The Ramsey Show - App - Your Financial Outcomes Won’t Change Until You Do

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

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This episode is filled with some of our best calls and advice, but unless you take what you hear and put it to work in your own life, you'll be stuck with the same money stress in 2026. So make a change and download every dollar today. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, host of the Rachel Cruz show, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at AAA 825-5-225. John's in Orlando. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, Mr. Ramies, it's nice to meet you.

So I've actually struggled to keep steady employment over the past decade. that have been fired several times due to personality and behavioral challenges. You know, I've got over 70 grand in federal student loans, considering joining the Navy as an officer, but to pay off debt and to build a career. At the same time, considering starting a podcast with my friend, I'm Ben, but I'm unsure what to do. I wouldn't be alive today without God and my parents spun to me, but at 40 years old, I'd like to be independent.

At this point in time, no employer. will hire me, even low-paying jobs that you have suggested other people do to build a work record. I'm not sure what to do. What kind of advice can you give me to help me out? How many jobs in 10 years? It's actually 11 years, but 14. 14 jobs in 11 years. You're 40. So what'd you do before 29? Well, I was actually, I spent eight years in, you know, in college because I made a mistake early on in my life. I didn't have a plan. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I had a brief window

of time where I had good grades, but that was only, you know, in high school. And go back to the other then. Thank you. I go back to the other than. You had 14 jobs in 11 years, so it's not even a year each. And you said behavior and personality challenges caused you to lose your jobs. Is that what you said yeah so i have a disability i have a personality disability um and it took me many years to figure that out through different neurological assessments um what is your what is the diagnosis uh npd um is what i've been told i have um but i was my my mom believes uh you know when i was vaccinated when i was a kid and my body rejected the vaccine and it caused me to have have epilepsy when I was younger and ADD and a few.

So how does this manifest itself in the workplace? Like you're just a butt? So what it's caused me to do is challenge authority to be a difficult employee to work. What you describe would be normally I would think belligerence. Yeah, I guess you could put that in that category. And is it episodes, John, when it happens? Like when it occurred, do you, are you aware of it? like when it's happening or how does that work?

Because I'm just trying to figure out the tools to put in place for your life going forward to be able to function in society, right? I mean, to be able to hold a job. Well, hold a relationship of anything. I haven't been able to function in society. Yeah, that's the point. And the Navy's not, Navy doesn't do well with people who have trouble with authority. Yeah, I realize that.

That's going to be, that's going to be a nasty, it's going to be a nasty conflict. I mean, the whole military thing is, authority you know that so um it's command structure and you will respect that even if your commander's an idiot so um wow okay so are you are you getting help with this in some way so i because i wish dr deloney was here today because rachel and are going oh no but um yeah but the i mean is there is there a treatment for this where you can become functional uh honestly no um there's no cure for it um I've proposed an idea to, because according to research, the reason why people have NPD is because of low gray matter in the brain.

I think that it can be cured with nanobots that you can inject nanobots in the body and then have them programmed to heal the frontal cortex of the brain. Yeah, we just left my page. I'm, I just, you just left me behind at the airport, dude. But no, there's no, there's no support really. So what I, you know, just from a common sense, your older brother talking to you, listening to you who loves you, just from that, what I'm reaching for is to try to find some way that, because there's not a career, self-employed especially, that pays people for misbehaving. Mm-hmm. Okay.

And so I'm trying to find some way that you create a sustainable life for, for, for, for, that, that. allows you to be employed, that allows you to be engaged in other relationships, that allows you to do those things. And I think, I think that the problem is not the career issue. It's the symptom. Right. So that's what I'm asking you, John, are there other tools, whether it's through therapy or whatnot, that when things happen, right? And even like you could take anxiety as an example, like, something has happened chemically in your body when that happens. But there are tools to get you back grounded when it comes to that. Is there anything, when you feel that rising up in you, has anyone give you any set of tools of awareness? I do this, I do that, to at least be able to

with saying like just a nine to five, right, to be able to have any level of function. Has anyone given you any tools at all? Or are you just kind of out there? Yeah, I mean, I have been given tools, but one of the things that happens when I go into these jobs is I I bring bitterness from previous jobs into it and kind of self-sabotage at the early stage. And they already have this, I don't know how to say this, but they already know they can see my resume that I haven't kept jobs. They're kind of in my mind. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That's logical. That makes sense. Yeah. All right. So, dude, the answer is that this is above Rachel and my paygris. I don't know how to answer your question because the answer to your question is to find some healing so that you can hold a job so that you can hold a quality relationship because there's not a career path and self-employed people oftentimes become self-employed because I can't do anything else

but it doesn't keep you from having to struggle with that because your customers are going to experience what your bosses were experiencing and you're not going to have any customers. I mean, if you're my mechanic and you're a butt when I'm the customer, then you're not my mechanic anymore and you go out of business. So, I mean, you fix my heat and air, but you're a butt. Well, you're not my heat and air guy anymore, okay? And so, you know, if that's how it's, if belligerence is how this is manifesting, which I'm not an expert in your areas, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm just

listening to you as a friend and saying, I'm going to be in the therapy realm. I'm going to be talking to Dr. John Deloney, which I will put you on hold. will try to make you a caller on his show. Maybe he can actually add something intelligent to this conversation because I can't. I don't know what to say other than you've got to get your ability to cope. Yeah. Well, and we have found people that are successful when they have very obvious limitations, whether it's a mental illness, a physical illness, a disability.

You know, we talk to people on the show and they are, you know, legally blind, but yet they're making $150,000 a year because they figured out something that got them a job and they figured it out. So there is a level that I don't want, John, the thing I would not want for you is playing into any level of victimhood. No. That this is a horrible thing, but people do have serious setbacks, but they overcome them. And we talk to them on the show all the time.

And so I don't know what that looks like for you. Create a predictable environment. 100%. So that's what I'm saying, though, is don't fall victim to this. No. And make excuses so that that's where the work of the healing and the proactive, you know, being proactive in that way is going to be your next step. It has to be. But I think it is possible. I think there's something that you can do, honestly, John, to find healing and to be a productive

member of society. I do too. I think there's something other than nanobots. Hold on. Christian will pick up. We'll get you hooked up with Deloney. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. The holidays are here. year, which means family time and giving back and remembering what the season is all about. And let's be real. It also means shopping. Y'all, if you're anything like me, December gets really busy and really expensive. It's harder to stay intentional with your spending.

And that's why I love shopping on Amazon, especially this time of year. Named the lowest priced U.S. online retailer for nine years running by Profitero, a third-party analytics and research firm, Amazon's prices are up to 14 percent. lower across top categories and beat competitors by up to 5% in key gift categories. Between amazing deals, stress-free shopping, and fast shipping, Amazon makes gift-giving simpler, the holiday season a little brighter, and helps me keep my budget in check. That allows me to get back to enjoying the season. What more could a busy mom ask for? So for more information about Amazon's low prices and easy, affordable holiday shopping head to amazon today rachel cruise ramsi personality is my co-host marie is with us in

san antonio hi marie welcome to the ramsay hi hi dave hi um rachel thanks for taking my call sure so i've never heard this um a situation on your show i've been listening to your show for a long time but um is there ever a point when you don't worry about little bills and so my husband is a portfolio manager and he manages about half a billion dollars so money is his that's what he knows when he comes home this will sound like a joke but it's not when he comes home he will start turning off all the light. He, if the TV's on and I'm not in the room,

he's turning off the TV. I've been banned from buying avocados because one went bad once. And he said, I never want to see an avocado in this house again. But he's not like that with everything. But it's just over the top. At night, he'll turn the,

the heat down to 65, and it's freezing and my nose is cold. and I can almost be my breath. And I, is that normal? It's normal to have thermostat wars in every marriage. The other part's not normal. No, Marie. No, no, no.

It's just, it's, it's, are you guys? Like, financially, where are you guys at? Oh, they, it has a million dollars. Half, our, our house was bought for in cash. are cars, you know, they're paying in cash. They're not used cars. I just got a brand new up to me, a 22 super. Marie, how did he grow up?

What was his family of origin with money? Well, it's funny because his father grew up with a lot of money and they had a house staff, but his mother was very frugal and you would never know that they ever had anything. they they were just how old is your husband my husband is 64 and i'm 62 he's too old he's too old to still be making his mom happy well his mom his mom passed you miss my point you miss my point oh a good a good little boy turns off all the lights and the tv and doesn't buy wasteful avocados and he's 64 and he's still living up to her freakish savings techniques. Oh my gosh. I just, I don't know how to help him. I don't know what to do.

This is not a money issue. This is an emotional and spiritual issue. He's trying to control his environment. Okay. And I know I do it too. We all, we all want to control the things we can control. That's called being a grown-up. But he's doing it to the damage of his relationship and he's doing it to the level that it's outside the norm of a reasonable behavior, okay? Okay, yeah. And so the thing is, you're sweet and kind, but you're going to reach the end of this, and there's going to be an avocado explosion in your house. Well, when I bought one last week, and I was stressed.

Yeah. Like, I have to eat this before he sees it. Yeah. and you know and here's the deal I mean here's the deal in Texas you own half of the assets yeah so that includes avocados you have no reason to be stressed but so this is not this is not this is a this is a control issue and he does he's not a mean person no he's not trying to be mean to you no it's just the scarcity mentality to he's he's completely operates on the glass is half empty and it's complete fear well he still

and please his mother of whatever it is though there's something yeah the motivation in it is very fascinating and that's the root i'd want to get to with him because marie he's not living in freedom at all could you imagine being him could you imagine walking into a room and for decades feeling this responsibility to turn off every light or god forbid something goes bad in the fridge you know what if he was in a situation where he couldn't because it wasn't legal for him to turn off other people's lights you know i mean he's freaking out you know what i'm saying i mean it's like it's got to be distressing Yes. So anyway, and this is an interesting concept. When we talk from a spiritual element, Marie, you know, we always, scripture is very clear that money, it can be an idol so easily. And a lot of people

see money as an idol when it comes to us worshiping stuff and nice cars. But this is, this is idolatry in a sense. It has, he has become obsessed, obsessed with it to the point that his actions are not making sense. And so there's a, there is a big component here for him. Yeah. So I, You know, honestly, I think as his wife, you just sit down and say, honey, number one, I'm not living like this anymore. You're making my life miserable. You're weird. Number two. I do tell him that.

