The Ramsey Show - App - When You Feel Overwhelmed, Control the Controllables

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

🤔 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Think you’re good with money? Take our Money in America quiz!⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss: "Should I pay off my HELOC first in my debt snowball?" "Is it possible to graduate Baby Step 4?" "We're expecting $500,000 from the sale of a business. How do we best use these funds?" "How do I break the news to my wife that we are broke and $500,000 in debt?" "I own my own business and haven't been saving for taxes. How do I get out of this mess and keep the business going?" "Can I change my career now that I've finished Baby Step 2?" "Should we consider our rental property as debt in Baby Step 2?" "How do I get out of a motorcycle I'm upside down on?" "How can I convince my husband that we need to create a joint account?" "My wife wants to take a trip to Europe but I would rather keep investing 40% of our income." Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get episodes early in the free Ramsey Network app! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🏠 ⁠⁠Get organized and prepared to buy or sell a home. ⁠⁠ 🎟️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Two Weekends. One Life-Changing Experience. Get away with your spouse in Nashville. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📚 ⁠Set and actually reach your goals with the NEW 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner! Hurry—they sell out every …⁠ 🛡️ ⁠Protect yourself with trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget.⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Nokbox⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!  Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠

Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. This is the Ramsey show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, number one. best-selling author, Ramsey personality, host of the Rachel Cruz show, my daughter, she's my co-host today. Open phones here at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Before we go to the phones, we're just going to take a second and get off format a little bit, off format because some of you will hear all of this in another day or so.

Some of you that listen on podcasts and things, you might hear it two weeks from now. But acknowledging that, we do do this show live. from one to four central time every day on the glass in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions and people nice people are out there right now watching us do it which means they really need to get a hobby and um but there they are we love y'all we love you we love you but i mean come on really and so uh but anyway you're here and thank you for hanging out with us we got free coffee and free cookies so that that makes that makes it all worthwhile so anyway because of that and the show is on 680 radio stations, many of those are live.

And so just to let you guys that are listening two weeks from now understand what's going on. So at the moment we're recording this, it is September 11th. And so, which I noticed the other day, I noticed the minute ago it was called Patriots Day. I missed that somehow, that it had been named. But the acknowledgement of the terror attacks on the towers, bringing the towers down.

In the Pentagon. And the Pentagon. and 3,000 plus almost 4,000 people losing their lives, including first responders in very short period of time. The largest death toll on American soil since Pearl Harbor. And I was actually on the air then when that occurred. This show's been on the air for 30 plus years. We were obviously in a different location with a microphone that was not this nice.

But because we were in the beginning stages. I guess it would be later that day because they were at 9.30 a.m. We were in the office. office in staff meeting in the 8.30 a.m. hour time. That's right. That's right. And 835 is when we sat and watched the second one on live on television and going to the towers. And then we've got to decide with a show like this, what are we going to do in the middle of something like that because we're basically useless. We're not a news organization. And so we got in touch with our friends at ABC because they were, they're in charge of the satellite that we run this thing on

for talk radio and we got their permission to just put their news feed on our network and we did that for two days and just shut our show down because me commenting on that would have been taking about five minutes and then I wouldn't have anything intelligent to say because I didn't know anything nobody knew anything I was just a regular dude on a microphone in Nashville Tennessee and so I didn't need to try to play into that so we stepped aside and let them cover it for a couple days and then I got back on on Friday the stock market It reopened on Tuesday following. Well, it was Tuesday was the day it happened.

So I bet. It was a week later. I got back on the air by Thursday, I guess Thursday or Friday and said, hey, the stock market's going to open next week. You guys chill. So then I had something intelligent. I think I realized that it closed for almost a full week. Yeah.

It was well, for two reasons. One was the fear. So I didn't want the markets to go bananas. And two, Wall Street is literally the dust was, had not settled on it. It was under the shadow of the, Twin Towers or wasn't of the shadow of the Twin Towers. And so it didn't it didn't actually get physically damaged, but it was within a few blocks or so there. That's what we were dealing with. So anyway, all of that. And here we sit in the middle of this and this is the day after the

assassination of our friend Charlie Kirk. And so all of that is just a just a moment to be reflective and go, evil is real. I was on a panel after 911 and I was reminded of it yesterday when Charlie was assassinated. And it was like talk radio, ABC guy, I won't name them. There were people that you would know their names. And Wolf Blitzer from CNN was conducting the panel. We were at a talk radio convention, which a talk radio convention, guys, is somewhat like going to a Star Wars bar.

So kind of some weird characters there. So anyway, we're lined up on this thing, and I, again, they're all doing politics and talking about this or that or whatever and and Wolf said well Dave you haven't had much to say and one of the other hosts was a like a Deloney type character doing relationship stuff and she said well I think we now have to consider that evil is real and I said well ma'am I'm from Tennessee we already knew it was and we were just reminded again yesterday where 911 we remember evil is real there is a conspiracy and it's called Satan evil is real and then you're reminded when you witness things like that um at a distance and like we

witnessed yesterday with charlie's assassination evil is real don't know who you got to do its work for sure yet but we do know evil's real and uh so and and that that is that's a worldview period um and in today's moment with everyone so fired up to say the least one way or the other that just me saying that's going to be controversial and like I've really care what you think about that but it's okay I'll deal with it but so it's it's very real it's a real thing and there are things outside of our control the weird thing is we spend all of the things all our time on this show teaching you to control the things you can control yeah you can't control that I can't control

that. But I can control how I react. I can control how I treat other people in the meantime. I can control how I treat my family. I can control much of what happens in my destiny is up to me. And so we try to keep people back on that rather than you're not a victim of circumstances and you're not a victim of a systemic evil that is loose in the land and is very real, regardless of who the players are, who the individual players in the flesh are, there's definitely a systemic thing going on. And so we can step back and look at that and go, Jesus come quickly. Yeah. You know, it's just.

Or have mercy. Yeah. Have mercy on us, Lord. And protect, you know, your children. So, but wow. Wow. What a crazy thing. So you do have choices.

And we're going to go back to reminding you of that in just a few minutes because we spend our entire lives reminding of that. You have choices. and you have made some bad ones, some of you, like I have made bad ones. I made so many bad ones that it gave me a Ph.D. and D-U-M-B and qualifies me uniquely to be the cause of this show to happen every day. And so I'm not telling you anything you've done, I've done dumber with more zeros on the end. So I know exactly what stupid looks like.

I'm uniquely qualified to call it out. So we'll get back to doing that in just a few minutes here. but we want to take a second in pause and just remember 9-1-1 and the families that were affected there decades later decades now wow it's crazy isn't it also remember where I was sitting when I heard that the seal team had gotten Osama bin Laden I know exactly where I was sitting yeah and that was kind of joyful moment one less evil thing moving around out there It's a good thing. Good thing. Heavy day.

All right, guys. So we're going to continue to walk down memory lane and then we're going to get to your calls. But 25 years ago joining the Ramsey team was a guy named Bob Borquez. He's sitting in the booth right now because he's multi-talented. He can do almost anything. His main job in the old days was to call and get new radio stations to carry what was then called The Money Game, later called the Dave Ramsey Show and now called The Ramsey Show, he has put well over 700 radio stations on the air with us. We currently have 680.

You can't keep them. They go away sometimes. And so over that 25 years, so the Ramsey show success, the network, and talk radio land was on the shoulders of a guy named Bob Borquez. He's 25 years with us, 66 years old, and he's retiring this month. So you guys have He's going to be so sad, Bob? Yeah, Bob, it's not even going to be, I don't know how we're to operate without you. I mean, it's like we don't know what to do. But, yeah, so he's an absolute Ramsey star of the show around here for all these years. And you don't build something of this scale of this magnitude without having a whole bunch of thoroughbreds around you.

And Bob's a full-blown, won the Kentucky Derby level thoroughbred for sure. And a wonderful husband, wonderful dad. Yes, he is. Strong believer. Loves Jesus. He's just incredible. Bob, we're going to miss you. Yeah, good man.

And I've been an honor to work with you all these years. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Thank you for hiring me and giving me a chance. I've loved working with you under your leadership and being with this Ramsey family. It's been such a blessing. You're a good man. Mark is in Memphis.

Mark, how are you? I'm doing great, Mr. David. How are you doing, sir? Better than I deserve, sir. How can we help? Man, I got a quick question for you. I got a pretty good financial plans. I believe it's a good financial plan set up, but I want to run it by you.

I trust your judgment better than mine. Currently, I make $80,000 of guaranteed, I would say guaranteed income. I can explain that in a second. Total debt I have, $137,000. That is $11,000 of a mortgage, $16,000 of a home equity line of credit, and $9,500 on a car payment. I have no credit cards, no other debt besides those three items. My current plan is to pay off the home equity line first, just because that's where most of my money has been going, being more interest.

The second attack was the car payment, and the last was the mortgage. And the current plan I have set up, everything should be paid off. By the time, I think it's 37. I'm currently 28 years old. And going back to the income, say the $80,000 of current income, I have a guaranteed income. I also bring home another $20,000 or so and bonuses. Okay, so you're making $100K and you've got $25,000 in debt plus your mortgage. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I would flip the he lock mark and the car. I'd pay the car off first. And if I were you, I mean, I would be aggressive. I would do this. I would look at the consumer debt first and not the mortgage. So I would separate it out. I would look at that $9,000 and see how fast we can get that car paid off.

And the he lock would be next. And then from there, there's probably some other financial goals you may want to hit before even getting to that mortgage. But that's what I would do. And I think you could do that. I think you'll do it faster than nine years personally, Mark. I think you'll be able to attack this stuff quick. But especially the car, I would go ahead and get that out.

Because how much is your payment per month on the car? the car payment is 465 a month see what you should at a minimum you ought to be done in a year that's $2,000 a month not count in the house correct $2,000 a month you're done and so that tells us with $460 plus $2,000 a month on the car

that's $2,500 on $9,000 that tells us in three months and some change the car's gone and then we knock the other out in the next nine months And so when you do it that quickly, mark the interest rate on either one of these things doesn't matter because you're not going to have it very long. Yes, sir. So we always tell you to pay what Rachel is doing the smallest off first. If you're 100% debt-free other than your house in one year, you've not done anything dumb either way. But I think you'll have better results, and we've proven it by paying off the smallest first.

