The Ramsey Show - App - Your Mindset Matters More Than Your Money

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

While we're out for new year's, we've compiled some of our favorite Dave and George calls from the past couple of years. Enjoy your day and we'll be back with a live show in the new year! Happy New Year! Dave Ramsey & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: ‘We've been looking for a house for 9 years.’ 'How do I save a $1 million inheritance?’ ‘How much should we help our daughter?’ ‘Liquidate my investments and buy crypto? ' ‘My husband's side hustle doesn't make money’ 'Should I pay taxes on cash income?'

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, is my co-host today. Open phone to 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Paul is with us in Minneapolis.

Hey, Paul, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, thanks for taking the call. I have another should we pay off the house early out of our retirement question for you. Okay. Why is this one different? Well, my wife and I are both retired. I'm 61, she's 58. We retired with the mortgage. And I've got a number of differing opinions from our financial guy. I've got friends that work in the finance industry. I worked for a bank in 30 years.

I guess just looking for another opinion, maybe one with a little bit more credence than some of the others, I guess. Okay. So how much do you own your home? It's a $450,000 house. We owe $170,000. And how much do you have in your nest egg? What's that?

What's your net worth? What do you have in your nest egg? Net worth is about a million and a quarter. We've got just over a million that is investment and retirement. If your house was paid off, why would you go borrow on it? and a quarter. We've got just over a million that is investment and retirement. If your house was paid off, why would you go borrow on it? We would not. Then what's the difference?

I guess it's just, okay, let me rephrase the question. Maybe a better question is if we decide to do this, is it a process over multiple years to ease the tax burden? Do we just bite the bullet and take the hit and do it once? Or how would I do it? I've been doing this 30 years. I've never had anybody call me back and say they were pissed off because they paid off their house. Fair enough. So one shot, or would you...

I'd write a check today. I'd be debt-free. I'd have been debt-free yesterday if I were you. And quit listening to all these idiots. There's a lot of idiots out there running around with an opinion about your money, and you're a millionaire. What's your mortgage payment? Go ahead.

What's your mortgage payment right now? Mortgage payment is what, $1,200. Okay. You'd free up most of that, which now you can invest. So yes, you'll lose some out of that investment account, but you're going to still invest for the next 20 years. Dude, you're just going to sleep so much better tomorrow. I mean, we're both retired, so invest is rolling, not necessarily additional. You have almost zero risk in this situation because you could write a check at any minute and pay it off if you got in a pinch. You don't really need the money in one way or the other. It's all about, you know, what is your end goal? When you're 85, do you want to have a mortgage?

You know, why would you keep it? There's no reason to keep it. You wouldn't go borrow on a paid for house in order to have more money to invest. And so write a check and sleep better tomorrow, tonight, pay it off tonight, hit the submit button. And then when you go and you get the mortgage release in the mail, make a copy of it, take your shoes off. Walk into the backyard. Have a mortgage-burning party. And tell me that didn't feel good. I mean, there's just no downside to this. You know, you're a million. You're going to be okay either way if you don't follow our advice, if you follow those idiots' advice.

But if I've got a financial person that's telling me to stay in debt, I'm getting a new financial person. Period. Because, George, we studied 10,167 millionaires. The number of them that told us that they became wealthy because they borrowed on their home in order to invest was precisely zero. None of them leveraged their personal residence to build their wealth. None of them. And so the idea that I continue to leverage my personal residence to build their wealth. None of them. And so the idea that I continue to leverage my personal residence in the name of building wealth is asinine based on the millionaire data. Well, we're seeing so much more of this

because people have their record low mortgage rates they don't want to let go of, Dave. Why would I pay off my mortgage? But I got your mortgage rate beat. You know what my mortgage rate is? Zero. I don't have one. Hello. Heck of a rate. Zero. I got your mortgage rate beat you know what my mortgage rate is zero i don't have one hello heck of a rate zero i got the best rate come on man so when it's up and down you don't have to worry about them because you don't need debt anymore that's a great feeling instead of worrying about what the market's doing so yes it hurts to write that check and lose that

much money lose quote unquote but you never really had it if you owed it to the lender in the first place. Paul, pay it off, son. Pay it off. There's a bunch of intangibles that you're not even considering in this decision. You're still acting like it's primitive math, or at least the idiot's advising you are.

So you're going to sleep different. Your wife's going to look at you like a hero. Never once have we had a wife said, you know, my husband borrowed deeply on our mortgage, and he's my hero. Never came up. I love the Kermit vibe she had, too. That was great. Kind of a Miss Piggy meets Kermit. Well, it's the best I can do.

It's the best I can do. Anna, as with us, is it Anna or Anna? It's Anna, I'm sure, and she's in Grand Rapids. Is it Anna? Is that right? Yes, it's Anna. Hey, how can I help? So, I recently paid off all of my student loans and in debt-free. Yay! Way to go! Thank you. Yeah, so I couldn't have done it without you. So, um, but I have my three, six months of expenses. Uh, I just finished that up and I'm wondering now if I should be investing my 15% or if I should be saving for a wedding that my boyfriend and I are planning to have in about a year and a half.

So I'm wondering if I'm saving for that. Wedding. Yeah, okay, perfect. Are you guys paying for this on your own? We think so. We don't really want it. We just want to plan for that and that if something comes, then we'll go for it. But, yeah, we kind of just want to plan on doing it ourselves just in case.

Okay, I would set a very specific goal, a number you're trying to hit to save. And I would try to hit that before the year and a half is over and then begin investing. You got that money set aside. You know, you're not going to have to go into debt for this wedding. That is the goal here. And so that's why we're telling you to save for the wedding first. Because what happens is you start investing 15%. The wedding was over budget. Now we got to put it on a credit card. For sure. Yeah yeah so what do you think you're going to spend um we're thinking maybe between i would say probably we're thinking between 20 and 30 depending on what rates are but um probably 25 is the goal we set okay well if you

yes that that by the way that's about an average wedding in america right now so um you're not above average you're not above average. You're not below average. You're right around there. It was 28,000 last year. So the thing is having three grown kids that all got married, and I was involved in the budget because I was paying for it, or at least part of it anyway on all but one.

All of it, but anyway, my part my part the bride's part and then my son we participate some have a detailed budget not a general goal lay it out okay this is how much we're going to spend on the photographer there's so much we get on the dress there's so much we spend on the reception and treat it i'm sorry but treat it like a project you're managing a project you are so you have a timeline you have a budget budget, and you stick to it. What must be true? Well, we can't have that. We got to have this instead. If you don't have a very specific thing, then you'll line item, you'll get into a mess there. But that sounds reasonable, I would say, for the wedding first. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey,

you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites, and it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids' names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you

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That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us open phones at 888-825-5225 Will is in Atlanta I will how are you good how are you Dave better than I deserve what's up um about two months ago my grandmother passed away and um i received about a 1.1 million dollar inheritance wow

i'm sorry for your loss and thrilled for your blessing what a wonderful what a wonderful thing she did that's amazing you're the only grandkid no i'm one of two grandkids each of you got 1.1 yes way to go granny wow um but my question today was how how do i make i'm 23 years old um i was i was just calling to find out how do i make the absolute most of this? So this is a little bit intimidating to you. Yes. Good. Good. That's a good sign.

That means you're wise. If you were having a woo-hoo, I hit the lottery moment, it would mean you're a child. And so I'm glad you're a little bit. That's a great. It should take your breath away a little bit. This kind of fear is the beginning of wisdom. So way to go. It's a good fear. I don't want you to be panicked or anxiety-ridden or anything like

that, but I do want you to be aware I just got behind the wheel of a car that is way more powerful than anything I've ever driven, and I need some driving lessons. That's what you're aware of. Good for you. So proud of you. Good, good, good, good, good. Okay. First thing is keep that mindset. Second thing is never put money in something you don't understand. No matter who says to, including me. Anywhere you read or hear to put money in something, and you can't tell somebody else how it works in detail, do not put money in it okay okay

which means you might be going a little bit slow at first because this money might just be sitting in a bank account because that's what you grasp right now okay okay the the third thing is in the the multitude of counsel, there is safety. Money people, too many of them, have a little bit of arrogance in them, and they want to tell you what to do. If you have a money person, a financial advisor, an insurance person, a real estate person, an estate planner that is telling you what to do instead of teaching you, fire them and get another one. You want someone with the heart of a teacher because it is not their job to manage the money, it's yours. Your grandmother didn't leave it to them, she left it to you. So it is your job to sit with a mutual fund broker, with an advisor, and learn, and learn, and learn, and learn, and learn. And you're doing that today. You called

us because I want to learn what to do, right? That's very good. But always look for someone with the heart of a teacher. You cannot offload the nervousness of this responsibility by letting someone else make your decisions. Okay. That make sense? Yes. If you have to understand it and you have to have people helping you that have the heart of a teacher, that helps you understand that those two things work together. And then you're going to move slow.

You just move at the speed of your comfort, at the speed of peace. When in doubt, don't. Easy enough, right? That is very easy. Yeah. In other words, when your stomach's moving up towards your throat, you wonder if this would make your grandmother angry with you, don't do it, which is your fourth thing.

Each time you make a decision with this money, ask yourself, would this cause her sitting in heaven to smile and be proud of her grandson? Okay? And if the answer is no, don't do it because this lady had some sense. She left $2 million to her two grandkids. So I think we can use her as a filter for our decision-making, honoring her legacy, honoring her memory, causing her to smile in heaven as our filter, and that's going to help you also. Does that make sense to you? Yes, it does.

Okay. So there's no magic formula on what to do with the money. I put mine in growth stock mutual funds, and I pay cash for real estate. And I live 100% debt-free, and you probably already knew that. Yes, I do. And George does the exact same thing. Absolutely. And when you look at this money as a steward or a manager of it, it changes the filter.

