The Ramsey Show - App - When to Send a Little Money to Family Members (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 3, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Tori starts off this hour in Kansas City. Hi, Tori. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How are you? I'm doing well, thank you. I have a question. Okay. So my dad is a veteran and very, very proud.

He's got a lot of physical problems from serving in the military and he needs work done that the VA is not paying for. And he, like I said, he's proud. He's not going to pay for it himself. So I was wondering, do you think it would be ill advised of me to just send him a money order for XML and say, Hey, I got money already spent. Go take care of yourself. I want you to feel better. Or should I just leave it alone and he can do what he wants? Why would it be ill-advised? Well, I don't know. I just don't want to upset him, I guess. Well, I mean, would he be offended by that? Well, seeing that, that's kind of, I

don't think he would, but I've tried to ask him before because, like, they don't come visit very often because they can't afford it, and I sent him the FPU, and I think it's still sitting on their table, unopened and unused, but I've offered to pay for them to come visit, and he's like, oh, no, you can't do that. So I guess I just was wondering how would you feel? They don't have any money because they don't make any money or because they're irresponsible with money? They don't. They're both retired, and as far as I understand, the military benefits aren't cutting it.

How long was he in the military? 20-some years. Wow. What kind of work is he needing done that he can't get done? Well, as far as I know, it's just chiropractic. He said it's in his neck, and I'm the one who suggested he go to chiropractic, but the VA doesn't cover that, and I'm not one who suggested he go to chiropractic, but the VA doesn't cover that. And I'm not with where he is.

I don't know. And so how much money are you talking about sending him? I was going to send him maybe $200 because that should cover an adjustment plus a first exam or if they have weird stuff they have to do. I don't think it's ill-advised at all. I would not get in the habit of supporting him ongoing until you can confirm that they're handling the money that they have well. And you can't really confirm that right now. 27 years in the military, I don't know what rank he served in, but he probably has a pretty decent military retirement, plus Social Security each. So they should not be starving to the death to death to

the point that they can't come see you that's a little off that tells me they are mishandling money probably um how old is he uh 64 maybe okay all right well there's a little bit of this that he's a hard head too then, then. Yeah. Okay. That's okay. Well, we appreciate his service, and you do, too, and you obviously love your dad, and a couple hundred bucks is not going to throw his life into a tizzy. But what you don't want to do ever with any of you listening, or I don't want to do it either, is we don't want to get in a position where we're giving people money

and we're financing their irresponsibility. That's called being codependent. That's giving a drunk a drink at that point. Your dad and $200 is far from that. So if you want to send him $200, I would. And just tell him thanks for being a great dad. And go to the dadgum chiropractor and get your neck straight. All right, Eric is with us in Tucson, Arizona.

Hey, Eric, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I have a question, and it has a ton of moving parts. So me and my husband are working on currently baby step number two. Good. But I'm kind of, I'm a planner, like I want to know what to do in the future. So kind of looking at retirement, we're in a complicated situation and for a lot of different reasons. So we are 18 years apart. I am 30 and he turns 48 in two weeks. Um, we, neither one of us have anything in retirement. So I'm just kind of wondering when we get to that step, just looking forward into the future, do you think that it's advisable that we invest more than 15% to kind of make up for what's happened?

No. You need to get the house paid off, too. In order to get to retirement and have a quality retirement, you have to have a paid-for house and money. That's why both of those things are in Baby Steps 4, 5, 6, and that's why we do them simultaneously. And so if you concentrate only on retirement, you've got a big butt mortgage when you get to retirement, you're going to have to move.

Yeah, I don't think we'll have a huge mortgage. Well, I don't think you will either because you're going to pay it off in Baby Steps 6 and everything above 15% of your income. 15% of your income from age 50 to age 65 will create a very nice nest egg for him. Okay, yeah, because I'm thinking by the time he's 50, we will be done with Baby Step number 2 and have our fully funded emergency fund. And that's what I said, from 50 to 65, you're going to be putting in 15% of his income. That's 15 years of investing. And, by the way, it's not going to be 15% of his income today.

It'll be more than that because you're going to get your house paid off before then, right? Right. And so you'll be putting more in then. Oh, and by the way, he'll be getting a raise during that 15 years, right? Well, he's self-employed. I hope his business gets better during the 15 years. A business that isn't growing is dying, so he needs to grow his business over the next 15 years.