And we teach a thing called the baby steps. And in baby step two, you pay off your debts. smallest to largest paying minimum payments on everything but the little one and attack the little one with a vengeance and then move on up. And then, yeah, I think your house will be paid off that quick because you've got a very modest mortgage, been very wise in that regard, and you make really good money. So congratulations. Hey, I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover.

It gives you all the details on the baby steps exactly why, when, and how to work them. And, dude, work them in exactly that order. It's proven to build millionaires. It absolutely works. Melissa's in North Carolina. Hi, Melissa. How are you? Hey, I'm right.

How about you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I guess my main question is, can you ever graduate from baby step number four? And to go into that, my spouse is military. And so we have never bought a house because we didn't want to trap ourselves into having a mortgage and also on rent or a second mortgage. So we were mainly just really aggressive with retirement. And then also we had a child about two years ago and we were aggressive with a

529 plan. So we feel pretty good about where that's at. And so when my spouse retires next year, should we really scale down on the, you know, the retirement savings? So right now we've got about 225k in all the different retirement accounts, mainly TSP. Way to go, Melissa. Oh, well. Way to go. It feels pretty good, doesn't it? Started early.

Yeah, and tell your husband, thanks for his service. So I would just use a different phrasing than graduate. So you may have heard us talk about when you finish baby step three, you've got three to six months of expenses saved and you are out of debt, except. your home. If you don't have a home, that's the point that people will start saving for a down payment on a home typically. You're not in that situation. And we call that baby step 3B. And when they're doing the save for the down payment thing in 3B, some people put money into their baby step four and some don't, okay, while they're saving for a down payment. And so what's happened is,

is you didn't buy a house as a strategic move yet. And that was a wise move. I agree with your strategy. Now when he gets out of the military, you are going to buy a house. And so really what that's going to do is going to put you back to Baby Step 3B. And you might temporarily put retirement and kids college on hold, but not because you graduated, but because you're kind of going back. Shifting a different, yeah. You're stopping to get your down payment. Did you say he's retiring, Melissa, next year? Yes. So he'll have a pension. So that's another reason why when I do the calculations up in the numbers of the way 225 will, you know, increase, you know, in theory, over the next 30 years because we're 36. So, yeah, so that's why I wondered. No, you never stop

saving permanently. Okay. So no, I disagree with, we got a good military pension in 225s enough. No, I would always be doing three things with money once I'm out of debt. I would always be having fun with it, investing it, and being generous. You never graduate from those three things. Okay, got it. So we can scale back, we can scale back the 15%. Yeah, or stop it, or stop it while you save a down payment. Yep.

Okay. And, hey, you're two years out. You can stop it now. Oh, okay. And save, you know, save like crazy right now for a down payment. Has he got his new career picked out? Not yet. He also has, you know, education benefits. I know, but he needs to get it picked out. Two years is going to be here in about 20 seconds.

Oh, absolutely. But career-wise, yes, he wants to work with computers in like network security. Oh, that's great. That's great. Yeah, phenomenal. Okay. Yeah, so move on from the military. And that's an exciting step. When you do retire from that, you guys get to be settled in at a city. you get to buy a home, you get to plant roots. I mean, yeah, it's a fun next season for you guys, the next chapter. And you've earned it serving your country for 20 years. Thank you. Eric, Mary is with us in Virginia.

Hi, Mary. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, if I'm calling trying to get your advice on what we should do,

my husband and I with a large sum of money that we're going to be getting over the next five years or so. Send it to Dave's Bahama fund. It does sound nice. Dave's Virgin Island Fund. Yeah. So what's a large sum? How much?

We should be getting after taxes about half a million. You're selling a business? Correct. Way to go. That's awesome. Thank you. How fun. How long have you run the business?

We're excited. Well, so actually it's a family business that I just have share in, and we've decided to move on as a family. Wow. So that's my share. How many generations? Three. And what kind of business? Just curious.

It's a hospital. Well, it's actually like a restaurant and a gift shop, but it's still going to be with my family. It's just being sold. It's kind of complicated. One family members is buying out the rest. Pretty much, more or less. Okay. Wow.

Well, that's cool. I'm sorry. I love family business stories, and I study it, and I coach a lot of family businesses. Our team does through our trade leadership, so I was just curious about the details. Well, wonderful. Half million bucks, and you want to know what to do with it. Right. We have a little bit of a not-so-straithforward future of the next five years.

My husband is actually leaving the military, and he's going back to school. He wants to be a doctor. He's wanted that for a long time. I'm a physical therapist, and I'm working part-time and also taking care of our kids. So we're just trying to figure out the wisest way to spend this money without as much financial security. He wants to be an MD for the next five years. Correct. And how much is the military going to pay for that?

How much of that are they going to pay? It's free. We will pay nothing. All the way through med school. All the way through. Wow. That's amazing. Well, thank you for your service.

That's awesome. Okay, so you don't need that, but you may need money to eat with while he's not working and going through that. Right. We have, so our monthly expenses are about $6,000, and based on, like, his different payouts from the military, we have about $4,000 coming in every month, whether I work or not. So we have about $2,000 deficit a month, and then we, on top of that, we have $125,000 in cash, like high-yield savings, and then $180,000 in stock market, and then $350 in retirement. Do you have any debt?

Good job. No debt, no. And you've been on the house? No, we do owe, sorry, we do owe about 230 on our mortgage. Okay. It's worth about $4.50. We may or may not be moving depending on he's actually applying to med schools now, so we're not sure exactly what we'll be.

We're hoping to stay in the area. Okay. Do you want to continue working, Mary, part-time? Is that something that you enjoy? Or would you step back from that even during this? No, I do enjoy it, and I want to keep my skills up. I'm a physical therapist by trade. And so I don't know that I want to be responsible for the whole load of, you know, I want to have a backstop should I not want to work or we would like to have more kids and things like that.

Sure, sure, absolutely. Okay, so you have a mortgage balance of what again? 230. 230. Okay, and you have 300 in liquid and in high yield, and you're getting another 500. So you've got 800 to work with, right? Right. Okay.

Yeah, well, it's just the only thing is with the payouts, it depends on how they decide. to pay them out. It's going to be over the next five years. We just don't know if it's going to be one large lump sum up front or slow leaks. So it's going to be a hundred each year or something. Correct. Yeah. Okay. It's going to be more than $2,000 a month, though. Right. For sure. All right. So, well, as soon as you know if you're staying in the area, if you are, pay off the house that day, whether you've got this money or not, because you've got enough money in the bank now to do that and you should have already done that. Yeah. And we thought, about it. We just with our future and so uncertain...

Well, as soon as you know, soon as you know, when he's going to med school, then you know if you're going to stay in that house, right? That's going to be in what, the next year, right? Right. Okay. Then pay off the house if you're staying, okay? Okay. Yep. Now your expenses just went down. Hello? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then then we're going to take the rest of it from the sale of the restaurant and the portion that we also didn't use because you have 300. You only need $2.30 to pay off the house. And by the time you get to you probably only need 210 to pay off the house. So we're going to put the rest of it with, get with a smart investor pro,

someone that's that we endorse. We don't do investments. But if I were in your shoes, I would put this in good growth stock mutual funds. I would look for some low turnover funds, which that means they don't sell the stocks inside them very often. They're fairly conservative funds. They're not very exciting. But you also don't have a lot of taxes on them.

And, you know, if they earn 10%, and you had $600,000 to work with, that'd be $60,000 a year, that'd be $5,000 a month. You're not going to have all of that initially, but eventually that's where you'll get to. And so you would recommend the stock market, even if we're not playing, like, if we do need to take some of that out. Why would you need to take some of it out? Well, just for monthly expenses if I'm not working. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We just covered monthly expenses.

I want you to begin taking out the income off of it. If you invest 600 and it makes 60 a year, they'll send you a check for $5,000 a month out of that. Right. Now I understand. Thank you. Okay. And we're not going to touch it. But we're going to leave the goose that's laying the golden eggs alone.

Yeah, the initial investment. That's the portion that goes in there. And so, yeah, the day you know where, if you're going to stay in town or not, you pay off the house. If you move by a house of equal dollar amount. as you have now or less and do the same plan. Okay. Don't use moving as an excuse to move up in-house while he's in med school. Yeah, no.

You can move again after he gets out of med school. Right. And you might very well move again after he gets out of med school anyway. And more depending upon his income versus this. Yeah, well, based on his income, but you also might move cities after you leave med school. Oh, yeah. You might get a great offer with a great hospital in a city you'd rather live in. then where the med school is how long will that take mary do you know the program that he wants

to do and everything is it five six years it really depends no so med school is like the yeah next one more five more years essentially and then he's got three years at least after it out of residency so the pay there is less than six figures typically yeah but again it's a day more than enough for us to live on sure with the other incomes that we have you've done such a wonderful job if you use this nest egg you called about plus your normal operating procedure which you guys are very careful and you're very good planners you've done an excellent job if you do all of that this is very very doable with no dad at all and living completely debt-free the entire time and your your wealth will continue to grow and then when he

comes out of residency it's going to go zoom soon okay yeah and dave you just had a Mazda zoom I know you're a car guy if I do need a new car with growing family would you support like using some of this money to buy. Yeah, we just want to be real careful because if we take the leg off the goose and then we take another leg off the goose, it's pretty soon your goose is cooked. Yeah. So don't be messing.

Don't be messing with that principle, okay? It's a bad thing. But get a car. Yeah, get a car. I mean, you're making, listen, you told me you need $2,000 a month. We just gave you $5,000 a month. So save up and buy a car. I mean, you got plenty of money coming in off of this.

But no, I would not support using the goose. Leave the principal alone. You wouldn't use any of the half of million dollars to get a car? You don't need to. You got the money. Crap. Right now they got the money. Yeah, that's true.