And an easy way to do this is filter it through the baby steps, number one, but also filter it through three buckets, giving, saving, and spending. So you should give some of this and be generous, just like your grandma was. You should spend some of it and enjoy it. And you should invest probably the biggest portion of this for the future. What do you make? I currently make about $110,000 a year. Okay. So you don't need any of this. No. Yeah, and so here's an interesting thing. If you put it in something like a mutual fund and it makes 10%, it'll double every seven years.

So you said you're 23? Yes, 23 years old. So it'll be 2.2 at 30. At 37, it'll be 4.4. At 44, it'll be 4.4 at 44 it'll be 8.8 it'll be 16 million when you're 50 if you just don't touch it and invest it and it makes 10 percent yeah mind-blowing i i i didn't get it like wired to my bank account it just got transferred into one of the financial institutions that she was associated with. But currently it's split up about $350,000 as in personal stock choices and CDs,

and then $750,000 as in a managed stock account. Okay. Well, I don't play single stocks, so I probably wouldn't do that because there's more risk. But I want you to get in there and start figuring it out. And again, there's nothing to panic about, but feeling the weight of this as a responsibility to manage is a proper philosophical, spiritual stance for you. If you do that, it'll cause your decision-making to be different than just some little kid who got some money

and blows it all by the time he's 26. Yeah. Okay. Because you're not. You're already more manly than that, I can tell. Very wise. Yeah, I'm very well done. So I don't know if he said it, but no debt, emergency fund in place, that's a good spot to be investing and to buy a property with cash, a reasonable property, enjoy some of it. And then the rest I'd be investing either in more real estate if he's comfortable or just putting it in some good mutual funds. Just take your time. Just take your time. No rush. Yeah. Very, very calm. Well, good question, man. So put good people in your corner that have the heart of a teacher.

They'll help you. If you want to know about the investing, the way we do it and the way I personally do it and get someone with the heart of a teacher, click SmartVestor at RamseySolutions.com. You'll find a SmartVestor Pro or two or three in your area that are people that have the heart of a teacher and know the way Ramsey does it. And they can walk you through that and teach you what you're doing. And they're going to move you out of those single stocks. I can tell you that. Once you understand, you're going to move you out of those single stocks. I can tell you that. Once you understand, you're going to move you out of those single stocks.

Paul is in Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, Paul, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for having me on. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm trying to. I recently graduated from college.

I've got about $20,000 student loan debt and about $40,000 already invested in my retirement account split between a Roth IRA and my company's 401k. What do you make? I'm trying to balance. What's that? What do you make? I make about $60,000 a year. Okay. You're trying to balance what? Trying to balance continuing to save for retirement and getting ahead on that. Um, I'm 24 years old and, um, just making sure that I also pay off the student loans. So I have, uh, um, got about $10,000 set aside as an emergency fund. And I'm just trying to figure out what to do next, whether I should lump some pay down my student loans or, um, just keep saving

for retirement since, uh, interest rates are a little bit lower than what you expect to get out of the stock market. Well, Paul, I will talk to you as if I went back in time because I had more student loan debt than you and I made less than you. And so at 23, I was $40,000 in student loan debt. I wasn't making any progress. I was trying to play the same game you are, balancing this all. Here's what you got to do, paradigm shift. Let's try a proven plan.

That means we're going to take $9,000 from this emergency fund, pay down the debt. That's going to leave you with $11,000 left. Making $60,000, you're going to knock that out quick. Pause investing. You'll be back to investing probably in six months if you do it this way. Investing 15%. Don't balance debt and investing. Get the debt cleared and then go whole log on the investing. That's what George is saying. And he's right. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.

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CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget at chministries.org slash budget. Where did you find that? George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host. That was direct to the booth dudes who picked out some strange bump music there, George. That's a new one. I know them all. I think I'm on The Price is Right.

One dollar, Bob. It's like a hip game show. I would love to see you on The Price is Right, Dave. It's not too late. I don't know. I'm know stuck on an elevator i don't know what happened all right up next is jacklyn in san antonio hey jacklyn how are you hi guys i'm well thank you better than we deserve good how can we help you didn't even ask but i answered anyway what's up hey you know i already knew the answer i'm on autopilot jacklyn how can we help i have a beautiful responsible 19 year old daughter who lives with us um and is about to make me a grandmother i know it's funny

i said responsible first right except for that one time yeah yeah okay my my question well financially responsible hard-working excellent excellent work ethic and morally sound. My question is, how much should I be helping her throughout this pregnancy and throughout the first month? It was obviously unplanned and she's had a hard time with processing the whole thing, and she is now unable to work. So I'm just kind of looking to you. It was sort of a light came on as I was driving and listening to you, and I thought, I respect Dave's answers, so let's run it by him. Well, I appreciate that.

Sometimes when I'm facing something like that that is a little bit ethically or morally or I don't even know. Those aren't the right words. Relationally overwhelming. It helps me to say not what is the right answer today, but what do I do today that is the right answer for 10 years from now? Exactly. Because we have a strong foundation with our kids of teaching them financial responsibility. You know, we go by years for years and years.

And so what you got is obviously, obviously a baby is an awesome, wonderful thing, particularly grandbabies. If I'd have known how great grandbabies were going to be, I'd have been nicer to their parents. So, you know, all of that part is wonderful. So this is a bad metaphor, but I would almost say, what if she had a car wreck and couldn't work?

She ran a red light. It was her fault. And then she got hurt, right? That's not a really good metaphor because it's not as – babies are much sweeter than that, right? Right. But, I mean, that's kind of how I think I probably would look at it. I'm just thinking like a grandpa right now or like a dad.

And that's where my brain is stuck. This is not a 39-year-old who's done heroin for 15 years and hates me. This is a 19-year-old that's done heroin for 15 years and hates me this is a 19 year old that messed up made a mistake that otherwise has led a led a pretty good life is what you're describing to me that's correct yeah when our kids graduate high school thank god god didn't throw all of us out in the ditch the first time we made a mistake so i got lots of grace and mercy in this situation if it's me i'm just going to take care of her like she's 17 yeah and then but but all with the idea that we're going to lead towards uh a sustainable answer when she's 25 so what's sustainable for her when she's 25 well obviously financial

responsibility career responsibility, mommy responsibility, living on her own and sustaining and developing a life, whether she does that as a single mom or later on gets married to someone, right? Do you mind if I add one more thing in? Okay. When they graduate high school, we have them pay us rent immediately. And the thing is, their grades stay up in college. When they graduate, they get all that money back.

So it's basically savings. If they don't, we keep it. She was able to, in school, pay us rent $500 a month, and she also saved $6,000 working full-time in six months. So she has $7,000 in her savings account. And really my question was, do I even let her touch that? No. Are you guys okay financially, you and your husband?

We are. We're debt-free besides our house. This is not a financial lesson. I'm loving my daughter through a very, very tough time. She had a car wreck. That's very validating. Yeah, that's what I would do. And I'm pretty hardcore on tough love, as they call it.

But this is not tough love. This is not a time for that. For me, this is a little scared pregnant girl, and I'm going to put my arms around her. I'm going to love her. She's mine, and we're going to get her through this. But not with the idea that she lives in your basement until she's 39, but the idea that she's going to, because you gave her some room here to heal and to not not heal but to go through this process well and heal it's been traumatic i'm sure yeah and so um to go through

and get back on her feet emotionally relationally make better choices going forward this is not a pattern that represents her life um And so let's get back on that track that she was on. And then you got a 25-year-old that's an amazing human being. It's an amazing mom, and everybody's happy and proud. Again, I'm not enabling into the distant future, but on the short term here, I'd just completely take care of her as if she was in icu or something what do you think george yeah i'm with that and i'm also wondering you said she's unable to work is that just a short-term thing what does that look like it is she um developed a pregnancy disease around five to six weeks um in her pregnancy before she could even process and she became so

sick that she was hospitalized. The good news is that it does go away the moment she delivers, and she's managed now. The hospitalization helps them to manage her sickness, and so she is medicated, and she's managed at this point and able to function, but it's very unpredictable, so she's not able to get another job. Yeah. Okay. This is a 19-year-old and a baby. Yeah.

Take care of her. Just take care of her. Yeah. That's what I would do. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Okay. You're a good mom. You've got a good heart.

And you're not, you know, you've raised a, I know you're tough because you raised a kid that has work ethic. You raised a kid that's making, you're making her pay rent. You raised a kid that did this and that and this and that. And, you know, so you're not a pushover and abler mom. I don't think, I didn't hear that. Well, I think that's where it goes into the long-term ramifications. If this is still a decade from now and we're still living like this in the basement, that's

where we need to go. We need to have an exit strategy out of this too once she's healed up and on her feet. In my mind, this is the perpendicular opposite of someone who's 31 years old and does this and is belligerent and says, if you don't help me, you'll never see your grandkid and all that kind of stuff. I have a completely different reaction to that person than I do this 19-year-old kid. And if you're 19 and you don't like me calling you a kid, I got socks older than you, so just calm down that's the deal i love that just means i love you is all that means it doesn't mean that i'm putting you down but i got a little more rings around the tree so a nice way a little more age going here so uh you know that that's the thing. So, you know, what you're looking for in relational things, period, but certainly in financial relational things is you're looking for patterns, not singular events.

And patterns cause you to endorse a situation or to avoid a situation. And that keeps you from becoming an enabler if you're wandering out there and you're a mom and a dad. So if you've got a 37-year-old that lives in your basement and will not work, that's a pattern. You need to kick said butt into the street because you're not a blessing to them. You are a curse to them. You are an enabler.