And so make more, invest more, get the house paid off. You're going to be just fine. You're going to make it. You're doing smart stuff. You're going to get there. You are a classic nerd like me, and so you are a math person, and you do math in order to worry more efficiently i do the exact same thing

we nerds do spreadsheets so that we can quantify our worry it's how we're wired oh and that's all you're doing kiddo you're going to be just fine and he's going to be just fine, and everything's going to be good. You're going to get the house paid off and save 15%. Baby steps work perfect in your situation. Hey, thank you for the call. We appreciate you joining us. She'll probably end up being one of those everyday millionaires,

those people that save and invest, and with a paid-for house and with what's in their 401Kk they have a net worth of over a million dollars if that's you by the way uh and we could talk to you during one of our everyday millionaire theme hours maybe you inherited the money i don't know maybe you hit it lucky in vegas i don't know maybe you've been a maybe you were a an nfl quarterback and you got paid money and so you're a millionaire i don't know uh you tell me how you became a millionaire during an everyday millionaire theme hour and we want to hear from you you just email me at dave on air one word no spaces no dashes dave on air at dave ramsey.com that's the email for the radio show here and just put millionaire in the subject line and kelly our associate producer

phone screener will get back to you and she'll talk to you about you know your net worth and get you a little bit of information get you set up to be a caller when we um do the everyday millionaire theme hour next time very very popular hours by the way people want to hear from real millionaires not people with theories and so yeah let us know dave on air at davramsey.com if you're a millionaire. Net worth is a million dollars or greater. That's what a millionaire is. That's the definition. And let us know it's you and that you're willing to come on the air and tell a little bit about your story at my promptings and Chris Hogan's promptings. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. show. Why in the world would you trust some random guy in a cube when getting your mortgage?

Do you really think he cares about your long-term money goals? Well, he doesn't. Those companies care about getting you into whatever home loan program they're pushing that week. When it comes to ordering a cheeseburger, the meal deal works fine. But let's get real, people. We're talking about the largest investment you'll probably ever make, so don't be naive and trust an order taker who pressures you into a prepackaged loan. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been helping my listeners for over 25 years. order taker who pressures you into a pre-packaged loan. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been helping my listeners for over 25 years. Call Churchill Mortgage and get custom solutions from an expert within 10 minutes.

It's simple. They'll shoot straight with you and quickly show you the real way to save money. Call 888-LOAN-200. That's 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal Housing Lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Red Cruz, not only my daughter, but one of our Ramsey personalities, and number one best-selling author many times, and, of course, the video series on YouTube that is vastly popular,

originally known as, or oddly enough known as, The Rachel Cruze Show. Yeah, there we go. That's it. And this week's episode lands today on YouTube. So a new episode out. And let me guess, what would you be talking about if it landed today? Maybe Christmas. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. That sounds like a topic that people would want to know about.

I know. So what are we covering about Christmas? Yes, well, this episode's all about taking the stress out of Christmas. So learning to save money in the process, but going through this season without stress. So we talk about Christmas budgeting, and there's actually this great couple that comes on, and they've never done a Christmas budget. They've never done Christmas without debt. And so they're in the middle of financial peace university and so i kind of talked to them and their story and show them and set up their first christmas budget

with them which is really fun you need to do a follow-up in january see if they freaking i know seriously right yeah we did we talked about that bring them back on uh because they were great i mean they were so honest about their journey and where they're at and probably just like so many people and how they used to live their life. And financially, you know, he got to the point where he looked up. He was in charge of it all. You know, she just trusted and said, oh, yeah, he's doing it. And so when it came down to it, just realizing, oh, wow, we are in a mess.

And so changing their course of action by going through Financial Peace University and then doing Christmas without debt. It's so weird. I mean, people, it's so normalized that we just run to a credit card or we sign up for a new credit card at the store to get that thing because Christmas snuck up on us like they move it or something. It's like you think your wedding vows are until debt do us part. Right, right, right.

That's not what it said. But yeah, debt is going to do you part and it's going to mess up everything. Right, right, right. is one of my guests as well. Oh, really? And she's fantastic. A lot of the ladies out there listening, I'm sure you know who she is. She's in charge, or she founded the whole Simplified brand. And she's an amazing organizer when it comes to time. So she was speaking actually at the Business Boutique with Christy

about a month ago. So I ran over to that event and was like, Emily, I just want to interview you. So we set up an interview and she's just great on the subject of time. And so having boundaries, I talk about with your money and we talk through ways for you to save that way, but also with your time. Because that's where people get stressed as well.