If they pay, if they have 300K in the bank in these two accounts and they pay off 230, they got 90. What kind of cars this woman need? Yes. Okay. Maybe a $90 suburban. We don't know. Well, maybe not.

Maybe not. Your husband's in med school. Maybe not. Maybe we're driving a cheaper suburban. I know. Or a minivan. There we go. Yeah, yeah, that's important.

It's great. But yeah, I don't be. No, I hear you. It's good. Work, develop a game plan and then work the system. And then don't get all antsy and jump the system. That's where, that's the whole issue here. You guys have been doing a really good job of that.

I'll say it again. I don't think you're going to mess this up. But just, I know I've got about 35 other million people listening who might mess it up. So we just kind of want to make sure that while we're talking to me. we know there's people he's dropping there we go if you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead join one of our free every dollar trainings new trainings every week this month and they're all hosted by one of the ramsie personalities either rachel or jade or george we're going to show you how to stick to a budget find thousands of dollars a margin using

every dollar. Since I started doing this with a yellow pad, long before there was a sophisticated piece of software to show you exactly an app, to show you exactly how to work our system, including the budget, just doing a budget, I've always heard people when I sit down with them doing coaching one-on-one, they would say, Dave, I feel like I just got a raise. When you make your money behave and be efficient, you always have that feeling. So you're going to find thousands of dollars are worth of margin when George or Rachel or Jade, walk you through this, and you can ask questions during the live Q&A, and you're

going to learn how to get out of debt. Why? So you can become wealthy, because your most powerful wealth-building tool is your income. Sign up for free at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar. Jim is in Texas. Hey, Jim, how are you? Good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I need some advice on how I can break it to my wife that we are broke and that we are $500,000 in debt. well why does she not know this i take care of all of our finances um she has a credit card that she swipes and doesn't have to worry about anything um yes she should it's just something that i've taken advantage of and you know gotten us even deeper with not including her in this uh spending ordeal how long you all been married we've been together since we were

16 and I'm 26 and she is 25 you got married when you were 16 10 years no we've been dating since 16 and we got married in 2022 she'd been married three years yes you ran up a half a million dollars in debt in three years yes what the crap did you buy well I went from an income of 25,000 in 2022 to an income of 150,000 and 202 to an income of 150,000 and 23 and then year to date for 25. I'm at 195,000, just myself. Yeah, that doesn't explain how you want a half million dollars in debt. Your income went up. Is it your house too, Jim? Does that include your house? It does. How much do you owe on your home? 330,000. Okay, she knows that. Yes. Okay. And what is the other $17,000 in debt?

we have two vehicle loans and majority of the other debt is credit cards okay so the two vehicle loans amount to what my vehicle is 50,000 and hers is 35 okay and she's aware of those she is okay and so which those are just reoccurring payments that i know i know but she's not it's not like she the way you describe this is like there's a half million dollars in debt my wife doesn't know about yes she does. It's about 80,000 a credit card debt that she may not understand is floating out there. But she's been running her credit card around like she's in Congress, so she probably has a clue about that, too. She may not think it's 80. She may think 15 to 20. Okay. So you guys are, you said 26 years old. Yes. Okay. So let's re-let's reframe this a little bit then. Okay.

What you're really asking is how do I get my wife to get on a plan because our current plan sucks. Correct. Okay. Not how do I tell her about a half million dollars in debt? She doesn't know, because that's not true. She does know about it. Yeah.

All right. So what I would do is say this, say, hon, I gave this a shot. I'm a new husband. I didn't know what I was doing, but I am getting very afraid with our current trajectory that even though we make a lot of money that we're going to be broke. And we are really broke right now, making $190,000 a year. We have car payments. We have house payments.

We have credit cards. They're out of control. And you and I are going to have to work together to get on a different system than the one we've been using because the one we've been using, which is me just letting you do anything you want to do and me not telling anybody anything, those are two really bad ideas and we're going to stop doing that. Yeah, I'm waving the white flag and I'm not doing this anymore. I can't.

And I'm sorry, I haven't told you about the credit card. Like, this is everything. I don't think you were deceiving someone. I think you're concerned that. You've never told her no, and now you get the opportunity for her to be an adult and tell herself no. Correct, yes. How do you think that's going to go? She's easy going.

I think it'll go okay. It's just handing the ball over to someone else. No, we're not handing the ball over to somebody else. The two of you are going to sit down together like two grownups instead of daddy and daughter. Okay. You're like a daddy spoiling his only daughter. Instead, you're going to say, honey, we're going to sit down like two adults now, and here's how much money's coming in, and here's what we owe on the house,

and here's what we have to pay on these stupid cars. And we make $190,000 a year, and we're broke because we're out of control. We don't have a system, and we buy everything in sight. So we, together, need to figure out how we, as two grownups, are going to exist on freaking 200, grand a year at 26 years old. Wham? Well, that's just my income. What does she make?

What does she make? $55,000 a year. Well, then let's try it again, $245,000 a year. We make a quarter of a million dollars a year, and we are broke. So because our system sucks so bad. What do we start on X and out some of this debt? I recommend that the two of you sit down and have a come to Jesus meeting tonight and say, here's what our total income is per month.

Here's what we have to spend on the house. Here's what we have to spend on these cars. We have this much in credit card debt, and we have to buy some food and lights. Let's figure this out. And all of a sudden, you guys are going to go, holy crap, we're out of control. Both of you are going to have that moment.

You've already had the moment. You're just trying to figure out how to navigate the fact that you're not doing it by yourself anymore. Dude, that was a bad idea to start with, and we're stopping that right now. Because we get two benefits. One is you get another brain involved to help you. The other thing, the benefits you get is you don't have to carry all the stress by yourself.

Yeah. And the other benefit is she suddenly as a grown up is going to buy into a future plan, a plan that takes us to a solid future versus I just do whatever I want to do. Yeah. And the good thing is, Jim, you guys are going to see as you start mapping this out. It's going to be, yeah, it's going to be fast. I mean, like after taxes, after taxes and you guys say you lived on 90,000, you know, that frees up.

It's like, oh, my gosh. Debt free in a year. Yeah, $110,000 to put towards this debt. Well, you could be complete. I also haven't filed for 2024. What? What did you say? Okay, put that on the list.

I also have filed my taxes to 20204, which is also. What are you over there? What will the tax bill be? I just spoke with the tax lady today. I paid $25,000 in 2023. So I'm reckoning. You've not set any money aside for your taxes. Are you $10.99 or something?

I am 1099. Okay. And you're not done any quarterly estimates? I have not. Your tax lady sucks. How in the world are you making that kind of money and not doing quarterly estimates? What? She did, and I moved on to another tax lady.

Oh, she wanted to do quarterly estimates? No, she didn't give me any advice, nowhere to go. Just kind of send me what your income is, and I'll tell you what you owe. Okay, yeah. Go to ramsysolutions.com, and you can. find one of the endorsed local providers for taxes. The Ramsey trusted people to help. You need to be doing quarterly estimates.

But now you've got another $25,000 or $40,000 or whatever it is. It's on this list of things you've got to address. But, dude, you got to start at the call. And that still leads you seven, yeah, yeah. You guys can start knocking this out, Jim. So what I would do is sit down tonight. You guys need to list out all of your debt. I would include the IRS bill in that, and that'll be first.

Then list out every credit card and what you guys owe on it. Cut them up. Both car loans, cut them up, be done with it. And you start working your way the smallest debt first. Well, the IRS is going to be paid, so get that paid first. But this is not you telling your wife what to do. No. This is you saying, honey, join me in being a grown-up and living on less than we make.

And that you're not going to do this by yourself anymore, Jim. And tell her that. Every month we're going to sit down and re-look at this plan. I need some help. We need to do this together. Yeah. This is our future together. And we don't have one right now because the way we've been doing this is straight up

stupid and it's got to stop and that's okay just wave the white flag like rachel said and you guys are young surrender you can you have plenty of time yes you make a lot of money you guys could be multi-millionaires you're going to be okay if you get in control of this and just you know quit kicking the can down the road welcome back to the ramsie show in the fair wins credit union studio, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at AAA 825-5-225. Cheryl is with us in Atlanta. Hey, Cheryl, how are you? I'm doing okay. Good. How can I help? Okay. I have cleaning service in Atlanta. I make about 13,000 a month. I started the Dave Ramsey Pan and paid off a

over half my debt in the past six months, however, the first two years when I started my business, I thought I had won the lottery with all the extra money, and then I got in some bad behaviors with spending. So I incurred about like $50,000, $45,000 in debt. But I'm down to $20,000. I've been crushing it this year. I've got the every dollar, and I've been budgeting. We don't eat out. We eat cheap. I've cut spending. Way to go. Good job. Yeah, thanks.

But, so I have not been saving for my taxes. So this year, instead of writing off so many expenses, I want to claim more because I would like a house one day, but I have not saved up for maybe $16,000 in taxes. So how can I save this up and still pay my operating costs as well as my own bills? I want to catch this before April. Good. You're getting ahead of it a little bit. Okay, so your taxes.

last year are paid but not not for 24 yeah I've been writing off I only I only I wrote the income was like 156 and the tax person got it down to like maybe I made on paper 14,000 so I try to get a little over house and they said no stop stop you are under the illusion that there are mysterious ghost columns that are not actual expenses that can be written off those don't exist if you only made 14,000 for tax purposes that means you only made 14,000. Yeah, like writing off. No, honey, that means you won't make a freaking profit.

Your business is barely open. Okay. Those are actual expenses that you write off. There's no other thing except depreciation schedules, and you don't have any of those in a business your size. So you're really not making any money. You've gotten confused. Okay.

Let's stop a second. Let's just have a basic business primer here for a second, all right? business works like this gross revenues are the total intake that you bring in from the customer your total revenue correct that is apparently about 13,000 a month does that sound right yes okay then you have the business expenses that it takes to actually operate the business in order to make the 13,000 come in the door those expenses are called expenses they're subtracted from the 13,000. What is left is called profit.