I know. Number two, I think we need to sit down with a marriage counselor and someone who can talk to you about your obsession with these minor little things that don't even affect our lives. You're freakish and you're driving me nuts. Yeah. And I love you. Yeah. But he needs help. You're not mean.

But you need to talk to somebody about. this and or you just need to stop it, your choice, but I think you probably ought to sit down and figure out why it is you're doing this. We're multi-millionaires. I can afford a freaking avocado. I can throw avocados at the dog as a ball if I want and we're not going to go broke. You're fine. I can buy all the avocados and dance in them in the front yard and we're not going to go broke. You know, it's really ridiculous, you know, the numbers on this. And so, and, you know, Sharon and I have had to do this together. as we've gone from broke when we got married to making a lot of money to going broke

to starting over after the scars of going broke and you know we have to sit down and say okay we can enjoy this amount of money we can give this amount of money we have to like almost like say it out loud like if we if we give a hundred thousand dollars to this charity this ministry our life doesn't change it's okay and marie what's okay yeah we can Buy an avocado. It's okay. In this scenario, because when it happens relationally in a marriage, too, I think the hard thing for you is,

and something I feel like we've all learned through life, you can't change people. Like, you are not going to be able to say the right thing to him where the light goes on and he, or no, the light will go off, I guess. Tell me once the lights off. But it's just the idea of like, you're not going to fix him.

He has to have the ability. I was good. He has to have the ability to change himself, okay? But you, Marie, can't function in this codependence of trying to make him happy. You will never make him happy. You will never be frugal enough. So you need.

I won't. I won't be. So Marie, live in a cave, collect lint, only come out on triple coupon Thursday. Marie, you need freedom in yourself

and in your marriage for you because regardless of how he changes, you have to break that codependence. I'm nervous about the avocado. You have to, you have to let that go because that's you, that's what you can control your part. You can't control if he's going to change or not,

but for you live in reality. Marie. And if it pisses him off, it pisses them off. Here's the thing. He's not a mean person. He doesn't see this as anger, does he? No, no, he doesn't. He's a kind man, probably. But he's just controlling. It's very controlling. Because he's a lot, there's a lot of fear. Yes. Yeah. He's very generous with other things, with a lot of things. He's very generous. We have a great, we have a great life. It's wonderful. It's just these habits from this like, yeah, sample. Just no lights are off a couple.

It's a thing. And if I go to Sonic and it's not happy hour, I get an ear bowl. Because why didn't I wait 30 minutes? That's his problem. I'm getting my route 44. Cherry, line maid. Talk to the hand. Talk to the line maid.

Yeah. Line maid will talk to you about this. I'm not talking to you about this. You're weird. And be like, here's all the complaints for the next like six months that what your complaints are going to add up to is this $100 bill. So like just take it and I don't want to hear complaining. I'm kidding.

Don't do that. But that's basically what it adds up to. Yeah. It's there's okay. I'm sorry. Honestly, somehow sometimes sitting down with a good counselor, two sessions even, they'll be able to hold up a mirror back to him and he'll see himself. And when he does, he'll be a little bit horrified because this is not a bad person.

Yeah. I really don't believe he's mean. I really don't. I really don't think he's angry. you, you know, earful, but that's just fear-based. And so, but I think, you know, I would invest in two marriage counseling sessions and, you know, bring this up and you all talk it through and see what the counselor looks at him and goes, dude, you're weird. That counselor's going to pull a string and he may be in there for six months. You know what the counselor's going to do with

what the lone says? He's going to turn on all the lights. Oh, my gosh. You can't make this up. This is the Ramsey show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies. And there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind, scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world, like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance,

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I trust them, and you can too. Visit zander.com. For instant online quotes, or for a more personal touch, give them a call at 800-356. 46, 482. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Selling a house, the Ramsey Way makes homeownership a blessing instead of a curse. Buying a house, the Ramsey Way makes homeownership a blessing rather than a curse. It is tough out there right now in the real estate market.

it is tough to buy it's an interesting time prices continue to go up and there is a shortage of houses there's an inventory shortage and so that's why prices continue to go up and and yet it's there's people buying in other words it's happening more people buying than selling so if you're a seller in a weird market like this you need someone representing you that's going to help you maximize the asset and not think crazy about what you're going to pull off here. If you're a buyer in this market, you need someone to talk sanity into you if you get in one of these bidding wars. And that's a high end, high octane, high producing real estate agent that knows their stuff. And that's the only ones that are Ramsey trusted. I got my real estate license in 1978.

And so I know what a real estate agent looks like that is a high performing professional. And I know one looks like what I call a donut eater. They sit around eating donuts and talk about real estate, but there's a difference. So who's going to sell your most expensive asset? Your aunt who just got her license three weeks ago and she's sweet or somebody that sold 150 houses last year. Nick say on the aunt say, I'm just saying, okay? No way. Don't do this.

All right. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash agent and get a Ramsey trusted real estate agent to help you with us. You'll be glad you did. Allen's with us in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Alan, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you, man? Thank you so much for taking a more call. Sure.

What's up? So, got an upside-down loan in a car that kind of ran into my car loan now and sitting down trying to look at everything that we panned here in Arizona. Of course, everything is going up. That's like one of our biggest bills that we got. The car don't is like $6.95 with like 6.9 inches rate on it. We're just trying to figure. I don't want to do a repo.

I just need to try to get that payment down somehow, some way. What do you owe on the car? $32,000. Okay. Have you looked up what it's worth on private sale on Kelly Blue Book? Yeah, we even took it to like Carvana. No, Carvana is going to pay you wholesale. They're going to pay you wholesale.

Yes. Yeah, CarMax, I mean, they told her that it was worth 22. Okay. That means it's worth 27. Okay. Not because CarMax is trying to rip you off. CarMax is in the business of buying cars at wholesale and selling them at retail. That's how they make a living.

And so they never, why would they pay someone retail for a car? They sell cars for retail. And so if they're willing to buy it from you for 22, you can rest assured it's worth 27, which leaves you $5,000 in the hole. How stinky is your credit? That's bad. It's like $5.15, and that's why I can't refinance. Who's the car loan with?

It's with Toyota Finance. It's a 22 Toyota Camry. Okay. So somebody told me about sub-leasing it to somebody. No. Somebody's a fool. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. And why? Well, because if they don't pay it, you still owe it. And they won't pay it. Yeah, you're taking the risk on somebody else. Who buys a car on sublease? Somebody can't buy a car any other way because they're too screwed up. And screwed up people that are so screwed up they can't buy a car any other way, ain't going to pay your sub lease. And then you're going to get screwed again. You've been screwed enough on this car. We need to stop it, okay? So, uh, Wow. What do you make? What's your household income? So I make 50 myself. My wife, she's a hairdresser, but she recently just got a job at a call center. She makes $18 an hour. Okay. How much other debt have you guys got?

So when I looked at everything with my kidney transplant and all that type of stuff, my credit alone, I owe like $17,000 right now. Your kidney transplant. Is that like medical bills? Medical bills, yes. You had a kidney transplant. Yes, sir. Kidney and pancreat transplant three years ago, four years ago. Wow.

How are you doing? I'm doing good. God is good. They call me a miracle because they say a lot of people don't get called for a kidney. Yeah, I'm thinking after you've been through that, a car payment ain't no step, right? Yeah. Wow. Man, that's something else, Alan.

Okay, so here's the answer to your question. Here's what I'm fishing after, all right? The answer to the question is we need to sell the car. In order to sell the car for $27,000, we need $5,000 to put with it to be able to pay the car off, right? Oh, okay. And that gets rid of the whole stinking problem. And then we go save up and get a $1,000 hoopty until we can get some money saved and move up out of the land of hoopty. But right now, I mean, because dad gum, man, what you're paying a month, you could save some serious.

money towards a car. Ten months of your car payment to buy a $7,000 car, man. Jeez. Right? Yes, sir. Wow. So that's the world you're living in. So we've got to get rid of this Camry. Do you have any money saved, Alan? Anything? So, there was another question of mine, but they only said I had to ask one.

That's a very concern of mine because I got children. I get depressed about it. I'm 42 years, and me and my wife, we have no savings. We live in Arizona in a two-bedroom condo, and it's $1,800 a month, and we just, we don't know what to do. It's just like we don't know how to go about it, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. I've been right where you are, man.

It's not fun. I haven't been with the pancreas kidney thing, but oh, my gosh, I've been with the rest of it. I've been where you are. I know what it feels like to be scared. I was still working full time doing that, too. So it was such a journey. And so, you know, by time my bills I paid and everything like that,

it's kind of highly enough to save anything. Okay. So here's the deal. Let's just close our eyes for a second, right? If you had $25,000, your whole life would be different. You'd be 100% debt-free and out of this car. you'd have paid off all the medical bills and be out of this car or be selling it if you had $25,000. Right?