As your calendar gets overloaded, you say yes to everything and you look up and you're like, oh, wow, I'm spending so much money on taking the kids to this thing and buying this ticket. Or I'm having to buy something for this party or I'm throwing a party. Oh, I'm throwing two parties like it can just get completely out of control and when it's supposed to be joyful and fun and ends up being stressful so looking at your time and budgeting your time because i know for us even like looking back last christmas we kind of overbooked ourselves so this christmas even winston and i took out our calendar i did what emily said emily talks about this on the show and just truly listing out all of our opportunities of what we have. Because we have everything from decorating Christmas cookies. There was a party of there. There was a party with Santa.

There was a thing at the library. There's just all this stuff, especially when you have kids. And to say, okay, we're going to just choose four things so we can actually enjoy them and just say no to everything else. And so even living your life intentionally in that way is going to help as well. So we talk all about that on the show. And, yeah, it's fun. You know, what's weird is that stress relief almost always is associated by learning the complete sentence, no. No, we're not buying that.

No, we're not going to spend time on that. No, we're not going to that party. And just like, oh, there's just a sense as soon as you say no if you actually mean it right right i mean if you say no then it's like huh you know we're not going to that party no and i got that night back that's right that's right and i suddenly feel less frazzled i suddenly feel calmer and when i don't buy something so that I stay in budget and I say no, no is a complete sentence. Well, it gives you freedom.

It does. Just like the budget does, right? It doesn't limit your freedom. It gives you freedom because the things that you say yes to, you're like, oh, wow, I can actually enjoy that. I can actually enjoy buying that bike, which we're going to do for Amelia this Christmas, right? Because it's in the budget.

And we're like, oh, wow, we actually get to go look and have fun. And it's not like, oh, should we buy it? Should we not? You enjoy that. And the times you're with family and you're with friends and you've done it well with your time, you enjoy that because you're thinking, oh, yeah, I made time for this and we planned for it and here we are. And you get to enjoy the season, which is what it's all about. The hardest time, one of the reasons I think the season is hardest is because it's harder to say no this time of year because the people you're saying no to are usually your

closest friends and your family yes yes you know we're not spending money on that no we're drawing names this year we're not buying everybody in the family a gift we don't have the money no we had that discussion one year when you were little with the brothers and sisters uh the uncles and aunts of your nation and everybody said okay finally somebody said it out loud the emperor has no clothes and so we're going to buy the little kids stuff and the grown ups are going to draw names yeah no we don't have the money no no we can't come to this no but that's a family thing sometimes you're saying no to on money a purchase, a gift, or even an event. Yes.

That makes it super hard. Yeah, and that can make it awkward for sure. But I always find when there's stuff like that in our life, if you're just open and honest and you just kind of are a little bit vulnerable in your situation, whether it's financially, to be like, hey, we just don't have the money this year to do it. Usually on the other end, the people that are receiving the information, they sometimes, especially when it comes to gifts, are feeling a sense of relief because they probably don't have the money either. And they're like, OK, that's so nice. Thank you. You know, someone just had to say it. Yeah, we're not doing gifts this year.

We're just going to all get together and, you know, enjoy a little time together. Right, right. Or, you know, we're not going to attend all 17 parties that you're holding grandmother or whoever it is. Right, right. And we can come to one. Yep. And there is a sense of relief from that. And it's where the Bible calls it the fear of man, the need to please other people, drives our time and our money both into the ditch.

And it messes things up. That's a good subject. And you're leading your life, living your life for other people's expectations, not yourself. You know, I talk about putting the blinders on, especially with your lifestyle, with not comparing your life to everyone else's, and you have to do the same with everything else.

Like, you really have to get to this place where you're secure and you're comfortable saying within our nuclear family, right, if you have kids, if it's your spouse, this is the life we're going to build, and this is what it's going to look like. And it's, you know, it can be hard conversations, it can be awkward at spouse, this is the life we're going to build. And this is what it's going to look like. And it can be hard conversations. It can be awkward at times.

