The Ramsey Show - App - You're NOT Responsible for Your Friends' Decisions (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studio, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm John Deloney, joined here with my good friend and best-selling author, Mrs. Rachel Cruz, and we are here to talk to you about what's going on in your life. Give us a shout at 888-825-5225. Money, relationships, challenges, whatever's going on, give us a shout. Rachel, how are we doing? Doing great.

Yeah? It's going to be, yeah. Good show, John. We did an hour yesterday. We made it. Barely. Three hours today. We barely survived.

Barely? Oh, that's so good. That's so good. And I'm excited about tonight. Our Money in Marriage event is going to be really fun. We just finished the final block in here a little bit. It's going to be a blast. Yeah, it's going to be great.

It's going to be awesome. Before we go, I have to just make this public announcement. I was wrong when I bet our engineer here that the Buccaneers were going to lose to my Patrick Mahomes Chiefs. I lost. Kyle got you. Kyle won. I was incorrect. And I felt it appropriate to.

He's reminding me every day how wrong I was. He's that guy that's still wearing Bucs gear. Here we are. I was going to say. Like seven days later or whatever. Five days later. Still sporting the hat, Kyle. Some of us would say just let it go. but I know that's the attitude of a loser.

So way to go, Kyle. You won. I was wrong. All right. Let's go to Josiah in Salt Lake City. Josiah, what's going on? How can we help? Hey, Dr. D and Rachel.

Thanks for taking my call. You got it. To keep a long story short, for a little bit now, I've had some suspicion that my brother was stealing money through various sources from my disabled mother. I confronted him about it and let my mother know what was going on. He still has not been 100% honest with either me or my mother. My issue is this isn't a first time thing. He's stolen from me before. I'm just finding it hard to keep a relationship with both my brother and my mom because now she's looking at it as if

it's a minor issue. And I'm worried that it's just going to bleed or dry and eventually he's just going to be gone and I'm going to be stuck trying to fund her for the rest of her life. Yeah. You, man, I hate this for you, Josiah. You're wrestling with, um, I can hear as you're processing this, you're turning this into a future math problem, but man, I want to bring you back to right here. This just hurts, man. And I hate that for you. What's what struggles does your mom have? Um, she's since I was 10, so about 20 years ago, she was diagnosed with ARDS. She's now just got multiple other health issues. She's basically been bedridden my whole life. That's hard, man. So here's a challenge that everybody with this

type of family situation deals with. We all are, we love our brothers and sisters, our moms and dads. We are all trained to, and socialized, and it's just the right thing. I mean, you take care of your family, right? You default to that. And unfortunately, there's these moments like you're experiencing when your brother is still your brother, but he also becomes that grown man that's hurting mom, right? And at some point, you have to lean into that and do hard things, which like call the police. And if your brother is stealing from your mom and you've got proof of it and your mom

is not in a position to take care of herself, then that's the logical responsibility. It's hard and it feels like you're violating that family. What I'll tell you, it's a phrase I use all the the time but it's not by your hand but it's in your lap right you didn't cause this you're not going to be the you're not going to be the result you're not going to be the person who who broke up the family your brother is making some really reckless um wrong decisions taking advantage of your mom and um now it's your situation to to to deal with right because your brother's not acting with care right and just side does he have does he still have the ability to steal from your mom

like is it accounts numbers that he has yeah so i i actually kind of put the kibosh on that um she she because she was so dependent on me and him. He had her debit card. And so I forced him to give it back to her. And I told her that because now they have that information that she needs to change her card number and everything. Immediately, yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the right thing to do, brother. And I think you're just one of those moments where you find yourself in a hard position.

You didn't cause this you didn't it's not your fault but now you're the person who's going to be responsible be the person of integrity that's going to have to turn and deal with it

so that means getting the authorities involved if your brother is going to continue to kind of be the person that steals from your mom which is terrible and then Josiah too

I mean I think focusing on the present is extremely important right now but also to know long term like it probably is going to be you taking care of your mom. I mean, if she is bedridden and she doesn't have a way to make an income, then she is going to need to eat, right? I mean, like and your brother is obviously not a dependable, trustworthy person. So I would go ahead and emotionally say, okay, what can I do to help my mom in the future? Because it probably is going to be you, Josiah.