That is taxable. Yeah. Period. Okay. Yes, sir. I was just going off of, like, the last year. This year, I've been doing my own P&Ls, and I'm much more, I was having other people do it because.

So, wait a minute, if you, if you're doing your own P&Ls, you shouldn't be getting a different answer. Yeah. All right. The P&L is a P&L. Yeah, this year has been more. I've started painting as well as cleaning, so the price point I've gone up. So you've had more revenue come in?

Yeah, yeah, correct. All right, and even a few more expenses, but the net is more profit maybe, okay? So that's lesson number one. Now, when you have a separate checking account for your business, the only money that goes into that checking account is money you earn from your services, the revenue from the business. The only thing you write out of that account is expenses to run the business. Nothing else.

You don't buy groceries out of that account. You don't go out to eat out of that account. You don't go buy a car out of that account because you can't write that crap off. That's bull. You only put actual business expenses, rent, payroll, if you're paying somebody else. Cleaning supplies.

Cleaning supplies. Apparently you're in the cleaning business. business, paint, if you're buying paint, whatever those actual expenses are, then what's left income minus expenses, that is the P&L, it also happens to be your checkbook register, and what's left in there is called cash basis accounting, and that is your actual profit. When you take some of that profit home out of that account, you should set aside a fourth of it for taxes. Every single time you pull money out of the business, you should set aside a fourth of it over into

a separate savings account for taxes. you're supposed to pay quarterly estimates on your profits, and if you do not, they hit you with a large butt penalty, which you're getting hammered right now, the way you're doing this. That's why I'm so leaning on you, okay? Because you're getting killed by this tiny lack of sophistication. Okay, so you've got to separate the business and then business expenses and business income.

What's left is profit. How much? When I bring profit home, that is what will help me buy a house, and you can't make that number up in order to buy, better, more quickly buy a house. Because there's no made-up expenses that you're not taking. You have to take all your expenses. There's no reason to pay a bunch of taxes and not claim your property expenses to hide from the government that you're not profitable. So you pay more taxes so you get a mortgage you can't afford. Yeah, I don't.

Yeah, I've teed so many behaviors. I've been on it this past six months. I realize that that's what's going to be happening. And so I just want to be interested. I don't want to be mean or anything, but you ain't on it. Okay. What you've described to me is chaotic. You might have been paying some on your taxes, but what I just described to you

is the way to do this. Is that how you do it, Cheryl, the way he just talked about it, though? Do you have everything separated out? Yes, I do now. I wasn't before. Yeah. wasn't before. But you are now.

And that person just kind of saying, yes, I am now. So how much are you taking out of your business account? How much are you paying yourself per month? Profit. It's around four or five thousand after all the cost labor and everything. That's great. That's what you qualify for a house with. Yes.

There's no way to hide and pretend like you make more money than you actually make. Yeah, yeah. Not responsibly, okay? And make sure you're paying your quarterly. Now, we've got $4,000 a month. That's $48,000 a year, and we need $16,000 by April 15th. Yeah. $48,000 a year.

We only got a half a year left. So that's $24,000, and you need $16,000. Have you got any other income your family eats on? No. No, I am sole provider. It's me and my son. Well, there's a whole other story about my living 50 years. But I mean, you're the only, this income is all you have to eat on.

Yes, sir. Okay, because you're not going to make but $24,000 if you stay at $4,000 a month between now on April 15th, right? That's why we're painting. How much you making per month on that? I have them together right now, but the price point for a space that I would get cleaned like $1.20, do I need to start a separate painting business? No, no, you can all go in there as long as all the expenses for it come out of there.

And so you're right. the answer to the equation is you need to make more money between now and April or you're not going to have 16,000 and eat. Yeah. With the numbers you're given. Like, when they gave you that bill, do you have to pay it like right then or? Yeah. No, honey, you were already supposed to have paid it. You're already late.

No, she's talking about the 16,000. It's a quarterly estimate that she hadn't paid. She should have been paying $4,000 a quarter. I don't think she was doing quarterly estimates. I think she was doing anything. She has to. No, I know. She has to.

But she's not. I know. So she's already late. The quarterly estimates aren't paid. It's unpaid quarterly estimates. So you're already late. So you're already going to get penalized. So I'd start doing my, get with your CPA and start doing quarterly estimates now.

That's a good start. Well, that's just for 25. Jeez. You've got 24 still. Guys, if you're enjoying the show and you think it's helpful, we would appreciate it if you'd help us out. Click the subscribe button or the follow button, the share button, share the show, or cut out the link and send it to somebody. We're listening on talk radio, tell people the station you're listening to. Help us, in other words, spread the word.

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about doing a career change right after completing baby step two. Okay. So a little bit of background. I'm 25 years old and I work at my local Ford dealership here in my town. And I'm at the highest possible salary that this company will allow me to get. and I don't know whether it's the job or the place, but I'm just, I am very irritated with this company. And so...

Well, it's the place. You just said it. Right. But my question is I just paid off, finished paying off my last $4,700 from... The Baby Step 2 doesn't have anything to do with it. What do you make? I make $87,000 a year before taxes. How old are you?

I'm 25. What do you do? Sell cars? I'm a service technician. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I mean, is there, have you investigated working for someone else? Will they pay more?

I have. I've gone to a couple of other places, but the issue with that is all of the other dealerships are 45 minutes plus from my house. Do you own your house? Right now I'm about, well, the only piece, that's the only amount of debt that I have is, my mortgage. Oh, so you own the house. Okay, have a mortgage. Are you married? I am not. Okay. And so what would you make at the other place that you investigated? It depends on which dealership I go to. I've gotten the same amount or two or three thousand more over where I'm at now.

Per month or year? Year. Okay. How bad do you want to be away from these people? Sell your house and move. I guess I'm just, I guess I let myself get too comfortable and that's, yeah, I said, I said, how bad do you want to be away from these people? I just ask you. I mean, do you want to be bad enough away from them to drive 45 minutes or sell your house and move closer to the 45 minute change and make a tiny bit more money, do the same thing you already love doing, but for people that you like? And is that the career change you're talking about, Dalton, is moving companies or are you wanting to switch careers completely? I'm wanting to switch careers completely. What do you want to do? What do you want to do? I'm looking to go from automotive to aviation. Mechanic.

Yes. Okay. So what? Or a pilot, depending on which ways I'm leaning more. I'm leaning more towards technicians. Okay. So what do you have to have? Is anything required of you to change?

Is there schooling? Is there classes? What do you have to do? I would have to go back to school to get an airframe and pilot. plant certification. Okay. So how much does that cost? When I looked at the tuition, I would have to move up to Greenville to do it. So that was

going to be, I think, between $20,000 and $25,000, and I have the ability to cash flow it. Okay. And what does an aircraft mechanic make? Down here in Columbia, the low end is about... Are you going to move back after you get it? It depends on

where I can get a job at. Down here in Columbia, it's right around 65 to right where I'm at now to about 90. But if I go to, say, Charlotte or go to Atlanta, it can get up into 150, 160 range. Great. So it's all depending on where I can go. Okay. No, no, no, where you choose to go. Oh, you're right, where I choose to go.

Yeah. Okay. No, I would not go spend $25,000 in two years of my life to make $25,000 a year less. That's dumber than Iraq. Of course you wouldn't do that. Okay. Come on, man. I mean, that doesn't make sense.

But would I go spend that and go move into a different career and change cities and make $150, make $50,000 more than I have now, and sky's the limit. And you learn a whole new craft. And now you're certified in two different types of service, which is not only vehicles and cars, but it's also aircraft. Absolutely, I'd go do that. And that's what my plan is. Yeah.

Life is a grand adventure. Put your house on the market. Move to Greenville. Let's go, man. get your certification, then move your butt to Charlotte or Atlanta or whatever it is you need to do and go make some bucks. But no, I'm not going to retreat. And that's why I say it's not a baby step two thing.

In baby step anything, if you can go make more money tomorrow and you want to do it, go do it. Go do it, yeah. You don't have to wait to go make more money. But usually when somebody asks us questions because they want to make less money and no, I'm not going to endorse that, not because I'm all about money, but because you can can usually make more money doing something you're good at and you love than you can do doing something you hate with people that are toxic. So generally speaking, and this idea that in order to be happy, I have to make less money.

That's a pass-acquards. No, in order to be happy, I need to make more money. Hello. That's just crazy, y'all. So it's like, I need to work for a non-profit because it's holy. No, it's not. It's not any more holy than a profit. That's just silliness.

A profit. A for-profit. Oh, I thought you meant. The profit. I don't know, whichever profit, but any kind of profit, some kind of profit. God help me with profit. All right. There we go. That's what I'm doing, Dalton. Yeah. I would go live your dream, but dude, make your dream a dream, not a nightmare. Lay it out where it's, you know, up and to the right. Common sense, yes. Up and to the right, baby. Up and to the right. Go be somebody. Do it, man. I like it. And the cool thing is you got this house you can sell. Probably going to get some

money out of that, and that's what's going to help him catch for it. And you're only 24. So I'm like, you go through this for a few years. Maybe when you're 30. We just met someone that's going to be a pilot. She wants to fly for Delta. We just met her in the lobby. Young girl, you know, and you get to maybe make a decision of 10 years to go do that, right? So just keep on dreaming. But yes, don't be a, don't make the math go backwards to pay money to make the math go backwards.

Yeah, I think I might feel really good about a pilot flying the plane that knew how to work on it. No, now that gives me a lot of peace. It does, actually. I mean, it's like, yeah, something happens. You can run out there on the wing and fix it, right? No, I'm kidding. that would be ideal don't know if that's reality but it's good Dalton it's good oh well Darren's with us hi Darren in Madison Wisconsin how are you good how are you better than I

deserve how can we help so me and my husband are in baby step too so far we have paid up paid off about $215,000 wow the last job yeah in the last 22 months way to go yeah and And we are going to be able to pay off the remaining of my husband's student loans by the end of this year, which is about $92,000 left. Amazing. And me and my husband sat down and we're like, okay, what's next? And we currently own a home, but we're not living in it because my husband's company has moved us to a new location and they pay for all of our housing expenses. So we have a lot of extra money to throw around, and we're like... By a new location, do you mean different city?