But at the end of the day, that's what's important. It's because you're creating priorities for yourself and your family, not for what other people are dictating to you. But when it's your mother, I guess that can be hard. But that is one thing I'm thankful for. We'll get into family counseling now. This is that part of the segment. But one thing I really appreciate with you as parents, and hopefully if your parents out there, you can take a nugget of this, is that holidays for you guys, it is not this

like, oh, we have to be there on the day. Right? Like, Daniel's not able to be at Christmas, and it was like, because he's going to be with Allison. And we're like, that's great. Like, there's no bitterness. There's no, we do Thanksgiving on Wednesday night versus actual Thanksgiving. And you just give flexibility within your family.

And so Winston's parents are the same way, which we're so grateful for. Like there's just not a lot of pressure around the holidays to make these specific little dates work. And there's just such freedom. So Winston and I have even said, when we're parents and our girls are older, that's what we want to be. Just have that flexibility. So if your parents out there, be flexible. That's a gift you can give your kids. Your grown kids. Seriously. I mean, I'm

serious. I really am grateful for that. The Rachel Cruz Show on video. This week's episode, Taking the Stress Out of Christmas. New episodes air on Facebook and on YouTube every other week. It comes out every other week. The show does. And there's a whole series

of them. You can subscribe at RachelCruz.com or you can go to YouTube.com and if you subscribe on the YouTube We'll be doing the Smart Conference together, January the 12th. All of the Ramsey personalities, plus a lot of the Ramsey friends that are top speakers and sellers in Dallas, January the 12th, the Smart Conference. That makes a great stocking stuffer. Rachel and Les Parrott will be doing money and marriage events, big one on February 14th in Nashville on Valentine's Day. A lot of people flying in to come to that Nashville event.

And that's being streamed as well. Yeah. And that one's going to be streamed. And then April 1st in Kansas City, April 15th in Des Moines, Iowa, May 16th in Dallas, Texas. And if you want to love your life more, if you want to learn to love your life, not theirs, she has a best-selling book out called that. Thanks for dropping by. Yeah, thanks for having me. You've heard me talk about ID theft for years and how it's only a matter of time before you become a victim.

But I ran across some numbers that even surprised me and shows the real nightmare that people go through when they become a victim. Of the 16 million victims of identity theft last year, yes, 16 million, 26% of them had to borrow money from family or friends, 22% of them lost even more money by taking time off work, and 900,000 victims took out payday loans. This stuff is a freaking nightmare. That's why the only plan I have for my family and my entire team is through Zander Insurance. Zander takes over all the work to solve these problems and more, along with the systems to reduce your risk and protect your money if your accounts get hacked. Visit Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. It's the smartest, most affordable way to protect yourself. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Andrew and Tatiana are with us.

Hey, guys. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Welcome, welcome. Where do you guys live? Fort Worth, Texas. Oh, cool.

Welcome to Nashville. And all the way here to do your debt-free scream. Yes, sir. Well, Merry Christmas. Good to have you. How much have you paid off? We have paid off $225,000. Wow. And how long did this take? It took us 12 months.

Good. And your range of income during that time? So we started at $235,000 and we ended up at $165,000. Okay. Well, you guys make a lot of money. What do you all do for a living? Well, I'm an analyst at an oil and gas company. Okay. And I'm a CPA. Okay. Very good. Good job, guys. Great careers, great incomes. Very well done. What kind of debt was the $225,000? It was all of our home mortgage. Oh, you paid off your house? Yes, sir. I'm looking at weird people. Well done.

How old are you two? I just turned 40. Okay, very cool. And I'm 38, and this was our happy birthday to Andrew. Amen, amen. So what made you think you should and could pay off your house 12 months ago? So the way it started is I was at a lunch with three of my girlfriends, and one of them mentioned that she and her husband are going through FPU.

And I said, oh, what's that? And the other girl, Kelly, she said, well, my mom did FPU years ago and paid off her house and is doing wonderfully. And my third friend, Carrie, looked at me and said, you do know who Dave Ramsey is? And I said, no. But does he have a podcast? And with the podcast, I started listening to you,

came home and told Andrew all about it. And Andrew met me back with... I said, if you want to live like no other, you've got to live like no other for a while. And I started giving some of the Dave Ramsey. Oh, you already had heard of it. I love it. You're the only one on the planet that didn't know.

I didn't. And Andrew said, well, you know why we had an emergency fund? And I said, oh, okay, because of Dave Ramsey, right? Here we go. How long have you guys been married? 13 years. Okay. So you were already doing the stuff, Andrew, in the way you were handling the money, just in general terms.