You have stolen their dignity, the dignity of autonomy, the dignity of standing on your own, the dignity of hard work, the dignity of killing something and dragging it home. The only thing they know how to do is play Nintendo, and it's your fault. You should be ashamed. That's a different pattern for moms and dads. And we got that out there because we got a group of males that aren't yet men that are stuck in their mommy's basement and mommy's still doing their dadgum laundry and if you don't like that that's okay get you a show this is mine so that's how this works wow well nothing will turn you into an adult like having a baby so the maturity we just hit the fast forward button right there

i'm just getting a puppy he'll do it oh, a baby, that'll push it right there. 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, usually 10 to 12

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Give them a call at 800-356-4282. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Canada is on the line. Maggie is calling. Hi, Maggie. How are you? Hi. Good, Dave.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, Dave, I'd like to liquidate my portfolio and be able to put it, I want to trade with cryptocurrency. And I just want your opinion. Do you listen to this show? Yes, I do. Okay. What are you currently invested in? I have an investment account. I

have TSFA and I have a RIF account. And what has caused you to go, hey, you know what, I'm going to trade all of that to go into crypto? Because I'm losing in my portfolio drastically this year. And I just know that I don't believe I'm going to come back like for a long time. Like, I mean, they say it'll come back, but I think it's not going to come back for 10 years. And I'm already 72. So I just feel like, and I also have experienced. It's not like I haven't, I have been doing crypto trading now for a while. Have you seen the crypto market?

It's a lot darker than the stock market. You're trading a paper cut for a stab. Well, I've made money in the crypto market. How much? Probably about $10,000. Is that enough to retire on? No. What's in your investments currently? But I've also picked contracts that have been lower, definitely, because I haven't had that much money to do anything with. At your age, I'm not going to go to Vegas and just put it all on black and hope for the best.

That's not a great retirement plan. That worries me. Let's back up. Let's back up a second, okay? You're scared because your good investments went down. And right about the time I get desperate and scared is the step before I get really stupid. Desperate people and highly greedy people make the worst financial mistakes. and your fear is making you do statistically or suggesting that you do statistically the equivalent of putting this money on a roulette wheel or a hand of poker because crypto is extremely volatile extremely risky at least 100 times more risky than your

current retirement portfolio, at least. And you're telling me, oh, I put money in the slot machine and I came out with more money than I put in. Well, I'm not doing it myself. I have a trader that's helping me, you know, like, so I never close my market in a negative position. It's always in a positive position in crypto. Okay. Well, Maggie, you do what you want. I'm 62. My net worth is hundreds of millions of dollars,

and I have precisely zero in crypto. And I'm not desperate, and I'm not scared. Warren Buffett said he wouldn't pay. And the idea that you have a trader doing it for you scares me for you even more. And I'm not desperate, and I'm not scared. Warren Buffett said he would pay. The idea that you have a trader doing it for you scares me for you even more because this is giving you false confidence. A, you've had some wins. B, you have someone whispering in your ear how wonderful they are and how they are going to take care of you, which is how people that are 72 years old lose everything they

own. This is how it happens, okay? Please don't do this. But I don't think that the decision is really up in the air. I think you've already made your decision. And if I told Maggie, hey, two years from now, your money's going to be back to where it was in your retirement account, I don't know that she would do it, but it's hard to see that far out ahead when you just see your accounts bleeding out. And so you just want to do anything to not be doing that. One of the wealthiest men in the world says, be greedy when others are cautious and cautious when others are greedy. And that's Warren Buffett. And he doesn't mean greedy like being a bad person, a lack of character greedy. He means be aggressive when others are cautious and cautious when others are aggressive.

And crypto is no place to play with money that you can't afford to lose, and you're going to lose it. And then you're going to call me back and say, well, I had this guy who made me, you know, and he's singing a siren song. And I sure hope you don't do it, honey. I sure hope you don't do it. It sounds like this trader is probably telling her, hey, just liquidate and give me all your money.

This trader is definitely, he's talked her up big time. He's buttered her bread. And this guy's a freaking con artist. He's a crypto con man. Well, we've also have the quote from Warren Buffett saying he wouldn't pay $25 for all of the Bitcoin in the world. Yeah. And I think he's got more money than me, you, and your trader put together. So, you know, and I don't disagree with that at all.

So it's just an extremely volatile market, and that's being kind. It's crazy crazy is what it is. But I don't have any money in it there's a reason crypto is way more down well how much is it down george do you know i mean there was it depends on what coin and a lot of them went bankrupt and there's fraud there's scams 97 oh and by the way too maggie the number is the number of people that have the number of dollars lost not in bitcoin or not in crypto but in fraud associated with crypto is what? I mean, in the billions.

Billions. It's two and a half billion dollars at this point have been lost to crypto. Sad. And let me tell you who the number one target of that type of fraud and con is. People over 65. People that are desperate and scared. Empty promises. And so I'm not saying your trader is a con artist.

I'm just saying there's a higher probability that he's a con artist than if he was in any other business. Because of the number of crypto con artists that are out there. People that are, this thing is drawn the worst of the worst. And so you can do what you want to do, but you made the mistake of calling here and asking, and we will give you our opinion, and we are experts on our opinion. Jessica is in Michigan. Hi, Jessica. What's up?

Hi. Hi. My name is Jessica, and I am 37 years old, and I'm a single mom of two. And my question is, is how do I get the momentum to, I'm on baby step number one. I am about 30, or I'm sorry, $17,000 in debt between student loans. My car's completely paid off, but I'm just trying to get momentum into getting that cash shaved up for baby step number one, because I always try to validate my purchases. And I'm just trying to find a way to get the momentum

to stop validating these purchases. Yeah, what's your income? Right now I make about a little over $38 a year. Okay. What has caused you to want to do this plan in the first place? I have been listening to Dave ramsey off and on for about uh let's see um about 11 years but i've really jumped into it more in the last um couple of months um wanting to say it wasn't to change my family tree i come from a family where yeah

where we've all not been so great with money and and my dad actually died. I'll tell you how I did it, Jessica, as a fellow spender. Yeah. I looked at my kids. They were babies, and we were broke because of my stupidity. Mm-hmm. And I said, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And every time I got ready to spend, I would ask myself,

if I had to not spend this money so that i had the money to save the life of my child could i do it could i find the discipline and that was an easy answer of course and so i did stuff like i would practice going to costco and buying nothing and walking out and that was like a breakthrough for me because i truly thought that if you went to sam's or costco that they check your receipt on the way out, that it was federal law that you had to spend $200 or you couldn't get out. They wouldn't let you out. That's why they check it. And I was that guy.

And so I just had to, I kind of had to equate it with the life of my children, which is a bit melodramatic, but it's also kind of true because you want to change your family tree, you said. Yeah. What does 40-year-old Jessica want to look back on and say, man, I'm so glad Jessica made those decisions. And if that means, you know, taking away your debit card information from every website that you have, hiding it, having accountability with a friend, do whatever it takes. I would think if you've got a spending problem that Amazon Prime is not even a possibility.

I'm cutting that out of my life. You've got to turn it off. If you've got a spending problem, if you is not even a possibility. I'm cutting that out of my life. You've got to turn it off. If you've got a spending problem, if you're trying to say, no, I'm not going to spend. Because, I mean, that's just so easy. It's easy for me. And I teach this stuff for a living. So you've just got to equate it with a big why. And you've got to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.

And then gradually you'll reform your character. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on. Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely.

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do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Melanie is with us in Philadelphia. Hi, Melanie. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. So excited to be here. Thank you for taking my call.

We're honored. How can we help? First of all, let me just say, George, I'm reading your book. It's super awesome. Oh, thank you so much. Appreciate that. Yeah, no problem. So my question is, so my husband and I are in Baby Step 2.

I'm working two full-time jobs. He's a school teacher and also has a training, like a personal training gig on the side that he does. He rents his own facility. But he's had it for four years. And my concern is that he really hasn't made any profit off of the business. He makes just enough to just pay the bills in the business. At what point do I have that conversation that it may not be worth his time in the business just because it's not bringing in enough leverage? Anything that doesn't make money is called a hobby.

Right. It's not a side hustle. It's a hobby he likes work he likes personal training so much he's willing to do it for free almost i mean he makes some money but not as much as i think he should because he's been doing it you're changing your tune in the middle of the call which is it how much does he really make net profit on the thing probably it varies every month so we can run range anywhere from 1500 to like 2500 a month profit oh well you said after he pays his bills he's not making much if anything he's not what bills has he got? The rental on this place?

Yeah, just the rental on the place. And then, you know, he has, like, his utilities are included with the rent in the facility. And then he has, like, I don't know, his Internet or something that he pays. Okay, so he's getting $1,500 to $2,500 in. What's the rent? $1,600. So it almost takes everything. So if he doesn't make $1,600 in a month, he loses money. Right.

Okay. Well, I don't think it's unreasonable to sit down tonight and say, honey, we've got to look at this as a business, and we need to look and see what we've got to do with your pricing and the number of clients that you have to make what you're doing over there profitable. Because it's not okay that you're spending all this time over there and potentially even losing money. Right.

So let's get out the numbers and run a P&L on this thing. Just sit there tonight and run a spreadsheet on it how long you've been doing it um he's had this place now for four years okay well let's go back like you know for the last 12 months and pull the revenue and then put in 1600 a month and then put in the internet fee a month and and let's see if we've really got a profit or not. Figure out what his hourly wage is on this. Yeah, my guess is you can go up to another gym. You know, you made $500, and you spent $600 over there. Right.

