself in the mirror and say we're going to do this and then the second one which is even bigger is uh prayer both of those are really good ways to get mad yeah that's right that's some of my best prayer time yes yeah that's uh my my my thing was that it was just finding that why because we had the head knowledge back from 10 years ago and it that really wasn't enough

for us and until we got our why and that sick and tired and just mad at ourselves for what we've you know the situation we put ourselves in well in a sense in a sense what you tolerated yes sir correct and you said i'm and to aaron's point you have to reach the emotion say i'm not going to tolerate this anymore i'm not going to tolerate this anymore. I'm not going to tolerate this situation. I'm going to tolerate this behavior. I'm going to tolerate these products in my life. I'm going to tolerate life done this way.

We're going to do it a different way. And when you reach that sick and tired of being sick and tired, that's a very good point. When people finally say, I've had it, that's when they change their lives. That's good. You guys are powerful. You're very cool. That's incredible. How guys are powerful. You're very cool. That's incredible. How old are you two?

I'm about, I'm 32. And I'm 31. And you're free. How's it feel? Oh, irreplaceable feeling. Yeah, that was, I was able to take, actually go on a men's retreat the weekend after we got debt free. And it was amazing.

It was the first time I hadn't been stressed out taking a trip my entire life. on a men's retreat the weekend after we got debt-free. And it was amazing. It was the first time I hadn't been stressed out taking a trip my entire life. And we've been called to be givers, and God called us early in our marriage, and we just all was like, how are we going to get there? And now we see, like, okay, we're going to be able to give like we've always wanted. Wow. There you go. That's big. I love that. I love it wanted. Wow. There you go. That's big. I love that.

I love it. Very well done, you two. Very well done. We're proud of you. Great, great job. Who were your biggest cheerleaders outside the two of you? Well, her dad and mom were very, very helpful. Thankful that you're going to do it since he made you go through the class.

That's right. He's been, I mean, he's just so proud that we did it, and my folks helped us out as well. And then I've spent so many times calling our FPU leader, Dan and Cynthia Kuhl. They just blew it out of the park, and they gave their story of how they worked the baby steps and just the way they presented it. It just blew my mind, and that was a big moment for me to to really kind of commit to this all right well way to go guys we've got a copy of baby steps millionaires for you that's the next chapter in your outrageously generous story that's where you're going to be you're going to put yourself

in a position you can give away numbers that you only used to dream of owning and pretty good stuff. How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth, How You Can Too, our latest number one bestseller around here at Ramsey, and send you a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give and disturb somebody's life with that and give it away and mess with somebody a little bit. Proud of you guys. Very, very well done logan and aaron in dallas texas 119 000 paid off in 24 months making 58 she goes back to work up to 135 she decides no more after i'm debt-free back down to 95 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream all right we brought

lydia and gabby our kiddos with us and they going to do it with us. All right, y'all ready? All right, three, two, one. We're dead! We're dead! This is how it's done, ladies and gentlemen. This is how it's done. They even sound adorable. That's sweet.

Man. They are adorable. We saw the YouTube pics for those of us that get to cheat that way. Cute kiddos. Oh, that's fun. Young family changed their whole family tree, changed their future. They took control. They're not waiting on someone out of Washington to fix their life.

This is The Ramsey personality is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage, Jennifer is here along with her daughters, Mallory, Evelyn, and Julia. Welcome, guys. Good to have y'all. Thank you. Honored to have you. Where do y'all live? Around Houston, Texas. Okay, cool. Welcome to Tennessee. And all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free screen. Yes, sir. I love it. How much have you paid off? $220, Texas. Okay, cool. Welcome to Tennessee. And all the way to Nashville to do a debt-free scream.

Yes, sir. I love it. How much have you paid off? $220,000. Woo! How long did this take? Five years. Five years.

And what was your range of income during that time? We started at about $100,000 and ended at about $125,000. Okay, cool. What do you do for a living? I'm a special education teacher. Oh, yeah. My husband was an electronics technician in the oil and gas industry. He passed away in September.

Oh, my. What happened? He had kidney cancer. He was diagnosed in 2017. Whoa. So five years of fight, huh? Or four years of fight. Yeah, two and a half.

Sorry, I'm getting the years mixed up. But yeah, a few years. It was a long time. It was a long time. Yeah, a long fight. Yeah, two and a half. Sorry, I'm getting the years mixed up. But yeah, a few years. It was a long time. It was a long time. Yeah, a long fight. Yeah. And so the girls and you guys have been, as a family, walking with him through that whole thing. Yes.