Right. But then the podcast gets her fired up, and we lean over and knock the house out. Oh, yes, sir. She came home and started saying some of the things I've heard. I was like, have you been listening to Dave Ramsey? And we got on the program, and we really hit this thing hard. Got like a freight train. I love it.

So what's the house worth? Oh, goodness. Maybe $450,000 to $500,000. Wow, look at you guys. How much you got in your 401 case? $600,000 maybe. So you're millionaires. You are.

It's a math thing. It's not how you feel. It's $450,000 plus $600,000 is $1,000,050,000. That makes you a millionaire, right? Ta math thing. It's not how you feel. It's 450 plus 600 is a million fifty. That makes you a millionaire, right? Ta-da. Congratulations. You're already everyday millionaires and you paid off your house and you're 40 years old. Touchdown, baby!

Well done, you guys. I love it. Man, that's awesome. Well, congratulations. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Very well done. And it was very eye-opening to listen to your show and just learn so many other things,

not just the money stuff, but also all the things you talk about, relationships, the book by Henry Cloud, Boundaries, and just kids. I learned that no is a complete sentence, and that's the one I use every day. So it's been very eye-opening. I love it. You changed our lives. I love it. Now, I hear a trace of an accent.

What's your family heritage? So I'm from Belarus, which is a former Soviet Union republic, and I've been in the United States for about 18 years. Okay. Wow. Very cool. So your family, how are they looking at this journey you're on? Oh, goodness. Well, ultimately, they're very encouraged by what we've done, and they're excited for us.

At first, you know, you're always going to have some people that think paying off all that debt when you can, you know, roll it up and invest it, you know, it's a gamble. And, you know, we had to, you had to just kind of put our blinders on and say, look, we're going to do this. Eventually they realized, hey, they're serious and they're going to do this. And they became very encouraging to us. That's good. Well, that's where your cheerleaders came from then. Very good. So what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Listen to your wife. Work with your spouse. Definitely. i would say it's the hardest

thing and also the most rewarding thing oh very good very good well congratulations you guys 40 years old millionaires and a paid for house absolutely wonderful amazing amazing stuff well here's what's interesting today is the first day ever on the Debt-Free Screams that we're going to give you a copy of Chris Hogan's book, Retire Inspired, which you'll leave here with. But we're also going to give you, shipped in January, a copy of the new book, Everyday Millionaires. Thank you very much. And it's ironic as ironic because you are one. So I love it.

So very well done. Just by following the steps of what we teach. Yes, sir. Absolutely incredible. Very well done. And you brought the kiddos with you, right? Yes, sir. And what are their ages and names?

Our oldest is Tristan. He's seven. Six. Sorry. It's been a long road trip. Tristan is six. Connor is five. And Logan, our youngest, is three and a half.

Okay. Very cool. And have they been practicing their debt-free scream? Yes, they have. All right, very cool. Well, let's count it down then. $225,000 paid off in 12 months, making $235,000 to $165,000. Andrew and Tatiana, Tristan, Connor, and Logan, house and everything paid off.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Well done! Well done, well done! Oh my gosh. That's fun.

Well, congratulations, you guys. That was incredible. What a great story. Now, they made really, really's fun. Well, congratulations, you guys. That was incredible. What a great story. Now, they made really, really good money. And he was already sort of doing the stuff. The fine tune was she gets the same information, comes home, starts talking to him. They turn up the heat, and they've already got great money invested. They did not use any of that money to do this. And they knock out their house, which is worth $450,000, $500,000, right?

Boom. You see how you get there? You see how you get there? And they're 40 years old. You can't make this up. Don't tell me you can't do it in America. Don't tell me the American dream isn't alive and well. Of course it is. Of course it is.

Of course it is. And all they did was the stuff we talk about here every day on the air. And the baby steps are all outlined in the Total Money Makeover book. They're on sale at DaveRamsey.com for $10. So is Rachel Cruz's Smart Money, Smart Kids book, teaching your little kids how to handle money so that you change the family tree. Yeah, you want kids to grow up like Rachel Cruz, right? You want them to be like Rachel, be like Winston, be like Daniel.

