The Ramsey Show - App - You Can’t Outearn Bad Spending Habits Forever

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, my daughter, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Elena is in Huntington, West Virginia. Hi, Elena. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? So I've been watching you for a long time, for years now, and I have just saved my $1,000.

Good. And I am also drowning in student debt, credit card, and my car loan. I do have a job. I make about $50,000. My debt is a little bit more, around $65,000. I hate my job and I want to go to school, but I don't know if that's a good idea because of the amount of debt that I have. I'm trying to figure out what the best way is to get out of this mess, basically. What's your current job? What are you working that you're not enjoying? I work in property management. I'm an assistant property manager.

Okay. And is it the field that you're not enjoying or is it the specific company, do you think? Because you said you want to go back to school. I'm just curious what else is out there that you're thinking. Yeah, so I think it's just the field. This is actually a Christian-based company, which is super awesome. So I think it's just the field.

I'm not happy here. It's just not fulfilling. I do love kids, so I've always wanted to pursue NICU nursing. But I graduated in Hawaii, and the diploma I got from there is not recognized. I would have to go back to school for a GED and then go to college. But with all the debt and the mess that I have, it's just kind of overwhelming, and I really don't know kind of where to go. Well, I think we're doing this a little bit backward

you want to run to something not from something as far as your career goes um and so what i would do if i were in your shoes is i would very clearly identify and spend some time and some soul searching and we'll even give you some tools to help you with this, identifying exactly what you want to do with your life in this next chapter. Going back to school, in air quotes, is a really bad idea unless that particular degree is necessary to do the thing you want to do. Okay? Right.

And sometimes when people are running from something, they, air quotes, go back to school, as if that's going to solve anything. It's not going to solve anything. You need to actually be studying toward becoming the thing you want to be. Did you say you wanted to be a pediatric nurse a NICU nurse a NICU nurse so yeah okay and your high school diploma does not count yeah so I graduated from a competency adult community school and apparently that is not recognized nationally and I have to go back for a GED, which is crazy because I've been using that pretty much my whole life.

Okay, so right now, you're a high school graduate that needs to pass a GED to prove it, right? Basically. And then you would have to go through all your undergrad and go through nursing school to be a nursing NICU. Okay. So what Ken Coleman would tell you to do, that is one of our Ramsey personalities that's written extensively on this idea, is he would tell you to go over there in your off hours and volunteer in the NICU to rock babies. That is true.

And talk to the nurses that are there and tell them it's going to take you six years to be one of them. Is it worth it? Yeah. Now, I'm a huge fan of nursing as a career field, but I like little babies is a long way from I want to go to school for six years to be a NICU nurse. That's a different thing. That's a lot different. Okay.

So because nursing at times is gross. Nursing at times is very stressful. Nursing at times will break your heart. Nursing at times will cause your back and your feet to hurt and ache. It's hard work. It's a great career field, but it's way different than I have a heart for children. You follow me?

Yeah. So what I want you to do is get your arms around what it is you want to do and exactly what the cost is. And then we're in. I don't want you to spend six years and end that whatever we're studying gets us there and then number three what are some interim steps we can take to move in the direction of the field while you're talking about going to school there so while you're working on your undergrad and passing your ged and getting your undergrad going at your local community college there in west virgin, which you can do your first two years there just fine, you're probably keeping the job you've got. Or you're getting a better job making more money,

but maybe not in your career field. Or if you can find something where they'll pay you $40,000 a year to be in and around the medical field, and you can get a sniff of what it is you're signing up for, then I would go along with that. Yeah I would tell you too Elena just with the numbers you gave not even thinking future just presence right you're you need the money you need yeah and so what are things you can do because I would tell you regardless if you wanted a career change or not on this call part of the solution of you getting out of this debt is going to have to

be upping your income and so whatever you're doing beyond your current job, let it be around kids. Like I would go on care.com and see if somebody needs a nanny from 6 to 9 p.m. or whatever, right? Like finding things in that that are going to make you more money to get out of debt and start your financial process and this ball rolling to get you ahead financially but then also if you compare that with some level of your passion of what you're talking about while at the same time doing exactly what you're saying um but you're you need more money right now i mean in my opinion for the amount of debt that you that you have you can scratch the kid itch by joining the children's ministry at your local church yes and they need they need your help, by the way, because they're always perpetually understaffed.

And again, this isn't about— I do have a— Go ahead. Do you have a what? I was going to say something really important, too, because I am a believer and a follower of Christ, but I did do something really stupid. And when my sister passed away early this year, I would say I was super vulnerable and dealing with grief, not knowing how to deal with grief for the first time, and when my sister passed away early this year um i would say i was super vulnerable and dealing with grief not knowing how to deal with grief for the first time and i ended up moving

um of course from my first job early this year paying about 70 000 to live with my boyfriend and now we're living in this house unmarried we're not seeing eye to eye in terms of finances um that's easy that's easy to undo isn't it yeah yeah yeah move out my dad always said my dad always said why pay for the the cow um when you can get the milk for free right so i'm kind of struggling dad's a wise man and um so yeah but you can fix that you can just move out where where were you living when you were making 70 in arlington virginia can you get that job oh that's more expensive than huntington west virginia i don't know that you were netting 20 more that's a very expensive place to live okay

yeah i mean you can you can reverse that you can just say hey i'm doing something i'm not proud of and i'm not gonna do it anymore that's a decision just like the decision to do something wrong is you can make a decision to do something right so go go do that, kiddo. Hang on. We're going to get you signed up for Ken Coleman's everything. I want her to get the assessment and the proximity principle book and the whole thing. Black Friday's here. We've got gifts for everyone on your Christmas list. Our best-selling books like The Total Money Makeover, Baby Steps Millionaires, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, and more are on sale for just $12 each. The Total Money Makeover, of course, is the roadmap that's helped people walk the baby steps, over 12 million of them now. We hear it all the time.

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I know. They're well built. $54.99 for all three. Check out the Black Friday deals at RamseySolutions.com slash store. And this thing took off. It did good. Yes, it did. I know.

It's a great series. It is great. It's been, it was a fun project to do. And, you know, talking about the intangible parts of money, you know, contentment and gratitude,

generosity, those kinds of topics I feel like are harder sometimes for to grasp and to teach your kids. So I was like, okay, how do we put that in a sweet children's book? So those are the three topics and they're short. You're welcome.

Parents. They rhyme. The illustrations are beautiful and it's the same animals in all three books so that's been fun people buying each one as they've launched that they see the same characters so you'll get to kind of follow them along on these adventures learning about their topics and the uh the illustrator lauren just did an incredible yeah i mean they're just they're i mean they're beautiful it's world-class stuff it's really really real proud of this product for those of you that got kids and grandkids.

Be sure and check them out. Because you do, hey, listen, you teach a child gratitude. You teach a child generosity. Generous people are just highly attractive. You're teaching your kid to be a high-quality adult when they are grateful and generous. Because think about how many adults you wish were grateful and you wish their parents had taught them that hello so i mean that's part of being a good dad a good mom a good grandpa good grandma too by the way uh do not think that papa dave is not above reading his daughter's books to his daughter's kids i have

been known to keep it all in the family here. It's happened. All right. Justin is with us in San Diego. Hi, Justin. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, guys. Good morning.

Thank you for your time also. Sure. I'm trying to figure out, I have a three-year-old, and all of the money that we get for her birthdays and, like, holidays and things like that, we've just kind of been putting into a CD that's yielding about 5.29% annual return. And I want to give it to her when she's 18 as like a life starter kind of fund. So I don't want to put it into a 529 or retirement fund. Is there anything better that has a higher yield or better return for her when she does reach 18?

Are you saving for her college? I'm active duty military, and I just finished my master's, so I've already transferred all of the benefits over to her. So I'm going to take her through community college, and then I'll pay for that, and then pretty much all of her master's is going to be completed. I already paid for it. Okay.

She has all that already. Okay. The answer to your question is just a simple mutual fund, and when I'm doing something like that, I just pick a good growth stock mutual fund that has a long track record. And I did that for our kids because when Rachel was a baby, there was no 529s or esas and so we used just put the money in the kid's name uh and then it's taxed at the growth is taxed at the kid's rate which is

nothing for a long time because they have a standard deduction and so um the uh it's called an UTMA, Uniform Transfer to Minors Act, which is, by the way, the exact same document you use to open up a savings account if you put a name on that savings account you opened. That's CD? I did. Okay, that's called an UTMA. It's an UTMA as well. Anything you do in a kid's name that's not 18 years old where the parent is the custodian

falls under the UTMA, the Uniform Transfer to Minors Act. It's a law, okay? It's a process because you can't contract and do financial transactions until you're 18 years old in America. So children can't have a standalone account. It's impossible. Parents have to be on it or someone has to be on it as a custodian um and the utma now the downside with the utma is when they turn 18 years old technically speaking the money is theirs

and you have zero control so if you have a 17 year old heroin addict with a hundred thousand dollars getting to come her way oh you know you don't have control well i mean you don't have control maybe a 17 year old who likes to shop i don't know someone has 17 year olds out there somewhere someone did okay so you don't have control over this money you're getting ready to fund her misbehavior if she's misbehaving at 17 okay okay so because you need to be aware of that or like with our kids what we told them is if you're misbehaving i'm gonna steal the money and sue me good luck but that's illegal okay you can't really do that and i can't advise you to do that so but i'm not gonna fund your misbehavior i'm not gonna save up a hundred grand for you but come on just But come on. Justin's going to give her money at 18.