You make $1 an hour. Come on, man. So as a business owner, how do you, like, at what point do you say, like, this is not viable anymore? I mean, he's supposed to be like an adult and stuff. He teaches children yeah yeah he does what does he teach uh health and phys ed okay and how how what what age children uh anywhere from kindergarten to high school okay and so we would assume that they know how

to do basic addition of subtraction yes and. And he should if he's teaching. I mean, really. He needs, you know, you need to sit down with him and say, I need you to look at this through the eyes of a business, and let's look at it for a few minutes, and let's see if you think this is worthwhile. But you don't need to tell him he needs to he ought to be able to a logical adult male female should be able to come

to a conclusion on this without his wife or husband telling them i mean you ought to be able to look at it and go i'm making a dollar hour no that doesn't cut it you know i'm supposed to be providing for my family during this time. No, no, no. And you guys are in debt. And so I think that's a part of this equation is we need to actually make money right now. So here's the thing. Anytime we're in a business situation with our entree leadership clients on a side hustle or a small business idea, we do one of a couple of things.

One is we have to ask ourselves, what can we change to make this viable? And if the answer is there's not a change that'll make it viable then it's time to shut it down okay i mean i think you guys are going to look at this and figure out i think you're going to look at this and figure out you put eighteen thousand dollars or what is nineteen thousand dollars in rent into it last year you know and he brought in nineteen thousand five hundred bucks i think that's what you're going to find yeah i think so too and and you know so and then how many hours you spend over there divide that into 500 and you look at him go honey what part of this is smart none right so you know

you so we something has to change this is not okay we have to raise our prices increase the number of clients both or we got to say we're not doing this anymore okay yep i'm gonna have that conversation i appreciate your your opinion i guess the other thing is you know do you have a basement we do why don't you do it down there? Yeah. $1,600 a head per month instantly. Mm-hmm. Another thing people do now is they'll go to your house and do the work out there. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And the other thing he can do is just go work at a gym that already has personal training, and they hire him and pay him money. So he doesn't have any of the overhead. So there's a lot of options. Part of the equation on the business model may be getting rid of this rent and suddenly yeah you're you're doing in-home work and in your homework in in other people's homes for them you know personal training you go visit gym then you go visit george and you do whatever i mean that's the dream and they pay you money you know and um i have a gym in my house we did that for a long time

and so um my wife made fun of me she said you know the guy's counting for you you know that's what you can't count to 10 you're paying that moment paying that guy big money for counting i'm paying him for accountability there's that but i i can count to 10. I already can do one, two. But you need a guy yelling at you other than the guy in your head. We don't need anybody yelling at me, but we need someone. I know if he's going to come over there, then I'm going to do the workout, right? Otherwise, I might find my little butt on the sofa. You know, that could happen. And so that's what, you know, that's what a personal trainer does sometimes. We know it. We can Google the workout.

We hire the personal trainer because we need that level of hand-holding right now. Yeah, I mean. That's okay. Yeah. So, I mean, he could provide the service, like George was saying, charge even more to come to people's homes in person and or in your basement and or if you're going to keep the location you got to make the location having the location needs to cause you to make more money than not having the location would

have caused you to make i think you're going to get rid of this location at a minimum this is the ramsey show what does the future hold for business Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system.

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And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Today's question of the day is brought to you by why refi. If you're in over your head with private student loans and tired of getting calls from collection agencies, you may need why refi. Why refi refinances defaulted private student loans so that other places won't touch.

They give you a low fixed rate loan built for you. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Chad in South Carolina. He says, I work full time and I have a lawn care business on the side. Part of my business income was paid in cash and partly by payment apps like Venmo, etc. I've been paying taxes on everything except the cash,

and I was wondering morally and legally how I should handle that income. Obviously, I already pay a lot of taxes and I'm trying to save money where I can. Should I feel bad about this? And if so, should I clear everything up with the IRS and pay back what's due to them? You can decide if you want to go back or not and deal with it and how far back you want to go. But income in America, regardless of how it's received, is taxed.

That's the law. And so it is a moral and ethical thing to pay taxes on money you receive as cash, period. And I pay taxes. I mean, if we get paid in cash for something here, it all goes into the revenue, and it all goes into the calculation, and we pay taxes on it, just like we do everything else. So mechanically, how you can do it is when you get paid in cash, just deposit it into the business bank account, and then it'll be reflected there as income, and that'll help you do the totals and figure out what you're supposed to do with your quarterly estimates on your business. That's the mechanics of it. I read several years ago that really leans into this George, as far as I'm concerned is, um,

Tom Stanley, the great Tom Stanley who did the original book, the millionaire next door, he and I became friends before he passed away. His daughter, Sarah, we interact with her now. She still does research on millionaires and billionaires and so forth. He did another book called the millionaire mindset later. Um, there's two books by that name, but he did one billionaires and billionaires and so forth. He did another book called The Millionaire Mindset Later. There's two books by that name, but he did one by that name, where he studied billionaires that wasn't millionaires, they were billionaires. And he studied people who had accumulated a billion dollars from nothing. And so these were very, billion is a thousand million. And he went at this research a a little bit different he tried to find the correlating things in their life you know marriage were they married one time had they

been married six times uh what was their education you know what were the things in their life that led them to be in a position to do this and he found 37 different items or things that he correlated and the then he forced ranked them in how often they appeared so number 37 appeared the least often among the billionaires, and number one appeared in every one of them. And number one that appeared in these people who became billionaires from nothing was that they had fanatical levels of integrity. Character. Every time he interviewed a competitor, friend an employee a former employee his kids his wife when they spoke of this man they always spoke of impeccable integrity not just honesty

but integrity is a wholeness to it and it's the same on Sunday as he is on Monday. If he says this guy is falling duck, I mean, this guy is impeccable, fanatical about his integrity. And that reinforced to me that when I don't pay my taxes, it has nothing to do with whether the taxes are just or not. It has to do with I'm not doing the right thing. It's my integrity. It doesn't reflect on them. Anybody who has walked around since pretty much agrees that the federal government

and the IRS and the income tax system is a complete moronic train wreck. It's absolutely unfair and horrible. But that doesn't say anything about my integrity. My integrity is I'm going to follow the law exactly. It's what they said to do. I'm not looking for a shortcut. And so we report every stinking dime that we take in at the ramses because it makes a statement about me not about them and then i'm going to also make another statement about me

i'm going to spend a lot of money with attorneys and cpa firms to try to figure out what i legally don't have to pay. And I'm not paying a stinking dime more than I got to on the other side of that because I hate them. But still, my dislike of the tax system is not going to be reflected, not going to change me as a person of integrity because I want to be on that list that Tom Stanley did. I want to be in that lineup with that Hall of Fame right there. If you want to build sustainable wealth and have your integrity intact, pay your taxes, Chad.

So that's it. It's that simple. And, you know, I'll go so far as this. Let's just carry that on out a little bit. Fanatical integrity means, like, when you work for someone and they pay you to work there, when you're not working, you're stealing. When you're sitting on your Facebook account for three hours while you're being paid to do work that you're not doing,

that's not integrity. That's stealing. It's not cute. Everybody does it, but everybody's broke and everybody doesn't have a good life and everybody struggles in their relationships and everybody can't deal with anything except their anxiety and their heart attacks and their obesity and everything else. So everybody, you don't want to be like so here's what's weird even if it's not popular with your co-workers while you're at work work all day every day because that makes a statement about you not about them it's not about well my boss is toxic oh kiss my butt because they wanted you to work now you are you have a toxic ball it's a toxic work

environment they expect me to work and i can't live on facebook you're killing me here dad come snowflakes work while you're at work it It's an integrity issue, you know? And so it carries. Get there five minutes early. Get there five minutes late. Leave five minutes late. Don't be the first one screeching tires out of the dadgum parking lot every afternoon. You know, it's not that hard.

That's a sign of integrity. It's a sign of integrity. And I figured out being on time is integrity i hate that one once i figured it out though i'm i'm i'm trains run on time around here we put a little clock up on things staff meetings got a little countdown clock and we started 8 30 we don't start 8 32 we start 8 30 and you come wandering your little butt in six minutes late it's you know well there's traffic there's traffic every day there's nothing new about that you know there's traffic of course

there's traffic you know i had to get the kids ready for school every day you know it's not a surprise you know we do you know if i tell sharon i'm gonna be home for dinner at 5 30 i come walking in at 5 37 she's like it's getting cold food's cold getting cold you said 5 30 you know and she's not a butt about it i'm not a butt to our team about this stuff but these are things i had to start talking to myself about and that type of character is the type of character that grows billionaires, Chad. And so pay your taxes, honey. Every dime of them. Hope that was clear.

It is true, though. It's interesting how that carries through every part of your life, your career, your marriage, your relationships, your finances. Be the person you said you were going to be. Be a person of character. Do what I said I was going to do. Follow through. Follow through, follow through. And, and, you know, God, I can't stand being late because it says I didn't think they were important enough to get there on time. It's arrogance. I can't stand it. Stinking airlines. Unbelievable, man. What's Delta mean

when you look it up in the Greek? We ain't going to be there. That's what it means. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host. Joe is in New York City. Hi, Joe. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi.

My parents have recently taken out two loans to remodel their home in the amount of $55,000. And they're trying to tell me I'm responsible for it. And I want to know if I should agree to this or not. I'm sorry. Why would you be responsible for a loan on their house? I'm confused. Because after I left college, I moved back in with them. And I've been with them for the past five years.

So? That's how I see it as well. Was there not room for you, and they had to create an extra room for you, and you requested this? No, it was my same room from high school. In fact, when they were looking to get the home redone, I told them no. I was part of the conversation with the contractors that came to look at the house. How old are you?

I'm 31. Why do you still live at home? I have a lot of student debt I'm working through right now. You need to move out. I agree with you. You should have moved out 10 years ago. What in the world? I mean, no, you're not obligated morally, legally, ethically, anything here.

I have no idea where they got this. I don't understand the conversation even. But I also am not going to tell you to stay there one more minute. You shouldn't be there. It's not good for you. Yeah, I've been paying down my student loan so I can recast. It doesn't matter. It's not good for you. Yeah, I've been paying down my student loan so I can recast. It doesn't matter. It's not good for you.