I would, yep. Right. Okay. So, $1,000 a month is $25,000 in two years. Okay. $1,000 a month extra jobs. $1,500 a month extra jobs gets you out in 18 months. I need you to save up $5,000 and sell the stupid camera as soon as possible

and then just continue cracking that whip on that $17,000 from then on and let's be done with this thing and get you a cheap-o, cheap-o car. I don't want you to drive a cheap-o car the rest of your life. I want you to get rid of this thing that's killing you. Okay. And it's not with the car max or carvana. It's selling it to an individual for 27, not for 22, but you've got to have. have the money to cover the difference

because you can't get the title to give to the buyer if you don't pay off the bank. Toyota's got your title. So the moral of the story, Alan, I think, you know, the conclusion is what's going to help get you guys out, the fastest is raising your income. And if you can do something

evenings and map it out too, because this can feel always really overwhelming, but just to say, okay, on average, if I work an extra three hours, a night for five nights a week, you know, what is that going to equal in money? If that's driving Uber, if that's Instacart, whatever it is, you know, find some side hustle stuff and kind of map it out and just say, okay, how much do I have to work for us to get to a goal of $1,000?

And then timeline that out, just like what Dave did earlier, and then say, what if I did $1,500 a month, right? Like start running those numbers and actually write them down. You and your $50,000 doesn't even count her salary. So maybe there's a challenge for you guys lifestyle-wise to take her income and throw it, yep, all of that. Everything at this. Throw everything at it. We're cheering for you, Alan.

So you're going to put you through Financial Peace University. And then I want you to call us back as you're walking through this. If you've got other questions, you get some money piled up and you don't know exactly what to do. Holler. We'll help you, man. We've been scared too. We know what it's like. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Today's question comes from Alexandria in Texas. I'm currently going through a divorce and recently found out that my husband has taken out credit cards in our children's name. He racked up significant amount of debt and emptied his retirement account to pay it off. He keeps telling me it's not possible to pull credit reports on our kids,

but I don't believe that that's true because now he wants me to sign paperwork it absolves him from any wrongdoing regarding our kids no good not happening your husband is scum anybody that was

screw his own kids over is scum I mean who takes out that that's just absolutely the I mean to start with identity theft is illegal. It's criminal fraud. Okay.

So your husband is a criminal. Oh, and who do he steal from? His children. What a jerk. No, I am not signing any paperwork except paperwork puts him in jail. That's a, that's paperwork we're signing on him. So, no, go talk to your lawyer, darling. And tell your lawyer to send him back a little note that says,

L-O, L-O, L-O, L-O, L-O, L-O, L-O, L-O, L-O. You've got to be freaking kidding me. You're saying, oh, L, L, L, L, O, L, O, L, L. I know, but it's, it's, laugh out loud, you fool. There you go. Okay, so you've got to be kidding me. Oh. Yeah.

And you can freeze your kids credit, which is what you should do. You can pull kids credit reports and you can freeze them. We know this because we did it when Rachel was a, when they first started allowing freezing, Rachel was still a minor. And all of our children entered their adult life with a free. frozen credit report nothing had ever been on our kids too nothing could get on it well and you do it too to protect them from ID theft just in general like with their internet you know the internet and scams and frogs you need to freeze it because their father's scum okay well that will keep him from

if they actually check the credit before they issue the credit card they won't issue it if it's frozen next time he tries to do this because there will be a next time this guy is a serious con artist Sorry. Man. Okay. This is interesting. Listen to the verbage. He keeps telling me it's not possible

to pull credit reports on our kids, but I don't believe that's true. So here's, let me help you with this. Anything this guy says is not true. If his mouth is moving, he's lying. This is a guy who would steal

his own children's identity for his own personal benefit. So nothing that comes out of his mouth can be trusted. So the only thing that can be trusted, are the actual facts and the behavior, not the verbal wishes. So, no, you can pull credit reports on your kids. You can freeze credit reports on your kids.

I have done it. And I would to make sure, I mean, if he says he paid it off, who knows? You know, so I would pull those credit reports to see what the status is for your kids. I would file a criminal on him. I'd have the police. I'd set him up to say, hey, somebody stole my kids' identity. Oh, it was him. Absolutely.

And then let him figure that one out. definitely so because i don't want this guy near them again this is unbelievable carlo is in miami hey carlo what's up i hope all you doing are well we are so um i wanted to ask your opinion um my mom in february late february she passed away from her 10 year cancer battle i'm sorry and i appreciate it on and in her passing um big family squabbles with the scraps left behind. Long story short, I have $110,000 sitting in my bank account. My wife and I tomorrow are going to go get a biopsy for her.

They think she possibly might have cancer. And her father that lives with us, his cancer came back and we're dealing with that. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's been a rough 2025. but we're still blessed to be here and making decisions and trying to make things better. So I assume you and your wife have health insurance. Yes, sir. Yes.

Does her father have health insurance? Does her father have health insurance? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. So my biggest dilemma is this. I've always been a saver. I believe on baby step number five, if not six, we're doing rather well.

We just turned 40 this year, and I'm trying to balance keeping funds in the reserve for if things go south and living life now. We had a hard time with that with my mother. You know, traveling with her at the end was very difficult, but we made it happen, and we made our memories. Okay. I'm sorry, what an amazing amount of challenges. I would just throw that in a high-yield savings account for six months. Because in six months, you're going to have a lot more information on both of these situations. Okay.

How expensive a fight have we got? How long a fight have we got? And how much are we going to look at alternative solutions that our insurance won't cover? Okay. And that would be true in either case, but certainly true in your wife's case, right? And then with her dad, does he have money and how much is he going to, you know, above it? Unfortunately, he is out of pocket after insurance, and then is he going to try or do anything other than that that is going to be expensive, okay? Well, he doesn't have much.

He lives with us. We have in-laws quarters, and he has Medicare and Medicaid, so most of, and all of his treatments have been. you know, covered from that. Yeah. It's just, you know, I want to do right by him. He's been a workhorse, much like my mother, his whole life working. Yeah, but I don't think that, I don't think you're going to have $100,000 of medical bills with him. No, no, no, no, absolutely not.

Okay. But, you know, I don't know what the future holds. So, you know, I have the monies right now in a Schwab account. I could put that in a high-yield savings. Yeah, I just put it in high-yield savings. And just forget it's there. It's just sitting there, and then as soon as you actually can quantify these situations a little bit in terms of how long is this going to, how long are we going to be in this fight, and what's the actual out-of-pocket expense from these two different fights, then that tells you if you can invest and begin to do some other things with some of that money. Well, let's pretend, let's pretend that it's a minor issue with your wife, okay, and it's nothing.

We're done. Six months from now, it's way in the rearview mirror. The biopsy was benign, no problems, no issue. We're done, okay? We had a few hundred dollars and deductibles or whatever. Some co-pays, we're done. Then you don't have to worry about this $100K for that purpose. I'm not going to leave it around for vague worries, but I'm going to leave it around for specific worries.

Well, one of the reasons why I've left it there in that account also is she's a company to do a career change, which is drastically going to change her income. She currently makes about $100,000 a year, and her career change could drop us about $30,000 a year. So it's a pretty big shortfall. Can you not live on what you make? Well, in Miami, it's a little... Can you not live on what you make with her career change?

Yes. If you can't, she doesn't need to do the career change. Yeah. I mean, it is a luxury. she wants to do it to be home more. Luxury is fine, but if you can't live on it, you can't do it. Yeah. Because if you've got to feed your household $30,000 a year, in three years, this money's gone,

and then you're screwed. You've got a burn rate on this, man, so you don't create sustainability from savings. That's a completely different subject than you called with, but, yeah, you've got to, you've got to create a budget that you guys can live on, so if you can afford to live on without touching this money, her career change, she can do it. If you can't, she can't do it. Or you guys change lifestyles completely. You got to change something.

Yeah, but this $100,000, not going to save you on that. I'm not even going to come close. So, no, that won't work. But having it set aside to make sure you turn the corner on some cancer diagnoses, until you turn the corner, I'd let it sit there. Finally, mortgage rates have dropped, and you know what that means? People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window, but you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way.

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I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author, Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co-host today. Nicole is in Mississippi. Hi, Nicole. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Um, so I'm having a bit of a dilemma, excuse me, I'm a little nervous. It's okay. Um, my fiance and I, we get married next week on Friday. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. We are, yes, very soon. Um, we are excited about that, but I am still in the mindset of my debt, his debt sort of thing.

Um, my, my dilemma is, um, I'm having a dilemma with using my $800. dollars I'm on baby step one to throw at my credit card that I am behind on and my minimum is half of my take-home pay so it's half of what I make in the month that's what my minimum is and that is the only card what is your minimum that 2734 what do you owe on this credit card 13,000 and you have a two thousand seven hundred dollar payment on 13,000? Yes, I fell behind for a few months and then there's just interest added on and it's becoming unbearable and I don't want to use like that's not the normal minimum payment.

It's all the back payments. Yes. It's normally around 300 or 400 or 400. Oh, that sounds more like it. Yeah. All right. And you bring home, what, 5,000, 6,000? a month about 5,000 yeah yes and you're you're getting married and he has how much debt um he has about

40 and you only have 13 or you have a car and everything else or what um so together we have about 79 thousand dollars worth of debt okay which means you have another 20 something other than this 13 yes on what um it's personal loans. I owe a family member. It's various of other things. Okay. And so your household income is about 80, right? Your income and what's his? So my income is about, like I said, that's $5,000 and his is about the same a month as well. That's your take-home pay. Yeah. Okay. Yes. All right. So that's $120,000 take-home pay and so you're probably making $150, or so. Okay. All right. And we need to pay off 80 overall.

So, really, you don't really have a minimum payment of $2,700. You have a single payment of $2,700 to get current. Okay. Right? Because the next month it won't be $2,700, it'll be $300. Well, if I don't pay on it, if I don't get caught up on it. I know. If you pay $2,700, the next month.

month your payment would be 300 yes that's correct that's what I'm saying okay so um what I would do is just call a credit card company and ask them to roll that in and reset your payment well I called them I don't have a problem saying their names capital one I called them and they said that there's nothing that they can do okay there's nothing I can do you're not going to get paid how's that you get nothing honey if you don't work with me because I got no money I can't pay you $2,700 I can't pay you $2,700 I can pay you I can pay you $300 if you want to reset the payment.