And then the fight was over and he had a graduation ceremony in September. Right? Right. Or is it September in the fall? It's September, yeah, this past fall. Okay. Wow. I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you. Sorry for what y'all have been through. It's September. Yeah, this past fall. Okay. Wow. Wow.

I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you. Sorry for what y'all have been through. There's a lot of good ways to get debt free. This is not one of them. Not what we planned. Not the way you want to do it. But we were on the road, and then, yeah, we were able to finish it with his insurance.

Yeah. So how much life insurance was involved? In the debt? No, how much life insurance did you get? Oh, we get 465 good yeah how old was he um 51 wow young yeah wow okay so you started the debt-free journey five years ago and two and a half to three years of it you've also been fighting a cancer fight right and. And actually, we started, this is kind of

my funny story, our funny story. We started listening to you, I started listening to you back in 2007. So we probably could have been standing on this stage about five years ago. And we I listened to your show, I read the total money makeover in about two days, went to my husband asked him, you know, if he would, if he would be interested in doing this, explained it to him. And he was on board, except for putting the 401k money away. And so I said, Okay, well, let's try it. And so we, we, we met with an ELP. Could I say his name on the air? Okay, Mark Pickle in Sugar Land, Texas. And he was wonderful. We did the plasectomy, cut off the cards and, um, and we spent the next couple of years getting debt, getting rid of that credit

card debt. Uh, and then we just kind of fell off the wagon. We, uh, we had some VW buses that we love to go camping in. We, uh, had two more babies, uh, right back to back. And, um, you know, we just, I went back to school, which we were supposed to be debt free before I did that. But I went back to school to become a teacher. And so, yeah, then fast forward to 2016. When I got my degree, I got a teaching job. And then we decided to just go full on. And by this time, Dan was into doing it, you know, 401K and everything, doing the full plan. So, yeah, so that's when we started teaching.

I started teaching. I worked for Uber Eats delivering food, and we started off our gazelle intensity by selling all of three of our buses, which was hard for us. And that's what kind of got us going, got the momentum going. So that's when you got serious. Yeah. And then you start making progress. And so I'm guessing the $220 includes paying off the house?

Yes. Awesome. What's the house worth? Right about $2. Okay. too okay and talk about the um the level of peace that you have in a situation like this where your 51 year old husband goes to heaven and you're sitting in a paid for house with three teenage girls um because of the planning that you all had done the getting out of debt that you've done and the fact you bought life insurance yeah um i mean i don't think you can overstate the difference in

your situation versus if that money wasn't there. I can't. I can't even imagine if it had been different. And the funny thing is, well, not funny, but looking back, you know, one of the things that we kind of argued about was why do we need insurance? And this was before we were following you. It's that extra $100 a month or $140 a month. But we were faithful about that. And if we didn't have it, yeah, we would be in a much different situation.

You would have made it, but it would have been a lot tougher. And right now, you have the financial room to give you margin to just grieve. Yeah. Without having to worry about bills. Right. And that was the huge thing i'm actually um i've been struggling a lot with with um mentally uh and just trying to keep everything going we um we also lost my stepdad and uh with three months later so the girl's grandfather and

um it's just been a rough time so i'm going to take a year off yeah and i'm gonna just been a rough time. So I'm going to take a year off. Yeah, and I'm going to just be a mom. And I'm going to go back. And you can. Because I love teaching. And you can. And I can, right, right. Give you the space to heal.

Yeah. That's very real. I'm so proud of you. Did you guys have a good community that kind of came around you during this time? Oh, yeah, huge community. People from church, family, friends, coworkers. I mean, the support has been huge emotionally. It's just, you know, I'm a

Christian and I know God's plan is, we don't know what God's plan is. Sometimes it's just not fair. Yeah, exactly. I know I have God's peace in my heart yeah um and i know that i'll get through this we'll get through this um but yeah it's still hard and you struggle the struggle unbelievably hard i'm so sorry thank you and simultaneously i'm so proud of him and proud of you uh for putting your lives together in such a way that you can go through something like this and, again, give yourself the margin. So we usually ask people what the key to getting out of debt is.