Even if it slows down your debt payoff, this is stunting your growth, and it's causing this relationship to be strained, which it may already be too strained to repair. I don't know. What do you do for a living? I work with the local Department of Social Services. What do you make? $60,000 a year.

Okay. So your degree is in what? It's in environmental science. Okay. And what do you owe on this degree? Oh, when I last booked, $110,000. Okay. All right. oh when i last looked 110 okay all right well it um it it sounds like you probably are going to have to make some career choices as well and you're probably going to pick up some part-time income and be working like a maniac because you're not you're not making progress

okay you're you're not you need to be paying like $30,000, $40,000 a year on the loan to make it go away in two or three years. And you can't do that making $60,000 living in New York City. And so you probably need a different job, and you need six other jobs in addition to that. And let's get your income up and get you out and get you into the world in a sustainable situation. So the odd thing is, is the reason you stayed there was to pay down your

student loans and you haven't. Ta-da. Time to go, bud. Time to go get you a better job go get you lots of jobs and get you a different place to live and pay down the student loans for real this time but uh so that was mythology that you told that was a lie you told yourself so that and and you didn't mean to but lots of people do this but five years with very little bills you should have made some serious progress on the debt.

And it sounds like it's just you get comfortable living at home. You sort of resort to your old childhood self and you don't make as much progress as you think. And, you know, the frustration with the 31-year-old still living in your basement could boil over into a misguided, toxic claim that you owe us money for us taking out debt. You know, like the parents have kind of lost their minds a little bit, and this is their toxic methodology to solve a failure to launch. Well, we can get them to pay us back. This is our way of kicking you out but because we don't know how to do it and we're we're all and we're all really frustrated so that's probably where some

of this is coming from but it but to answer your question no you do not owe the money yes you should be gone by the end of the month at the end of next month for sure. And you may need a new job by that time too. And you may need a new state to live in by that time too. You need to live in an affordable area, make a pile of money, and clean up the mess. Because while you were living in a place with no rent, you made no progress or no sustainable progress, no measurable progress. Tom is in Chicago.

Hey, Tom tom how are you dave and george is it it is an honor to speak with you both you too what's up i've been renting a townhome for many many years and the homeowners through their property manager have informed me that they now want to sell and have asked me if I'd like to purchase it before they list it. I don't know how to handle it in that situation without it being listed. Of course, if it were just a house that I was looking after, going after in a normal situation, I'd get a realtor. Do I get a realtor in this situation? Since it's not being listed, I don't know if I'm allowed to do that. You're allowed to do anything.

It's just a matter of who's going to pay for it and whether you actually need it or not. So you need a mortgage, right? Mm-hmm. And you need someone to guide you through the contracting process and the mortgage process and the appraisal process and all of that. Are they giving you a price on the property? Yes. They give me a price of $330 based on some comps that the property manager pulled up who is a realtor. Mm-hmm. I didn't like the comps that the property manager pulled up, who is a realtor, I didn't like the comps.

I didn't agree with those comps. They were in an area not very close to me, and when I looked at them, the homes were much nicer than this home. So I don't know how to combat that. So they have a real estate agent. It's called a property manager. It's a licensed real estate agent. Yes.

And they're probably going to list it with this person. Eventually, but they're asking me before they list it. Yeah, but what's the benefit to you? There's no benefit to you before they list it. No. There's no bargain i guess the i guess the benefit is that no one else would be able to make an offer on it oh yeah okay um i mean if you had a transaction you were comfortable with and you can go through and get your mortgage and everything you can go to a title company

get a contract drawn up and do this i i don't i think this this transaction is so far from happening that you probably do need a pro in your corner to help you navigate the negotiation and then help you navigate the closing help you navigate the appraisal help you navigate the getting of the mortgage and all the different things all of things you don't know how to do so um but if you had all those things already lined up you could you don't have to have a real estate agent but you can in this case i think you benefit from one and uh just say um you know they were if they list it typically what happens is the listing agent in this case the property manager they're going to put a six percent commission on

it or something about like that and um then the the agent that represents the buyer is going to put a 6% commission on it or something about like that. And then the agent that represents the buyer is going to split that with the selling agent, typically. That's a normal transaction. And so, you know, if you get a real estate agent to represent you and they work with the selling agent before it actually goes on the market but a commission is still paid it didn't cost you anything it cost them something um and you know the the let me tell you if you just buy it right now i think this agent is going to get both of the commissions they're probably going to charge the seller a full commission. So, yes, the answer is I'd go get a real estate agent. Yes.

In your situation, I would. Yes. I mean, it's kind of borderline, but I think there's a lot of, A, there's another real estate agent already involved. Okay. B, you don't like the comps, so you got some negotiating to do. C, you got to have somebody walk you through the closing process and the mortgage getting process and the appraisal process. So all of those things tell me, yeah, I've put a real estate agent in your corner.

It's just worth it for the stress factor at this point. Well, and the expertise to guide you through a journey that you've never been on. Now I negotiate and save you 30 grand to where it was, all right, it was worth it. RamseySolutions.com slash agent will help you find a Ramsey-trusted agent in your area to help you do that. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Danny is with us. Danny is in Boca Raton. Hi, Danny. How are you? I'm doing all right. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can we help?

So I have a three-year-old and a six-week-old. Me and my wife would like to put some money away for them. We were wondering what the best thing would be. Okay. Well, we teach folks a thing called a process for becoming wealthy and taking care of all the different components of our life called the baby steps. You may have heard of that. You may not. But the first thing you would do is not put money aside for your kid. The first thing you would do is to set money in an emergency fund of $1,000,

a beginner emergency fund. The second thing is get out of debt, everything but the house. How much debt do you guys have? Pretty much none. We only have two credit cards, but there's no debt on them. We have about $3,000 in emergency funds. Okay. No car debt, no student loan debt? No. Good. What's your household income? Together is about $80,000, $85,000, $90,000. Okay, cool.

Well, once you've done Baby Step 2, which is debt-free but the house, all that means is you need to place some scissors across those credit cards and cut them up, start using debit cards so you don't accidentally slip into debt, which people do all the time. Then we would go on to Baby Step 3, which is finish the emergency fund, and you're short on that. You've got a $3,000 now account, and it needs to be three to six months of expenses. Once you have that, then you would begin investing in your retirement,

15% of your income going away for retirement. And once you've got that started, then you start saving for the kids' college, which is what you're calling about. But the best thing you can do to stabilize the the family for the kids is to you know to be to be out of debt and be building your investments and then in addition to that we can start saving for kids college if you click on smart vestor at ramsey solutions.com you might find um a smart vestor pro that you will find, a SmartVestor Pro that we recommend. Sit down with one that you like that has the heart of a teacher,

and you'll want to learn about 529s and ESAs and putting money in mutual funds for your kids' future. Is that what we're talking about here? Yes, sir. Okay. It says on my screen something about an iul yeah we were looking into those because um but you got a friend in the insurance business yeah yeah and guess guess what which by the way is going to make way more yeah so iul's are awful it's an indexed universal life you never do investing

inside of an insurance policy it is the world's worst place to do investing the only people in all of the financial world that recommend that you invest inside of a life insurance policy are insurance people nobody else does nobody else believes that crap. It's so outdated, so outmoded, covered in fees, horrible product. Don't do it. Was I unclear? No, sir. Okay. And by the way, your kids don't need life insurance. Life insurance is meant to replace your income in case something happens to you. So you, your wife, you both need a good term life policy, meaning it's not for your whole life. We're talking about a 15, 20 year level term life policy, 10 to 12 times your income. If you have those in place, you can rest easy at night. Yeah. And then if something happened,

the two of you, your kids will be taken care of, right? Right. And you get that at zanderinsurance.com. They'll shop a gazillion companies, get you the best deal. That's who you deal with. So, and it's way more affordable than these IUL policies. It'll be 5%. $5. If your IUL is 100 bucks, this would be five bucks. It literally is 5%. It's horrible, man. So just stay away from that. So, you know, walk your way up into investing in real investments. And in the meantime, make sure you've got term life insurance in place and you've got the whole thing taken care of. Dave, I'm seeing this all over social media. I don't know why, but the young people are gravitating towards these universal life policies. And here's how it's marketed. They go, you know it, you're supposed to use your life insurance while you're alive. Did you know that? And everyone's like, oh my gosh,

this is brilliant. This investing policy inside of my whole life. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. I'm going to become a millionaire. And the commissions and fees these guys are making selling this crap is insane. And the amount of time you have to spend pulling that premium every single month in order to make any amount of money is absurd. I don't know how it's legal. The indexed universal policy is a newer version of an old bad idea is what it amounts to. And so what you're going to find if you take this product apart and look at the components of it, the insurance portion goes up every year. It's basically what we call an ART, an annual renewable term. insurance all life insurance gets more expensive every year that you're alive period because you're statistically more likely to die every year

you're alive right brilliant so if you're 51 you're more likely to die statistically than if you're 50 period okay end of story now why would you get how do you get then a 15 or a 20 year level term insurance well it is cheaper than the average of the 15-year of increases. The ART would start out cheaper, and it would end higher, and the lines would cross right in the middle, hypothetically, if it was exactly how you see what I'm saying. So the ART would go straight up, and the 15-year would be level, and it would cross right in the middle at seven and a half years. However, it doesn't do that because it is cheaper for an insurance company to produce

a 15-year policy because they keep you for 15 years, then it's called persistence in the real insurance business, than it is for them to try to get you to stay with a policy that goes up every year. Can you imagine that if you get a bill and every year it goes up,'re probably more likely to cancel that so that policy doesn't stay on the books so it's more expensive for them to sell art so net result is a 15 year is way cheaper than the average of 15 years of art okay now the index universal goes up every year inside the policy, but you don't see it. So if you got a $400 premium, a certain portion, like on your, you know, if you ever look at your mortgage, your mortgage payment, a portion goes to interest, a portion goes to principal. The further you go along, more goes to principal, less goes to interest. This is exactly the opposite. The further you go along,

more goes to insurance, goes because the art is going up every year inside there less is going to your investments and so if you keep the stupid thing long enough it will begin to be the point that the premium you're paying will not even cover the insurance cost and so it starts to eat back into your savings just to keep the policy alive and uh the thing gets what we call upside down in the insurance business. And so now you've got a real piece of crap that's eating itself from the inside out. But they pitch it as this really sophisticated, nuanced. Listen.