Different states about every six months. Okay, and you kept one of the homes back in the other place, and by default have become a landlord, not by strategy? Yeah. Yeah, I'd sell that. Okay. Okay. Long-distance landlording is not really a good plan.

I mean, if you're sitting in Madison, Wisconsin, and said, where's this house located? Just over the border in the Twin City, so it's not a long drive, and we have family there. But, I mean, if you were sitting here in Madison, Wisconsin, with the situation you've got and said, we're going to buy a rental house, you probably wouldn't have bought it over there. Okay. You got it by default. That's what I mean.

You backed into this instead of walked into it. And so it generally ends up being a bad decision, so I'm generally going to sell it. I want a bunch of rental property. I love rental property. I don't have any long-distance rental property. That's how people change Harley Oil in your living room. Don't just set goals in 2026. Learn how to actually reach them.

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It's fabulous. So if you're watching on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the description. and you can go to ramsysolutions.com slash store and get your ramsie gold planner for 2026 before they're gone i know it's hard to believe in it tray is in florida hi tray how are you i'm great how are you doing better than i deserve what's up not too much hey um so i got a question for you i uh probably back in let's say january i bought a motorcycle for 15 000 dollars and um in may i got a question for in a motorcycle wreck and broke my wrist and ankle, and I recovered and doing well. Good. I'm glad. I'm sure you've been through that.

No, it's no problem. I mean, it's what you get into when you hop on a bike, I guess. Yeah. But I'm kind of now realizing it wasn't a very smart decision, and I'm kind of in the hole with it. So originally it was $15,754, and I've made six payments, or possibly more, but I'm at $15,000 payoff. Uh, the bike's worth about 11,000. They'd tear up the bike? So the bike, all that happened was the quick shifter and the body panels need to be replaced.

So all that has been done, and it's back to, um, normal, so the bike's in excellent condition. Now it's back to excellent condition and it's lost four, it's lost a third of its value in six months. Correct. So I'm trying to figure out what the best route is. What kind of crap is this? What kind of bike is this? It's a crotch. target says the ZX6R

2023. That's horrible. Correct. Man, are you sure that's what? Who said that's what the bike's worth? Just like when you get it from a dealer,

that's about the price average of what you look online and find that. From a dealership, though. If you did an individual sale, you could probably get 2,000 more for it. Because dealerships are going to buy it at cost.

So it could go up a little bit. Okay, so you're $2,000 to $4,000 in the hole, depending on how we calculate this, right? Correct. Who do you owe the money to? It's going to be roadrunner financial, so-alone company. The motorcycle finance company where you bought it? Correct. Yeah, okay.

And how old are you? 23. I assume you have no money. No, I mean, I do have an emergency fund. How much? I'm $4,000. Oh, sell the bike. Correct.

What's the question? I guess I'm just like, is it okay to just drain the entire savings inside the day? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. You want to know what it's draining your savings? That's stupid bike.

Sitting in the garage going down in value like a rocket. Absolutely. No pun intended. Absolutely. I agree. Yeah. I mean, the sooner we cut bait. Sooner this fish is gone, man.

10-4. Yeah, write a check be done. I mean, like by Friday, man. You have a new goal. And then go replenish your savings because you don't have a stupid motorcycle payment and a stupid motorcycle going down in value like a rocket. Right? I guess that'll be the plan.

Yeah, I mean, you've got two things, two reasons motivating you to drain your savings. Because you put your savings right back because this thing's doing more damage to you than being down to broke. And, you know, be planning on working like all the OT and all the side hustles and everything else you can in the next three weeks, put your money back really super fast, which will keep you from having another mistake, which is having some kind of an event with no money. Yeah. Six more months. It's going to be another $4,000. Yeah. So. So, um, be done. And then, Tray, what I would do is this. Um, one of the things when something costs me money

and I've done a lot of stupid things, a lot of dumber things than this. Okay. This is not super. It's just dumb. But I mean, I've done super dumb. So anytime I do that and I have to learn a painful lesson, so you've got like three painful lessons here at once, I want to write them down. I will know what they are, so I don't have to do them again. If I do something dumb again, it needs to be something, a new dumb thing that I've never done before.

I don't want to do the same dumb things over. So I try to figure out from an autopsy standpoint what happened here, okay, and I'll walk you through it. Here's the way I would do this if I were in your shoes. I would say, okay, mistake number one, I was impulsive and bought this thing while I had motorcycle fever. I should have calmed down taking a cold shower and waited overnight or waited two weeks and not bought this bike at all. And if I was thinking with more wisdom and less passion and less immature, I wouldn't have bought the bike.

And that's what I would say to myself if I looked up. Because I've done that very similar thing. I bought a truck one time. It was a similar situation. I just drove up on the lot. I liked the truck and I just bought it. And about three months later, I hated that stupid truck. And I lost like two grand on it.

I mean, it's just the same thing, right? But it's impulsive as hell. I'm just ridiculous. All right. So then, second thing is I need to understand that things that have motors and wheels go down in value and I can't finance them because they go down in value and you get stuck in them.

Okay? And it was a third one, but I don't remember what it is now. Anyway, just figure out what your lessons are from this so you don't do them again. The biggest thing you did was you were just impulsive. And you didn't give any more thought to this and buying a bag of Fritos. I mean, you just said, oh, yeah, hot Cheetos.

Let's get something, right? I mean, this thing's a crotch rocket. Here we go. Boom. This is cool. I'm going to be a cool guy if I had this cool bike, and I bought a cool bike. Well, he did get in a wreck and got hurt. And then you laid it down.

Let's be, uh, let's find some safer hobbies. I don't know. I'm not a fan. That was a mother. A motorcycle. A motorcycle. Every nurse will tell you. Stay away from them.

Yeah, it's, uh, that's, that's the motherly comment for you, Tray. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Anyway, figure out what in the world is going on. And I think it's always good for us to look back and go, okay, if I'm writing a check for stupid tax because I'm paying some tax for being stupid, what do I do so I never have to write that check again? And you can really go back and go, man, I learn a valuable lesson when I was 23 years old. And you could be telling your 23-year-old this Sunday.

I'm assuming it was brand new. I mean, I don't know how much they cost. That's it. For the fact that it went down so quickly. That's the third thing. Don't buy brand new. And you bought a bike without realizing that it was an absolutely crummy bike in terms of how fast it's going to go down in value. I mean, ridiculous.

I mean, there's a lot of horrible car deals you can do. But when you lose 30% of the value of something in six months, that's in the sucks column, like the super sucks column. I mean, it's over there, right? This is nutto. And so you go, okay, you look that. kind of thing up before you buy it and you go okay i i don't i think that might change my mind i'll buy a six-month-old bike for 11 000 let someone else take to the 30 or a one-year-old bike at this rate for that's right that's right oh my gosh let someone else take the hit yeah and pay cash for it and then if you

lay it down and you're upside down at least it's in the garage and you know it's you can deal with it right it's a different situation so all of those things are there but hey learn in other words learn your lesson. That's not picking on you, Trey. I'm just kind of setting up that decision-making framework and that wisdom-building thing because the old saying is the reporter went up to the old guy on the porch who was known for being wise and he was in his 90s. And he said, Uncle Zed, how did you become so wise? He said, I got experience. He said, where'd you get experience from not being wise? And that's what I always want to learn every time. So that by the time I get older, I do fewer and fewer and fewer dumb things. And so it accelerates my wealth building.

there you go Mia is in Georgia Hi Mia, how are you? Hey Dave, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yes, so my husband and I have been married for 13 years,

and I got a hold of your book, total money makeover, and the part about having a joint account, we have never had a joint account since we've been married. And I finally was able to sit down with my husband and, you know, tell him the reasons for it because even at that time, my marriage was getting, it was pretty difficult, pretty challenging. And we just weren't in unity, you know, with our finances. But when I sat down with him, he said, that's fine, we can have a joint account, but we should still keep our separate accounts.

He's afraid that if we put it all into one account, something, you know, like fraudulent or, you know, scammer could happen. Bull crap. Then something would happen to our money. Absolute bull crap. That's ridiculous. He doesn't really believe that. I hope not, but I know it's a trust issue.

Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah, and I know I haven't been always responsible with my money, but I don't think I've done anything that's like completely irresponsible that's gotten both of us in trouble. But, um, you know, for, for me, I told him, I was like, it would give us at least a vision, you know, for what we want to do, set some goals perhaps. Yeah. You could see, I could see the total picture. I honestly didn't even know where money was going because we never, I could never see it, you know, it was never in one place. So I don't know how I could convince him

that we need, we need to do this to be in unity. to, you know. I think you're very articulate and you're voicing this fabulously, personally. Mia, what would be the concerns he has about you? You said, I haven't been perfect at it, but nothing like crazy, but what would be the things that he may not trust you with?

Is it that you spend more than him, that you're more of a free spirit? Like, what are the things that he would feel like maybe you're not as, quote, unquote, responsible as he has? I'm not saying that's true, but I am wondering what he would say. Well, I mean, these are his words. He said to me, I don't want to intermingle my money with you because of my spending.

And most of my spending comes from, like, eating out. You know, I tend to do that more than he does. He cooks at home, you know. But I don't go on shopping sprees. I don't, you know, I might spend a little bit more. Let's stop a second then. Then there's an easy fix for that, okay? So the way that we teach, and you can tell him this, that solves that is, we together put together a budget every month where every one of the dollars that are coming into this house from both of us have a name and are allocated to something going back out.