That's fine. Probably I need to talk to your supervisor because apparently your two brain cells aren't rubbing together. This is how you talk to Capital One. What's in your wallet? Stupid. You know, I mean, come on. Of course they can roll that in.

They do it every day all day long. But you got some junior birdman on the phone up there in a cubicle, right? And so you got to nail them. That's what you have to do. And then catch them up anyway, because you've got to get the whole stupid thing paid off. And remember how they treated you the next time you get ready to whip out that card or do any business with this company. Oh, no, I've done. Yeah, cut the stupid thing up and let them know that we're done.

We're breaking up here. You aren't all you were cut out to be. I don't care which particular movie star says it gives me financial advice on your stupid commercials. Oh, God. So it would, it would hurt me to close it and then take them later. Doesn't matter where you close or not. You still got exactly the same problem. Yes, that's true.

So, you know, here's what you can. I just call and mess with them and just, you know, be, start out. You're nice, Nicole. You got to kind of, you kind of, you kind of hype up yourself before you go. And then end up nasty before you get off, yeah. Get ready to dial the nasty up pretty quick as you're on the phone if their brains aren't working because sometimes apparently they aren't and so you know now then the trick is it doesn't matter because in the end of just a few months you're going to have a zero balance on this

because you're going to get paid off because you make 120,000 dollars after you get married and you all need to clean this $80,000 up fast and one of the first orders of businesses this credit card because it's probably one of the smallest debts you all have right yes so we're going to list that in the debt snowball smallest the largest and I'm going to pound their face in and it's going to like $2,000 a month or $3,000 a month, regardless of what their minimum payment is, your minimum payment is I want you morons out of my life forever. Okay? And I'm teaching you to be a little bit angry about this because that's a good thing.

That'll push you through this and cause you to just pound their face in with the math as you're doing your budget. You're going to take that capital one, take that capital one, take that capital one. 30 years ago, 35 years ago, American Express called Sharon and asked her why she would stay with a man that wouldn't pay his bills. And I'm still pissed. 35 years later, I'm still pissed. I would still find that guy if I could find him, you know, because she called me crying

at work like, I think in the same thing, right? And so, oh my God, these guys, they're just, they're just ridiculous companies. And Nicole, for you and your husband, I mean, make this. a year, the first year of marriage. It's a crusade. And you guys are working extra at night. Like, I mean, you're just, you're high-fiving in the middle of the night because you don't see each other.

I mean, like, make it really be done with it. Like, get really, really aggressive with this. And then it's done forever. And then for the rest of your marriage, you guys have no debt. You have your whole income, no stress. It's a beautiful thing. And so the more intense you guys can be in this first year. And if you guys want kids later, even before the kids, like, this is the time to do it.

Yeah. So if you don't pay them $2,700 and you pay them $2,100 because they're the first thing on your debt snowball and that's all you squeeze out of the first month's budget. Or $1,000. Or you pay them $1,000. Whatever you pay them. I don't care. Then the next month you pay them a bunch more and the next month you pay them a bunch more. I don't really care what they think. It's irrelevant. It's just pound. Well, it sucks is the interest, right? You get 26% on this amount. You know, it's 22. It's on the whole thing. I know. It's on the whole $13,000. Yeah, that's true. It doesn't matter. The interest is the interest. until you get it paid off with that credit card. Get it knocked out. What's in your wallet? Money now, because I don't have you people in my life. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, man, I tell you what, I spent the first part of my career doing a dumb thing. I would bring in people we were coaching, and I would call and negotiate with the credit card companies and set payment plans for the people we were coaching. And it taught me to hate credit card companies. because they're so moronic. And I'm still, it still rings in my brain.

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because every baby saved is more than a life preserved. It's a life changed. That's preborn.com slash Ramsey. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality is my co-host, open phones at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Peter is in Toronto, Ontario. Hi, Peter. How are you? Hi, good.

Thank you. Good. How can I help? So my question. is I recently inherited some money from my father who passed away. And it's enough money to pay off the mortgage on the house. And my question is whether I should do that or invest the money in investments like in Canada. It's not an IRA. It's an RRS. And, you know, things like that. And we do have, I have two children. I'm married. I'm 60. My wife is 55. We have 11 year old twins. And so there, you know, we do have a

college account for them. We have an investment fund for them as well. But so there's only enough money to either pay off the mortgage or not. The wrinkle in the question is, you know, the people aren't, my wife is a impulsive shopper. So we've been married 16 years, and we've gone to counseling on this issue a number of times, and, you know, she promises to change and to stop, and it doesn't change. My wife's parents are not wealthy, but they were, you know, comfortably middle class. They were very wise with their money. So when we got married, they actually bought.

bought a house as a gift for us that we live in. It's in my wife's name alone. I didn't realize how much credit card debt she had racked up, and it was in the hundreds of thousands. So we ended up having to get a mortgage on the house to pay off the credit card debt. And that mortgage is in both of our names. um the um you know the we're paying right now it's a adjustable rate mortgage we're at 8.34 the bank is saying that they're going to raise the rate soon um you know like money wise it

it is kind of paycheck to paycheck so paying off their debt on the mortgage so let me get this straight if you take your inheritance from your father and pay off the debt on the mortgage so let me get this straight if you take your inheritance from your father and pay off the mortgage from your wife's compulsive spending in a house that's in her name? Yes, but the mortgage is in both of our names. I know, but now the house is free and clear and it's not in your name. Yes. That doesn't end well.

I'm not worried about that. Why? Well, a few reasons. One, our marriage is strong. When? when was your marriage strong your wife is a compulsive shopper runs up a hundred thousand dollars how do you call that a strong marriage yeah yeah okay yeah so no i'm not paying off someone else's house who has an addiction

yeah how easy is it to get your name on the deed i'm just curious that doesn't fix her issues but I'm just from an asset perspective. Well, she could, you know, with her permission, add my name to the deed. I am not, I'm not the kind of person who fights over money. And I wasn't asking you to fight over money. I was asking you to be wise. Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

I love her parents very, very. very much. And by the way, her parents are actually... That has nothing to do with it. Yeah. Well, I would feel, you know, they... Peter, you guys are married. You guys are married. Okay? So if you're going to share in assets and share paying off her debt, you have just of a right to have your name on the assets of your marriage. It's not, it's not, it's not an unloving act towards her. No. By the way, we're paying off her debt. When your debt, she ran it up. Yeah.

okay I mean her her argument would be that it was for necessities for the house the thing is she overbys so you know like children's clothing our kids had a hundred thousand dollars yeah dozens and dozens of shirts and pants and you know stuff like that right if we're talking 10 grand we can probably nitpick if it was right or wrong but a hundred grand i mean that's that's an obvious crazy number I mean, that's, that's wild. Yeah. Oh, and by the way, it was under the cloak of darkness. You didn't know what happened.

Yeah, it was hidden. So, Peter, I want to go back to the- I didn't realize, yeah, I didn't realize. Like, I saw stuff coming in, but I, like, I would, prior to to our married, I never had that. Okay, besides that, that card specifically or that whole $100,000 in general, are, do you guys talk about money or do you all have a budget together? Like, do you kind of, do you know what's going on, or does she just handle the money? How does it work in your? marriage. So she has always handled the money. Okay. And before our marriage, I never had credit

card debt. You know, like once in my life when I was very young in my 20s, I paid a dog. Do you have access, Peter, to your accounts? Like, do you check in on the accounts and kind of have a pulse of what's going on at all? You know, I do, now that our kids are a bit, when the kids were young, like we were barely getting any sleep and, you know, with both of us working full time, we were exhausted. But now that the kids are more self-sufficient, I feel like I have the time now that I can start monitoring. Okay, because that's what I would, that's my encouragement to you, because we find this so often that one spouse in the marriage takes the weight of the money.

They're the ones that pay everything, know everything, do everything. And to a degree, that spouse has so much pressure and responsibility. It's very isolating. and your wife. Now, I'm not justifying at all her stuff of 100 grand of going into credit card debt and you're not knowing all of it. But also, you didn't know because you don't know what's going on. So, Peter, you need to step up in this and sit down and be a team together. And you're a very kind person. But when you said, I'm not the kind of person that fights with money, these are the fights you need to have because your marriage needs a level of unity and a level of agreement that

is so, that is so deep that you guys are on such a level of vulnerability and honestly, that it may come up. There may be some fights, and that's okay. Conflict is okay. And this is an area of your marriage. You need to be fighting about Peter and not being irrational and angry and hurtful. But man, you need to step into this. Yes, Peter. You really, I mean, she may feel very alone in it and she acts out, you know, for whatever reason in this way. But just, I'm just saying you need to step in. And I would say that to any caller when it comes to marriage. You guys need to be more of a team. And that's going to be a, that's the exact reason you want to push into this because it's going to create a better marriage. It's going to not be fun at first because you're

going to be, you guys are maybe, you know, back and forth with stuff. But that's what creates a level of intimacy because you're doing it together. So, yeah, okay. Inablers, people who, psychologists or therapists label as an enabler, as I've worked with them over the years, they're the nicest, sweetest people. They don't want to cause. a ripple. They don't want conflict. They want everybody to be happy. And the irony is that it's the most hurtful thing that you can do to not cause the conflict because the conflict is where healing comes from. And again, not a raging, angry conflict, but a conflict based on strength and wisdom. And so what you're thinking about doing is just trying to hide this lump under the rug

again by paying off the mortgage, leaving it in her name, which is absolutely ridiculous, dude. That's just nuts, okay, with what you've described here. And you think then it's all going to be okay. If you just keep being nice, it's all going to be okay. If I keep being nice, it's going to be okay. I love her mom and dad. They're sweet people. I wouldn't want to hurt them.

If I keep being nice, it's all going to be okay. And, dude, that's a classic. It's a classic case study. And so you've confused nice. By being so nice, you've actually caused harm. And you didn't mean to. You would never cause harm intentionally. But I want you to be the surgeon that cuts so that there's healing.