It's so complicated, you don't understand. Just trust me as your insurance guy. I'm going to make you lots of money. Let me give you a clue. Okay. When you drive past most cities, the skyline has banks and life insurance companies. These are the two towers in every skyline. Santa Claus didn't build those. And those people didn't build them with wealth they inherited. They built them with money they took from you. Banks, screwing you. Life insurance companies, screwinging you this has been going on for decades nothing new it's not a new it's not a new song not a new dance and just because you put it on tiktok for god's sakes doesn't make it smart as a matter of fact that kind of dumbs it down that's

a trigger word for you i'm sorry i shouldn't mention anything i mean it's just like what we teach is that you should take the difference that if you pay $5 for term life versus $100 for whole life, take the $95 you would have spent and invest that, and you're going to be way better off than having touched one of these crappy policies. Oh, here, by the way, after you paid an extra on this all these years and you die, they only pay the face value. They don't pay the face value plus your savings that you've been paying extra to bill. So it's like a savings account with a crummy rate of return they get locked up when you die they keep your money

i mean what who would bank with that oh people that buy stuff on tiktok i think danny needs better friends yeah well it's time no i mean that happens to everybody because that's how most particularly whole life permanent life crappy life insurance is sold, is some old friend from college suddenly remembers you. My buddy from Northwestern Mutual said, let's be done with that. Oh, that's horrible. That happened to me. That happened to me.

I bought it when I was a child boy. Yep, sure did. I did the same stupid stuff. And I have a degree in finance. And I fell for the crap. Now he's a grown man, America. He made it. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Number one best-selling author and a host of an ever-popular YouTube podcast, George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We appreciate you hanging out. Open phones at 888-825-5225 and let's just start off with dave not pushing the right buttons anna is in detroit hey anna

welcome to the ramsey show hi how are you thanks for having me sure what's up well i'm a little bit of a situation and i'm hoping maybe you can give me some advice. Um, my husband bought our house from his mom and 19 years ago, she had quite a few houses at the time and decided that she could sell one of them to him. He was 19 at the time, um, went through a closing, like with, you know, a proper close agent and signed all the papers. He is the only name on the warrant to deed and has been responsible in living in this house for this past 19 years. A couple of years ago, she had asked us for quite a sum of money, and we said we couldn't afford it. So in retaliation, she went to the county clerk and filed a fraudulent quick claim deed on the house, claiming that our house is now her house.

There's no checks and balances with that system. Yes, there is. So it went through, and everybody— Oh, yeah, the checks and balances are you put her in jail for fraud. Yeah. Because she's a freaking crook. She's a criminal. It's been two years, and we're still fighting.

And now, instead of getting our day in court, they're saying that it's going to either cost us twenty thousand dollars um to take it to court or we can pay the ransom and maybe settle for something less and just pay to get rid of it to pay to get out of it you mean pay her yeah a settlement right so why have you not filed criminal charges well we went i talked to the county clerk and she said oh you need to get an attorney to you know the quiet title so that's what we did and your attorney needed to tell you to advise you to fire criminal charges someone stole your house it just happens to be that you know the crook right that it's related but he he said well and that

would be a separate lawsuit and that wouldn't get you the quiet title that you need to free up your your house that would be a whole separate matter i'll disagree to get your quiet title but then maybe on another point and i'm like man we've always spent so much money trying to get quiet title. And now we're really looking at maybe just calling the police and starting a report. Yeah, I think I would. Okay. I think I would file criminal charges on her.

And that's the thing. We thought maybe it was just a misstep. Because obviously this is not someone that your husband has a relationship with his mother. No mother in her right mind would act like this. This woman deranged how long has he known she's crazy a couple years well now it's been two years he didn't know she was crazy before this no it there was he was young and a single parent right so you how long have you been married? About 16, 17 years. Yeah. How long have you known she was crazy? Because I figured it out in about 30 seconds.

There was a lot of, you know, kind of red flags when we were first dating, but I started dating him when we were 16 years old. And so we were so young. I think we were very, I don't know. Well, you don't want your mom to be a crook or crazy. Nobody wants that for their mom. Exactly. But some people's moms are,

because obviously there's crooks and crazy women and men out there. So sometimes the dad is a moron. You know, I mean, it just is. Very strong Christian raising to honor your mother and your father. And I think there was a lot of things that we just said, no, you know, she just needs help. No, if we can just pull her through. No, if we can just, you know, be there and help her get up on her feet. We did that for a lot of years.

And then finally I said, you know what? I told my husband either our household or hers, but we can't be the man of both. And he chose our household. Good choice. That's when the crazy came out. Yeah, true. When you set boundaries with crazy people, it accentuates they're crazy. Henry Cloud teaches us that in Boundaries 25 years ago.

Okay, so you've got some choices. Obviously, there's no relationship left, and it's a very sad situation. So what is the most practical process here? It doesn't cost much to file a criminal complaint. Okay. There's not a lot of cost involved in that. That's why I'm shocked that this attorney, in quotes, didn't recommend that you do that as a part of the quiet title. Because here's the problem.

If your attorney that was quieting the title quieted the title and then said deranged mother-in-law decides to file another one, you get to do it over again, and he stays in business the rest of his life. So I want her having an incentive to stop this crap, and that's called jail. Yeah, well, yeah. She's not going to jail, by the way. Darn it. No.

She should. But they won't put her in jail. They'll settle with her, but she will get the message not to screw with y'all yeah okay who said it would cost 20 grand not to file a criminal it doesn't no no you said they told me yes um our attorney we've already paid him 40 over the past two years to get a quiet title um and now we're to the last bit of it and he said you either settle or we take this to court yeah or fire him and get a real attorney that's another option i've called different attorneys but they said i'm too far no you're not into the ladder no you're not to get another one no you're not i've gotten all these stories and i guess i just need some real good

uh the problem is sometimes when you're dealing with uh lawyers they took the class on they're always right and they forget that they work for you right he's your employee he should do what you tell him to do or she should do tell you do what you're telling them to do and that's what lawyers are supposed to do but instead they took the the class where they tell you what to do. And some of them are really confused by that class. So sometimes us real people have to explain to them, lawyer does not mean you do what you want to do. It means you do what I want you to do, as long as it's within ethics and within the

law. And so, yeah, this has not been aggressively enough to suit me in the discussion I'm having with you. If this happened to me and I own a bunch of real estate, I don't care who filed that. I would have filed criminal the next day. Okay. And I thought maybe I needed to get, you know, basically a judge to say, yeah, this is fraud before I could go to the criminal and make that accusation. If the judge says it's fraud, it should quiet the title instantaneously. Right.

Because that invalidates the, it invalidates, take a judge ruling a fraud over to the county clerk and go, judge says this is fraud, you need to take this quick claim down, they'll take it down. That should quiet, that's the quieting of the title. That's what it means. It's the cleaning up of a dirty title because it's a fraudulent thing. God, man.

Some people. Who does this to their own kid? You whacked chick. Unbelievable. Go to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go straight to jail.

Monopoly. She's collected enough. It's over. Just like Monopoly. This is the ramsey show george camel ramsey personality is my co-host today alissa is with us in naples florida hi alissa welcome to the ramsey show hi hey what's up oh not. Just taking a break in my workday. Okay. How can we help? So, um, I just got remarried in October and my husband and I, you know, after the wedding really sat down and took a good look at our combined finances and we definitely made a lot of, uh, debt choices independently

and now coming together, trying to figure out how we can tackle that. Hopefully, you know, for the new year planning on, you know, having a kid, um, I already have a nine-year-old daughter and trying to get those, you know, figured out so that we're not constantly worried about savings and being able to retire. Sounds like you need to do all the things that all of us need to do. Yeah, definitely. Feed babies, retire, get out of debt, save money, right? Right. Part of the thing that's a little bit frustrating is, you know, between our combined finances, we're bringing in about $11,500 a month

and still feel like we can't, you know, we've only got about $3,000 in our savings and not able to really contribute to retirement or anything like that. So trying to figure out. How much debt do you have? Um, so student debt, we've got about 140,000, um,

who's the law? I'm the mental health therapist. Ah, okay. So I've, I've got, I've got about 90. Um,

he, he has about 40 and that was was from his parents pushing him to go to college. So he has debt with no real... What other debt have you got? Nothing really to show for it. Car payments. How much? About $50,000 total on our cars.

You owe $60,000 on your cars. Okay. Mm-hmm. And then we've got a mortgage that's got about $240,000. Mm-hmm. Okay. That's as far as debt goes. Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Okay. So, Alyssa, looking at these numbers, let's ignore the mortgage for now and focus on the consumer debt. You've got about 190 or so in consumer debt and you guys are bringing home what, 130, 140 grand? And so this becomes a great math equation where we go, how much margin can we create every month to throw at that smallest debt? That's all we're focused on. No saving, no investing. We're not eating out. We've got to make some sacrifices here. How quickly could you pay off? Could you throw $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 a month at the smallest debt? What's holding you back? I think for me, it's the fear with my daughter, making sure that we have enough.