So I'd be thinking about that as well. And those are, we just talked to millions of people who are faced with those situations. Mom and dad don't want to sign over accounts or they can't join accounts. And I'm just starting to do the math on what my future might look like. And sometimes there is no easy answer to that, right? But there's no easy answer to that, right? Right, right. But there's a responsible answer. You can pretend it's not going to happen,

or you can pretend, yeah, this is probably going to be us. You, your future spouse, you know, got to start planning for this financially, right? Yeah, what does that look like? Oh, man. Let's go to Calvin in St. George, Utah. Calvin, what's going on, man? How can we help?

Hi, pleasure to be on the show. I'm a big fan. I've been listening for a long time um so i was recently accepted into dental school and uh the cost of dental school is really high as you may be aware yes um my circulation would be in excess of four hundred thousand dollars in debt um to go to dental school. I applied to the military scholarship because I am such a big fan of Dave Ramsey's show and kind of avoiding debt. I applied to the military scholarship. They will completely pay for the schooling, but I owe them year for year of the school.

So it's a four-year commitment to them. My question is, is it worth the opportunity cost? I could potentially get out of dental school and be making much more than what the military would pay me and potentially pay it off in four to six years living under my means, or should I take the military scholarship that they'll cover and then have that commitment to them? Just kind of what would you recommend on that? What do you want to do? Do you want to go to the military?

Yes, I do have interest in the military. Why do you want to go to the military? What is it about the military that excites you? Service to country I am interested in, and I do stand for a lot of the same values they have okay so i i would i would back up rachel i'd love you to hop in here i'd back up and you're not not going to dental school you're not going to take out four hundred thousand dollars or half million dollars worth of loans because you like dave ramsey you're not going to take out half

million dollars worth of loans because that's half a million dollars worth of loans. And you never know when a pandemic is going to come through and say they're going to close your dental practice for a year and you're going to be up a creek. And on top of that, you're a guy who wants to serve in the military. And the military has this incredible program that's going to pay for it for you. And so if those two interests align, I wouldn't tell you to go to the military if you were just trying to scam the system so they'll pay for something.

But if you are about service, which you are, you love their values, which you are, I think that's commendable and extraordinary. Man, let them pay for your dental school. You're going to serve all of our. Absolutely. You're going to learn by serving our soldiers and our military. And then you're going to be able to come make a great difference in your local community, brother. I love your heart. That's what I would do, man.

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joined here with Rachel Cruz and we are taking your calls on money, taking your calls on life. Relationships are hard right now. Money is tight. Things are just hard. Give us a shout. Let's go to Nathan in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nathan, what's going on? How are we doing? Hey, thank you for taking my call. You bet, brother. What's going on? All right, so I'm 26 years old. I mean, I'm 24 years old. I'm married to my wife.

She's 23 years old, and we have $62,000 in debt, and we make $72,000 combined. And in May, we're about to lose her income for a while because she is going to move into real estate and be a real estate agent. Two of those loans, part of that debt is collection, so our credit scores are pretty much nonexistent. They're really bad. And we have two cars. And one car has $16,000 owed on it, and her car has $36,000 owed on it. True.

Okay. So we can't go to a credit agency and get a loan for the depreciation on her car. However, I can sell mine. I have $1,000 equity in it. But I'm just kind of wondering where I go from here because we started the 14-day trial of Ramsey Plus and we've been doing the financial keys, university stuff, but just kind of overwhelmed a little bit right now. Yeah, for sure. So the $36,000 car, how much is it worth now?

It's worth $29,000. $29,000. I only bought it like six months ago. And have you talked to a local credit union, Nathan? Yes. They're outside of Atlanta. Have you sat down with them and shown them the numbers? I mean, like you have all the paperwork.