A little hurt so that there's healing. A little conflict so that there's healing. You don't pull the splinter out. It's going to fester. Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co-host today. Des Moines, Iowa is next.

Julia is with us. How, Julia? How are you? Hi Dave and Rachel. How are you? Great. How can we help? Well, my husband and I have been working the baby steps plan for about nine years. And as of last year, we hit step seven. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. We're a mortgage free. We're debt free, everything. We are looking for mentorship in being outrageously generous. And I was just wondering if you had any book recommendations or how we do that. We tithe. But, you know, above and beyond that, we're just looking for a little bit of mentorship. Good for you. Well done. It's a great question. So I'll just tell you what we do, Julia. I don't know if this is helpful at all.

And I think there are some, yeah, there's some books out there, I think, when it comes to this idea of being generous. But, you know, from like a tactical standpoint above the tithe, how Winston and I have done it, there are organizations that we align with and ones that are close to our heart, meaning like there's one organization. we've given to for 15 years because it was an integral part of our story and we really believe in what they do. So we give there. There's been elements of different times in life where like, you know, foster care has been big on my heart and we've given to things towards that or Winston's had things. So from the organizational standpoint, it is always fun to be able to support someone who's doing what you love and what you believe in. So we've done it that way. And then this year in January, we're doing something different. We're just adding it.

in on the giving section of our every dollar app. We are putting, we put an amount of money every single month and we're forcing us, we're forcing each other, we're holding each other accountable to have that money be given away at some point in the month. So that could mean like a very generous tip could be part of that money. It could go towards if we hear something of, you know, a friend's family member, X, Y, and Z and we're able to kind of just like anonymously give some money there. So we have found more energy in that, honestly, because the organization giving is wonderful and it's a, you know, it's great.

People just do incredible things. And with the Ramsey Foundation that we as a bigger Ramsey family are involved in, there's incredible organizations. But there's something about this joy for me of seeing someone or intersecting your story with someone else and able to help kind of in the moment there. And again, it could be anonymous, not or not. but giving room for those things to occur and what that's done for me Julia is it's caused me in an everyday instance just to be looking and I'm more aware of people because I'm like okay we have this money that I want to give and like and I do as a believer I'm like there's something spiritual about it where I'm like okay where's the Holy Spirit kind of nudging me here and I've

just found with giving for when you're when you have a pulse on that and you're just interacting with that part of your soul if you will it just creates a richer life where I feel like before we were a little bit tactical with our giving like we gave our tithe and we'd give to an organization but there's something about interacting with individuals on a day-to-day basis that again just that that's one element one way to give and I've enjoyed that I mean we're only in February it's only been two months of it but there's I don't know there's just like this warmth to life there it came alive again for us because sadly giving can get stale if you just have it on autopilot right so like part of this is interacting with the money you're

giving too so that's that's what Winston and I do but Dave and Sharon do it on a larger scale. Well, but it's still, it's the same. We budget a certain amount just for, and some of this we keep on the books and some of what we don't worry about as far as tax return goes, but just random acts of kindness. We just run into somebody and we want to always look across the restaurant and pick up the tab for a person in uniform. You know, we always want to do that.

We always want to catch somebody doing something we love and just participate. participate in that kind of stuff that that's just that's low budget it doesn't take a lot of money yeah but it's it's there's a lot of joy and it's a lot of fun yes yes and just you know we're our we'll look across and see one of our team members and is there with their spouse and we just end up picking up course i charge that back to the company but um that's an hrb thing but yeah i may buy their dinner if they're lucky enough to land in the same restaurant i'll land in but anyway just something like that just catch people doing something right and um and random acts of kindness just catch somebody where that you know where we're a few hundred dollars means a lot, and I've been in those situations, and a lot of people

out there have been. So you want to do that, but that's a smaller portion of dollars, but it's, like Rachel said, it's very hands-on, it's a lot of joy in it. Random acts of kindness, we call it that. And it's just God money floating around looking for a place to land. And so then we, with the Ramsey Family Foundation, we do not give to like a bazillion different people, $500, because that'll drive you nuts doing the tax. returns on it. So instead we pick just a few and really, really help them. And they're always something that is close to our heart. And many times, we know the people involved in the ministry. We know the character of the people involved. We know. And the last thing I'll add to that

that Rachel didn't bring up is that I learned many years ago because I was giving a lot. And we've always been outrageously generous. It's part of our DNA. And it's the most fun you'll have with money. So you're going to love this. I love this question. But anyway, I treat large gifts like we're talking about as if I was doing an investment into a company. If I'm going to buy into that company, I'm going to know what their strengths and weaknesses are. And I'm going to make sure that I'm not participating.

I'm not enabling, you know, incompetence or bad behavior of some kind. to the extent I can tell we don't do that. So, for instance, we don't give to organizations ministries that run debt. Well, duh. Of course, Dave Ramsey's not going to pay a bank through a ministry. No. So if you're going to run debt, you're not going to be on our list of donations. We don't believe in debt.

We don't borrow money. We teach people not. How dumb would it be for us to take our generosity and give it to a bank through your ministry? Because you wanted to have a building for your ministry instead of being a renter. No, be a renter. So, you know, that's one of the things, and that upsets people sometimes, but oh, well, I don't know why. It's kind of obvious to me, but anyway, so we do stuff that is consistent with us, and we're looking for their operational excellence, because if you're going to put X number

of dollars in there, you're investing it, God's money into God's kingdom. God expects some excellence there, just like, you know, those that are faithful in little things, will be given more to manage. And so it's not the diligent person. prosper, not the inept and incompetent. Yeah. And then I would also say, Julia, and something I feel like we've learned from you guys is as you guys go down this path, I know you're on baby steps, you just guys just got to baby step seven, but as you continue to build wealth, and I'm talking in like in the next decade or two, also with your giving, we've put ourselves in a position where we're not the largest giver, meaning that they are so dependent upon us to fund the ministry or what

they're doing, because that puts you kind of in these like handcuffed positions where you feel bad that if something changes and you're like, oh, yeah, we're going to give over here, then you feel like we feel like we can't because we're disrupting such a huge part of their operating budget. And if it weren't for us, they wouldn't be here. So even from a percentage level, I would not want to be the largest donation that they get and that they're dependent upon you to continue their ministry. Like that just puts a, it puts a weird dynamic and pressure element to that too. So that's something to think about that. We had some friends that they ran into that and it was it just gets messy if you want to stop it then you're like oh my gosh am i closing down

of ministry because i'm choosing not to give here anymore so it's just another filter to think through if you'll do what you're doing right now and be intentional about the subject of generosity like you're intentional about the subject of getting out of debt or you're intentional about the subject of investing you'll do really good at it and you're going to get great joy from it what happens with some people when they get to generosity they just go oh i'm just going to give it And it's up to God to figure it out. And like, no, God gave it to you to manage. And so it's not up to God to figure it out.

So I think that person is going to misuse the money, but it's going to be between them and God. No, no, that's not how it works. You need to be a grown-up. You can't be lazy on the generosity and really hardcore on the investing. So, again, you don't want to take the joy out of it, and you don't want to turn into a bureaucratic nightmare every time you give $2. And that's why I like, you know, the setup of having kind of

of those three buckets, the tithe, the organizational that you know, and then just a little bit of that mind that we're talking about that you just have throughout the month that you're like, I just am going to be aware of people around me. And when I feel this prompting, like, I get to bless them in that moment. It's kind of those three buckets that I... That one ends up being dollar for dollar, by far, my favorite. Oh, it is like... But it's impossible to do that at scale as an individual. It's very hard. It'd be like your full-time job. That's all you did. You'd be like that guy on YouTube. That's a fun job. That's a fun job. That'd be neat. But yeah, I hadn't got that job yet.

This is The Ramsey Show. credits you could maximize before the end of the year by connecting with an experienced tax professional like a Ramsey trusted tax pro. They know the tax code inside and out so you don't have to, and they can help you file when tax season rolls around. Get a trusted tax pro by going to ramsysolutions.com slash tax pro. Ramsey Solutions.com slash tax pro. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today, open phones at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. James, do you have the numbers on what that thing this video did on social? I don't know them off.

It was millions of millions, but I don't want to super-examined. It might have been 10 million. Not off the top of my head, but I can go look. Okay. If you get it, that'd be great. So our social media team goes back through the archives of this show, and they found a talk, our call I took. Gosh, it had to be before 2019 because it was in the old studios.

We've been in this building since 2019. And I can tell by the background, obviously, in the video. And they posted a clip of it. And sometimes we around here are a little bit caught off. guard by, you know, we may post 10 clips. One of them will have, you know, a million views and one them will have, you know, 40 million views or something. And so on Instagram, I've got about 5 million people on Instagram or something like that. And so, um, do you find it? 5.8 million on Instagram. We're looking at the other. 5.8 million this thing viewed on

Instagram when they posted it, which we don't understand sometimes why these, by some of them take off and you guys are so responsive to some of them and other ones just that we think are really cool don't take off anyway this thing blew up so we're going to play it and then rachel's going to tell us why it blew up no i'm kidding i was like i haven't seen it i haven't seen it all right watch careful then here we go i have 35 credit cards okay are you are you ready to endure some pain to get rid of this mess it's going to leave us with hardly anything are you ready to endure some pain to get rid of this mess yes i am what about your husband no yes yes he is okay all right and the two of you need to sit down together go on every dollar dot com and do your budget tonight

okay you can download it to your iPhone or your android or your desktop it's free check comes in all the money goes out and then you're broke and you can't figure out how to go the grocery store yes exactly you're not living by any kind of plan this money is owning you you don't own it and you got to get the other side of it and the budget helps you do that you're telling your money what to do instead of wondering where it went okay and then you and your husband are in agreement we're going to sacrifice deeply because i am so sick of living like this and when you get sick and tired of sick and tired you're ready to change your life kiddo yes you can you can do it and you call me back if you need help okay okay thank you Dave it sounds like a call i've done 5,000 times well 30 35

maybe that was it though 35 credit cards yeah but i mean it's a lot but yeah it's it's a George Costanza wallet, right? I mean, you know. I don't know what that means. On Seinfeld, George had a wallet that was six inches thick, yeah. Seinfeld. Yeah. Okay.