Because with me being self-employed and him doing construction and things like that, I get worried about catastrophic expenses. You know what I'm worried about? You make $130,000 a year and you're freaking broke. That's what I'm worried about. I think you need to be worried about that. You're driving cars you can't afford and you have a lifestyle that's absolutely asinine. Mm-hmm.

And that's nothing to do with a nine-year-old. What does she need that's thousands of dollars a month worth when you say, I need to take care of her? It's more just in case. Yeah. There's no bit, but you're not doing anything about it. You've got $3,000. so that's a complete red herring that's absolutely you're not you're doing nothing about that except creating anxiety right yeah so it's time it's time for a penchant for

action some urgency here and say okay the more dramatic we more dramatic we change our life the more dramatically we change our life, the more dramatically we change our life, the more sacrificially we change our life, the faster this is going to turn around and we're going to have a pile of cash and we'll be out of debt. The more you just goof around with it, because here's the deal. You guys have no idea where this money goes. Right. And so we're going to get you on a detailed written budget

so here's the thing what kind of mental mental health professional what kind of work do you do um so i do counseling like therapy depression anxiety stuff like that okay all right and so what you do is is there's some parallels to what we do so you can use you can be physician heal thyself okay um right so because here's the thing you are an objective observer to someone's misbehavior right and you look at that and go hey you ought to try this because the way you've been doing it not working you know this yelling and screaming at your wife not working you know this zero activity sitting in a dark room adding your to your depression so you need sunlight and vitamin d and activity so you need to get an exercise and be in sunlight helps with depression am i wrong

no so you sent you send somebody because you're in a but they're sitting in the dark room they don't see it so what i want to do here is i just want you to say, okay, if I hired you, you're a smart person. If I hired you, even though you're not a financial professional, it's because the stuff we're dealing with here is sixth grade math. If I hired you to look at this and say, you come in objectively and you look at this family, they make $130,000, $140,000 a year. They have $3,000 in their name. They have $60,000 in car debt and they have student loans have been hanging around so long they think they're a pet they feel stuck you could objectively look in from the outside like you do every day and look at this the way george and i are looking at right now going uh these people need to tighten things up

they need to sell a car or two uh they're not going on vacation because they're broke because they're and if they're sick and tired of being sick and tired you'll change your process and if you because you if you look at this objectively from the outside I can see in a three-minute radio conversation with you I can see 40 or 50 thousand dollars a year here that you could throw at this and you'd be out of debt in no time but it's going to mean you're driving different cars, you're not going on vacation, you're not eating out. And it's not going to be comfortable for a while until you set some new grooves in your brain.

Yeah. So we definitely already decided on completely cutting out vacations. Okay. Good first step. We've had huge conversations, you know, with family of like oh you know even like big family crews and just saying sorry we can't do it um you're going to learn to say no a whole lot yeah you're going to say no so you can say yes the way we say it is live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else so if i were prescribing to you from the

outside looking in the way i'm asking you to do for yourself i could look at these numbers and say these people have a really tough two and a half years ahead of them so that they have an awesome life the rest of their life yeah and it's worth it and it works because it is just math it's just sixth grade math. But it has to do with controlling the angry little boy or little girl that lives inside of each of us and making that little person who throws a fit on the cereal aisle and wants Fruity Pebbles. No. No. Because that little kid, he rises up.

I want a new car. I deserve. I mean, I have a master's degree. I deserve a good car. No, you don't. You're freaking broke. You deserve freedom, not this life of stress. And the math does give me hope in this situation.

Oh, yeah. You make 11.5. The beautiful part about your story is, Alyssa, you have the income. And the parallel would be if you were sitting with a patient who is master's degreed in something, they have the intellect to adjust their mental behaviors to adjust their mental health with behavior shifts that you with directions you can give them they have the capacity and you didn't call me up make it thirty thousand dollars with these numbers thank god you call me up making a hundred and thirty thousand dollars for these numbers yeah so you do this. And the correlation is very simple.

The deeper you cut, the more sacrificial and weird you are. And it's going to feel very strange for the first 90 days. And then it'll get to be a normal rhythm. But the deeper you cut, the faster you're out. By the way, that works for all of you. The deeper you cut, the faster you're out. And I'm a rip the Band-aid off guy yeah this uh pull it off one hair at a time thing no thank you that's a lot of pain that's why you like to

amputate the tahoe just do the big stuff knock it out it's a stupid car you'll get another stupid car there's more tahoe i got a lot of stupid cars now and you know but i didn't use to i mean it's a stupid car it's a stupid house you know it a stupid house. You know, it's just stuff. And you can get you some more stuff, but you can't get your life back. This is The Ramsey Show. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Kyle and Tiffany are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hey, way better than we deserve i love

it where do you guys live dayton ohio all right cool how much debt have you paid off we paid off 157 000 all right how long did that take nine and a half years all right 157 and nine and a half what was your income during that time it was a range of 20 to 50 000 and we just barely made it to that 50 000,000 recently. Wow. What do you all do for a living? I am a pharmacy tech and an IT coordinator for a children's hospital in Dayton. I've nannied over the course of this journey, and I had an in-home bakery.

Now I get to stay home with our boys. All right. Very good. So nine and a half years, $157,000 with a $50,000 topped income. Is that your house? That is house and car payment, as well as a little bit of school. You're 100% debt free. That's right.

I'm looking at weird people. How old are you weird people? We are 31. 31 years old with a paid for house. Yep. Making 50 grand. Yeah. What's the house worth? Oh, now it's worth almost $250,000.

When we bought it, it was $114,000. Got to love it. Yeah. Got to love it. Well done, y'all. That's pretty cool. I mean, you're the little train that could. You just kept at it and kept at it and kept at it.

And I will say it went up in value not just because of the market recently, but we also cash flowed probably $40,000, $50,000 worth of improvements on the home as well as other things throughout this journey as well. So we did all that as well as cash flowing a lot of different projects. Good for you guys. So how long have you all been married? Ten years. We just celebrated this month.

All right. So as soon as you got married, you start. Yeah. So explain how that happens. Funny story. I was actually forced to do FPU against my will. I drug him in. He didn't want to do it.

But we listened to you. You were forced against your will. Then you drug him against my will. I drug him in. He didn't want to do it. But we listened to you. You were forced against your will. Then you drug him against his will. Who was doing all this dragging? It gets worse. We listened to you the whole way to our honeymoon. That's sad. That's where it started.

We had a nine-hour drive to the honeymoon, and we said, let's throw on some of these CDs, and we just blasted it the whole way. That's after you both got drug in. Yeah. So how did you get drug in? Who did the dragging? My sister did. Your sister drug you in in you weren't married yet no and then you said okay you're coming too if i gotta do this you gotta do as soon as she said yes she said now i can start talking to this guy about finances a little bit more seriously and so she started pushing it

towards me and all she did was ask me to track my eating out budget for one month and that changed my mind real quick wow that was uh that was inside that was a good way to kind of yeah just get him on the hook yeah yeah we came home after the honeymoon and started killing it just after that boom we're not gonna knock out the car and get the house knocked out too yeah we knew it was gonna be a long journey with income like that but we knew it was gonna be worth it well you did you you set a goal and stuck with it that's pretty impressive i'm just impressed you stuck with changing the cds out to get through all the lessons it's very impressive that was a lot we had the whole big box in the back of the car the whole time wow so how do you stick with it for nine and a half years most people if they're

21 years old they're going i can't do anything 10. 10 years? Are you kidding me? I'll find another. I'll be 31. I'll be ancient. Well, to be fair, when we first started it, we had the plan to pay the house off in six years. That was going to be it. We had it all planned out. We got to the point in our mid-20s where we really sat down and talked about it and said, you know, we want to do this. We want to knock this out and create a good future for our children, but we've got to have those children. So we decided to reallocate some money elsewhere and start to work on our family. Now we've got two beautiful little boys. But even through all that, we just barely slowed down a little bit and just killed it as much as possible.

So we added three years on, but we got two perfect boys out of it. And I think what carried us through that 10 years was teaching FPU there for about three years. And also just like you said the little engine that could that's kind of what I said last night that's what got us through we had that goal and we did not stop and if he got weak I was strong and if I got weak he said no we have a goal and we stuck to it very cool we knew the future that was coming whether we did or whether we didn't so we wanted to see the one that where we are debt-free well thanks for coordinating financial peace university classes that does have the benefit of you have to do it because if you don't you're a hypocrite then you know and you're most humans

just can't do that they have to it makes you more accountable if you're teaching it it's strange you get you get more hardcore teaching it yeah we had five students over that time to come to us this year and say we did it We paid off our student loan. We're so happy to hear that for them. We kind of built their own little community. Yeah. Well, that's what ends up happening. Because there's a shared pain, a shared victory, a shared goal, and that makes permanent ties. Lifetime friends many times.

And you can't talk to a lot of people about this stuff because they get weird. They'll shame you. They go, I have student loans. You're trying to judge me. And you guys have created this amazing community of people who want to get better with money and aren't scared to talk about it. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. Because I would have to say, yes, I am judging you. Anyway. I've said that a few times. That's why Dave couldn't coordinate classes anymore. It's too awkward. Yeah. I'm just, I'm judging you.

Yes, I am. That's kind of what I do for a living. That is so cool. Way to go, guys. I'm so proud of you. Your sister that brought you to the FPU class has got to be bouncing off the walls. That's got to be neat. Yeah.

Did she keep up with it, too? Yeah. All right. Got the whole family going. Yeah. I love it. Way to go, you guys. Way to go.

Very, very proud of you. How does it feel? 31 years old. It's amazing. Two little boys not have any payments in the world? Yeah. The freedom is unreal. It took us months to really let it all settle in, just every day looking at each other and just smiling and knowing we're debt-free.