I didn't raise Winston, but, you know, there we go, and Denise and so on, right? And Business Boutique, equipping women to make money doing what they love, $10. Perfect Christmas gift for mom, all right there in the store. And don't forget, we now have started the Ramsey Christmas Giveaway. We're giving away $500 cash every week in the countdown to Christmas. Merry Christmas. And a grand prize of $5,000. You can enter daily to increase your chances to win,

and there is, of course, no purchase necessary. So don't miss out on any of that. Open phones this hour as we talk about your life and your money, 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk. Ted is on Twitter. Dave, I'm on baby step two, paying off my debt. I owe $22,000 on a credit card and $4,000 on a loan.

My father-in-law told me, let the credit card go to collections and lapse is that a bad idea well sure you owe the money what happens when it lapses your credit gets hammered and we're not gonna we're not gonna bow at the altar of the great fico but we don't purposely go out and not pay a bill that we owe when we're able to pay it. And you don't purposefully destroy your credit card, your credit. You know, in that sense, you would be, you know, you're just not keeping your word. So I got to tell you, I'm not taking any advice from your father-in-law for anything. That's just bad. So now you pay your debts, anything. That's just bad.

So, no, you pay your debts, sir, if you're able. Now, if you're not able and it lapses, that's different. You don't just set out and say, no, I just don't think it's convenient for me today to pay my bill. I have the money, but I don't think I want to do that. I have a new strategy. Oh, crud. No, pay your bill, dude.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Virginia. Hi, Katie. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Mr. Ramsey. I'm a little bit nervous, actually. I've been listening to you since I was 10 years old. Oh, my goodness. How old are you now?

How old are you now? I'm 29. Wow, very cool. I'm honored. I was an FPU baby. I love it. My question is, my husband and I are $500 shy of finishing baby step three. Yay. And, yes, I've never had a credit score.

I've never been in debt. He had some issues, but we worked through that. Okay. Our house needs a lot of work, so it needs probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 to $60,000 worth of work. Oh, my goodness. And it was a great deal. I bet. Yeah.

But he's wanting to go gung-ho into four, five, and six. I'm wanting to take an extra year and really, instead of doing like a 3B do just a save up for renovation because we need a new roof we need new flooring we need electric we need a lot of stuff how much can you save in a year he makes 80 000 a year how much can you save in a year probably let's say at least 30 if we really push it. But you need $50,000 or $60,000? Yeah, probably. Okay, so what are you going to do? Just cash flow the rent?

You're going to just get the big projects out of the way with the $30,000 and then cash flow a lot of the little stuff along the way after that while doing $4,000, $5,000, $6,000? That's the plan. Yeah, okay. What's your house worth today? Maybe $100,000. You're going to spend $60,000 on a $100,000 house? It could be a lot. I mean, we're missing sections of wall.

We are mid-Reno when we decided to get really serious about Baby Step 3. So you guys are basically camping. I mean, the house is livable if your standard of living isn't by the way. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Okay. Yeah, definitely do Baby Step 3B and use that for renovation for one year for sure. And what you need to do is lay out your renovation projects and price them and then break them apart as separate projects, and then prioritize them.

Okay? Because you're not going to do it all at once. But you can start one almost immediately, right? I mean, let's say you were going to do $30,000 a year. That's $2,500 a month. So in two months, you could do a $5,000 project. Okay. Like February.

A big one is we need a roof. And how much is that? It's going to be about probably somewhere like 10 to 15. How many, you haven't gotten bids then? You need to get bids. Not in a while. Yeah, you need to get bids. If that's number one, then you just start saving towards it. But what's number one? You might want to knock out a couple of little things, like put up a wall, that kind of stuff. Is the roof leaking? No, but it's very saggy and scary looking.

Yeah, I want it to be fixed this calendar year then, in the 30, right? Yeah. So you're going to get it within 12 months, but you might want to knock out a couple of the little projects first, just for quality of life, if the roof is not leaking inside the house. In other words, if you've got some walls that are unfinished inside the house, that would be an example. I don't care. Listen, here's what you do. Start getting your projects, make a list of them, and get bids on each individual project, not the projects as a group. Each individual project, and then prioritize them.

I don't care. You decide when you want to do which. Okay. Which one do I want? Knowing that I can get through one through seven or whatever it is, I don't care, in 12 months, those are the ones that I don't have to be so hardcore about, but the other ones are going to be a while before I get to them

because I'm going to cash flow those while starting my baby step four. Is that all making sense? Yeah. So $2,500 a month gets you a long way through this list. And if you're careful, it might get you almost all the way through it. And by the time I'm talking to you next year, you've got a whole different house. Merry Christmas, right?