That would include Mia going out to eat, and that would include hitting our goals, and that would include achieving some things that we want to do together. it would include some of the things he is now doing with money that he frankly probably doesn't want to report to you on and he needs to that's he's not bringing that up but that's there um he's doing a few little things here or there while he's shaming you that um that he doesn't want everybody to know about nothing it nothing illegal and nothing crazy but just little stuff okay like he's spending more at the coke machine than he wants to tell everybody does as an example or something like that i don't know he's buying some little thing at a little part for his gun or something. I don't know, whatever it is, right? But aside from that. Now, every dollar has

a name and we have full transparency, full disclosure. Oh, and honey, nothing's going to happen with any of this money that you didn't pre-approve. And by the way, nothing's going to happen with any of this money that I didn't pre-approved because it's all going to be written down and then we're going to do what was written down. And so unless you approve me being irresponsible with money, there won't be any irresponsibility with money. Right? You see how that works mechanically? Yes.

The second thing then is to pan back and say, why does this matter ultimately? Okay? Because when we surveyed, the actual data tells us that when we surveyed 10,167 millionaires and did detailed research on them, we found that 89% of them, That's nine out of ten, all of them just about, said that one of the reasons they were able to become millionaires is because of working together, very detailed together, with a cooperative spouse.

When we survey the general public, we find that less than 40% of them work together, and they have no money. So the data says that it's a wealth building tool, and you increase your probability of work together. wealth building substantially like over double chance. That's like one of the pros of getting married in a dual income household is you you guys have more in the pots to say we have more money to do things with like invest and give and spend and all of it. And Mia, the other thing is that we find and I'm sure it said in the book Total Money Makeover, but even for you guys, like you said at one point like our marriage wasn't in a great spot, you know, this activity.

if you will. Exercise. Yes, exercise is something that's very unifying because it's very vulnerable. And I will give it to him that for 13 years of doing something and changing it, it may not just be a one-time talk. And then he's like, absolutely, right? Like this may kind of be an ongoing discussion for a bit. And there is a level of deep vulnerability and trust there, right?

You're kind of like exposing this part of yourself that you have it. And that's how a lot of married couples live. It's like they have this autonomy of themselves. you know, it's separate, but yet we have chosen to be married, which means we have chosen to do life with someone. And I want to do life with you and in a deeper way because our money exposes our values and it exposes what we are scared about. It exposes, you know, triggers that happen with something. And then you get to have a conversation with your spouse about that so that you actually get to talk and get to know them. Like there's a, you know, there's a deep unraveling

that happens. And money is a filter at which that occurs. And so for you guys to be in the same lane and to work together, not only financially do you guys get ahead, but also relationally. And I would say that to him to me and say, I just long. It'll help you heal the marriage. Yeah, I long to do this marriage in a deeper, more beautiful, unified way. And this is a symbol of that, right? Because you're taking the thing that you want to hold the tightest and you're opening your hand to your spouse and saying, okay, we're going to do this together. And I don't know.

And there will also be conflict, you know. I mean, there's still things that come up, and that's fine, but it actually gives you the opportunity to solve it. Our friend Les Perrin always says that conflict is the road to intimacy. And so there is something about understanding that that grows a marriage to. So I would, if that's your desire, I would communicate that part of your heart as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll go along with you, Rachel. We've had almost 10 million families now go through Financial Peace University since I started doing it 30 years ago.

and the number of times is amazing to me that people come up to me over the years and have said, hey, your financial class saved our marriage. I mean, it's, and then I actually, when I started hearing that enough, I was kind of confused because I'm like, you went the wrong class, the sex classes down the hall. I mean, what's the, I mean, that's just weird. And they're like, no, no, no, really, you forced us to work to talk about life because we had to do the stupid budget you were making us do. And, and when we talked about life, it did more good than the marriage counselor we were going to because it forced us to align our dreams and our values.

It forced us to have conflict. Yes. It forced us to do those things and work through those things just to get to this goal of being debt free. And in the process, lots of little wrinkles were ironed out of our marriage or we were on the rocks and about to walk off and this saved us. And it wasn't that I saved them. I didn't. No. And it really wasn't even that the budget saved them.

It was the fact that they sat down together and for the first time aligned their futures. Yes. And paid and what price we're going to have to pay to get to that future. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's interesting. It is the most hate. One of the subjects that we get the most hate on is this, or at least I do. You do.

I get hate on a lot of things. Well, yeah, yeah. But it is something that is so, it is fascinating because, and people will message me or comment about this. Like, well, we just kept fighting. So we just decided to do separate accounts And now we just don't fight anymore And I'm like, those are the

That's the exact fight in marriage You need to be having Well, I mean, yeah And so when you sweep everything under the rug Let's bury all of that Because that is a high rate of resurrection Yes Yeah, we're going to call that zombie feelings

When they come back up They will come They will come Yeah, it's just going to blow up someday You're not going to know what happened It's like a geyser I know. Push through the heart

That's complete emotional moron We're just going to ignore this and pretend like it's not there and it's like it's never going to come back. You've got to be kidding me. It's a lot of people. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author and my daughter is my co-host today.

Donovan is in San Jose, California. Hey, Donovan, what's up? Hey, guys, thank you so much. for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Um, so my wife and I currently invest about 43% of our income and she wants to take a trip to Europe next year. So I was wondering if, uh, that is something that we should look at doing, uh, reducing our investment rate in order to take that trip. Okay. Are you guys out of debt? We are out of debt. We are debt free. Good. And what's your household income, so this year we should net about 175 and what's your net worth uh it's around 89

000 89 000 yes with a hundred and seventy five thousand dollar income and a 40 percent investment rate yes so my wife and i uh we basically finished our education uh as of last year and We paid our way all through school. Oh, okay. Yeah, so this is like our first year of actually making a real income. So you're both now making good money for the first time ever, and you get to live your dream of investing, and she gets to live her dream of traveling, and that's in conflict.

Now it makes sense. Yes, sir. Okay. And what do you guys do for a living? So I identify as a janitor, and my wife is a ADA therapist. Okay. You just finished your education, and I'm sorry, did I misunderstand you? I identify as a janitor? Is that what you said? So basically, I have profit sharing with a company directly under the owners. So my official title would be COO, but honestly, I have to do a lot of different things. Well, welcome to being the COO. But, I mean, what do you make a year, Mr.

order. So I make about 80,000 a year. Okay. All right. That's funny. Okay. I identify. Oh, my Lord. All right. That's cute. What's the trip to Europe cost? So we actually went to Europe for our honeymoon, which was generously gifted to us by the business owners. But when they paid for it. It was around $25,000 and how much we budget towards this trip would probably look around 18 to 20 from what I've been looking at. Yeah. All right. Okay. Do you guys have any money saved? Yeah, you've got $89,000 net worth and you just saved it. Well, net worth, but I don't even know what that means. Is that in retirement? Like, is that cash? What is that? Yeah. So about 16,000 is in a off IRA, about 6,000 is in my wife's 401K. I have 35,000 in a cash brokerage account, and then we have about $25,000 in high-yield savings account.

Okay. And how old are you guys? So I'm 31, and my wife is 28. Okay, cool. Well, Donovan, I love this. This is a great approach to the question. Thank you. And it just took us a minute to find out where you guys really are because there's so many assumptions I could make when I see on my screen my wife wants to go to Europe and I want to say 40%. I was getting ready to call you Scrooge McDuck or something, but I don't think you are. I think you're just getting started and you're a serious guy who wants to hit some numbers

and your wife is serious about enjoying some of this hard work. And so those are fair. Both of them are fair things to do with money. Both arguments are. And so I don't think I would slap my fist on the table and declare either one of these answers to be stupid, okay? The thing that throws it off a little is 40% of your income is going into retirement. So we do tell people systematically throughout the scope of your life, whether this year or next year, I would go to Europe because systematically throughout the scope of your life, you need to constantly, with a rhythm, be enjoying your money, investing your money, and being generous with your money. If you consistently with the rhythm do all three of those things, all the data that we have and all the experience we have of decades of doing this tells us that you're going to not only become wealthy, but also be very relationally healthy and have a high likelihood of physical health, too, by the way, weirdly enough.

And so all of those things go together when you're doing all three of those things. So to say, no, always save money and live in a cave, collect lent, and only come out on triple coupon Thursday. No, we don't believe that. We think you live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. It feels like to me you guys have paid a price of sacrifice to get the education under your belt and to get to this point to get started. Your reward on the price is saving and investing because that gives you a high. Her reward is the travel and the fun. And both are legitimate.

Mm-hmm. And you can do both, Donovan. That's the great thing because of your income, because where you guys are, yeah, you guys would be able to save cash flow a trip to Europe and be saving altogether. So. But, you know, I'm probably going to negotiate, you know, as we're discussing this, some tradeoffs here. Okay. If we do Europe this year, we really, to be responsible only need to spend X. If we were to wait 18 months, months we could spend why yes and I have just a slight you know not painting a broad stroke with this but the fact that you guys just went to Europe anyway anyway and she wants to go back like I bet she does I bet it's it's wonderful that's great but also we can't be in a habit or a pattern of doing this all the time we do Europe every two years because it's just going to continue to you know if you have the money for it you can but I just I want to make sure the pattern is set and the contentment and all of that is is being talked about too that it's not just this assumption yeah

that this is what we're going to do all the time sad thing is we're not giving you a really good answer because both answers are okay but probably some hybrid of the two a little rhythm a little on and a little off is a better thing and say okay if we do this then we're not going to do another big trip for three years and we're going to pile up and get this net worth going and get some results so that we can do trips forever because I mean if you keep doing the net worth thing the trips are infinite later yeah but but but if you don't if you don't if you constantly are eating up the money constantly so again it needs to not be a pattern like rachel says and there needs to be a trade off and go okay we spend x now or y 18 months from now but in either case we're probably not going to do you know

once every five years until we hit a million dollar net worth we're probably not going to do a bunch of big huge trips that's a big trip that's an expensive. And I'll say there's a group of girls that went to Europe that we work with and they just got back and they did not, they spent half of that and they were able to do a great fun trip. You know what I mean? So there's different degrees at which you can do a trip too.

So throwing that out there too. I wouldn't argue that, wouldn't argue that, yeah. Yeah. So yes and yes. Yeah, sorry. I wish I could be more precise. Usually I'm devilishly precise. But on this one, I'm going to be.

philosophical a little bit and let you kind of learn the rhythm idea between these three things of generosity and fun and investing. Generosity and fun and investing. And then ratios of those things that allow them all to occur reasonably. Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Why Refie? You may think no one can help with your defaulted private student loans. But why refi is different? They work with borrowers that are in tough spots without judgment. Check them out.

Whyrefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, r eFY. Dot com slash Ramsey, not in all states. Today's question comes from Kathy in Arizona. I've been a health care worker for many years and became close to a patient while she was in the hospital. That was 23 years ago. stayed friends since. She's now 92 years old and a widow. She has a son and a daughter who don't live by currently, or don't live nearby. She has been estranged from her daughter, estranged from her

for almost 15 years. Her son calls periodically to check in on her. She recently revised her will to remove her daughter and put me second in line if something were to happen to her son first. Should I be worried that her daughter could come after me legally? She is not told either of her children about the will details. I want to help her, but I feel like I'm getting in the middle of family drama. What are your thoughts? You feel like you're getting in the middle of family drama because you are in the middle of family drama.

That's why it feels that. Yes. So no, legally, no, she can't come after you. If there's a will in place. You haven't done anything wrong. Yeah, she can't. You haven't done anything wrong. But I would encourage her to talk to her kids about this.

Yeah. I would go further than that. Would you say no to it? I would say I don't want this unless you have told both of your children, which would involve her talking to her daughter that she hadn't talked to in 15 years, so she's not going to do it. But just because, let me just tell you, I would tell you there's a 100% chance that you're going to be involved in drama.

Did you do anything legally or ethically or morally wrong? No, none of those things. But that doesn't mean you're not going to end up defending yourself or the daughter's going to come in and file suit and say, you know, mom wasn't competent and this nurse took advantage of her and try to call you out on medical ethics or something like that. And none of that is true based on what you've told us, Kathy. And it doesn't, I mean, it's also, it's been 23 years. So that, you know, but, you know, this is, it's a sweet gesture by a lady who doesn't do conflict. this lady's a sweetly she doesn't want to deal with her daughter but she doesn't want to leave her her daughter anything so she wants to take one last poke at her from the grave you know and it's just like

nah i really don't want to be in that i'm sorry um if you you know 100% chance there's going to be drama the only question is how much yeah i mean just okay here's a really shallow question And does it matter the amounts to you? Is there a amount that's worth the drama? That's, I guess that's an individual choice. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if there's $20 million, you know, let me tell you, I would tell you this.

Here's an interesting answer to that. I'm just making this up because it's a fun question. I appreciate it. The more money there is, the more drama there's going to be. That's probably true. Sure. Yeah. If she's leaving her $62 and her snow globes,

You know the daughter's going to go good luck with that mom you know crispy extra crispy where you're going mom but if it's 20 million she's going to be coming if it's 20 million the daughter is going to be going medical ethics and dreaming up anything else she can dream up and this this nurse has hypnotized her 23 years ago and stolen my mother away and you know I mean you're going to hear all you're going to hear all that but yeah the more money the more drama yeah for sure I think that's true drama's already here drama has already here drama has has announced itself. It's got an engraved invitation to the party. The only question is how much it's going to show out. And I would say in ratio to the amount of money. So I think that's right. But now how much did I want to get involved? How shallow am I in that regard? That's a good question because I mean, you know, honestly, I don't want a lot of drama in ratio to the money. And so if it's $67 in four snow globes, I don't want to be involved. all. Yeah, for sure. And so it's not worth it at all. And but, you know, if the only time you would think about it is if there was more money. Right. I don't guess that's shallow. I guess

it's practical. Well, I just think I don't know. I'm going to have to put up with some crap. Is it worth it? Right. Right. That's the question. And again, we don't know it all. But I mean, I, the story, you know, there could be a story that it, that she's, I mean, who knows, some multi-millionaire, sweet, kind woman. And this nurse has befriended her, been kind to her, has kids of her own and that's how this 92-year-old wants to leave her legacy I don't think it's a problem

I don't think you've done anything morally or ethically or legally wrong but that doesn't mean you won't have to defend it. Yeah you're going to be in some drama if you take it. Yeah but I would encourage her to talk to the family about it. In America you can sue anyone for anything you can just make it up

yep if it's not true you can just say a bunch of stuff and put it in the pleading and file a law It happens all the time, boys and girls. Good luck, Kathy. Let us know. Wow. What a mess.

Emma's in Washington. Hi, Emma. What's up? Hi, there. We just found out that I'm pregnant about a week ago with our fourth child. Yay. Congratulations. We currently have a 2003 Honda Odyssey and my husband has a commuter car.

So the Odyssey will obviously fit us, but it's pretty. old. And it started to have some transmission issues a few months ago. And we are looking at buying a house. We don't own a house yet. We're really saving hard so we can buy a house. My question is, should we try to replace the minivan with a more reliable minivan, a newer one, or just go hard at saving for a house and kind of deal with the minivan braking after the fact? I mean, it's what, a 22-year-old van? I would probably replace the van. If I'm, if I'm you, if I have, I mean, I have three kids and if I was expecting another one,

there's a level of stability if you can cash flow it. And, I mean, I wouldn't go get a brand new one, but you could go find, you know, at 2015 for, you know, $14,000 or something. I would probably do that, especially if you guys have ongoing issues. I just wouldn't want car maintenance issues all this. time with four little kids. Yeah. If you have the ability to do it.

Because my husband, he's a private school teacher. He makes about $63,000 a year. So 14K for a car is way out. Well, haven't y'all been saving for a house? Yes. So how much do you have in that account? We have $11,000 right now. Okay.

Okay. So we're still about 18 months out before we can really even look. For a house, yes. And that's if you don't take any of this cash to replace the van. If you got it fixed, how much longer do you think it could hold? Hold on to. I know. It's 23 years old.

I'm 28, so it's almost as old as me. Yeah, I don't know. I think we probably have a year and a half, two years left. We don't go on super long drives or anything like that. And I homeschool. We stay home most of the time. But it's just iffy. Mm-hmm.

If you bought the house and kept the van, you have to keep a fully funded emergency fund for when the ban breaks. Is that three months or six months? I'm probably going with six. Okay. Because you're going to have to, you said the transmission is slipping, and that's going to be an expensive repair at some point. It's probably cheaper than buying another van, but it's still going to be an expensive repair. So you cannot get down to the nub and use up all your cash. to buy the house and have no money, and then the van breaks three weeks later.

That's for sure. We're not doing that. Yeah. Emma, is the $11,000 the only money you all have saved, or do you have a separate account for an emergency? No, that's our emergency fund. Oh, it is. Oh, so you don't have any down payment fund? Not yet.

No, that's the struggle. Oh, there's no struggle. There's no struggle. We're having a hypothetical. It's not going to occur. You're not buying either one. okay you don't clean out your emergency fund and upgrade the car and you don't clean out your emergency fund and buy a house okay you don't have $11,000 that changes the story yeah

sorry no I mean I I want the I want the family protected by the emergency fund first then we talk about moving up in car and cash yeah and then and on a $63,000 income you know it it it will be a few years for you guys to purchase that and that's okay I wouldn't To do either one. Yeah. Everyone needs insurance, but it can be hard trying to figure out to find a pros, that is, to help you figure out what to do. I mean, somebody's pros are just looking to make a buck, and then there's a good ones that actually know their stuff and put your interest at heart. With a Ramsey trusted insurance pro, you'll know.

never have to deal with a sleazy or slimy insurance person. They're all interviewed, vetted, coach to make sure they're market experts and have your best interests at heart. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash coverage and find the type of insurance you're looking for. Connect with a Ramsey trusted agent, and you can click the link in the description if you want. Jimmy is with us. Jimmy is in Arizona. Hi, Jimmy.

How are you? I'm good. I would ask how you're doing, but I assume it's better than you deserve. Some things are natural. What's up, man? So my question is that my girlfriend and I are doing married people stuff, but we aren't married, and we do want to get married, committed to each other, but we are on baby step two. Now, my question is, how do I afford things like a ring or, you know, a wedding and things like that if all my money is supposed to be going towards my debt? Well, how much debt have you got?

Well, we've got 87,000 currently down there. I'm sorry. Let's stop the wee thing a minute. How much debt do you have? Personally, I am in $61,000 a debt. Okay. And so she has about $20 something? Yeah.

Okay. 26, yeah. Okay. And you're 61 is what? It's personal loan. To who? I'm my parents. Your parents.

Yeah. Okay. They're fairly affluent, so they offer to help me out. and I'm paying them back with some interest. Okay. Help you out with what? What were you doing? With, like, paying off my debt and going on to the next stage in my life and trying to

get out of all this. So they paid your debt and now you owe them? Yeah. Yeah. So you didn't really pay off your debt. You just moved it to your parents. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. All right. And so what was your debt on? It was originally just a bunch of crap, like things that I didn't need, tents around my house, which maybe I needed, but other things. Do you own a home? Yes, I do. Okay.

Is your girlfriend's name on the deed? No, not yet. What is your home worth? It's about $400,000. Very cool. How old are you? I am 30. Oh, okay.

All right. And what do you owe on your home? I owe $230,000. Okay. Oh, that's nice. Okay. And what do you make, sir? I make $130 a year.

Okay. And so she makes what? She makes $70 a year. Okay, cool. And she's around the same age? Yeah, she's 28. So when you're married, you have a $200,000 household income, a $400,000 house, and $87,000 worth of debt.

If you got married tomorrow, that would be the together picture. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Um, and you're living together, is what you indicated, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. How long?

It's been almost a year now. Okay. All right. What is the, uh, dream for the wedding? Well, she's okay with going to the courthouse tonight, and, um, I've got, like, over 20 aunts and uncles and, like, more 30 cousins, and I would like as many of them as I can afford to be there. but okay

I'm not sure how to afford that okay and what is your personal take-home pay a month my personal take-home pay after taxes is $83 okay good good you're doing really well sir

thank you thank you all right you don't have do you have any cash or any money that's not in retirement no just my emergency fund

how much is in your emergency fund Oh, sorry. Well, it's $1,000 that you suggested. Okay. All right. It was the starter emergency fund. Okay. Yes.