And, you know, in your case, it's life insurance. We don't want to use this key. This is not the key you want to use. Right. It's not the process you want to use to become debt-free, house and everything, to be baby step seven and take a year off. We want to do that for other reasons and go out in a Vw bus you know right but oh my gosh yeah um so but but in your case the the key is um the the preparation that you all had done by working the plan to get out of debt and by making sure you had the defenses the insurances in place right care of you and he

yeah the i would say if he were standing here with me, we were planning on being here together because we were, without the life insurance, we would have been at this place in about a year and a half. Yeah. And we, communication was key because we did have arguments before. We didn't, we weren't, I mean, not big arguments, but we just, once we started following the plan,

once we started just really trusting the plan and just I've listened to you guys every day. My kids are like, do we have to listen to Dave Ramsey again? I'm playing with girls. I don't like listening to me either. They've seen, they've read all the junior books growing up, you know, when they were younger. And so, yeah, was uh communication was key getting on the same page is essential and um and just thinking about um where we would be without it is scary yeah well life insurance is one of those ways you you say i love you to your family and clearly your dad and your husband he

was that guy who wanted to make sure his family was protected and it's sad what happened but we're here to celebrate with you guys and honor him. And we're just so proud of you. Thank you. Pretty amazing stuff. Well, we've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you and Total Money Makeover. And those really don't matter in this situation. You just read them and enjoy them or give them away and bless somebody with them.

Now, girls, I know it's been the hardest thing you could ever imagine you could go through. But, you know, one thing you can always stand on when you look back, your mom and dad are both absolute heroes. Absolutely incredible. Powerful. Powerful. And your mom's stronger than she thinks she is right now. She's like a warrior princess right now.

So she's good. Well done, y'all. Very well done. Thank you. Well done, y'all. Very well done. Thank you. Well done, Dan. Good stuff. All right, it's Jennifer, Mallory, Evelyn, Julia, and Dan. Our $220,000 paid off in five years, making $100,000 to $125,000.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! Not the way you want to get there. But you know what?

This stuff works in good times and in bad times. That's right. This is The Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Last week we launched the first stop on our Building Wealth live tour. The response has been incredible. The first event is not yet sold out, but it's getting close. We'll be in Orlando, Florida, May the 19th. That's the first one.

We're going to be talking about the hot topics of all the get-rich-quick schemes that are going on out there and then how to really get rich quick. What is the fastest, shortest fastest shortest quickest easiest way to really become wealthy and believe it or not it's not get rich quick who would have thought the energy in the room when we taught this back in january was over the top it was rachel cruz george camel that's beside me and i and we did this building wealth live event uh here in nashville it sold out in 20 minutes on that one this one in orlando is like i said it's over half sold out in 20 minutes on that one. This one in Orlando is, like I said, it's over half sold out. It's been on sale for like eight days or five days or something.

Dr. John Deloney and Ken Coleman are coming with us, and they're going to have some sessions as well. So this is a great bargain. Tickets are only $25. You can get a four-pack, so bring another couple. Bring some friends of yours. Bring your parents. Bring your grown kids and whatever. You can get a four-pack so bring another couple bring some friends of yours bring your parents bring your

grown kids and whatever you can get a four-pack for 60 bucks it's kind of a bogo type of a thing this great deal so again limited amount of tickets left in orlando already selling out we're going to announce other cities coming soon the building wealth live tour georgia's gonna be fun i can't wait we had a great time here locally and i just i'm pumped to go out on the road and go somewhere see some real people real people real people in a real auditorium and for 15 bucks that's cheaper than a movie guys come on 25 15 if you do a four-pack which bring some friends that really that's that's a great deal ramsey solutions.com slash events and we'll get you all set up richard is with us in Tampa. Hi, Richard. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. I have a quick relationship question. I'm trying to convince my wife that we are ready to have children, but she keeps bringing up excuses. I don't know if they're excuses, but she says she doesn't have a career yet

and that I'm not stable at my job because I change jobs roughly every three years. So my question is, how do I convince her that we are ready to have children from a financial standpoint? How long have you been married? We've been married for three and a half years now. Okay.

Well, George just got his second French Bulldog, which is more expensive than children. And I'll tell you, it's everything you thought it would be. Richard, here's the thing. You said you change job every three years. What are you doing for work? I am an IT audit manager, so I'm in consulting. Okay.

What do you make? Right now, I just got a raise, and I'm making $130,000 a year. Okay. All right. This has nothing to do with financial and nothing to do with your income uh she has some other reason that she doesn't want to have kids and she's using a a smoke screen because people that make 135 000 a year can afford to have kids okay i mean that's just that's kind of that's mathematically just simply not true okay and

you change jobs every three years. You're not exactly unstable. You didn't change jobs three times in three months. You changed jobs three times in your career. And she hasn't started her career. I mean, when are you going to start it? I mean, you don't have to start a career. You can do whatever. If you don't want to have kids, there's one thing.