Yeah. Good job. Well done. Good job. Christopher is in Seattle. Hi, Christopher. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave.

Hey, what's up? Good to talk to you. You too. Hey, so my aunt and I went to FDU earlier this year, and we're about a quarter of the way into baby step two. But we're planning on getting married in August of next year, and I'm just trying to figure out where on the budget am I supposed to fit in the wedding funds? Am I supposed to put it along with the paying off the debt,

or do I prioritize that and then work on the debt afterwards? Yeah, what are you planning on spending on the wedding? Not a lot. Her family has given us about $4,000, and my family is pitching in a little bit, so probably around $25,000 to $3,000. Okay, well, that's not much. All right, so you just take, you know, and you're getting married in August, so that's eight months,000. Okay. Well, that's not much. So you just take, and you're getting married in August,

so that's eight months, right? Yeah. So let's take $3,000 and add $500 a month for the first six months of the year to your budget. 500 times six. Don't stop trying to pay off the... Yeah, it just slows down your debt snowball by $500 a month.

Right. You say $500 a month, January through June, and you have $3,000. Gotcha. So don't try and, like, attack it, like, really hard. Just do it while I'm doing Baby Step 2. The wedding? No, you have eight months. Right.

I mean, if you can do $500 a month towards it, you'll be fine now here's the other thing okay weddings are like anything else um well they're not like anything else but but as far as financially they're like anything else this is a project and so you have a timeline and you a budget, and you have the categories within the budget. So if you say we're going to spend $7,000 on the wedding, $4,000 from her family, $3,000 from you guys, then you need to know what you're going to pay for the dress, what you're going to pay for the photographer, what you're going to pay for the reception, and you need to break that out, and it needs to total no more than $7,000. Because if you don't think emotion gets involved in this budget,

this is the most emotional budget you'll ever do in your life. Yeah, it's already been pretty emotional. Yeah. So you guys lay that out, and then actually there's some good percentages out there. One of the forms is in the back of the Smart Money, Smart Kids book on weddings, and there's good percentages out there, and you can do whatever you want to do, but the typical wedding has X percent spent on the dress, X percent spent on the location, X percent spent on the reception afterwards, which, by the way,

with the typical wedding is by far the most expensive piece is the reception. Typically, it's more than half. Yeah, she's mentioned that a couple of times. Yeah, more than half. So, I mean, you could do a potluck and save a lot. But, I mean, a bottled water and a potluck. But it's up to you what you want to do. But the point is, begin with the end in mind.

So you lay out, okay, the end in mind is August. We have this amount of money we need, and we're going to break it down. But you can't just, the language you used when I asked you what you were going to spend was kind of wishy-washy. It wasn't real solid language. See, I'm the nerd. I'm the one who does all the finances. She's the one who knows all the stuff about the wedding. No, that's not going to work.

She gave me a number. That's not going to work. And it was about $3,000. Yeah. Yeah. No, we need a number that we both agree to and is a total and is a part of a whole. I mean, is a whole, and then the dress is a part of a whole, the photography is part of a whole, the reception is part of a whole, the honeymoon is part of a whole, and so on.

Because that way you plan in and you have your wonderful day and there's not financial stress. And if she's looking at a dress that's twice as much as you budgeted for, then she automatically knows that dress is not going to happen unless she cancels the photographer. Right? Well, thankfully, we've already paid off her dress, so that was actually a good thing. You're missing the point.

The point is you need guidelines, okay? Got it. The point is if you take zero for the dress because it's already paid off, that's okay. But have it all written out as to where the – it's like building a house, okay? It's like running one of our big live events that we run. We know what the labor costs to put the lights up. We know what the renting of the venue costs.

We know what the drivers are going to cost to get the speakers to the event. We know what our hotel cost is going to be. You line out the cost when you're running a project, and put it to the timeline and you get stuff done on the timeline and there's just no stress then. People that stay stressed out is because they don't have any guidelines. They don't have any guardrails in their life which gives you the ability to say no to the most important person you can ever say no to which is yourself. Learn to say no to yourself because you gave yourself a guideline that gets us to our

overall goals. Please do that with a budget. It'll keep her mother out of it. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly Daniel, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know that in 2017, Dave Ramsey Show listeners paid off $50 million in debt? That's pretty impressive. And it could be you this year. Keep listening for more inspiration.