I believe you, Justin. You feel like a solid parent. I'm sure his angel's not going to make any mistakes. No, I'm not saying that she's not going to make any mistakes. The thing is this. That's what you're up against. I personally did not. I went that route for your college fund.

I did not go that route for the little savings account that he's dealing with we kept that little savings account birthday money and that kind of stuff in place right and that was the money that helped seed the car first car that's right that's what i was going to say justin depending on the amount yeah you know this could be something that she gets earlier that is attached to something that she's wanting, whether it is a car at 16, but something that is useful for her that doesn't necessarily have to be this big investment

and put it in a big investment fund. But would you still, I mean, still with the longevity of being three to 18, that 15 years, you would still probably put it in, would you still put it in a mutual fund? I don't mind 5% because it's not going to be that much money yeah it's not it's not gonna be

twenty five thousand dollars it's gonna be twenty five hundred dollars so if it's just putting birthday money in there grandma's 20 bucks yeah but if he wants to be funding more of his money then you would do a mutual fund over here for more money to be putting in there for the daughter. Yeah, I would. And so to expand on that one step further, what we did do also was we took the kids' little miscellaneous savings account and we added to it. And then when they started talking about being like 10 or 11 years old, we started talking to them about, we're not buying you a car when you turn 16.

We will match whatever you put in.'re going to do 401 dave and i'll match whatever you put in and so if you put in nothing you're going to have a nice bicycle when you're 16 so get you know let's start talking about doing some chores and putting some money in adding to this little account that we've already got started for you. And then they save up. And if I recall, you can correct me. But if I recall, you had somewhere around with you had somewhere around five or six thousand dollars and we matched it.

Hold on. OK. I had eight. Eight. OK. Thousand dollars. And I put eight with it. Yeah.

And you got a little used Beamer. Sixteen thousand dollars. Sixteen sixteen thousand dollars it was a great little car took me all the way through college it was a great little car it was good yeah it sure did and um and the other two siblings did the exact same thing um i will tell you parents if you're going to use that matching idea uh be careful if you have uh in case you have one of those kids that is a nerd super saver and this highly motivates them you may end up having to match 30 grand if you don't put a limit on it so i would suggest you put a limit on it i did have one of those um uh her brother named daniel and he just about it was ridiculous and so we had to come around and come negotiate a different thing not I did match him but he was generous with some of the money and

used some of the money for his car because it was so stinking and he bought your old jeep or something I mean he even yeah yeah he's he's just a conservative dude but I mean he saved everything it was crazy so put a limit on it we will match it up when he got a head start parents you know I'm like four years shy. He had four extra years on us. Yeah. Well, he watched you two and found out we were serious about this, that it wasn't a game. We weren't kidding.

And he went, oh, crap, I really got to do this. And he turned on the coals, and there you go. So put a limit on it, and you can do match. And I use the small accounts for something like that. I use the UTMA for a big thing. If you're doing a big thing, Jerry, that's what I would do if you're going that way, Justin. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's.

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Thank you very much. Courtney is in Dallas. Hi, Courtney. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

Nothing much. I was wondering if you guys could tell me what the benefit is of not using an escrow account to pay for home insurance and taxes? Two things. One, you get to keep the money all year and earn interest on it instead of it sitting in an account that's not interest-bearing until you pay your taxes and pay your insurance, so it accrues interest. The second one is you don't screw up the accounting, and mortgage companies notoriously screw up the accounting on escrow accounts, and they get out of balance, and there's an escrow shortage, and then they raise your payment to make up the shortage,

or they just miscalculate something, and you've got somebody that's the lowest common denominator running the calculation too many times. And when I used to own a bunch of property with debt back in the day, I would say as many as 40% of the accounts were screwed up. So I don't know if it's still that bad because I haven't had a mortgage in 30 plus years. But I suspect it is still a problem. The benefit of using the escrow account is it's on autopilot.

You don't have to think about it. Right. Okay. And most people don't manage their money well enough, they end up not having the money to pay their taxes or not having the money to pay their insurance. It sneaks up on them like Christmas. Yeah, and I know that some mortgage companies don't even give you the option sometimes.

They require you to use an escrow account. Correct. A typical conforming mortgage, meaning a Fannie Mae, FHA, or VA, will require it because they want to make sure that the house they have a lien against doesn't burn or it isn't taken for taxes right okay and so yeah you don't really have a choice I personally if I were you I I would just use the escrow account but I would stay on them to make sure it's the proper amount. Okay. How do you recommend staying on top of them?

Well, you just want to make sure that the amount being taken out of your payment for print, your payment is principal interest. If it has escrow, it's taxes and insurance P I T I. And you want to make sure the amount being held out for taxes and insurance each month is one-twelfth of the total of your taxes and insurance. It shouldn't be less than that because you're going to come up short, and then they're going to have a shortage because they're going to pay it either way. They don't want you to be behind. Or there could be an overage. Let's say they're taking out more than they need to.

And so just make sure that the numbers are right, and just look at it once a year and make sure they're taking out more than they need to. And so just make sure that the numbers are right and just look at it once a year and make sure they're not, you know, if your taxes and your insurance actually go up and they don't change the amount being withheld for it, you're going to get behind, right? Right. That's one of the ways you'd look at it. So that's the kind of thing you're doing. So I would use the escrow if i were in that situation

i don't recommend because i put everything on autopilot that i can just so you don't have to yeah so say everyone yeah even though it's not earning interest it's not enough interest to matter it's okay yeah yeah and um more people are going to screw it up by not saving up the money right and the mortgage company's going to screw up the escrow account. Yeah, that's probably true. Totally. Yeah. And we have a part of our website that talks all about this and all real estate at ramsaysolutions.com slash real estate.

That's kind of our real estate home base because it's one topic when it comes to your money that we get so many questions. So if you guys need more resources, there's free stuff, videos and articles and calls from the show. There's so much there to help you in this topic of your money when it comes to your home. Yeah, ramseysolutions.com slash real estate.

Honestly, that portion of our site is massive because we get so much question on real estate and it's really a nice resource to help you. Yeah, for sure. So good stuff. It's a good question good good question courtney yes excellent excellent question jerry is with us in norfolk virginia hi jerry welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you so i my question i have a bunch of accounts i have a charles rob brokerage account. I have Charles Schwab IRA traditional and a Charles Schwab Roth. Now I also, well, I also have a principal. Now principals,

the company, my employer handles are 401. So I was looking at their website and it looks like they charged me about a hundred bucks a month to have that account. Really? I have the option. Yeah, I thought that was kind of high. That's wrong. Well, that's what it says under fees. You have a 401K, and they're charging you with your company?

Correct. I'm a hospital employee. And there's a 403b or 401k? 401k. And they're charging you $100 a month, $1,200 a year. Actually, $300 a quarter, if you want to be specific. But, yes, basically, yeah, it says it right here. Plan administrative services, $288.70.

Is that being deducted from your account, or is your employer paying that? I don't know. I'm just looking at the website where it says plan fees. So I'm assuming I'm paying it. I'm not, because you shouldn't be. Okay, well, that's a plus um i i would be very unusual as a matter of fact your employer shouldn't be paying that much per employee that's asinine amount of money yeah i kind of thought so yeah i don't pay anywhere near that i got 1200 employees with a 401k plan here no we've not even close to that i would fire those

people in a heartbeat if they're charging me that well how do i find out if i'm paying that then call hr on the website it says plan fees yeah well i mean it can be a plan fee but the plan wasn't instituted by you it's instituted by the employer so it's possible they're being charged that that's just ludicrous i i would call hr and i would call principal both and ask them It was instituted by the employer. So it's possible they're being charged that. That's just ludicrous. I would call HR and I would call principal both and ask them. Okay. Just call principal and go, hey, I got a 401k and I'm looking at the statement here.

And this feels like, you know, like you guys should be wearing a mask like you're robbers. Oh, my gosh. No, really. That's just ridiculous. What was what was your question though jerry your original question you called in so my question was now i now have the option of instead of the money going to principal to take care of it i can have it go to charles schwab which then i would have the hospital is allowing that? Yes. Yeah, I don't know if that's new or not, but I was actually talking to them, and they said, if you want, we can have it go to a Charles Schwab account.

So I'm assuming it's some kind of lockdown-type account. But then I would have total control to buy, sell, or do whatever I want with it. But that kind of scares me because at least with principle, I have theoretically an expert looking after it versus me, the amateur looking after it. So I'm basically looking for your advice. Is the $1,200 that I thought I was paying worth an expert looking at it? No. But you can get another expert. You don't have to do this other thing.

Okay, I'm seriously confused. I have no idea what the flip your company is doing. Because a company has a single 401k administrator. If principal is their administrator, they cannot send your 401k money to Schwab. It's illegal. They can't do it. You have a single, you can't have four different 401k companies at your company. There's no such thing. It doesn't work. Okay. So I absolutely have no idea what you're up against. The only thing I can do is tell you to call one of our smart investor pros and see if they can unravel this for you. Just go to Ramsey solutions.com and click on smart investor. By the way, they can help you

if you're going to be doing side investing. This is the Ramsey show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system.

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and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Joshua is in Seattle. Hey, Joshua, how are you? Doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I recently retired from the military, medically retired from the military. Um, and after I had gotten out, I, there was about a month of no household income, uh, whatsoever. Um, and we kind of ran into some financial hardship

and, uh, with Christmas coming up, I have three young children. Um, and I'm wondering should I kind of sacrifice their happiness Christmas morning to continue to you know pay off this debt I'm about $1,800 in credit card debt and about $4,000 in collections right now. And roughly bringing in about $5,500, $6,000 a month. $6,000 a month. How old are you, Joshua? I'm 24. Thank you for your service. What happened that you were medically discharged?

Are you okay? So I was injured in the line of duty. My back was injured, and they decided that I could no longer serve how they needed me to. Are you okay for other things, though? Are you back to work, doing a job now? So I'm currently not working. I'm drawing pension from the military. Why are you not working?

I'm currently going to school full-time. Okay. Why? I want to – I've always kind of worked more labor type of jobs, hard on your body. What are you studying? I'm going to school for business administration with a major in project management. Okay. And you just started?

Yes, I did just, I just started. You're planning to not work for four years? Yes. Is your four years? Yes. Is your wife working? No. We have three young children. She's a stay-at-home mom. Okay.

And when I went through four years, I worked 40 to 60 hours a week while I was going to school. Absolutely. You need a job. Yes. I have been networking a little bit, trying to get an internship or an apprenticeship somewhere i don't want you to get an internship or an apprenticeship i want you to get a job okay you need money yes i'm aligned with you using your military benefits to get a degree i'm not aligned with you not working for four years while you have three kids

and you're calling me about them having no Christmas. Absolutely. Um, no, no, no, of course. Um, but I'm, I'm, I'm bringing in around $63,000 a year. I know, but you're calling me about not being able to buy your children Christmas and you're not working. Absolutely. That's just because of the, well, obviously military doesn't pay very much. I just got out of active duty. And we hit a... So Joshua, I think here's the hard thing. If I can just be pretty frank with you. Absolutely. You know, what you, you you know have done service for our country like incredibly grateful for you and all military families out there i can't even imagine like what you all go through so i so appreciative um but now on this side you know you're 24 you have

a wife and you have three kids and there's a reality of a world that is, hey, I'm a grown up and we have responsibilities and we don't get a choice just to go do what we want. We kind of have to do what we need to do. And what you need to do, right, is start having money. And so if I were you, Joshua, and I don't know how far you are into this, maybe one semester of school, but if it's too much of a load not to be working full time and maybe it's you're driving uber but i'm just saying even for us even for a year or two this is where you want to go but you guys are underwater financially so that to me there's not a choice to go to school like you know i would be i would be finding a job well you can go to school and job yeah that's a lot though but

and i work 40 to 60 hours a week and graduated in four years i know but they have four thousand dollars in collections so like so go to work yeah so here's the thing when does classes let out dude um so i'm i'm currently on online fully online okay good so you control when you want to go to class yes oh that makes it even better so you can work like an eight hour day yeah but we did just have a newborn uh that's another reason your wife is at home with three kids that'd be like her job absolutely you need money you need to go get a job joshua like right now you need to be doing grubhubub and Uber and something else by the end of the day, and you can buy your babies Christmas. And by the way, the newborn don't even know it's Christmas.

So it's a non-issue here, okay? You feed them and change their diaper, they're a happy puppy. All right, so let's move on. Up until about five years old, they don't really know. Yeah, they don't have any idea what's going on here. But, dude, you can't call me up and act like that you can't fund Christmas. This is Thanksgiving. You got a whole freaking month.

You can save up the money for Christmas by working during this month. That is the answer to your equation. Go get six part-time jobs that equal eight to ten hours a day and do your stinking online at night while the babies are asleep. I wrote Financial Peace from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. That's when I wrote that book because I had babies I had to feed and I couldn't sit there and go, I'm now an author. I don't work anymore. I didn't have that as an option. The freaking electric bill guy didn't care if'm now an author. I don't work anymore. I didn't have that as an option.

The freaking electric bill guy didn't care if I was an author. He wanted, like, money, or they cut off my electricity. Because if he's, and he's pulling the $6,000 from his pension. He's got a lot of money coming in. But, yes, and that's, but is that robbing from his retirement? No, no, no, no, no. His military retirement is huge because he's military disabled. Because he's disabled.

Okay, okay, okay. He's getting a bazillion dollars. I was thinking this is taking from their life when they want to retire. He's got a bazillion dollars coming in. No, it's just that he makes $72,000 a year sitting on his butt. And they pay for him to go to school. And we, the taxpayers, should. And we should.

Yes. That's fine yes but dude that the answer to your question is not only do your kids have Christmas you keep working after Christmas and you only need 5800 to be debt free you can have that by March so first let's go get the kids some Christmas and then let's get Joshua out of debt by March. And Joshua, can I just tell you too, as a mom with little kids, like, especially if they're a newborn, a two year old, I mean, he's 24. So a two year old and a three year old, like I'm assuming they're all under six, I would think.

They don't know, like go to the target section and they just want to open up gifts. Like they don't really care what's in it. They just want to have the wrapping paper and the experience of opening gifts. So like go so cheap, like go so cheap. cheap that stuff is gonna be thrown out by april anyways all the crap we buy so like yeah so even that and that's for all of them i mean well i gotta tell you i mean rachel when she was little we would spend all this stinking money on the kids christmas and then dadgum uncle mac would go to the dollar store and come in with like a garbage bag full of toys that were garbage and he was a bigger hit than we were and he spent like

20 bucks and we spent like 200 and let's just say Mac was the fun uncle that's right and in this consumer driven world and especially in this season. I think his phrasing was, and this is not to pick on you, Joshua, because this is everyone, to make my kids happy. It is just stuff. We are such a disconnected culture anyways. The amount of people that we are on devices and phones and TVs and screens. Your kids want you, parents. They want you.

So go find an experience to do with them and that's going to create more memories not joshua so they want him to go to work do what i said his kids want him to go to work they don't want him they want him to go to work well he needs to go to work and he needs to be with them when he can not he can be with him a little bit later right now he needs to go to work right now he needs some money you call me up and tell me you can't buy your kids christmas i'll cry for about 30 seconds and until i find out you don't have a job okay and then my crying's done i know but my point is last thanksgiving we took the kids to a school parking

lot and they rode bikes around we all rode bikes around for an hour and they still talked about like i'm like that's what i'm saying is kids are so low maintenance so joshua don't put that pressure and parents out there this christmas like and by the way they already had the bikes so it was built in that was like a freebie so there we go yeah there you go wow joshua you got this you can go to work you got this hey we are proud of your military service and we love you so much we're going to tell you the truth don't call her if you don't want that this is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Open phones this hour as we take your calls about your life and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, and host, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, Rachel Cruz. My daughter is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Teresa is with us in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Teresa. How are you? Well, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? I know.

I have grown children that I need off my payroll. And I'm on baby step two. I've over-saved, actually, on one. And I can't seem to get any further because I have a 30 year old that works part time. He says he can't find a job. His resume is three pages long. He has no education, no skills per se. His father, we can go way back, was abusive. So he was put in a mental place for a while for PTSD and some bipolar issues. So when he gets out of that and now we don't have a full-time job, my daughter is wanting to start back to school in January. And I'm still doing a student loan from when she was doing it before. I know I'm enabling, and I don't know how to stop, and I don't want them living on the street.

I can go on for days. Let me help you. If they're 31 and they're on the streets, it's their choice. I know. Not yours. And I don't know. It's hard. You don't want them to be that way. I don't want them to be that way either, honey. Well, and he has some, I mean, from what you outlined, is he taking care of himself? Like medically? No, he does not take care of himself.

Medically though? No, he does not. Like take medication, all of it for bipolar? Like is he? He'll start it and he doesn't take it. And he'll start it and he doesn't take it. Does he live in your house? He does start it, and then he doesn't take it, and he'll start it, and he doesn't take it. He does not because that would cause conflict, and I don't.

Good. I put him in an apartment. He had a beautiful apartment, and I took him out of the beautiful apartment, and then I put him in a crap hole. It's literally a crap hole. Good. Thinking he'll go, oh, this is. Well, there's a chance he can afford that.

It's still $1,200. It's still $1,200. I'm still helping pay for it all right so what you have to ask yourself is 10 years from today what is best for him what is best for your daughter what is the most loving act you can give them? I'll answer that for you. Please do. That they have the dignity of having stood on their own two feet like adults. Okay.

You are taking their dignity away from them. Writing. And I have screamed, cried, prayed. God thinks i'm just being funny now 100 percent of enablers are sweet people you are a sweet person you are devastating your children you're hurting them i teach i know better i know how to make my children at school you know if you get it through your head that you're harming them you'll quit doing it I teach, I know better, I know how to make my children at school, you know, problems off. If you get it through your head that you're harming them, you'll quit doing it. Okay.

You've got to actually accept the reality that you're harming them. Okay. And once you do that, you'll quit doing it. You wouldn't ever give a drunk a drink. You wouldn't ever give a bag of heroin to a heroin addict. You would never do that. You're too sweet a person. Right?

Yes, absolutely. Because you're bringing harm to them. Yeah, but I will say there's a level of complication and complexity from what you kind of just outlined that he he he has some he has issues i mean he he spent time in a mental facility he has mental health so how long ago oh god so that's been a good five years ago yeah and he they both have this you know this abusive father thing going on but i can't get rid of it you know i'm like let it go let it go we'll go see a therapist yeah the uh the thing the thing is this okay i don't i'm not suggesting i'm not suggesting that

you're mean spirited or even that you just announce suddenly in a fit of anger that i'm done i've had it that's not what we're suggesting But I would say that I'm going to look at this young man at Christmas and say, and daughter and daughter and say, okay, I can do 60 more days of this. And so I'm making that number up. You can decide whether you want to 30 days or 60 days. You can't go longer than 60. I won't let you. All right. Okay. But I'm going to support and I'm going to give you some help for the next 60 days. This is your warning. So you need to ramp up to get ready to receive zero as of February, as of March one, the end of February. Okay. And you tell them that they're in christmas here and you say i love you and i'm really so

sorry that i have mishandled my relationship with you because it's kept you from going and being all that you want to be and i'm going to be so proud of you when you go and be all that you're supposed to be and i'll be cheering for you and i'll be here and i'll be here to cry with you and also theresa yeah and theresa you just know you're not in a place to be able to help someone financially you're in baby step two you're broke you have debt right i'm like so so that's i mean that's part of the equation i mean honestly and i think you know maybe there's other options if you were on the other side of all of this financially of things of like okay but you you don't you don't have money if you were a multi-millionaire i would tell you exactly the same thing though but you can say hey mom's broke and part of the reason i'm broke is i've been supporting these adult children which

is an actual oxymoron this is a weird phrase we use adult children what does that mean even but the um but yeah i'm and i'm not able to do it anymore and i'm not able to do it anymore, and I'm not going to do it anymore because I've come to realize that I'm bringing you harm when I'm doing that. And so the good news is I'm giving you a little warning. The bad news is as of March 1, you will receive zero from me going forward except my love, my prayers, and my cheerleading. But there will be no more money after this date. And you set the date and make it very clear. Don't hedge around it and don't go, well, if you can't. No, shut up.

Very clear. This is the date. It's a contract. And then follow it up with an email just reminding you what I told you over Christmas. I love you. I'm cheering for you. I'll be here for you. If you need a meal, come over.

I'll feed you dinner, but there'll be no more money after March 1. I'm broke, and I'm having to clean up my mess, and I'm cheering for you to go be your best self. Okay. Okay. Are you going to do that because you love them so much you're gonna make them have their own dignity i love you so much i'm gonna do that for everybody you're sweet you are the sweetest lady all the enablers enablers are the nicest people but it's but it's so i mean

theresa seriously though like as a mom it's devastating. I mean, like, that would be so difficult if you really did believe, if I'm not helping my child, they're going to be on the street. If you really do, if you don't believe that you're bringing them harm, you're not facing reality. I know. Because it's not a sustainable life to live without dignity. I hear you. I know. But it's just hard. I'm just empathizing with Teresa.

It's hard. That's why you bought your own milk shortly after getting out from under my control. I don't buy stuff anymore. You're going to make your own. Oh, I know. Make your own way, little pig. I know. Make your own way. There's a big bad wolf out there. Be careful. Make your own way. I'll be cheering for you. Hey, you guys, I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place.

Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. It's easy to join and Fairwinds partners with more than 5,000 credit union locations around the country, so you can bank in person wherever you live. But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking

and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. If you've made student loan mistakes with zeros on the end well we're not judging you but we are saying it's up to you to do something about it contact why refi they were created specifically for people with defaulted private student loans not government loans if that's you go to why refi.com slash ramsey that's the letter y r e f y dot com slash ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be available in all states.

Today's question comes from Daniel in Alaska. I tithe and donate extra to the church where my family and I attend. Our donations this year will be around $20,000 in tithes and offerings. The church is not registered as a non-profit organization? Should I keep donating big sums to them? We still want to give our tithes even though we don't get a 503 non-profit letter, but we are hesitant in donating more because we're afraid we won't be able to claim it on our taxes. Churches don't have to be 501c3s to be deductible. It's not required by the code. The IRS code does not require that. They have to be formed as a religious organization they can't be involved in politics and they can't be running a

for-profit under the same roof uh of some kind but if they're operating as a true standalone church and their job is to minister to the flock and take care of the widows and orphans and serve the community as a typical church would you are fine they're those yeah their irs does not require them to be a 501 but he says i'm yeah but i'm afraid we won't be able to claim it in our taxes you can you can it's deductible oh okay the irs does not require that they be a 501 c3 oh i'm sorry okay i hear you yeah required and also i don't know i to me the giving aspect like giving out of your hearts you know desires and what you want and the tax write-off is just like an added great thing but that's not the main motivator i would not give to somewhere because you don't get a tax deduction exactly that feels weird to me exactly now i will ask this question

though daniel most churches and we've had Financial Peace University taught in 50,000 churches in North America, so we interface with the church community all the time. We're a huge supporter of the Bride of Christ. We love the church, okay? And most churches go ahead and apply for and get their 501c3 just so there's no question by anyone about what's going on over here um and so maybe it's a startup maybe it's a church plant in the early in the process but i would want to ask leadership why they haven't gone ahead and applied for because getting a 501c3 it uh certificate when a church is really not much of an effort.

I'm curious why they wouldn't do that. And I would ask them that. But I wouldn't not give and I would not worry about whether everything's a deduction. Now, if they're running a political action committee out of the back back there, out of the back room um yeah you could lose your deduction there that's one of the guidelines but if they're running an actual church then um you know you're you're not going to have any trouble with the tax issue but i still would ask the question why not i don't understand i can't think of a biblical reason to not do the paperwork. It would be like, okay, we have a church building,

but we didn't buy fire insurance on it. Well, why? Well, we're trusting Jesus. Jesus sent the insurance guy there. So you probably ought to buy insurance on your building. I mean, that's like, it's in second hesitations. So, I mean, that's like, it's in second hesitations. So, I mean. He's been using that joke for 30 years. I know.

It just keeps giving. It's the dad jokes that just keep working. So, as long as they keep working, my ratings don't go down. Yeah, I would get insurance on my building, and I would get a 501c3 if I was the pastor of a church, if I was on the leadership team of the church. Yeah, so asking why would be good, just out of curiosity. But also, don't be giving just to get the tax deduction. Exactly. But you can get the tax deduction according to you.

And 100%. You can ask Papa Google. He'll tell you. It's right there. It's right. Pop right up. Hey, I'll answer your question for you. All right. Pierre is in New York City. city hi pierre welcome to the ramsey show

hi dave hi rachel how are you guys better than we deserve what's up in your world uh not much just wanted some financial advice um i'm kind of in a unique unique for me at least position i'm thinking about uh well i'm thinking about maybe buying an apartment, an investment property for $200,000. And I kind of just want you guys' advice if I'm ready for it, not ready for it, or maybe I should just put on the back burner. Okay. Are you out of debt and are you going to pay cash for the apartment?

So, um, sorry, I should tell you my situation. So currently I have a two jobs, my income, I have about three incomes. Um, my salary is about 200,000 more or less. And I also, the house that I currently live in I make about three three thousand dollars comes in in total my only debt is my mortgage and a my wife's car which is about twenty five thousand okay all right well Pierre I'm I own a bunch of real estate I love real estate Rachel's husband is in the real estate business he owns a, they own a bunch of real estate. And we, both these families sitting here love real estate as an investment. The rule we live by is we pay cash for it or we don't buy it. And we only start buying investment real estate

after we're 100% debt-free home and everything. That's the rule we live by. But having done that, you will thoroughly love the real estate business when you get into it, it sounds like. It sounds like you want to do it. But if you buy this apartment right now, it's probably going to cause you financial problems, not blessings, because you're broke. You've got a freaking car payment. You don't go buy a $200,000 rental property.

So I could pay a little more in my situation. I understand it. A little more in my situation. I have $50,000 in the bank. Then write a check and pay off your car today. Understood, understood. I could do that. Yeah, you should do that.

I also had another question for you also. So I was thinking of saving up to $100K and actually pulling a HELOC on my house. I know you're really against it, but I feel like it would be a lot easier to pull the HELOC out the house how I have an income, well, I have money coming in from the rental of my primary residence. Pierre, are you 24? I'm actually 32. 32, okay. Because you sound like I sounded when I was 24. I used to say stuff like that. Ambitious. I used to say stuff like that when I was broke and it made me broker. Okay. Cause here's what you're not anticipating. You're not anticipating all the things that are going to go wrong when you own a rental

property and the renters that don't pay. And now you've got a HELOC on your house and now you have to come home and tell your wife we're losing the house because the apartment deal went sideways and we're getting foreclosed on. You don't want to have that conversation. I'm so stupid. I had that conversation when I was your age and you don't want to have that conversation. You want to do this debt free, but you're going to go ahead and do it. So I hope it works out for you. I don't think it's going to. And you asked me, so I told you the truth because I love you. don't think you should do this I think it's a really really bad idea but I don't think I can stop you I think you're going

to go learn the lesson the hard way some of us are knuckleheads and it's just how it works we have to get bonked on the head um to catch it Pierre might be listening and might be reconsidering we don't know he's not because I think what's difficult is in the present, all of that sounds good, right? Like you can line it up a situation and say, oh, if this sits in there and I have that in the carpet, you know, and it's all working, all these moving pieces. And here's the problem too, Pierre, when you start leveraging yourself like that, statistics show us and studies are showing us that stress goes up, anxiety goes up, lack of sleep starts to occur.

And you're trading your peace of mind for complications of trying to build wealth. And you're doing it in a really fast way and in an effective way because it's gonna cause other issues in other parts of your life. So be as peaceful as possible, pay off the car, work and pay down your mortgage, and then say, hey, let's save up and buy. And in 10 years, you know, 5, 10, 15 years, you guys could be wheeling and dealing and it's all your

money and with a lot of peace. So just do it the right way. Everything you're talking about can be done. Just slow it down and do it with cash instead. The best way to get rich quick, get rich slow. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.

So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs.

Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today, my daughter. One of our favorite things in the world to do is talk to one of you when you're doing your debt-free scream because you paid a price to win. You've lived like no one else, and now you're ready to live and give like no one else. We even put a debt-free scream stage

in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, and people come by and watch this show, and then they sign up and do a debt-free scream on the debt-free stage. And our favorite of all is when one of our own Ramsey family, Ramsey team members, has become debt-free, and they are on the stage. And that would be true of Matt Hudson and his wife, Terry. Matt, congratulations. You did it. Thanks, Steve. Well done.

Terry, way to go. Thank you. Wow. So Matt is a software engineer with us, has been with us 12 years. Yeah. I know. I was like, I know Matt's been here. I was like, has it been over 10 years?

And yeah, 12 years. 12 years. And in the Ramsey, in the financial peace area ramsey plus working with every dollar and working with financial peace and all that so you've seen a lot here over that 12 years how much debt have y'all paid off uh so this was our mortgage and so uh it's 133 000 how long did this take total? Uh, 11 years and three months. Okay. All right. So after you came here, yeah. Right after you came here, you got the mortgage and you said, all right, we're doing this. Yeah. We, so our oldest son is 11. And so for the first year I was here, we were both working and we didn't have kids yet. So we saved up a really nice big down payment,

got our house with a 15 year mortgage. Uh and terry quit work after everett was born uh because it was a priority for her to stay at home when they were little and uh in the past few years then with her being able to go back and work part-time then we've made some really good progress to be able to get it knocked out early way to go what's the house worth it's worth 445 i love it i love it well i'm not going to go into your personal stuff since half since half the ramsey team is standing around and i'll tell your business in front of your co-workers that would be unfair so i won't ask what your income is or what you have in your 401k that we have here but uh you guys ought to be approaching millionaire and i'm proud of you

as soon as you get there i love having millionaires work on our team so and that's the most beautiful thing i can think i've ever heard way to go you guys thank you so very very proud of you congratulations so working at ramsey is weird to start with because we're a weird bunch um but paying off debt while you're working here, it's like peer pressure to do it, isn't it? Yeah. He says it's a good thing he works here because he's the spender. Oh.

Which is true. Okay. So are you spending money on gadgets? Just kind of, yeah. You're a software engineer, so I'm guessing, yeah. Yeah, gadgets. I just have a, like, you pick an expensive hobby, I'm probably into it.

Okay. All right. All right. And Terry, like you pick an expensive hobby. I'm probably into it. Okay. All right. All right. And Terry, but you use the coworkers here and you to reign him in then. And the budget meeting. It's a good thing for both of us to get on the same page. So that's been a big key for us is to have that monthly conversation to make sure we're both working towards the same things and have our priorities together.

Yeah, that's a big deal. Well done, y'all. I'm so proud of you. That's a big deal. I mean big deal i mean to have no mortgage for half a million dollar house how old are you two i'm 42 i'm 47 wow very cool our goal was by 50 so we're glad we beat that you did it you did it slid in under the bar okay so tell me because when people are on the ladder baby steps you know when they're in four five six a question we get a lot is, okay, so how much should we be throwing extra at the mortgage to pay it off faster? So just like walk through high level, how you guys decided month to month or season, maybe it's season by season, year to year. Like, what did that look like of putting extra?

Was there sometimes that it was like, no, we didn't because we're saving for a vacation? Were there sometimes that you're like, all the extra goes on? Like, what did that look like for you guys? My youngest started kindergarten the year of 2020. So I was planning to go back to work when he started kindergarten. But with COVID being so unpredictable, I was like, let's just hold off. So I started working part time in 2021. And we had decided that all of my paycheck would go to house payoffs. So we lived

off of what Matt made and hit our savings goals with that for like vehicle replacement and stuff like that. But all of my paycheck went to house. Okay. So great. Are you still going to continue to work part-time or now that the... Yeah, we've got some other goals. We want to do some house renovations, some vacation, and of course like college funding. So yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. So what are you going to do with the the house we want to get some new floors we want to update the living room just we really haven't done much to upkeep the house since we bought it so we just kind of want to make it prettier there's yeah there's a lot of things we put off because it's like well we're almost we almost have the house paid off and once we get that done it'll well you got no payment now

yeah you got all this room yeah yeah but they're fast putting new flooring in it goes a lot quicker when you don't have a mortgage so totally it's so great you guys amazing amazing so how does it feel when you when you guys paid it off and you like sent you know what what was that like it was amazing we were at chase like five minutes before they opened and we're taking pictures outside of chase and then the employee saw us and he's like are you terry and matt come on in and so he told us the payoff balance and wrote the check and we're taking pictures outside of Chase. And then the employee saw us and he's like, are you Terry and Matt? Come on in. And so he told us the payoff balance and wrote the check and we're just sitting there like, we just did it. We did it.

I love it. Woo, and go into the parking lot and do a little dance. Yes. I like it. Very well done. Well done, you guys. All right, working here, does that make it harder or easier, seriously?

I think it made it easier because it's just like you said, you have kind of that positive peer pressure. It's not weird that we were not borrowing money and that we were paying extra on the mortgage and that kind of thing. It was just, I don't know. You have the benefit of your co-workers not making fun of you. Yeah. That's an interesting thing to have. Yeah. And quite the opposite. They might be making fun of you if that's an interesting thing to have yeah and quite the opposite they might be making fun of you if you weren't doing this but yeah yeah like we're you know just doing handling money weird and everybody else is doing the same thing so it's not like

you're an oddball around the people you work with for doing it so well obviously you don't have to work at ramsey to do this millions and millions people have. We've got tens of thousands of debt-free screams on the YouTube channel that people can watch of people from all incomes and areas of the country and situations have overcome all kinds of things. But what would you tell folks that are listening and watching the main thing from your perspective, Terry, that you have to do if you want to get out of debt? What is the key to getting out of debt? I think it's having the budget and making sure that everyone's on the same page and that you're working towards the same goal. And then also to like daydream about what happens after that helps you stay focused. Because like for us, it was 11 years, which felt like forever. And we had to keep up with our dreams. So like focusing on that after

the house pay off too hey when you mapped it out the first time what was your prediction of how long it was going to take we thought we would be done by the time our oldest entered high school and he's in sixth grade so we got done about three or four years you thought it was going to be 15 years and it was 11 yeah yeah okay most people bring it in earlier than they originally planned. Yes. Yeah, that's not unusual at all. Good job, you guys. Very proud of y'all. Great job.

All right, bring the kiddos up. Everett and Spencer are with us, good-looking young men. And so who's who and what's the ages? This is Everett. He's 11. And this is Spencer. He's 9. Okay.

So Everett came the year we bought the house, and now he lives in a debt-free house because his mom and dad are heroes oh thank you way to go you guys we're very proud of y'all it's so good to see you guys too i feel like terry i just see you at christmas parties every year so it's good to see you outside of it and i'm so happy for y'all thank you guys so excited all right everett and spencer you guys been practicing debt-free scream? You know how to do it? All right. You better get ready, man, because this is your minute. This is your moment right here.

You're going to be famous in just a second. Matt and Terry, Everett and Spencer. Matt Hudson from the Ramsey team. For 12 years he's been with us. They paid off the house in 11 years and 3 months. $133,000. House and everything. They're weird weird they're heroes

count it down let's hear a debt free scream 3, 2, 1 we're debt free way to go you guys like any good software engineer he's very precise Way to go, you guys. Like any good software engineer, he's very precise. And they had a plan and they executed it early. Yep.

Wow. Knew what they wanted. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible. I mean, to have a paid-off house, like that's just, I mean, it's crazy. Crazy, crazy. When normal is broken, America, your goal is to be weird. So one of the best compliments you can hear around the Ramsey Show is if we call you a weirdo, it's because you're doing very smart things in a culture that has nothing smart to do.

This is the Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Thank you for joining us, America. It's a free call if you want to call anywhere in North America. This is the last segment that you'll be hearing on the podcast. The next segment of the show is on the Ramsey app. the third segment is always on the ramsey app every day ramsey network app is a free download and if you want to go further with ramsey there you can have calls that are picked for you you can filter by topic you can always get the third segment of the show and you can send us emails you can do all kinds of stuff so download

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This is the last one. And you can get the whole three-book set on sale right now. So if you've got grandbabies or babies and you need bedtime stories, that's the best. It's all there at RamseySolutions.com slash store and even more. Eric is with us in Key West, Florida. Hi, Eric. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. How are you doing today, sir?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, so like many investors, I pay my financial advisor an assets under management fee. In my case, it's 1%. My wife and I have been married for 20-ish years, and over the time, we've built our assets under management to about half a million dollars. We have other assets, but under management from them, about half a million dollars. That would be $5,000 a year for their fees.

A couple years ago, my parents passed away, and we inherited a substantial sum. So now our assets under management are a little over $2 million. My questions or my problems are two. First, you know, by doing nothing extra, no effort on their part, suddenly my advisor has gone from 5,000 a year to 20-some thousand a year for doing the same work. The other thought is, you know, when it was $5,000 a year, you know, I could stomach that. Now I'm thinking over the next 20 years, even if my assets remain flat, that's, you know, $400,000. And if they go up, plus lost investment opportunities, that could be $500,000, $600,000,

$700,000 that I'm losing. So are there any alternatives to asset-centered management fees? Are there any recommendations you can make? That's a very standard way of running a brokerage, I mean, an advisory company right now. Most of our SmartVestor pros run a very similar fee base. I have seen some of them, the fee decreases as the assets percentage decreases as the assets under manage increase. And so when you've got a portfolio the size of yours, it probably could be less than 1%. Some keep it there. And then the question you've got to say is, okay, what am I getting for this money? And, um, uh, you know, I'm a firm believer in having an advisor. Um, I'm like you though. I want to

know what I'm getting for what I spend. And so I think I'd have a conversation with them about two things. One is tell them exactly what you told me, Guys, this is a lot of money, and I'm not sure what I'm getting for my $25,000 a year. Show me what's – because I can buy a nice car once a year for what I'm paying you all, okay, and have a whole basement full of cars, right, in a couple of years. So, I mean, what is it I'm getting for what I'm paying you? And show me your value. And or do you have any kind of a sliding scale now that this has gotten so much more? Like a lot of times when it's over a million dollars, you start to see things slide down.

Do you have anything that you run a less percentage on on a portfolio this size? Ask them that question, those two questions. One is show me why, you know, make the sale again. Why do I, I mean, I'm not mad at you, but show me. Right now I'm confused, disillusioned about what I'm getting for 25 grand a year. The effort hasn't changed or the process, the strategy hasn't changed. It's the same thing, right? Then the third thing I would do is jump on RamseySolutions.com

and click SmartVestor Pro and talk to some of our SmartVestors. They're in the exact same business. They run the exact same, most of them run a management fee like that. And it's usually, the you know it's very standard in the business the industry runs about one percent some people do three quarter some do a sliding scale when you got more assets under management some don't but i mean they're not ripping you off i don't think that at all but you're asking a valid question that you deserve an answer to and it is enough money that that it's fair to ask the question.

So I would ask the smart investor pros, ask any of them, do you have a sliding scale when a portfolio gets to this size? I got about $2.5 million. I'm really concerned that I'm paying a 1% fee on that because I don't know what I'm getting for that. And it's not a belligerent thing. There's no belligerence in your voice, by the way. Okay? You're not being a jerk about it. There's no belligerence in your voice, by the way. Okay?

You're not being a jerk about it. You're just going, okay, I'm sorry. And I probably wouldn't use the phrase, you're doing no more work. That's a bit insulting. But I would say, you know, what am I getting for what I'm paying you? Why would I do this? And what's going on here? I mean, because I do value what they do. And I think you should, Eric. I think you ought to have someone in your corner to talk to. Rachel has a SmartVestor

Pro she wants to meet with. I have one that Sharon and I meet with. And they don't, in my case, they do less than they might for Rachel and Winston because we do all our own estate planning uh off to the side and we do all of our own for that matter I do all my own selections on the mutual funds but yeah what I found Eric the value for us is that they're looking at more than just investments I mean ours are looking they're looking at taxes and like if there's like real estate involved that you can sell within this five-year period and get this, I mean, like they're, they're kind of strategizing with you. I mean, everything from our giving to investing, I mean, they're looking at the whole thing and that's always helpful. But my question,

Dave, to you, is there ever a point from like Eric's perspective, which I know is not a lot of people out there to have this substantial amount of money just investments that you would ever pull a million out and do your own and put in an index funds and keep a million in do you know what i mean like spread out where you're not no it's not all under someone's no i would get i would get happy where i am yeah and if i can't get happy there and we'll get happy somewhere else i want somebody in my corner and i want it all in one place invested in different things but under one set of eyes there's no advantage to diversifying your advice no i think that's not your advice but would you ever just individually go open up a vanguard and just put your own money in for the s&p or something do you know what i mean i mean the

only thing i do there is i do have an s&p that is independent of these guys but that's just me throwing money in there extra money laying around until I get some money for a piece of real estate that they don't have anything to do with and you're gonna go buy it so I'm gonna buy it out of that S&P I don't I don't invest in the S&P I park in the S&P so um which last year was a really good thing it made 30 percent but um uh not a bad parking spot but the uh um yeah so that that's yeah it's a good point i don't want three different investing it's like i'm not going to go to three different churches because i sort of agree with them you know no it's not you need to find a home and deal with the discomfort of the home and the comfort of the home yeah that's that's good. Yeah, that's what I would do.

It's a good question. It's an excellent observation, Eric. You're not asking the wrong question. You're asking the right question. I would just ask it carefully and somewhat humbly, but it's a fair question that I'm going to dig to the bottom of. So three things. One is shop around, go talk to some other SmartV other smart investor pros see if they have a sliding scale ask your guy if he's got a sliding scale and ask your guy why he's worth 25 grand a year what is he what am i getting for that that's a all fair questions and should be asked that's you managing your money and that's as it should be well done sir very well done. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,

it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of The Rachel Cruz Show. My daughter is my co-host today. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Monty is in Atlanta. Hi, Monty. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm doing well, and you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? So I am about to graduate from nurse practitioner school in December.

Good for you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I have racked up a significant amount of student loans. It will be totaling $305,000 once I finish just from this program. Yeah. $305,000 once I finished just from this program. Luckily, I didn't have any undergraduate debt. Cars paid off and I currently own a home. That mortgage with HOA and utilities is about $3,000 a month. I also have two roommates that currently pay my mortgage and all those, and I plan on, you know, continuing that.

You got a job lined up? Financially, I have. Not yet. So I have to finish taking my boards and then hopefully start working by January. Okay. So you're planning probably to stay in Atlanta and keep the house, or are you planning to move and get a huge signing bonus somewhere? I think I'm planning on staying at the moment just because the living situation is good,

and I'm kind of living there for free even though I own the home. Yeah, what if somebody offered you a $100,000 signing bonus? I might leave. I'll be honest. Suddenly Kansas City sounds good. Exactly. Anywhere in the U.S. sounds good. Well, no, I wouldn't say that. You're right. You're right.

For $100,000, we can make it work. I'm serious. What is the job market out there for practitioners right now? You ought to be able to get a big sign-on, can't you? Seriously? Yes. So I'm kind of looking at the more reasonable side looking at potentially making about 120 000 a year starting off as a new grad um and then basically i just want to be able

to pay this debt off as soon as i is there no is it no i want to ask a question again is there not anybody paying signing bonuses to get you? Not many places. I know last year, like some international bases. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I was talking about if somebody called you and, I mean, if you interviewed, seriously, in a major metro area, let's just name a nice one somewhere, Dallas or whatever, right? And there's not anybody that's hard up enough for nurse practitioners because that's such a killer degree. That's a great field you've gotten into.

It's wide open. You're going to do so well. You chose well. I love what I do. You're going to make a lot of money. You're going to help people. You've got a great career. It's always been my dream.

Yeah, but I'm serious. I want you to ask around and find out don't just assume i'm going to stay in atlanta and make 120 120 sounds right but 50 or 75 or 100 signing on sign that sounds right too yeah okay i will definitely look into that does that help the three hundred thousand dollar problem oh for sure um and then my question for loan repayment, because we're kind of getting into that point where we have to sign on to a plan. So I have the option as a nurse practitioner to qualify for a public service loan forgiveness. No. Okay.

No. You're going to make a lot of money, and you're going to pay this off in three years. In three years. Okay. You've been living on nothing already you're a broke college student yes live like a broke college student and go make 150 grand and pay off pay 100 a year on it and be done in three years i'm real serious okay okay that's kind of what i'm thinking too your new chair is a garage sale chair. Your vacation is not.

There's not one. Yeah. You need a big shovel and dig like a crazy woman and get this behind you as fast as possible. You do not want Sally Mae to be a hobby 10 years from now. Correct. She needs to leave. She's ugly and she shouldn't be in your house okay and you know that's kind of what uh the advice i wanted especially with major life um changes

coming through yeah and just think monty too how fast time goes like and that's what i always do if you go back three years that was you know 2021 and it's like okay i can i can do that like that like it just goes so fast so use time to your advantage by paying this off so quickly because after you know three years and it's paid off yeah you're making 120 000 with no payment yeah so i mean like there's there's just such upside to where you're at to do it the fast like scorched earth way versus what a lot of people do is like, oh yeah, I'll pay them on payment, try to just kind of keep up with it. And then it just hangs on forever and you end up buying a bunch of stuff that you don't, you're not going to have in three years.

You don't even mean like just taking advantage of the big income to knock this out. ASAP is everything. You have an unusual superpower that the average person in the public does not have. You've gone to school an extra block of time to achieve a goal. The superpower is you emotionally are mature enough to delay pleasure for a greater win. That enables you to complete this degree field agree do you understand what i'm saying i do and what happens sometimes is docs and you're a doc now of sorts get what i call doc itis because they've been holding their breath for 16 years going to school

they get out of school with this big old pile of student loan debt across their back and the and when they breathe out it's a new bmw it's a coach purse i'm gonna i'm by god i'm now a nurse practitioner i'm going to enjoy some of this money i've worked hard for it. Not yet. You're still deeply in debt. You still have to hold your breath a little while longer.

Yes. Don't get docitis. I've kind of talked to my boyfriend about it, too, and we plan on trying to stay frugal and live off of what we have been living off of for the past four or five years. Yeah, nothing. frugal and live off of what we have been living off of for the past you know four or five years yeah nothing um and then put my money basically i you know now knowing that we should just kind of throw all my money into my loans and just knock that out um and i will say i'm probably splitting hairs here too but your boyfriend like it's not our money or we you know it's

you're doing yeah yeah just making sure that there's none of your stuff going to him or vice versa yeah keeping it for sure separate but yeah just double checking yeah absolutely it's great monty i'm that's that's amazing way to go so proud of you and the great thing about that field because i have friends you know in a similar situation and and it's like there's just always opportunity oh there's always you know what? Yeah. Seriously. You always got more work than you want to do. Yeah. So it's great. You can work all the time or very little. It's up to you.

You can set your hours. Nursing and nurse practitioner in particular is a pretty sizable step up. And it's pretty incredible what's available. Great job, Monty. It's a great feel. Congratulations. Proud of you. Good stuff, boys and girls girls this is the ramsey show

rachel cruz ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us america zelina Zelina is with us in El Paso, Texas. Hey, Zelina, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi. Hi. How can we help? So I was calling because I'm a single mom. I have a nine-year-old son. His dad is not around, and he doesn't help financially.

He hasn't for about six years. I do work full-time, and I'm renting an apartment. But before I started listening to your show, I was told that getting credit cards and having good credit is like the key to a successful future. So I got three credit cards and I guess I didn't really spend very wisely. So I have about $7,000 in debt. And I also took out a title loan because in the summertime, I started experiencing a lot of unexpected expenses. So I had to take out a title loan, and I owe like $250 on that title loan. So my question is, I'm short on money, and I don't know how I'm going to do it for Christmas, and my son's birthday is a week away from Christmas.

So I don't know how I'm going to do it for Christmas. And I'm just wondering if you guys think it would be wise to refinance the title loan to get more money to help pay for my son for like Christmas presents and then like, maybe a little birthday party and then put as much as I can towards my credit card balances, or should I kind of like slug it out and just tell my son, you get a couple Legos and that's kind of all I can do this year? Or what do you guys think I should do? What's your income, sweet girl? I make $18 an hour, so a take-home is about $2,400 a month.

Yeah. And you're working 40 hours? 38. You got family around you? Yeah, just my mom only. How's her health? She's really good. Who watches your son?

I have him in daycare after he goes to school, so he goes to daycare a couple hours, and then I pick him up. You're working hard, girl. That's a lot on your plate. Yeah, I'm sorry. Are you involved in a good local church? Yes. Well, I am, but I haven't gone to church in about a month.

So I'm planning on going tomorrow for service. Okay, good. I want you to sit down and tell your pastor where you are. Okay. Okay. I'm not begging, but just tell them where you are and see if they offer any help in this situation. Okay.

Let me give you a couple of priorities, and then you work down through the priorities as best you can, and I'm going to be okay with wherever you land, all right? One, we need to stay away from the title loan. That's pointing a pistol at your face. Don't do this.'s bad i know okay it's the worst it's credit cards are way better than a title loan and they suck they suck unbelievably but this title loan is really bad all right. So rule number one is you buy food.

Rule number two is you buy lights and water. Rule number three is you buy rent before you do anything else. If that's all you do, you're still a hero. You're still a single mom making $18 and you fed your kid. Okay. Did you hear me? Yeah. You're a hero.

I'm proud of you. If all you do is buy food, lights and water and rent, you got a tough thing right there in front of you. If you can scrape some more money together, let's talk about what you would spend on a birthday and what you would spend on Christmas. What's the number for him? For Christmas, he wants to be put in soccer, so that's $170. He wants to be put in soccer.

Okay. He wants $170 worth of soccer. Well, that's how much it would cost for me to put him in a team. And then he loves Legos, so I wanted to get him one of those big, nice ones that would take him a good amount of time to do. Well, let's call Christmas and birthday $200. Okay. All right.

So rent or food, lights and water, rent, and $200. The very next thing you do is you pay off the $250 title loan. Okay. Okay. And I want you to talk to your mom about watching him, and I want you to pick up some extra hours through the holidays here and see if we can get all of this done. Okay.

Because listen to me, $500 above food, lights, water, and rent changes your life, and you can make an extra $500 between now and Christmas. If your mom can watch him some, and you go give up a few hours, and you're a little tired, but you're a warrior princess, you know how to do this. You are. Yeah.

You're amazing. Okay okay and then you fight through that and i want you to talk to your pastor this week and tell him where you are you promise me you'll do that yeah i will i will talk to him the other thing i want you to do who runs the soccer league i well i just honestly i went on chat gpt to ask and it gave me a list so um it's just a independent team i guess um but somebody told me i can go through the recreational centers but i haven't looked into that yeah i would like for i would like for you to sit down and talk to who's managing the league and tell them exactly your financial situation that you told me and Rachel. They may be able to help with the fees.

Okay. So if your pastor helped and if the soccer league helped just a little bit and if you were to work some extra hours one month from today your situation is going to be a whole lot better okay good good so do not refinance the title no we are not ever doing anything else that has the word title loan in it ever again okay you're gonna lose your car and then you're gonna have a real problem it's like 100 percent and i know it's the worst screw drop job on the planet and they're screwing poor people which puts them which puts them in god's crosshairs where they don't want to be oppress the poor and see how that'll work for you. Read what happens to people that oppress the poor.

Yeah. So no, no more title loans. Okay. No more ever under any circumstances, period. I want you to go. I want you to go work some more hours. And then Rachel and I are going to put you into two things. One is we're going to hook you up with one of our financial coaches to walk you through what I just described to you.

We're going to give them a copy of this call so they'll have heard my advice, and that's completely free. We are paying for it. And you're going to go through Financial Peace University, and you're going to get on every dollar, and we're going to teach you how to handle money, girl. And we're going to pay for every dollar and we're going to teach you how to handle money girl and we're going to pay we're going to pay for every bit of it okay thank you merry christmas thank you so much i can't wait i've been trying i've listened to you guys at least once a week so it's helped so much if i would have listened to you guys before i got the credit card i would not be in this situation.

Yeah. So, oh, by the way, when you get off the phone, cut them up. Yeah, I don't use them. I don't care. Cut them up. Get the system. Dave, I promise. I promise.

Cut them all up when you get off the phone. I don't want a stinking credit card in your life, and I don't want any stupid title pawns in your life. These people are beating you up, girl, and you're a fighter, but you're getting the snot beat out of you by life. So somebody's got to come along and love you, and we're just those folks. And you call us back anytime you need some help. Hold on.

We'll get you set up with all that. This is The ramsey show thank you for joining us america if you're on the ramsey network app which is a free downloadable app that hooks you up with everything in the ramsey network including this show's third segment every day including this show show's special editions and early releases of interviews and different things I've done over the past month or so. You can download that for free. Today's Ramsey Network app question is from Caitlin. She asks, my husband and I have been listening to your show for years. We're so close to being debt-free until we opened our business in 2021. Since then, we've accumulated both business and personal debts. We are now back

on the Ramsey train. However, we are struggling to create a budget for both the business and personal expenses. Should I have a separate every dollar account for our business budget? Also, should I have an emergency fund for both the business and personal expenses? Every dollar of the app is the world's best budgeting app. It is not designed as a business accounting system. You need to get a business accounting system. You can start with QuickBooks or something like that if you want to start with something easy. Or FreshBooks is another one that's out there that's in the cloud, real easy to use and get started with that.

And, yes, you need a budget both places. Your budget in business is your forecasting, your revenues, your expenses, and thereby your profits for this month, this quarter, and this year. And then the same thing goes at home, but at home you're detailing out what you're going to do with the money in your every dollar budget. And yes, you need an emergency fund at home, and in business we call it retained earnings. And yes, you need retained earnings. And both, separate.

Yeah. And EveryDollar is the world's best budgeting app. You can download it for free in the App Store or Google Play, and it helps couples work together in particular, helps you work the baby steps like we're talking about here. It's got paycheck planning. It's got lots of tools, and it's literally tens of millions of people are using this

thing, and that's not an exaggeration. I mean, it's unbelievable how many folk in America are using every dollar right this second. So download it for free and get yourself going. Evan is with us. Evan is in Canada. Hi, Evan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hello. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I had a question for you guys just based on a major life milestone that's coming up. Me and my wife got married in September of this year. And, you know, the next, uh, sort of stage in life is children. And, uh, you know, I have been sort of budgeting and planning my financial

future for me and my wife for the last, you know, seven years or so. But, uh, it's, you know, it's a new question mark there. And my question is at what point point or how do we financially plan for having a child, bringing a child into this marriage, as well as, you know, what does that look like? Is it a start to allocate budget now? Is it a net worth milestone type thing? And how do I best prepare for that? It's a great question. I mean, whenever it comes to big life events, whether it's marriage or having babies, all of the above, you know, we always say, do it when you want, right? That there's no, there's not a financial quote unquote milestone to stressful when you're doing some of this, right? Because babies, they're expensive. But I wouldn't hold off on starting a family necessarily because of the finances. I mean, if you guys want to have a baby, like have a baby,

but you got to plan through and think through child care if you're both going to work. I mean, there's some of those questions you want to think about, but- I would not use a financial milestone. I would use a relational milestone only. When your marriage is strong enough to bring a savage into the world. Oh my gosh. That will scream in the middle of the night and want to be fed and changed.

No, I'm kidding you. Babies are the best thing you're ever gonna do my man do them early and often have at it have at it and don't don't worry about a financial milestone but do make sure your marriage is strong and that you guys are on the same page and i do want to change one thing you said as part of that equation okay you said i've been budgeting and planning for seven years for my marriage didn't you yeah and i want to change that if you're going to have a baby it needs to be we are looking at the budget and we are handling our money together and we are both in agreement because your wife is a free spirit and you are a nerd and that's a wonderful thing that opposites attract.

I'm the nerd at my house, so that's a good thing, and my wife is the free spirit. But you need to be in agreement and in alignment, and we have looked at our budget, and we are still a little bit scared, but we're going to go ahead and start having babies. Whenever that is, I don't care if that's next year, two years from now, or right now, it doesn't matter to me, but don't wait on a certain income level or a certain savings level or a certain net worth level. You'll never really hit that exactly anyway. And so, you know, the babies are the best thing I've ever done except grandbabies, and they're even better. Yeah, we've got to wear a little weight for that one.

Can I ask a follow-up question on what you just said? Okay. You know, the we, 100%, you're correct on the we, not me. If my wife, basically, when it comes to finances, is, you know, Evan, I trust you, you know, tell me what to do and we'll do it how do i get how do i turn that knee into a we and get her excited to uh be involved in financial decisions why'd you point to me you gotta answer this question why i'm tossing you i'm tossing you the softball it's an underhand pitch no well yeah no i mean it's just the idea of understanding that she has to participate on some level and

evan the truth is she's never going to be as excited to sit down and talk about budgeting as you are and that's okay right the level of excitement doesn't have to be there but the level of engagement of her knowing what's going on is going to be best. And even pushing her, when you guys are looking at the budget, to change something, to be that involved, to look and say, and this doesn't have to be a drawn out hour long process, right? But sitting down together once a month and just looking at the budget. And after a while, it takes probably five minutes. It will be so fast. But you guys just together are looking through each line item. And that's what I mean by we.

And if something big happens that she has to change something or you need something different, that you guys just text or call, like you're communicating about the money. That's what we mean by it. It's not that she has to be. But, and I also,

and I would also say though, just for people listening and watching, to be as involved as possible because ever if something happens, we get calls on the say, though, just for people listening and watching, to be as involved as possible. Because ever if something happens, we get calls on the show, sadly, where one spouse, there's either a divorce, a death, something happens. And that one spouse that was never engaged is starting from zero of knowledge of what's going on in the household. And that's not a good thing. So for her to be that involved to the point that she would be able to run a household if she needed to, I think is a great skill set.

And just to know like, you know, what bills are being paid, how they're being paid. And you guys are just on the same page with that. But the execution of some of it, I will say, can be you, right? So you're the natural guy to do that. Yeah. And I'm the free spirit in our relationship, which is funny. Winston's more of the nerd. He has like Excel sheets and all this.

I mean, he's like running numbers for five years from now all the things which is great but we both have every dollar it's both on our phones and we're checking in we talk about it once a month we're looking throughout the month even week to week of what we have to change we have long-term goals together we dream together i mean it's just that kind of conversation but he's the one actually that pulls the trigger on like paying the bills and doing all of that because oh god I would be yeah yeah I'm not that great if I had to I would but Evan Rachel could Rachel could easily say to Winston the same thing your wife has said to you she could easily say honey I trust you and he's trustworthy he would do just fine but they

would miss out on an element of their relationship where they were dreaming together where they were planning together where they're making value decisions together if she were not at least involved and engaged again she's not the one writing the checks doing the details you and i and it's not always the male sometimes it's the female nerd it doesn't matter but who's the nerd who's the one that likes details and that can't stand it if the details aren't right um that's me that's you evan that's winston um we have only have peace when the spreadsheet totals line up. It's the only time we have peace. So we have to execute things. We can't stand it. And that's good. I don't want her to get to that level, but I do want her engaged and knowing what's going on and speaking into your lives through your checkbook.

This is the Ramsey Show. our scripture today psalms 37 21 the wicked borrows but does not pay back but the righteous is generous and gives earl wilson said if you think nobody cares if you're alive try missing a couple of car payments so uh we always get reaction and on social media and emails and so forth. The young single mom that called in earlier in this hour that was struggling and was trying to get together a couple hundred dollars for her son's Christmas, and it pulls at everyone's heart, as it should if you're a human being. And so when we set her up with one of our coaches and with the local pastor, she will be taken care of. Okay.

And she's going to get her life turned around and get headed in the right direction. And so what I would urge you to do rather than emailing us and telling us you want to give her money, which is sweet. Thank you. We're not going to do that. We don't run a telethon. What I would tell you to do is there's seven of her within a half a mile of every one of you. Yep. Just look around. Open your eyes.

Walk around with an extra 500 bucks in your pocket and just blow somebody's mind every so often. It's part of what you ought to be doing because some of you got plenty of stinking money. Walk around with an extra 500 bucks in your pocket and just blow somebody's mind ever so often. It's part of what you ought to be doing because some of you got plenty of stinking money. And so, you know, just use a call like that that touches every one of us to remind us how blessed we are at Thanksgiving. We're going to give thanks and be grateful and uh that like father abraham of old we are blessed so that we might be a blessing so you might bump into her in the grocery store line or someone just like her or the walmart line or walking through the parking lot and you look down at her car and notice the tires are bare and let's ride over here to the discount tire store we're gonna put a set of tires on that car baby

i don't know what it is you're gonna do but that's what you're here for and by the way it's most fun you'll ever have with money i like riding roller coasters. I like going down a snow ski slope. I like flying first class. But the most fun you'll ever have with money is that. You can have some other fun with money, but the generosity, randomly catching someone that's on the edge and pulling them back from the edge. A $1,000, $2,000 car will change someone's life that doesn't have a car. Oh, by the way, $20,000 will do it for 10 of them.

And some of you, $20,000 is not spit because you've got your crap together because you listen to the show. Thank you. You're welcome. Be generous. That's the payback. That's the pay it forward. Yeah, and I think it's one of those understandings,

and especially a call like that. That's the payback. That's the pay it forward. Yeah, and I think it's one of those understandings, and especially a call like that, it's remembering $500 can change someone's life. It can absolutely rock their world in a situation like that. I've been there. Yeah, so honestly, thinking about that and having the ability and the awareness to walk through life with that on the front of your mind where you're not stressed out about your car payment and stressed out about your financial

situation that's why we talk about you get to live like no one else so later you get to live and give like no one else and part of living like no one else is having peace and such a confidence in your own situation that's that 500 bucks doesn't rock your world anymore and you're able to pay it forward to a single mom whose son wants to go to soccer. And use it to rock someone else's world. That's right. Exactly, exactly.

So I don't know. It's a beautiful part of our message, which I'm always really proud of, that we really do push you guys to be giving something, be giving something because it is contagious. Like once you start it and experience it, it is the most fun you can have with money. Yeah, you know who's working in Waffle House on Thanksgiving morning? Someone that needs a job bad.

Otherwise, you're not there on Thanksgiving morning. And you're not at Waffle House either. I love Waffle House. I do too, mean it's a great place to catch somebody doing something right and that's right absolutely so just be thoughtful while you're out there riding around in the highways and byways as they say and uh had a good reminder of this on here the day that kid we had on that that does the generosity channel on instagram man that guy that stuff he does will make you cry jimmy darts that darts with an s is that right yeah jimmy darts with an s and uh george campbell's become good friends with him he came on the show i got to meet him and his parents and uh but he walks around doing these generosity

things on instagram that are mind-blowing and just random acts of kindness and catches people. And man, it'll, it just make, it'll make your eyes leak. I'm telling you. And, uh, so you can check him out if you want some inspiration on this kind of stuff, but I, Hey guys, uh, rest assured that, that people don't come across our path, that they're not okay. I can't make everybody's life and we don't run a telethon and people can't call here and ask for money. We don't do that. It's not what, not what we do. That would be a wreck and we're not going to, we're not going to wreck this. Um, and. But they're taken care of. That, you know, don't email us and tell us to get, you want to pass money to somebody. We're

not going to do it, but we are going to tell you, take exact same impulse uh that exact same call on your life and that exact same money and turn around look for somebody that's with an arm reach of you they're not hard to find they're everywhere 52 of the single moms live below the poverty level there's your number okay so and uh if you're a person of faith and you read the scriptures, you know, that those that take care of the poor and the widows and the orphans are, they're special children of God without a doubt. And, uh, those that oppress the poor and take advantage of them. Ooh, you don't want to be on that list, I'm just saying. That's not a list you want to be on.

So if you're reading scripture, you'll know that. Can I tell, it's not public knowledge, we've never done this, but can I tell them what you would do with us when we were teenagers? No. Okay, never mind. Shoot. Never mind. Just bring your kids along. Yeah, when you're being generous, include your kids along yeah when you're being generous this season especially you know that it's

on everyone's mind between thanksgiving and christmas like we're in that holiday spirit if you are if you do have kids like bring them along yeah in it for them to help with the act well we were talking about this the other night with the grandbabies that they're getting old enough now, some of them, to be involved in a random act of generosity and get to have the wonderful feeling that floods your soul when you can just mess with somebody in a great way. And I think this time of year around Thanksgiving is the best. And all the way up through Christmas season, it's just a great reminder.

God gave his only begotten son. And so, I mean, in our DNA, we are givers. In our spiritual DNA, it's how we're wired because we're knit in our mother's womb, and we're made in God's image, so we're made to create and we're made to give. He's a creator and a giver. And so when you do that, you're functioning in how you're designed, and you'll find all kinds of wonderful passion and creativity cuts loose when you open up your hand.

It changes everything. So it's a great opportunity you guys it really is and and again i'll promise you i've never had someone call and tell me i did random acts of generosity and i hated it i have never had someone do that um and i've never had someone tell me that i was uh carefully and steadily generous not necessarily random uh and say i hated it i absolutely hated it now i will tell you in all our years of giving that sometimes we've given to things that didn't work out the thing the thing we were giving to what you look back and you go yeah that probably wouldn't they didn't do a good job with that and so you do have some generous generosity regret um and

that's not on you. I mean, at that point, you know. Yeah. But you go, you know, that one really wasn't that fun. You know what I mean? You get that. Or you find that, yeah, it didn't. Yeah.

Yeah. That kind of thing can happen. But 99% of the time you walk away with your smile just a little bit broader, just a little bit shinier. And 99% of the time you walk away with your eyes leaking. So give it a try. Yeah, and as much as you can, be with the end recipient, right? Sometimes an organization can be in the middle, which is not bad. But don't do that long periods of time.

Like go to the individual, right? I mean, I think that's very important. I don't know, that's important. Very important. 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. you