No one's requiring people to have babies. But you guys make enough money to have babies. And she knows that. I mean, if you told me you're making 13 000 a year i mean we'd have a discussion here dude about your job and you know as a provider and so forth but you make 135 000 a year you can afford to have kids a lot of them really i agree and throw in a french bulldog i mean you'll be all right just for fun yeah but have you asked her about her fears around this i mean beyond just money?

Does she think that kids are just really expensive and that it's going to tamper the budget? Yeah, I think there are some other reasons. So she thinks, like, health care is really expensive. Like, through my job, it's like $10,000 a year to have both myself covered and to have both of us on, on the health insurance. And she thinks like having a baby, it's going to be thousands of dollars.

So she's scared about that. How long y'all been married? Uh, three and a half going on for right now okay how old are you i'm 35 so i'm getting up there that's why how old is she she is 30 right now okay and um how many brothers and sisters did you have and how many brothers and sisters did she have so i am the youngest of five brothers and sisters, and she is the second of four brothers and sisters.

Both of you had lots of siblings. Yeah, one thing. I don't know what's going on. I'll just answer this as the old grandpa of the group with seven grandbabies. Babies are the best thing that happened to anyone as far as I'm concerned. They're the best things that ever happened to me. The only thing that's better than babies is grandbabies. And if I'd have known how great grandbabies are going to be,

I'd have been nicer to their parents. But the – so, you know, but – and no amount no amount of healthcare or whatever, you're making 135,000, you're 30 years old. If you're going to have kids, y'all need to get with it. Um, you're, you're already late. You're already late. It's time to get rocking here. And so, um, you know, I think if, I think she's not, um, she may not even personally

realize why she's really afraid, but it's not money. It's not the finances. Something else is worrying her. Something else is holding her back, and I don't know what it is. And I think you guys ought to sit down with a good marriage counselor, not because I think your marriage is in trouble, but to get a good tune-up. Sometimes you need a referee to throw a flag, you know, and go if you were sitting if the two of you were just sitting with me at dinner and you were like friends of ours or you would be like kids of friends of ours or something

like that um i i would just go all right i'm calling bs it's not what it is what's really going on and she would go no no no i'm good no i'm still calling bs because you're lying it got makes 135 000 a year you're 30 years old if you're gonna have babies ever now's the time 800 is health care welcome to obamacare i mean it's what it costs this is what you signed up for when you voted for him so here we go and so you know this is the deal and uh boom and you know so decide now what's really going on what are you really afraid of because she's really afraid of something and i don't know what it is but i would just be grandpa and you can't do that from the husband position it doesn't work i mean you can show her on paper

on the budget and say hey listen we're gonna be okay there's no sense in arguing a smokescreen objection this is not the real objection because it's not it's so far off. It's such a slam dunk that you can afford to have kids. If anybody I've talked to this week can afford to have kids, it's you. There's people way broke for having kids. You make freaking six figures. I mean, you know how long it was before we made six figures? And we tell people, if you're in debt, it's okay to have kids. You don't need to wait until life's perfect.

I thought you were going to tell me all the ways you were broke or something, but no, there's something else going on, dude. And so I don't know how to coach you other than to say, get a coach in the room with you, that somebody that both of you can trust to look at you and to draw those fears out and allay those fears or deal with them. Something else makes her feel vulnerable. She feels insecure and vulnerable, and she's blaming it on the money, but it's not money.

There's something else going on. It may be the way you treat her. It may be your temper. It may be, I don't know. I don't have any idea what's going on. But something makes her feel vulnerable that she doesn't feel safe. Because for ladies, money often is a safety language. It's a language of safety.

Security glance. Big pile of money, lots of safety. it's a language of safety security big pile of money lots of safety no money no safety you know but here we got a big pile of money and yet we don't feel safe so something else is going on and uh that's my uh two dollar insight it was probably worth what you paid for it but um you know this thing he's very wise to ask the question because this money stuff is so tied to relationships and is so tied to our dreams and our fears and our visions that when we can't get aligned on it, then we know something's going on. Yeah. And there could be something outside of just their relationship where there's an insecurity there, a fear about this big life change happening. And so I think unpacking that with a third party, that could be really helpful. Yeah. And it's not to say you with a third party, that could be really helpful. Yeah. And it's not to say you have to have children.

It's not required. I'm a big fan of it, but it's not to say you have to. You can choose to not do that. And I love you just as much and help you just as much. And not say you're afraid of something, but just go,

I choose not to. That's okay too. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? Get your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from the Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts.