The Ramsey Show - App - You Have To Beat Your Spending Addiction (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

George Kamel & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "How do I stay out of debt for good?",  from the blog: How to Pay Off Credit Card Debt "When does saving money and living with my parents become crutch?", "Should we sell our house to pay off debt?", "How do I start investing to create a stable financial future?",  from the blog: How to Start Investing: A Beginner's Guide Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined this hour by my good friend Dr. John Deloney, bestselling author my good friend, Dr. John Deloney, best-selling author and host of The Dr. John Deloney Show. And we're taking your calls, America, at 888-825-5225. I know you've got a lot going on in your mind, and you're DMing me a thousand questions, and I say call the show,

because it's a lot easier to talk to you in person than to go back and forth staring at my screen. I get the same thing. Call the show, call the show, call the show. Hey, and I got to tell you, so Dave and the Entree Leadership team has their annual 2,500 to 3,000 business leaders. They take over a city, basically, and they're here in Nashville. And last night, they took over the entire Opry. The Grand Ole Opry.

The Grand Ole Opry. Ole Opry epic it was a blast there was all these different country singers and actors showed up and comedians it was it was a hoot but I'm walking through the lobby with my daughter and this guy comes up and goes oh hey I just saw George Campbell too he goes hey you're John Deloney I just saw George Campbell and I just instantly said George Campbell's the worst he hit me he punches my arm and he goes I love how y'all just rib each other and I said I don't think you

understand like I don't like anyway and my daughter the whole thing was awkward but man he was protecting him some GK man people are very protective I think it's cause I'm small they feel like they have to defend me. Yeah. You know?

They can't tell that over the phone. That's true. Well, we really are great friends. People often wonder, does John actually like me? The answer is no, but we are really good friends. So that helps. I mean, I like you. You've grown on me.

Not literally, but you've grown on me. Since the fifth grade, John. Same size. Same size. Well, hey, if you want to have some fun today, you know, while the cat's away, the mice will play. Is that what they say? Okay. We're going to go to the lines now.

Shut John down. There goes George making it weird. Kendra kicks us off in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kendra, please save the Ramsey Show. How are you doing? Good. Thank you. A little backstory. My husband and I have, we've been through Financial Peace University and we've paid off our debt several times in our marriage and been debt free. And then we just seem to creep back into debt. So we're on baby step two again. And we're both on board and we're working to pay off our debt and we're following

the plan. But I just have a lot of anxiety around it. And it's not that I don't want to be gazelle intent, but I'm just finding it difficult this time because I have such a fear of going back into debt again. Who have you lost trust in you or your husband? Um, both of us in different ways at different times. I mean, I probably don't have a lot of trust in myself. I've, I feel like,

um, when we've done this before, we, it's almost like the whole time we're in baby step two, we're planning for what we're going to purchase when we're out of debt, if that makes any sense. You know, we kind of have a running list. And then, you know, months, years later, that list becomes the things that put us back into debt. So what kind of debt are you getting back into each time? Credit card debt. Okay.

So have you ever cut up the credit card and closed the accounts? Or are you just paying off the credit card debt and then hanging on to the card? We have cut up the credit card and closed the accounts before, yes. And then you get out of debt and you go, we're going to reopen a credit card to make purchases. Yes. And then what are you spending that money on? Is there something in particular

each time? No, it's nothing that we need. Is it online shopping? Is it Amazon? Is it Target? Give me something tactical here. It's vacations, trips, things for the house. And you guys don't have the money in the bank. And so you go, well, we'll just put it on the card. Correct. And what was the reason for the money in the bank, and so you go, well, we'll just put it on the card. Correct. And what was the reason for getting out of debt the first few times? Well, we don't want to be in debt. I mean, but you do.

But not really kind of. Sort of. Yeah. Maybe, yes. But you want the stuff more than you want to be out of debt. And it's okay to say that out loud, but I think what we're experiencing here is there's a spending addiction.

Yeah. Can I take a shot in the dark? Yeah. Just say you're an idiot. No, you're wrong. Did one of you or both of you, did one of you have a rough go of it as a kid? Yes. Which one?

I did. Give me 30 seconds of context about that. I had a mom that had a sickness where she ran up a lot of debt, and a lot of it was in my name, using my social security number when I was a minor. Was dad around? Yes. So that meant the spending was the thing we all pointed at, but that meant you had a house that was chaotic.

Very. And you watched your parents not be very stable together. Fair? Yes. It's very easy. And here's why it's a common response that when you grow up in that sort of chaos or abusive environment, the whole world becomes about a, for lack of better words, a fantasy into the future. This is going to be this thing.

And you're always living for then. And it becomes virtually impossible to live right now. Because living right now is a skill. And living right now for you was terrifying. It was scary. It got you hurt. And so everything became about living then, living then, living then. Even though in the present, it's brutal.

You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I've never thought about it like that. And so what you have to do is, this whole thing is an identity shift. You guys can do the thing. Y'all can do the hard thing. But you get to it, and then you start to, you live in the future. We're going to be out of debt one day.

Then you get there, and you don't know what to do. So you default to your fantasy list, and you just start the whole cycle back over again. And then you give yourself a new deadline. So instead of giving yourself a new deadline, a new finish line, if you will, not deadline, a new finish line to achieve, give yourself dreams to move forward to. And this is going to have to be something that y'all practice. And it's going to start with an identity. We are a couple that never borrows money. That's

who we are. That's in our DNA. That's in our bones. We don't do that. That's the only way, George, that's the only way I know of to not fall back. We're just not, that's just not who we are. The same way as y'all would say, we're just not a couple that cheats on each other. We're not a couple that hits each other. We're not a couple that murders. And it're not a couple that becomes a daily decision yeah and that habit becomes a part of who you are so kendra here's what i'm going to do i'm going to give you every dollar premium so that you guys can get on a budget that's only part of this puzzle you need accountability because it takes two people to make these decisions so you need to say no we're not going to open that up because remember don't forget to remember how good it feels to pay off

debt and not to go back in and on top that, freeze your credit with all the credit bureaus so that there's a stop gap from you opening up a new line of credit. It's a big hurdle. Yeah. So cut up the cards today. You're going to pay off this debt. How much is left? $30,000. $30,000 in credit card debt on vacations and spending. Yeah. Have a conversation with your husband tonight and say, never again is this going to happen. We're going to get on a plan. We're going to keep each other accountable. We're going to freeze our accounts. We're going to get a monthly budget and we're going to become those people who just say, if we don't have the money for it,

we don't get it. That's called delayed gratification. And it's a huge part of building wealth and accomplishing your dreams together. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Well, good news and bad news, our $10 sale ends today, but the good news is you still have a chance to get your hands on some of our life-changing books and tools. So if you're looking to get out from under that pile of credit card bills that eats up those paychecks every month, grab Dave Ramsey's bestselling book, The Total Money Makeover. Millions have used his practical plan in the book to take control of their money and change them and their family's

future. It's only $10. And you can also get his latest book, Baby Steps Millionaires, for 10 bucks as well, where he shows you how to build a legacy, how to invest the right way once you've paid off your debt. And there's a ton of real life stories to inspire you, folks who actually did this stuff and became Baby Steps Millionaires. And if you want to improve your relationships and mental health, pick up my friend, Dr. John Deloney's Questions for Humans conversation cards and his book Own Your Past, Change Your Future, which is on the $10 sale for the first time ever. Ever, ever, yeah. That's big.

So if you've been holding out for a sale on that book, this is your chance. It ends today. Shop these deals before they're gone. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash sale. That's ramseysolutions.com slash sale. Hey, I want to say something about this. So it's a $10 sale. I've had multiple conversations in the past few weeks with some some sort of

meta narrative that sounds like this and i know you've had it because it's about money when people are reaching out to me about money then i know it's on people's hearts and minds hey man uh um you know they're gonna barely pass this debt ceiling thing and then the supreme court is gonna strike down the student loan thing and they're all gonna have to start repaying and we're gonna have this massive recession in october september august right that's just like the and there's some variation of that story going on and on first i want to say i've heard some variation of some story every three months since I've started working here.

There's always a... The crash is coming, John. You eventually throw enough darts backwards, you're going to hit bullseye. And everyone's going to be like, oh, that guy's a genius. See, I said. That's right. But let's say that is.

Let's say you knew a calamity was coming in three to five months. Why would you not do everything you can, get every piece of information, data, come up with a looking at your budget you realize whoa i bought a car that i couldn't afford over the over the two or three year uh student loan holiday i did this i'm in a house i can't afford start right now start right now if george if you call me you're like hey there's a tornado coming your way and we live 10 miles from each other i'm not gonna wait until it's sitting on top of my house i'm gonna move my family down to the basement and we're gonna right batten down the hatches we're kind of prepped for that moment but we'll be ready to rock and roll right and so all i have to say is this if you're if you're sideways if you know somebody who's sideways

for god's sakes 10 bucks 10 bucks for a total money makeover can is a road map to okay i don't know any other thing that works i clearly am not doing this right ten dollars and i can go in a new whole new direction it just doesn't make any sense to me when you got this kind of dave starts giving all of our crap away for half price yeah not that i'm upset about my not that i'm on 100 commission he cuts the commissions in half but like man if you for 10 bucks you can hand it to your son or your daughter or your friend and say hey winter's coming just here's a coat here's a jacket just for that moment i just don't understand the turtle up and let's just all be scared and pissed off let's just start let's just

more fun to doom scroll and hope that you stumble upon the right advice the right tool and the right advice is usually some fraudulent idiot saying something that's going to make them wealthy at your expense when when times get bad don't do that well the good news is our books uh don't involve any shortcuts it's all the long cuts in our books it's do the hard thing the first time the right way so that you don't screw it up and then call us and say hey i did the i did a dumb thing i saw uh the right way so that you don't screw it up and then call us and say, hey, I did a dumb thing. I saw Dave posted on his Instagram the other day. It was a video of him, I mean, 30 years ago. Oh, yeah.

1995. That's when the video came out. George's interview. He told a same joke that he told the other day when I was on the air with him. And I don't say that to make fun of him. I say that to say he's been saying the same thing for 30 years and it works. It just works, man. It works every time you work it. So don't miss this, whether it's for you or for someone in your life, ramsaysolutions.com slash sale. It ends today. All right, let's go to Joseph in Columbus, Ohio. Joseph, welcome to the

show. Hi, thank you guys so much. George, Sean, hope you guys are both doing well. Thank you so much for having me. We are. What's going on with you? So I guess the question I have is a bit convoluted, but it's one that I know myself and a couple of my friends my age have been asking and kind of debating over the last couple of months. But I guess it's really a question of, for me, when is saving and trying to be financially stable detrimental to my life goals and plans of moving forward? And that being in the sense of moving out and kind of moving on with my life. And the reason I say that is two years ago, I graduated from college.

I started working as a town acquisition specialist and moved out to Cincinnati, Ohio with a partner I had at the time. The relationship fell through and I moved back home and I've been there since. And I've been trying to save my money and be as smart as possible with being financially conservative. But I guess my question is really, when does saving as a priority in my life become too much, if that makes sense, and kind of hold me back from moving on, that being like moving out. And I guess I've kind of hit a wall where I don't really know if I'll ever feel truly financially secure moving out. And I'm just not really sure what I should do moving forward when it comes to being smart with my finances versus actually. How old are you?

24. Okay. And you're saying, hey, this is for all those folks who are in their 20s, even 30s saying, I live with mom and dad. I'm doing it because it's the financially right move for me. But at what point does it go from being a safety pad, launch pad into a crutch and a hammock, right? Absolutely. I think a good filter is using this time at home to be a comma and not a coma. And a lot of people get comfortable and their expenses are low and inflation and it just becomes the plan and it does stunt their growth as far as their careers their social life their marriage everything and so i think having an exit strategy is key here i i i'm a huge fan of man move home for a few months six months get your

feet underneath you save up for a particular goal well that, that's a down payment. I'm a huge fan of that. What I think is a dreadful idea for both kids and parents is not moving in with a deadline. In six months, you're out of here. Even if you get to six months and you'll have to sit down and be like, hey, we're three months away from plan X. But in six months, you're going to have this much money in the bank, and then you're on your own again. My question for you is, have you healed from that breakup? Yes. I guess that's a bit of a tough question to answer, but I would say largely yes. I think I'm in a better spot with my career path and both personally and professionally, I guess I would say that I'm definitely in a better spot. Where's that guy that two years ago took a job across the country and moved,

moved out there to go, go have an adventure. Cause it sounds to me like that guy got his heart ripped out of his chest and then he walked back home and he went back to his parents' house and that guy hasn't recovered yet. I think you're definitely right on that. I definitely was a different person before and after. And I think that prior to it, I definitely, I don't want to say I was necessarily prone to taking risks,

but I think now I've definitely become more risk adverse. Absolutely. So you used a great word there. Here's the suckiest part about relationships, whether you're married 70 years or you just met somebody a hundred percent of relationships. This is from the greatest step for all a hundred percent of relationships is a risk. Somebody has been married 70 years. My grandparents were married 73 years. My granddad leaned over and told my grandmother,

I'm going to go get something to eat. Do you want something? And she could just be rude and mean, or she could say, sure. Right? It's always a risk. What you've done is you were bench pressing and the weight was too heavy. So you put it back on the bar and you took all the weight off the bar. And now you're just pumping the bar and you're going nowhere. You've got to risk putting weight back on the bar. I would say sit down, get a dollar an amount, 10 grand, 50 grand, whatever the number is, and put a deadline on it and make yourself move out of your parents' house. Get an apartment. Get an apartment. It's not going to stunt your goals. It's going to make you stronger.

And then you're going to find your professional career accelerating at an unprecedented pace, man. You've got to get back out there. I wish there was another way. There just isn't. I'm George Campbell joined by Dr. John Deloney. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. And this is a show about you, about what's on your mind, what's on your heart, what keeps you up at night, the fights that you're having at home, the longings you have, the vision for your life that maybe didn't pan out. We want to help you take the right next step. And the number to call is 888-825-5225. Tanya's up next in Bend, Oregon. Tanya, welcome to the show. So I am about $100,000 in medical and credit card debt. And I have a home that I have

about $350,000 worth of equity in. And I'm wondering what your advice would be if I should sell my home, which would require moving out of the area because in central oregon you can't rebuy for that and pay off my debt or if i should do the baby steps and and stick this out for five years and try to work out of this are you a single family household single income no nope nope my husband is home he did get hurt this winter. And so he's been off of work for a couple of months. He's just getting back to work. Did he have any workers comp or disability pay or anything? No, no. We're small business owners. So basically it's all on you. We had, yeah, we had no health insurance at the time, and we had no workers' comp or any kind of insurance to help us through,

so our savings is gone. And if I talk about it too much, I might start to cry. No, hey, you've earned those tears. You've been through hell and back. That's scary. It's real, real scary. Sorry to hear. It's scary now, and we're to the point where,

so he just had a second surgery in May, May 2nd, and he's just been released to go back to work. So today is his first job really working back at what he does, which we're a small painting contractors. And I have a small bookkeeping business. So he's back at work full-time now. Good. And so this is the question is, but I don't know if we have the, if we're going to be able to fish out of this month by month.

Do I go start delivering pizzas and he go start, you know, working double jobs? Do you guys have kids? One child left at home. One child? One child left at home, yeah, and she's in high school. Okay. Let me know this story. So I'm going to walk you through my thoughts on this, and George, I want you to hop in if I'm wrong, okay? Is that cool? Can we tag team this?

Great, thank you. Okay. So my wife and I had incalculable six figures of debt, but it was surrounded by what I would call a single event. Now that single event took several years and it was both of us going to graduate school and then more graduate school, but it was around an event. It wasn't our lifestyle to be insane with how we spend, but we looked up, we did something dumb, life happened to us, whatever you want to call it. Like we looked up and we had this debt. And I had this house. And so we sold our house to expedite it, kind of like you said, five to ten years. Because that wasn't who we were.

And this was a moment. And here was the big kicker. We were planning on moving out of that community anyway in the next couple of years. And so it expedited all of our goals. It wasn't just a get out of jail free card and now we're renting. It was, hey, we're probably going to move in the next couple of years anyhow. And this gets us out of this, and this cleans up this one giant mess that we made, and we aren't people who run up a bunch of debt anyway. So if you were to tell me, this has been our home for 30 years, this is our community, this is where we're known,

but we're willing to do whatever it takes to get out of this thing, I'd probably lean on you and tell you to figure out a way to stick it out, because that's your route. If you tell me, hey, we got one more knucklehead in the house and then we were thinking of downsizing and moving to the coast or moving inland, then I would say, I would tell you to strongly consider it. You might have an opportunity to clean up a one-time thing that was some medical issues that popped up. We're not people who borrow money. That's just not who we are. This just happened. Life happened at us and hit us in the mouth. And we have this opportunity to walk away. So I throw that at you. Tell me what you're thinking about that. What was your plan? What's your roots with this community you live in? Tell me, tell me more. So it is a mixture of the past couple of years

of me struggling medically. I've had, I've put a ton of stuff on medical and then on credit cards to be able to go, you know, we didn't have health insurance and I needed past medical stuff done. And so we just did that on credit cards and it was really irresponsible. And then there's two vacations on there that we shouldn't have done, that we just figured, you know, we'll be able to work and pay it right back off. So what's your household income today, Tanya, with your husband working now? Today with him back to work, probably $60,000 a year. Between the two of you? Well, his... Yeah, between the two of us.

Him being able to get back to work right now. How much money do you guys have in the bank? Dollars. We're looking at probably $2,000 total. Are you an accountant? I'm just a bookkeeper. I'm not a licensed accountant. I just do bookkeeping and payroll

for a couple of small businesses. What has kept you from going to work and do books for a small business directly or work with a medium-sized business and make $50,000 a year with life insurance? I mean, I'm sorry, with health insurance. My medical stuff. Just over the past couple of years, I struggled with some pretty serious medical stuff and have been just

trying to get back on my feet. I took some pretty serious diagnoses last year. Are these mental health issues? Yeah. Okay. What about husband? Is he able to... Again, I'm just looking at a work environment where McDonald's is paying $20 an hour. You know what I mean? And so if you can make $60,000 or $55,000, I don't know what the math is

off the top of my head, but if you can make that kind of money with health insurance, I know we want to work for ourselves and I know we're great at painting, but it might be time to say, hey hey i got to make a left turn because my reality has shifted well and so i guess that was kind of my question is that do we just kind of give up on this dream of self-employment and and go back to work um i don't think it's an either or it may be hey we're gonna go work at a company for now, get out of this debt until we have the freedom and ability to choose.

Give me the letters that were your diagnostic. Do you mind doing that? PTSD. Okay. BPD, which is borderline personality disorder. That's the one that kind of really kicked me. It's very challenging. And then PTSD, anxiety, and depression, which I think the anxiety and depression fall under the BPD diagnosis.

Sure. So you know a cornerstone of borderline personality disorder, a cornerstone is how intense you feel things 10x what I feel. Right. Right? And your body burns with anger where I'm just kind of mad, right? Or I love somebody and you are overwhelmed with love, right? Yeah.

Also, a cornerstone of borderline personality disorder is very staunch either or. You love me or you hate me. And it could just be, I'm kind of annoyed today. See what I'm saying? I want you to keep what George said and put that, write that on a note and put it somewhere on a mirror where you can see it every day. And here's what I want you to write. Because what George said is very, very wise. It's almost never either or. It's almost never backed into a corner. It's almost never, oh, so we just give up on all of our dreams? No. But you maybe take two or three years and dig yourself out of a hole. So we don't ever get to own a house again? No, but you're sitting on $300,000 of equity. Maybe

we clean this sucker up and we go get a fresh start if that's what we were going to do anyway. Do you see what I'm saying? Right. And that's really what I'm, what my... So Tanya, I would not go sell the house tomorrow because truthfully the house is a shortcut that doesn't actually change what's going on. And it's a temporary stop gap. So what I would do is say, can we get our income up to a hundred grand and start throwing 30, 35K at this debt every year, and it's gone in three years, and we save the house. Boom. And the last worst case scenario is we sell the house to get out of this, but we still have to deal with the underlying issues. So hang on the line. We're going to gift you one year of Financial Peace University. I want you and your husband to go through that, because right now you need a whole lot of hope, and that's exactly what it's going to give you.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Hey, if you're a new listener to this show and you want to dive deeper into the principles that we teach, the lingo that we share on the show, the Ramsey baby steps, you can go to ramsesolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. And our team has created an awesome tool to help you figure out the next best step for your financial journey based on where you're at today. That's ramseysolutions.com. Click on Get Started. Carter joins us up next in Charlotte, North Carolina. Carter, welcome to the show. What's going on? Thanks for taking the time this afternoon, guys. Absolutely. I find myself in kind of a situation where I have always heard people talk about investing and kind of where to start.

But the last couple months at work, I've had a pretty decent increase. And I find myself now where I really wish that I would have considered sooner. Not sure where to start, how to start, but my family has recently grown and now I find myself wanting to create a more stable future for wife and child. And so just looking for some advice on kind of beginning steps and where to go from there. What does stable mean to you? I know it's a loaded question. I'm sorry? What does the word stable mean to you when you say, I want a stable financial future? I don't want my family to have to worry about money in the future. And once my child is older,

be able to kind of teach them the wise financial mindset, but also not having to worry about, you know, where things are coming from or when the next meal is. Just want to create this, you know, living in a, not a luxurious lifestyle, but comfortable so we don't have to worry about things. Okay. And this kind of increase in pay has got you thinking about how to do that and how soon you could do that. Right. How old are you? Yeah, I'm 27. Okay, and what do you make?

So my base is around $90,000 per year, but the last couple of months I have a base plus commission structure, and the last couple of months my my commission has been about 15 grand each month. It ebbs and flows, but with this additional income, I don't want it to just kind of sit around. We did buy a house about a year and a half ago. We've paid the medical expenses on the child. And so now it's kind of like, let me look towards the future and what I need to start doing. Okay. Do you have any debt other than the mortgage? I've got a car loan, but it's more so just to increase my credit history and my length of credit. What do you need credit for now? Oh,

you did it now, man. Carter, Carter, we were having such a good time. We had you now. Like this was going well. what do you need the credit score for now you have the house just so my wife is not going to be working anymore and we have a house but we want to move within the next four to five years okay your mortgage is going to keep your score going school system yeah yeah i, to be frank, I could pay off the vehicle right now. It's just one of those things that maybe my money, I throw some into investing. There it is, Carter. Cat's out of the bag. All right. Hold on. Before George does this. Every month, I'm putting about a thousand dollars extra towards the car loan just to get it done. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Carter, what do you do for a living?

I work in recruiting. Okay. In the financial services industry. There you go. Okay. I have a family member who works there and does quite well. So excellent. Before you go, before George gives you the tactics, because you're a tactics guy is that fair correct one thing i don't think you've done yet and what i'm about to say dude my 22 year old self would have hit would hit me in the ear for saying what i'm about to say i need you to hear to hear me what i'm about to say sounds woo woo and sounds like I'm holding crystals and pouring essential oils all over my head while I'm telling you this okay okay

George is going to give you a plan a set of tactics and if you don't do what I tell you it's not going to be worth the paper you write it down on alright okay you have to it gives me to even say what I'm about to. You have to, it gives me,

I have to even say what I'm about to say. You have to feel how your life has changed because you have not done that. You're a dad now, man. You have always seen those guys as the ones who get bonuses, and that's you now, man. Those guys are the ones who get bonuses and that's you now man those guys are the ones who have a house and an awesome wife and a family that's you now and it sounds like you're trying to keep at arm's length all of these transitions that are so beautiful and so credible and so life-changing

you're trying to keep them at arm's length by getting the right plan in place. Plans are important, but way more important is holding that little baby and saying, dude, of all the dads in the world, I'm so grateful that I get to be yours. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. And if you sit down and spend the next two or three months absorbing all this life change. How much has it happened? It changes how you dream, and it changes how you sleep, and it changes how you interact with your kids. And then George is going to walk you through game on.

And I'm going to be honest. You're doing some stupid stuff with your money. George will help you with that, all right? But it allows you to say, okay, I'm doing this for a reason. I'm not running from something. I want them set up perfect. No, man, I'm doing this because I love that kid. I'm doing this because a reason. I'm not running from something. I'm not doing, I want them set up perfect. No, man, I'm doing this because I love that kid.

I'm doing this because I'm a good dad. I'm doing this because I'm a great husband. See how different that is? Yeah. You got to feel it. You got to feel it.

Everything in your life is different now and that's what makes it great. All right, George, sorry. I just had to tell my brother. That was a good caveat, John. So Carter, here's my thing. You called in asking how you can set your family up.

You want a comfortable life, nothing crazy, but yet we're aiming towards risk in order to get that comfort, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So we're saying, hey, we're going to keep the car loan. We're going to keep this debt hanging around. We're going to invest our money and that's somehow going to create a semblance of safety.

And so I'm not angry at investing, but I think there's an order and a method to the madness. So if I'm in your shoes, how much money do you have total cash in the bank? Around $35,000. And what's left on the car? Maybe $10,000, $11,000. Okay, that leaves you with $25,000.

Let's call that your emergency fund, three to six months of expenses? Yeah. Great. Now we can begin investing 15% into retirement accounts, which I'm sure is not cool amongst the youth of America today. They're going, I've got to wait till I'm 60 to... Yes, and you can still retire early.

And so with any money left over after the 15%, I'm paying off that house. Because let me remind you what you wanted. You wanted your family to never have to struggle, never have to worry. And guess what having no payments in the world helps you do? Not worry. And so I know that's the least flashy information. And I honestly, I doubt you'll do it because you're probably going, well, my mortgage interest rate is like 3%. I can invest that and get 6%. Right? You're doing the math in your head and the whole time you're holding this brand new nine month old who feels that angst on you all day every day versus the dad who has not even a house payment and it's like can you believe

inflation and he goes i don't know what is it because he literally doesn't care and you're talking to two dummies here do you you know what our combined IQ is? Yeah, seven. Our combined FICO score, I honestly, I couldn't tell you my credit score. I can't think of a number I care less about. I don't even know what it is. I don't care.

And I'm not rich. I just don't care about my FICO score. I don't care about that number. It does nothing for me. It's the greatest flex to not care about the credit score. Way more than the 850. Not caring is even better. So Carter, here's what I tell you to do. Pay off the car, stop worrying about the credit score, and start building wealth the right way, which is the slow way. Be the tortoise and not the hare. Be the crockpot in the world full of microwaves. And man, it will change

everything as far as how you feel internally and how your family feels. Because you can out earn your stupidity. You make an incredible income. You can go do a whole bunch of stuff and still put food on the table. So this really isn't about safety because you guys are going to be okay. What this is about is justifying I want to keep my family safe with truly an underlying sense of some pride, some fear, a little bit of greed going, man, I can make some really good money right now in the market. You're going to retire a multimillionaire. Agreed? Yeah. Yeah. So what's the rush? Be a multimillionaire with a smile on

your face, not with constant rocket diarrhea because you can't feel your guts, right? Hey, stay on the line. We're going to give you Financial Peace University for a whole year. You and your wife can go through this. It's our gift. It's your shower gift. And y'all go through this thing together, and it'll walk you through every single lesson. You'll get there. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books.

Our thanks to the incredible crew in the booth. We've got Emily. We've got Ben. We've got Austin. We've got Andrew holding it down. And my co-host, Dr. John Maloney and You America. We'll got Emily, we've got Ben, we've got Austin, we've got Andrew holding it down, and my co-host, Dr. John Maloney and You America. We'll be back before you know it. Hey, George Campbell here. If you love the show and you want a deeper dive on your money journey, we've got a weekly newsletter that gives you helpful articles and tips on following the

Ramsey way. Just go to ramsysolutions.com today to sign up for the newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.