So you have $1,000, and that's your entire money you have available. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. I'm asking a lot of questions because once I get the whole picture, I can say clearly what I would do, knowing what I know now, if I woke up in your shoes. Okay. Right.

For sure, I'm going to call the preacher and go get married at the courthouse or in his office. in his office tomorrow, for sure, or in a month, okay, somewhere in the next month, and then have a big party later, okay, after we clean up some of his debt, because you've got a great income to clean up some of the debt, and you can have a big, big reception, you know, even if it's 12 months from now, okay, easily, and they have the uncles and aunts and that kind of stuff, because, you know, that's, yeah, that's what I would do for sure. then the only question I've got is how much to spend on a ring and do I stop everything for a paycheck or two and get a three or four thousand on a ring and I probably would and that would do

that this month and I'd get married you know the end of the month or the end of next month or whatever something like that and because then that allows you to combine all of your efforts safely and correctly and you'll be able to clear the debt faster and as you say you're already playing house, so. And you love her. You're going to get married to her, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

So just go do it. There was nothing in any of your sentence structure. There was any hesitancy, and that's what I was going on. Yeah. No, sir. Yeah, we're not doing this so that we can combine money. We're doing it because you love each other. You know you're going to get married.

So go ahead and do it. Yeah. Just got some stuff out of order. And so let's get back on. Like you said, you know, a different caller a while ago, but I saw, you know, there's more buy-in when we are married, too, right? is that she doesn't got to worry about her going anywhere. I don't got to worry about her going anywhere,

and I want her to have that stability, you know, as soon as I possibly can. So I'm with you guys on that one. How's her relationship with your affluent mom and dad? It's great. They love her. Um, okay. Or mom and dad to me pissed that you guys go.

to the courthouse, not have a big wedding? Well, I did flip the idea to my mom, and she was a little like, oh, why would you do that? Yeah. But I'm not too concerned. But your mom wants to have the party, too. But, Mom, we are going to have the party. Well, then pay for the, a fluent mom, pay for the party. I was just, that's where I was going.

Why don't they pay for the wedding? They're all, yeah. The wedding reception and do it, you know, even if you did it at Christmas, and it was a few months after the actual quote-unquote marriage. But, I mean, we know. several young couples that are like in their 19, 20-year-old types, okay, that go literally to the courthouse, go sit with a preacher and get married, and then they walk down the aisle with the white dress and the whole thing four months later. I've seen that happen a bunch of times

because that's how the schedule worked out for the stupid venue, but they are legally, morally married and all that a long time before we all went to the wedding, you know. and a couple of us that are close enough friends actually knew that. But my concern with that is that, you know, I've asked my parents for so much help me out so much. I'm not asking them to help you. I'm saying, hey, if y'all want to throw a party, we'll do it now. If you want me to throw the party, we're going to do it in a year. But they didn't really help you, Jimmy.

I mean, in a sense, you're paying interest to your parents. So it's not like they went and paid your debt off. If they did that, I would be like, yeah, that's really generous. They just became your bank. They're not helping you. You're paying them interest. They're making money off you. Yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of weird. I do know people that their parents have paid off their debt so that they don't have to pay interest and it's a better deal for the kid. But yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So you know your parents better than me, but I'm kind of thinking when you make this announcement that we're going to get married and we're going to have the party over here.

if you all want to have the party earlier and you want to finance it we'll do it earlier for the uncles and nance and we'll do that big party in December because we're getting married in a month and I'm going to go dad I'm going to go get a ring mom take her over there you all announce it to them tell them what your plans are and then

watch and see how generous they become towards the 61,000 and towards the party I'm not begging for that I'm just laying it out and I'm not even going to ask yeah not even I just that's why I ask what they thought of her because that's going to affect their participation.

They're voluntary transportation. Without you even asking. Yeah. Totally fair. Your mama might reach across the table and tap her on the hand and go, honey, we got this. You never know. You never know.

And I hope that for you. Sure. Go have a great party. That'd be great. Have it. It's a cool question, Jimmy. Thanks for free. It's obvious you've been listening to us the way you've used some of the words

back at us. So thank you for that. Our scripture of the day, Matthew 5, 14 and 15, you are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. Oh, guys, come on. They give me Charlie Kirk quote.

Oh man If you believe in something You need to have the courage to fight for those ideas Not run away from them Or try and silence them Wow Oh Makes me cry

All right Heather's in Illinois Hey Heather what's up Yes Dave I need to know your thoughts on a couple things I'm an 82 year old widow and I have approximately, well, first of all, I do own my own home and my car. I have about $236,000.

It earns about 4.4%. I also have about $10,000 in an emergency fund, but I have no debts except $16,000 on some windows that I bought and it's my payment is not due for 16 months and there's no interest on them and I need to know shall I just wait until the time is up and pay that amount or do I should I start paying on it now because my other concern is if I should have to go into a nursing home and I don't know what your thoughts are on that as far as how much money I need to have set aside. Okay.

What are you living on per month? About 3,500. So pretty much your Social Security is covering you? Social Security and pension, yes. Okay. What is your pension total? What's the total of those two things? Is that $3,500?

Well, the total of both of them together is $3526 a month. Okay. So you're able to live on that without touching the 232? Yes, I am. Or even the interest on the 232. Yes. You're letting it grow. Yes.

Okay. All right. The deal with the interest-free windows is if you do not get it paid off exactly on time, they're going to backcharge you through the entire contract a huge interest rate. And so as a matter of safety, because those things are a bear trap. Those systems that they put those together with the intent that you don't pay it on time. They're a bear trap. And so I want you to, I want you to go ahead and clear it for no other reason except that I don't want the bear trap to get you.

Okay. And that way it doesn't, it doesn't give you any, you know, there's no dispute because it's so far away. And you get very clear, complete documentation from them that, says paid in full, nothing else due. So they don't come back later and say, you still load $10, so we're going to charge your interest on the whole thing all the way back through, because that's the kind of thing these shysters do. Okay.

So I want to make sure that doesn't happen, and let's get very clear documentation, paid in full, and go ahead and pay it. You don't have to do it sometime in the next month or two, okay? Yeah, where is the 232 sitting, Heather? Is it just in a high-yield? High-yield savings? Well, I've got about $206,000 in money market and $30,000 in large-cap stocks. Yeah.

So you can just write a check out of that money market and pay the bill. So call them or have them send you an email or something that gives you an exact payoff by an exact date. Send that in and then hound them until they give you some kind of documentation states paid in full because I don't want the bear trap anywhere near you. okay so that's a minor thing that that that's done now we've got 216,000 and because we just spent 16 all right and now what do we do with nursing home so what is your home worth oh about 160 probably okay all right and so um there there's two options uh really that you could go with um and I'm going to recommend you go ahead and spend some of your time getting prepared for one or both of them, all right?

Option number one is your best option that I like in terms of quality is I'm going to start investigating full-time care in your home. Okay. It's a better quality of life for you. You get to stay in the house and you got one-on-one care. it's almost like you're it's hard for someone like you but it's almost emotionally because you're but you're basically hiring a butler with a nursing degree sure okay and i want them i want them to just move in there and take care of heather and if you have to have two of them and do two shifts

because things get bad because you need someone night and day that's still going to be cheaper than a nursing home okay and it's going to be nicer for you than a nursing home Now, if you need more care, you need to have investigated some of the nursing homes in the area. Get in the car and go look at them. Shop. Let's go shopping. Because on average, what would a good one cost? And have them price it out in your area. There's probably three or four within a 20 or 25 mile radius of you there. And let's go, that one's the, this one's the expensive one. But look at what the stuff they've got. This is the medium and this is the other medium and this is the one I don't want to go to. And you're going to

find all three there and the expense of the medium and the one you don't want to go to and you know go ahead and get that figured out and then that'll tell you what you've got because your 200,000 is making you only about $8,000 a year and so if you're going to start if you start burning through that money we've got to figure out how long it's going to last yes and so the nursing home is going to be okay let's just make up up numbers if you did it if you did the in-house care and it was 10,000 a month for for people working in your home and that took over everything well I mean we know what that is is 20 months sure sure okay um I will tell you the interesting stat um it's a little bit depressing because

the way we're talking about it but the average nursing home stay is only 2.3 years okay um and I guess that's because by the time you get there you don't live long Not because they kill people. But, you know what I'm saying? So, I mean, we're just at the end times, right? So I, because I'm looking at that stuff, too. I'm 65. And so I'm talking, my wife and I are talking about this stuff too.

What are we going to do in this case or that case if something happens to one of us? And is the other one going to just take care of them in the home? Yeah, that's what we're going to do. We're just going to hire help in the home instead of going to a nursing home. Your children will help too. Well, I know. I'm not, but you're not moving in. No.

You have a life and stuff. No, but I'll just hire, you know, I'll hire Sharon and a butler. I mean, you know, I'll do it. I mean, I'm happy to do that. And so all that. So anyway, you just kind of got to, you develop a plan and you look at what it costs and then you see what your burn rate on the money is. And then that tells you that you got $200,000 plus the value of this house to get through that.

And if you outlive all of that in a nursing home, you're going to end up in a Medicaid nursing home, which is a welfare nursing home, and it's a different level than the other stuff we're talking about. So, you know, that's going to be your last resort, not your first choice. And so, but I'm an advocate for building out a system if it's possible for medically possible and financially possible to stay in the home if you can write the checks to cause that to happen. If you can do it, yep. Yeah, and some of you that have built large net worths that are listening, that's your best shot, really. It's your best option.

Especially if the home's paid for everything. But for people like Sharon and me or Heather or people that have worked our whole lives, the idea of having, you know, Downton Abbey in the house, you know, have the help in the house, so to speak, is weird for us. We don't think, we're not Butler-type people. So we've kind of got to get our emotions around that if we're going to do it. I mean, they aren't medically trained professionals. I know, but I'm just saying, you know, I'm going to ring a little bell here. I mean, it's just a little strange for people like me, you know.

That puts us out of The Ramsey Show and 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.