In a whole different world. Okay. I know. I'm friends. Another generation. I'm friends versus Seinfeld, sorry. But no, I mean, I don't know either. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know why 10 million people want to see that. It's probably $35,000. And everything you said in there, though, is all. true. You want to be the one controlling your money, not your money controlling you. You actually want to be able to have a say. You're exhausted of how you've been living. I mean, it's, it is all of that pent-up tension when it comes to feeling lost and hopeless with money, right? I mean, it's, it's the exact pain points so many people feel. So many people feel.

When you reach the point of being sick and tired and being sick and tired and Les Brown, the great motivator, I've said it a thousand times, always said you finally say, that's it. I've had it. That's what I was asking her. challenge you. Are you ready? Yep. Because you've got, because change is painful. Doing something you've never done before is scary. Yep. It's frustrating. It's painful. But you're going to keep getting what you've been getting unless you change the mix. If you keep making a cake and it's strawberry and you want chocolate, you should change the recipe. You know, you're going to be surprised. It's chocolate again. Who knew? Well, of course it's the same stupid cake. You made the same stupid recipe. So you keep doing that

in your life. It's the same thing. And so if I keep eating what I've been. eating, my body's going to continue to look exactly like this. Well, in any level of growth, and I'm thinking, you know, relationally, financially, physically, like any of that, I mean, all of it, there's a level of change that is so uncomfortable, but you have to be uncomfortable to grow. If you keep staying where you, you know what I mean, how you've been, you're going to, there's no pain involved because there's no friction. It's just, you're just doing the same thing over and over again, right? So when you are changing, it's going to,

to be uncomfortable and there's going to be some pain, but that means you're growing. You're growing in an area of your life and you're not stagnant. It's not change. The pain is not for nothing. It's transformation. Yep. It's the strain of the caterpillar pushing out of the cocoon allows it to become a butterfly. It's transformation. It's not accidental. And so you can count on you becoming the next awesome version of you hurting it's going to be painful at times um you know no discipline seems pleasant at the time the bible says no discipline seems pleasant at the time but ding ding ding ding but it yields a harvest of righteousness so no you know no time, you know, you and Winston got the whole family doing cold plunges.

At no point in doing a cold plunge is this fun. You're, yeah, we put the little babies in there too. No, God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, but I mean, you got, you got, at no point, is this fun? Yeah. But the result is inflammation's down, all these other things. And, you know, the result is, it's good for you. You pay a price to get better, and that price is the pain.

of change and until you have enough pain where you are today you will not walk towards the pain of change the pain of today can be just simple to simply disgusted with myself or it could be i'm about to get foreclosed on i mean the pain of today can be a lot of different kinds of pain but you can you can manifest pain today you can just get sick and tired of being sick and tired that's right it's a disgust right and then you go okay 35 credit cards i'm I'm broke. I look like I'm in Congress. I'm not living like this anymore. And then giving her a tool, every dollar, I think people are, they're needing something to help them in this, in this world of money. They're needing a tool. They're needing something to assist

them because it is, it's hard to do it on your own, right? I mean, I have a trainer to help, you know, with working out. You have, you have areas of your life that you get advice from and you have experts to help you. And now in the world of technology, you're able to, in a great way, you know, have an app on your phone that is guiding you just as Winston and I, we sat down two nights ago and did our August budget on every dollar. So I'm like, to have something assist you in it is such a gift, you guys. So the every dollar budget, it's that. If you go to every dollar.com and create your first budget for free and start actually doing this, that's a gift and of itself of having a tool come alongside you as well. Yeah, but then you have to do it. You have to stick to

what you wrote down. And if you wrote down something that's different than you, the way you used live and it says okay we're not going to spend anything on restaurants this month and we've been living at restaurants prior that's that's a big change that's right yep and and you know it'll be about 30 minutes before that little devil on your shoulders says chick fly no the devil the devil would not say chick flea that's jesus chicken but he might say he might say he might say chipotle yeah i don't know what would the devil say but anyway you see what i'm saying there's going to be some kind of little thing reminding you taco bell oh that's definitely the devil no question that's the devil yeah okay so um oh my gosh

so anyway whatever it is you go okay what's the temptation yeah you know you used to watch those cartoons when you're a little kid with fred flintstone and he would have a little little devil on one shoulder a little angel on the other shoulder right whispering and what's the temptation somebody's going to try to drag you back to your land of stupid that you're trying to leave, even though you have a roadmap with your every dollar budget on how to leave the land of stupid. Drive on, boy, drive on. Get through, get through, get through, get through, push through, get through. The old country song, if you're going through hell, keep going. You know, keep going. There's nothing on the other side. Deloni talks about that. If you're going

through a hard time, the fastest way through a hard time is straight into it. Yep. Not trying to back up, not trying to run around it, not trying to avoid it. Run right straight through it. And that's true. change. That's true of transformation. And that's why we teach you that snowball, because you get out of debt fast. We want you to lean in with intensity. And this is why the every dollar system works. So I guess that's what that was. I don't know. It is a bit of a mystery to me. I was waiting for something so profound. I'm just kidding. Yeah, really. It's a bit of a mystery to me that the things I've said like 80,000 times occasionally go viral and other times they're just flattered aboard. And it could be the 35 credit cards. That might have been.

It was a good opener. It was a good teaser, yeah. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Winning at money is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. What to do isn't the problem. Doing it is. In her brand new book, What No One Tells You About Money,

Jade Warshaw dives deep into the reasons you've been stuck. This book exposes the real emotional, fight with money and shows you how to win that battle. Pre-order now for 2499 and you'll get over $100 of free bonus items. Get your copy today at ramsysolutions.com slash store. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz. Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today and my daughter. Open phones at AAA 825-5-225.

Brittany's in Los Angeles. Hi, Brittany, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. Thank you for taking my call. I am in a bit of a pickle right now. I bought a house a year ago, and I... I am in a bit of a financial rut.

So I'm wondering if I should sell my house or if I should put it up for rentals. Is this your primary home, Brittany? Yes, no. It's kind of complex. I did buy it as a primary. However, I did have the use tent to also, well, then people to live in it, but also I was going to Airbnb it because I do work in L.A., so it but I don't live there my my house is in the mountains the cabin in the mountains so um

when I decided to buy a home I asked my mother you know to help me and she has a cabin up here I should also do have another cabin but I own that one with my dad and he pays a hundred percent for that one I haven't had to put a dime into it upon getting it and you know post it's been about two years so I was able to qualify for one on my own because of that. I had the intent of getting the house as an Airbnb whenever I'm not here. My mom's Airbnb was doing phenomenal, but I came in at the absolute worst time. I, when the market started dropping was earlier this year, it was pretty much right after election,

and I had gotten my permit in about February. So I think I heard you say in the last few months, I wish I hadn't done this. Did I hear you say that? Yes. Did I hear you say that? Okay. So what's the cabin worth? What's the cabin worth?

So the cabin is worth $3.60. It's what I bought it for. Good. And what do you owe against it? I owe about $350. Oh, $3.50. Okay. So you put almost nothing down.

I did put money down, but the interest just told that when I put it down, it was like $353 at the time. Yeah, but you didn't put much down. No. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So you don't have a lot of equity. So I'm not even sure you can, if you sell it, you might not even break even, agreed? That's agreed, yeah. Yeah.

Um, yeah. Have you thought about putting it up for sale? I have. I have a, um, a realtor actually going to come over tomorrow morning because I put a lot of work into the home. So when it got appraised, one of the things I was noted was the fact that it hadn't been touched. The house was built in like 1978.

Most of the cabins up here are very old. So if you've done those work to it, why is it not gone up in value? Um, well, I, I, I'm, I'm not. going to get the comps tomorrow. Oh, so you don't know what it's worth right now. Okay. I don't know. I'm just going based off of what Zillow is saying. Like the market is selling for, but don't use Zillow as truth. Okay. That's gross. Hopefully it'll be more. Hopefully. Let's pretend it's 400.

Yeah, let's pretend it's 400 and you can sell it and you sell it and your problems go away. Is there something wrong with this plan? Nothing's wrong with this plan. The only thing is so that's why I, I'm debating. I just don't know because I'm seeing. I follow houses on here on Zillow, like religiously. Yeah, you need to quit. This is not a good addiction for you.

It probably isn't. I like to see what houses are actually selling for versus what they're being, you know. You can list it for whatever you want to list it for, but right now is like not a buyer's market. So I'm very, I'm kind of stressed about that. I'm like, well, could I actually. But you're kind of stressed about keeping it, too. Not true.

Listen, I think you need to really carefully define that what you did with this purchase, the way you did this purchase, the purpose you did this purchase for, as a group, those set of ideas were bad. They did not bring you a good result. Because you're stressed, you're behind on your bills, life's not good. nothing turned out like it did in your little dream when you were surfing Zillow. Right? And so now you need to reset and go, if I'm going to do real estate, it has to be different than the way I did this. This sucks. Yeah.

Yeah. Sell it. Yeah. Okay. Sell it. I want you to have your life back. I like you. Thank you.

I love my life back, too. I do a lot in my life and have a lot of hobbies and obviously everything I've had to be put on hold because I'm barely keeping up. Yeah, it's caused stress, Brittany. Yes, Dr. John Deloney always says, solve for peace. What creates peace in my life? This is not bringing you peace. This is bringing you stress and harm and lack of sleep because you're stressed about all of it, right? So just why would you, I'm just curious from you.