We don't have to worry about our children struggling with this or seeing mom and dad going through the stresses of finances anymore. It's so great to wake up every day and know that you don't have to put that on your children anymore amen it's crazy our oldest this summer he's he was there he went to the bank with us he helped us sign the last check he helped how old is he he's six he'll remember he'll remember it then he set up a homemade ice cream and lemonade stand this summer he did it twice and he made 850 bucks oh i'm franchising that. Wow. Yeah. That's impressive. They catch it. Incredible. They catch on.

They really do. And when you change your family tree, you do more than just change the math. Yep. Everything's changed in the spirit. Everything's changed in their character. And that six-year-old will remember that. Yeah. He'll tell his grandkids.

Yeah, I was there the day mom and dad paid dad off. Yeah. I remember back in the day. We had these things called banks. Yeah. That's what'll happen. It was a piece of paper called a check. He wrote a check. I mean, check things called banks. Yeah, that's what'll happen. It was a piece of paper called a check. I mean, check is, son.

Yeah, that's what'll happen. You changed it. I mean, the whole thing's going to be new. That's the old man sitting there as a multimillionaire. That's pretty cool. Well done, you guys. Thank you. Hey, we got Baby Steps Millionaires, the book for you.

That's where you're headed for sure. Total money makeover to give away to one of your class participants and another membership to financial peace university you can give that away and get somebody in one of your classes you guys keep teaching keep leading way to go thank you so much we're so proud of you heroes well done very well done all right bring the kiddos in let's introduce them and hear their ages all right what's six-year-old's name? This is Ryan. Ryan, the $800 ice cream man. Way to go, Ryan.

And? This is Bradley. Bradley is how old? He's just about to be two. All right, way to go, Bradley. Well done. What do you all tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Finding contentment.

Knowing that you don't have to have what everyone else has, and you can find joy in the life that you've built and stick into that goal. I'm kind of looking at a picture that looks like contentment. I'm about to cry right now. This is beautiful. Yeah, this is well done. You've got way more than they have because you've got financial peace, my man. Way to go. Very, very cool.

Beautiful, beautiful. Kyle and Tiffany, Ryan and Bradley, Dayton, Ohio,io 157 000 paid off car and house they're officially weird people nine and a half years it took them making 20 to 50 000 they're 31 years old 100 debt free house and everything hear me people this can be done these guys are dropping a mic on you right now you gotta love it count it down guys let's hear a debt-free scream ready three two one that is how it's done you know what's weird weird? I didn't hear one complaint, gripe, excuse. I mean, they could have blamed everyone and everything as to why they're not where they need to be financially.

And they just decided, nah, we're going to do this anyways. You don't hear that from people who are victors. You hear that from people that are victims. Yeah, when you're a victor, you don't need to, you know, excuses are of the past. You've got to put those in the rearview mirror. We're doing it anyway. I know, but we're doing it anyway. I know, but we're doing it anyway.

I know, but we're going to do it anyway. This is how they think. That's unstoppable at that point. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful family. I love it. Yes, this is why I come down here every day. This is The Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day, Ecclesiastes 5.5. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. John Adams said there are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt. Ask the Chinese. It's good foreshadowing. Just got a little bit of a conspiracy theory chill. About 300 years later, and here we are, trillions in debt to other countries, Dave.

There you go. Scary. Bradley's in Chicago. Hey, Bradley, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. I want to thank you both so much for having me. I know you hear this all the time, but you've definitely made a positive change in my life. Well, thank you, sir. How can we help today? Yeah, absolutely. I made the decision to loan out money to family and friends of mine in the total sum of just over $8,000. And as time goes on, given the lifestyle that they lead, it's starting to leave a sour taste

in my mouth a little bit. So I guess my question is, how do I hold them accountable to, you know, make me whole and pay me back without straining the friendships and my marriage? Because I just got married in November and my wife, you know, this was before we got married, but she had vouched for her cousin as somebody for me to loan out money to. That's three of the eight grand, and it's been over a year, and I've only seen 500 of it since. What is your income? Yeah, just over 100. I sell software, so it's a little bit variable, but it's been over 100 for the past three years.

Why did you become the lender? Was it word of mouth? Hey, this guy will loan you some money. Go to him. So my wife's cousin originally owed money to who is now my mother-in-law and the cousin didn't like how, um, difficult or tough to work. It just, it sounded like the mother-in-law was trying to hold her accountable and put her feet to the fire and was complaining to my wife about it. And my wife kind of turned to me and said, Hey, I know you've got some money. Can we help her out? Um, and then my other friends just kind of knew that

I was in a, a good position. Um, and I, I, he didn't ask me for the money. I just knew that he was in trouble. Um, so I decided to give him five of the eight, but at the same time, he, you know, it has a Corvettevette he has two cars both you know in that on those and lives a life you knew that when you gave him the money right yeah i i did i didn't know that when i gave him the money all right so um you're probably not gonna like my Oh, no. Okay. I think you've learned a very harsh lesson. Never loan people money. If you want to help people, give them some money, but don't loan them any money,

because it changes your relationship with your friend and your wife's cousin to master-slave. You're the master, cousin to master slave. You're the master, they're the slave. Even if you're a nice master, you're still a master. The borrower is slave to the lender 100% of the time. And that's what you're feeling here, is that these people are unappreciative,

they're out of control, but guess what? They were both of those things before you gave them money. And you just got to now experience it personally. So my opinion is, is that you wrote an $8,000 check to the tuition and for tuition to the School of Life. And the School of Life just gave you a passing grade on never loan people money. You have passed that class now. You paid the stupid tax. So if I woke up in your shoes with your situation, I would tell your wife, first thing I do is sit down with her and say, okay, I've made the decision that I made a mistake when I

loaned your cousin money and when I loaned my friend money. If we were going to help them, we should have given them money. So go ahead and understand that from this point forward, I will never loan money to a family member again. As long as you see me breathing, that will not occur. And you and your wife get on the same page about that. And then I'd call up your friend and say, you know, if you can pay me, that would be nice. But if you don't pay me i want you to know i'm just going to forgive the debt because your friendship's more important and tell the cousin the exact same thing and i'll give you about a 98 chance you get no money but by the way even if you don't do this i'm going to

give you a 98 chance you get no money. You loaned broke people money. Don't be shocked they don't pay you. I would forgive the debt and walk away. This is costing you more angst and soul tax. Taxing your brain.

You are thinking about it. They aren't. So you're worried about straining the relationship. It's alreadying your brain. You are thinking about it. They aren't. So you're worried about straining the relationship? It's already strained. Yeah. I don't know that it's ever going to go back to the way it was, even if you— If they came in and wrote you a check today and both of them paid you, you still don't have any respect for either one of these people.

Right? I don't know if I'd say that um i don't i don't have any respect for either one of them it's not going to go back to the way it was before you lent the money as soon as you offered that money the relationship changed i mean it sounds like your friend is a person who just spends too much and is out of control as a typical american and it sounds like your wife's cousin's a complete parasite. And Bradley's a sweet guy. And people are going to go, well, Brad, don't give me some money. I'll be fine.

Yeah. And buddy, I would, I would end the bank of Bradley. And as a closing up shop on the bank of Bradley, we're done with that puppy. That's a boundary that people pleasers, which I'm one of them recovering people pleaser. They have to put up the boundary and go as nice of a guy as I am. I'm not going to do it. I don't do that. The only thing I can do is give you money and I don't have any right now people pleaser. They have to put up the boundary and go, as nice of a guy as I am, I'm not going to do it. I don't do that. The only thing I can do is give you money, and I don't have any right now to give you.

That's it. I love the quote, choose guilt over resentment. And right now, Bradley's dealing with the other side, resentment. Choose guilt that you couldn't and you didn't versus the resentment of I did and I regret it. Yeah. Yeah. If I woke up in your shoes, sir, having done what you've done, I would just walk away.

I think it's costing you more than $8,000 in your soul and in your relationship. And you're even a tiny bit resentful towards your wife for asking you to do this for her cousin who's a parasite. Yeah. And I'm going to put an end to every bit of that i'm just going to say oh i'm done i'm not going to think about it anymore no more money have zero expectation and the secret to happiness is low expectations it's like my golf game so

it's working out so far it's just i'm not going to get mad about something that i have no expectation is actually going to occur. That's pretty easy. You know what I mean? Because that's what happens. And if it only costs you $8,000 to learn this lesson. It was cheap. That was cheap.

That was cheap stupid tax. Very cheap stupid tax. Dave's done it with way more zeros on the end. Yeah, I definitely have done it with a lot. I've learned a lot dumber things and a lot bigger things. And, you know, and, you know, it's the never again principle. Once you do something dumb, you say, okay, that's in the never again bucket. We never again do that. And that way I'll never lose. I may lose money another

way, but I won't lose money that way. Never again. Well, the hardest part is not forgiving the other person. It's forgiving yourself because you just think, gosh, how did I do something so dumb? And I'm, I can't let this go. And it causes anger inside of you. It's forgiving yourself. Because you're just like, gosh, how did I do something so dumb? And I can't let this go. And it causes anger inside of you. That's a difficult thing. It is. It is. And it's like, I mean, because if you look at it objectively,

neither one of these characters were worthy of a loan. They weren't. I mean, they're not. Who would loan these people money if you weren't? Well, I'm guessing a bank wouldn't lend them money. No, they wouldn't. Which is why they went to him. Exactly.

The Bank of Bradley. It's got a nice ring to it, honestly. It's closed, though. Closed for business. It's no longer open for business. We liquidated the assets. Got a little sign on the front, like the Persian rug place, going out of business. 80% off.

Going out of business. And yet somehow still too expensive. 14 years later, we're still going out of business. And you still. Still going out of business. And yet somehow still too expensive. 14 years later, we're still going out of business. And you still got ripped off on that rug. That's it. Not fool me once. Bradley, I'm sorry. I hate it for you, man, but that's what I would do.

That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.