There's a little bit of the hesitation. why are you hesitant? She hasn't given up on the Airbnb Zillow Surfing Dream. No, actually, I don't care for Airbnb. And I did say that after I got into it. It's like it's something about and it's because most people when they do Airbnb, obviously the home is a secondary home. For me, I am here whenever it's not books because like I said,

I own a cabin with my dad four minutes away. So I don't have personables here. It's kind of all over the place. My personal is at my mom. mom's house. I have a bag here of things that I need. That doesn't answer Rachel's question. Got a lot going on. What's your hesitation?

Yeah. Sell the stupid thing. My hesitation is that I bought the house and I felt very proud of myself as a young girl buying a house in California is really hard. And so I'm just stressed because I'm like, am I going to be able to do this again? I went through like leaps and bounce to get it the first time. And it was really hard. Yeah, you took a lot of jumps and a lot of jumps and a lot of.

did a lot of dances and ran around the barn three times and clicked your heels and finally got the house and it ended up not being anything like you thought it was going to be you forced a situation I am proud of you for getting something done but I was your age when I went broke because I did it wrong you don't have to go completely broke thank God you can just dump this thing and learn your lesson and go the way I did this the set of assumptions I used to make this decision were wrong And Brittany, everybody makes mistakes. And yes,

buying a home is a great thing. And we want that. I think that's a smart decision in life. But that's not who you are, right? I feel like you're tying your identity to this decision that you've made. And for some reason, if you go back on that, it's like you're a failure or something. Like who you are, your net worth is not yourself worth.

It doesn't equal who Brittany is. And so separating those things out and saying, this is who I am with a house or not, with a nice car or not with a second home or not like you are who you are and then all of these other things are additions in your life and we want to make sure the things that are additional in your life are blessing you and are good for you and not taking away so this is this may feel like a step back for you but it's not I think it's a learning idea and you will buy a house again I really do believe that briny you will but you just have to be smart about it and just to be able to have the humility to say yeah this was not a smart

decision right now, but it's not who you are. You're not a failure, right? And so you got to separate those two things. They feel very intertwined to me as you're speaking. question for you. Where will you be with your money at the end of 2026? Will you be better off? Worse? Or exactly the same? Believe it or not, you get to choose. Look, I know there's a lot going on that can make you feel powerless over your money, but I want you to hear me. You're more in control than you think. You can turn your finances around. So let me help you out. Start your year off with me and Dave Ramsey at our free every dollar live stream event on January 8th. We're cutting through all the lies and all the chaos out there that's keeping you stuck. So you have the clarity you need to

finally get ahead. And you could even win $2,000 just for signing up. Listen, another year is going to pass anyway. So decide that this is the year you're going to take back control of your life and your money. Go sign up for the free live stream at every dollar.com slash live stream. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality is my co-host, number one best-selling author, and my daughter. If you like what you're hearing here, we could use your help. You are our marketing plan. Spread the word on this show, share the show, click the share button. You can subscribe and you can follow, and you can leave.

nice five-star reviews and you can click the clip of the link out and make a copy of it and send it to your friend by email and go listen to this. This stuff's helping me with my life because that's what we're here for. And we need your help. We need to have more people that we're helping. That's what we're doing. And thank you for those of you that have been doing that because our numbers are ridiculously up. And we don't even have a stadium named after us like soapy or something like that. Sorry, the allergies are bad. But the, um, uh, Yeah, that you're our marketing plan. We're not dropping $300 million on a stadium.

You're it. So thank you. We're either helping you or we're not, and that's what we're here for. 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 tax. two things one you get to keep the money all year and earn interest on it instead of it's sitting in an account that's not interest bearing until you pay your taxes and pay your insurance so it accrues interest and 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 but but I suspect it is still a problem the benefit of using the escrow account is it's on autopilot you don't have think about it right okay and most people don't manage their money well enough that 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 the choice i personally if i were you 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 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 one, 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 to get, they don't want you to be behind. And then, 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 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 more people are going to screw it up by not saving up

the money, then the mortgage company is going to screw up the escrow account. Yeah, that's probably true. Totally. And we have a part of our website that talks all about this and all real estate at ramsysolutions.com slash real estate. That's kind of our real estate home base because we just, 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, in this topic of your money when it comes to your home. Yeah. Ramsey's solutions.com slash real estate. Honestly, it's the, the, the, the, that portion of our site is massive because we so get, we get so much a question on real estate and it's really,

it's really a nice resource to help you. Yeah, for sure. So good stuff. It's a 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'm my question, I have a bunch of accounts. I have a Charles Schwab brokerage account. I have Charles Schwab IRA traditional and a Charles Schrobb Roth. Now I also have a principal. Now, principles the company my employer handles are 401.

So I was looking at their website, and it looks like they charged me about $100 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 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. $1,200 a year. Actually, $300 a quarter, if you want to be specific. But, yes, basically, a hundred, 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. I would be very unusual. As a matter of fact, your employer shouldn't be paying that much per employee.

That's an asinine amount of money. Yeah, I kind of thought so. Yeah, I don't pay anywhere near that. I got 1,200 employees with a 401k plan here. No, 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 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 your robbers. Oh, my gosh. No, really. That's just ridiculous. What was your question, though, Jerry, your original question you called in? So my question was, 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 100%. The hospital is allowing that? Yes. Yeah, they, 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 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. It's 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 401, a company has a single 401k administrator. If principal is their administrator, they cannot send your 401k money to swap. It's illegal. They can't do it. You have a single, you can't have four different 401k. 1K companies at your company.

There's no such thing. It doesn't work. 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 SmartVester pros and see if they can unravel this for you. Just go to Ramsey Solutions.com and click on SmartVestor. By the way, they can help you if you're going to be doing side investing. This is the Ramsey show.

The all new every dollar is here, and now it's way more than just the world-class budgeting app. A ton of advanced features to help you make faster progress on the Ramsey plan with your money. The average person finds thousands, literally, thousands of dollars in margin in just the first 15 minutes of starting up. Start every dollar for free today. in the app store or Google Play. All right, Jeremy and Deborah are with us on the debt-free stage. What's up? Woo!

Hey, Dave. Hey, Rachel. Welcome, welcome. Hi, you guys. Great. How are y'all? Where do you all live? Charlotte, North Carolina.

Just over the hill. Welcome, man. Welcome. Good to have you all. And if you're on the debt-free stage, it can only mean one thing. You're debt-free. And how much have you paid off? $85,614.

Very cool. And how long did this? take. Sixty-two months. Good for you. And your range of income during that five years? 72 to 82,000. Cool. What do y'all do for a living? We own a small business in Charlotte doing a custom window treatments. Oh, very cool. Good for you. What kind of debt was this $86,000? It was our house day. A mortgage. Who has an $86,000 mortgage? Right. We had what was left on our mortgage. We had a little bit of a back story with our with ours um we actually got out of debt consumer debt about 10 years ago following your principles um and then we went through a stage of infertility and um ended up getting

pregnant with our first daughter that we we unfortunately lost her at 24 weeks um but we knew that we needed to stack money for her she we knew she was going to have needs um so we put the house you know we paid the payments but we put some extra on the side yeah and uh in 20 In 2020, we were able to bring our first daughter home. Yay. And then in 21, we were able to bring our son home. Yes. Oh, that's much better than paying off a mortgage.

Yes, it was. And over that time, we knew that we wanted to put them in really great school, take care of them like we were going to take care of their sister. And we kind of had that money sitting to the side, and we had that lift on our mortgage. And we thought, you know what, let's just do it. Let's be weird people. it, just pay it all. Yeah.

And we'll use the fact that we don't have a mortgage to take care of the kiddos. There you go. Exactly. It is blessed us. They're able to go to a private Christian school and, you know, little things like that that we wouldn't have been able to do. Yeah. We've not done this. Wow. Huge blessing in our life.

What's the house worth? About 350,000. Way to go. Very cool. Good job, you guys. Thank you. You've been stacking cash for this. Have you been investing as well? We have.

And how much in your retirement nest egg? Probably about $200,000. All right. So over a half million dollar net worth. already. Way to go, y'all. And no stinking payments in the world. None done. How's that feel? I don't know yet. Amazing. It just happened. Shut up. It feels amazing to me. It's got a sink in. It's got to sink in. Yes. Maybe the last payment and had some major house problems. So we had to deal with that. Of course. We're able to write a check for it. And so it's not fully sank in

yet. The next few months, you'll, yeah. It's been a blessing to be able to do that and not go back in the debt, you know, to be able to take care of the house needs. Yes. For sure. You know, because a lot of people are call our show with that situation they have the 85 in investments or something not retirement and they're like oh but i'm making a good spread on you know yeah making good money would you say it's a hundred percent worth it to just know that there is no mortgage one at least 100 percent at least not more yes not more yeah we spoke with you and john last year at the money marriage and yes some um some advice for us for the situation where we were in and yes uh it helped us guide us to where we needed to do and one day we're just like no more right the check

Check, build that count back up. I love it. Yeah. Boom. So great, you guys. Well done. Thank you. It's good to see y'all again.

I'm glad you're back. I know. We're excited to be back. So fun. Welcome back on the Ramsey campus. Thank you. Thank you. So now with all this you've been through, you pay off the consumer debt, you stack

cash, you fight the whole infertility battle, which is an emotional roller coaster. It was. And then you turn around, look up and go, stack of cash, mortgage, gone. Yep. And so like three different major parts to this story almost, timeline wise. What's your advice to people? And what's the, you know, when we always ask people, you know, what do you tell people about what you do to get out of debt? What was the key thing that enabled you to go through all three of those phases?

I would say, yeah, we, you have to have a team. You have to be a team. You have to be on the same page because it could easily tore us apart, you know, what we walked through in fertility-wise and then losing our daughter that was very rough um but it almost fueled a piece of me that it didn't fuel in him and and i was able to say you know what let's double down let's do this let's for our future for our future children and we're able to do that now and the feeling of knowing that we've changed our trajectory for our kids and their lives you can't can't put money on that yeah you change your family tree we say it all the time but it really does mean something yes it does because from where you guys

came from how you grew up do you look and think like that That was, where are you standing today? Did that feel impossible? 1,000% for me. Yeah, 100%. I had great role models as a kid. Yeah. My dad was probably a Ramsey fan, but he didn't know it until I met you.

And then, you know, then he was all on board because he's like, that's how he lived his life. And I tried, you know, but then get married, make stupid decisions and, you know, pay lots of stupid tax on a lot of stuff, you know, and then just, you know, being able to turn that corner and know about the, you know, future that we want to have. And the possibilities and, you know, are endless. What's the dumbest thing you ever did with money? Oh, boy. Much time we got left. I just pick one, the best one. Probably vehicles.

Yeah. Okay. Buying vehicles that we had no. Yeah, I bought a 2016 fully loaded off the showroom floor, maximal with 20-inch rims on it. No money. And I had no money to my name. Yeah.

And you bought that in 2016? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In 2016. Yeah. That wasn't now. You didn't buy that the other day. No, no.

Yeah. That's it, you know, since this whole journey, we've, we financed, you know, three pregnancies, you know. Cash flow, cash flow, not financed. Yeah. Multiple vehicles in cash, you know, it's just, you know, it's just. Yeah, a whole reverse trend. Yes, absolutely. It's never, never go back.

Well, I just want, I wasn't doing that to make fun of you. I just want to remind people that you can do dumb things and not be dumb. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have done some incredibly stupid things and I'm not stupid, but I have done some stupid but stuff in my life. And so I look back on, I'm like, you, you're, man, it's dumb. But yeah, but then you go, but I don't have to live that way. I can change.

Right. Just the piece that you get to have foundation issues at your house that you, you know, oh, it's just an inconvenience, like you say. Yeah. It turns out of an emergency fund, you know, it's just, you know, to be able to pay for our kids at school and, you know, it'd not be a question. So good. How old are the kids now? Five and three.

Five and three. Oh, wow. So great. Oh, were they kind of part of? it was the five-year-old like funny enough she's she's she's learning we have a school store at school so she's learning about the privilege of earning and yeah being able to buy what she wants and we have that the the kids um are the financial piece jeezer stuff yes yeah we have it for her so we're working through that with her i love it sometimes you know five it goes in one ear and

a hundred percent i was going to say because some kids you know people that are working the plan now that are listening yes they have kids in the home and they're kind of you know part of that journey yours are obviously yeah they're younger but but to think that they'll never know They'll never know parents with stress around money. And hopefully they'll project them to live the same. 100%. 100%. That's all done, you guys.

Thank you so much. So good. Proud of y'all. Who was cheering you on? We got family. We got friends here. We met at the Money Marriage Retreat last year. We became friends.

And they said they'd drive up to meet us whenever we did it. And obviously we've had family. Some here, some not here anymore. Wonderful. Well, congratulations. We're very proud of you. Thank you. Jeremy and Deborah, Charlotte, North Carolina, $86,000 paid off, house and everything. Yes, they are official weirdos. They did this in 62 months, making 72 to 82. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one, we're debt-free! Yes! You know, you watch their body language. You guys, if you're not watching this on video, you watch their body language, Rachel, and the way they're interacting. The unity is apparent just in their presence. So strong. That they were knitted together by the tragedies and by the victories and by the victories.

Yes. And pretty cool. Yep. Pretty cool stuff. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be I'm going to be the I'm going to be. Our The The The

To ... Our scripture of the day, Psalm 145, 16, and 17. You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in his works. J.K. Rowling says, if you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. Melody is with us in Seattle.

Hi, Melody. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I just have a question about how to talk to my husband about credit cards because I've been listening to this show since June. And I'm convinced I'm ready to cut up our cards, but he's not convinced yet. So I'm just wondering how I can talk to him about this without being too pushy. yeah what's his main what's his main pushback when you mention it um he likes the rewards

that's his main thing yeah and i'll let their level the credit score but he's mostly into the rewards for sure and why do you want to live without them um i i can kind of tell the difference when i when i purchase things with the credit card for versus my debit card, like, you know, when I, when I buy something with a debit card, I, like, have a mental thought. Like, this is coming directly from our bank account, and I can feel the difference in how much I buy, I think, because of that. For sure. Do you guys have, do you guys have a lot of debt? Do you have credit card debt? Or do you pay it off every month? No. He's very detailed-oriented. He pays off credit cards consistently every

months and we we're not in any debt so yeah yeah so for me this comes down then to a values conversation and i would be curious melody for you is it um you know is there more in it for you than just oh yeah i feel different when i spend with a debit card versus a credit card or is there an idea of autonomy not being more in control because you you're spending your money, right? It's getting to that deeper why for you. And that's what I would lead with. And what makes you uncomfortable about it,

what you don't like about it, and just having that conversation. Because I mean, yeah, I think the truth is, is sure, people pay it off every month. You know, that that is a, that's a reality. But I think when you actually taste this world of, oh gosh, I don't owe anyone anything.

And I actually use my money. in the present, and I'm not waiting for a bill at the end of the month, right? Like, it's just, there's a shift there. There's a piece there that I have in me that is so much greater than trying to chase after these rewards that end up not really being a ton, to be honest, you know? And so that's the leading conversation I would have. I would also just pan back. I didn't get rid of my credit cards because I hated credit cards.

I got rid of my credit cards because I hate credit cards. debt and so i would pan back and say let's have a discussion not about credit cards but about debt right we don't you do we don't go into debt okay if we don't go into debt um why do we need a credit score because the credit score has one purpose and there's only one way to maintain it and that is to run debt the algorithm that develops a credit score fair is put this together as an organization and the credit score is 100% of the algorithm has due with your interfacing with debt. If you do not borrow money, your credit score will disappear. And if you're not going to borrow money, that's not a big deal. That's, you know,

that's panning back from the credit card. And then that kind of does, then I don't need a credit card to maintain my credit score, because my credit score is not an indication that you're doing good with money. It's an indication you've been playing kissy face with the bank a lot. And then, you know, the points are laughable because, one, there's, you know,

Discover card gives 1% back. Well, let's run the numbers on that. if I run $100,000 through my Discover card, I get $1,000. On what planet is that a method to become wealthy? That math is absurd. It's like saying, I'm going to go to Chucky Cheese and run up all the tickets I can run up to buy those, you know, 10 cent, five cent things. And it's cost me $86 to get that 10 cent thing with those tickets. chucky cheese that's what your points are it's exactly how it works and so and and you know i've done

detailed studies of millionaires we've never met one that said you know i became a millionaire because of my points right so it's trading dollars for pennies and somehow feeling like i collected something like i like i beat them at their game and so both of his objections are inaccurate when you get into the reality of them. And I would be curious, Melody, too, just to do an experiment and just say, hey, for five months, can we just use a debit card? And at the end, like, let's talk through what that is. Because there is a truth that when you live in debt, and even if you pay off and pay it every single month, and it doesn't feel like a big deal, the moment you step out of that cycle,

something does psychologically change. yeah we had friends and you know they had car loans and um and they could eat they made great monies they easily could afford it it wasn't you know this like crazy stretch uh but then they decided yeah the next car we'll just paying cash and we talked and they ended up we talked to dinner and he was like that's amazing like i didn't realize what big of a deal it was to just own my car and i don't i don't know why we didn't do this in the first place so like again even if you can quote unquote afford the bill at the end of the month when you get out of that cycle. If you cut up your credit cards and do away with them as a test and go six months,

if you don't like it, they'll give them back to you. Yeah. You can get more credit cards. You'll get 17 during that six months, right? I mean, it's like in the mail, unsolicited. And so now it's not like they're going to go away or something. So, but I think it's a bigger question is my point than just credit card. I think the bigger question is what is our goal here? and my take on it and it's made a lot of people wealthy following that take is that your number one wealth building tool is your income. Don't give your income to someone in the form of debt payments and expect to become wealthy. And you all aren't using debt.

And yet he's tinkering around and playing footsie with it as if he's somehow beating them at their game. And it just doesn't work out in the end. so and MIT has done studies others have done studies that when you spend cash you spend 12 to 15% less than when you spend plastic and I'm waiting for the research to come out I guess we're going to have to go do it on the swiping your phone well when you say cash you mean debit card no I mean cash debit card is a little less than a credit card not a lot but it's a little less you spend it a little less, but it's not 12 to 15. I'm talking about actual Benjamin's.

Yeah. Because when you put, when you lay Uncle Benjamin Franklin on the table, you have an ouchy moment. It's like, oh, crap, that's like money and stuff. You pay cash for your groceries. You'll get so pissed off about inflation you can't see. I mean, really, if you people had to pay your taxes in cash on Friday, there would be a revolution.

because you would see how much money you're giving the government. It would freak you out. If you had to walk to the tax collector, like in biblical days, you would hate Matthew. Oh, my gosh. You know? I mean, really, if you paid it out, that's the power of the emotion of this. And it's called friction in the marketing world. And so if you're on Amazon, you just hit click, click, click, click, click, crap starts landing on your front porch.

But I think there is something to say, though, that when it's coming out of your accounts right then. Yeah, you feel it. You do feel that differently. it more. You do feel it more. I'll just pay it later. There's more friction. But I mean, if you're just swiping that Apple Pay phone, man, these people just walk, and they walk past and they walk past and hit it. It's gone, man. I'm out of here. They don't even know they bought something. It didn't even hit their memory brand. Oh my gosh. Wow. It's convenient. I'm such a boomer. Wow. Oh, well. I'm good with that, though. I don't like my other options. You don't use Apple Pay. I'm going,

you're right. I don't. I promise you, I don't. I'm old. Cool. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in 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.