You're talking to them. Yes, we went to our local one.'s called kinetic credit union yeah that's where we actually bank at and we showed them everything and uh we just don't have the credit to do anything about it i mean i'm looking at our with our debt you know getting this debt paid off i can probably do it in four years uh with just my income, and hopefully she can start selling some houses. But I know that when you go into real estate, it's a while before you actually collect the income. Yeah, what is she doing?

What is she doing now, Nathan? She's captioning phone calls for people that are hard of hearing. Okay. And how much does she make in that? She only makes about $26,000. $26,000. Okay.

So she'll, I mean, yeah, real estate, it takes a little bit, but you're in a hot market. So hopefully she's going to be making more commissions than $26,000. $26,000. Okay. So she'll, I mean, yeah, real estate, it takes a little bit, but you're in a hot market. So hopefully she's going to be making more commissions than $26,000. I was about to say, depending on how much percentage of her income, for her to just stay in that job for another year or two, just to be bringing in a steady income to be able for you guys to pay off this debt. But she's only making $26,000. So I'm like, no, she can make more doing real estate.

Could she do both, Rachel? Yeah, she could do both. Is that possible, Nathan, that real estate, while you're grinding it out, you're doing those things, could she do both for a season? It's going to be a busy, hard season. It just feels like a really inopportune time to lose half your income. The issue with that is the company she works for doesn't give you an option on your scheduling. And she has talked to them about possibly going part-time,

but even then her schedule would be so whacked. And it's not a set schedule. You know what you're going to be working. They change it every week. And she wouldn't be able to keep appointments and stuff like that. She's going to have to leave that job. Okay. Okay, so Nathan, let me get a little bit more tactical.

The debt, you have the two car payments, and then what else little bit more tactical. You're the debt. You have the two car payments, and then what else do you have? I've got the two car payments. We've got a $1,200 credit card. Okay. We've got a $4,500 credit card that we bought furniture with. Okay. And I've got $4,500 in collections.

My wife has a $2,600 student loan, and she has a nine hundred dollar collection that's a medical bill okay okay so the the the positive thing here is that besides that thirty six thousand dollar car and your sixteen thousand i'd sell your sixteen thousand go ahead and get a thousand dollar car go ahead and just get that out of the way because that's going to give you just like a breath of fresh air of not having that $16,000. I would go talk to two more credit unions to see if there's anything they can do to get a loan for the difference to get rid of that $36,000. You may be just stuck with it, which I hate to say it, but that might be the case. And then for you guys, I mean, Nathan, it's going to be a level of intensity and sacrifice for you and your wife for probably a good 24 months. And the more you guys can bring in in the income side, and we're saying maybe she stays at that

$26,000 job, to your point, John, and start selling houses at night when people are off work, doing open houses on Sundays, doing stuff on Saturdays, but just going full-fledged. Because there's a lot of these little $900, $1,200 that if you guys buckle down, you do a tight budget, you can start knocking some of this stuff out. And that's the beauty I love about the debt snowballs. I'm like, it's all these numbers. And besides the big car payments, it's these little ankle biters. And I'm like, man, you can just put so much intensity and start knocking those out.

But you guys have to be working together in this. and there's going to be extra work on the side. Yeah, Nathan, if that's me and I have a dream of being a real estate agent, but I find myself in your situation, I'm going to take a hard look at waiting a year, waiting two years, and maybe doing this job and getting a nighttime gig, driving or clawing and scratching, whatever you guys got to do. This feels like an emergency and it also feels like something that's solvable, but you may have to hold off on the dream part until you get some of the math parts really against you.

Here's the thing. This is going to be hard on your marriage, so I want you to make sure y'all are connected. We're going to start you off right, so I want you to hang on and Kelly is going to give you guys a free ticket to tonight's live stream with me and Rachel. As soon as the show's over, we're going to head out to the TV studios here tonight at 7 p.m. We have the marriage and money event. You can go to DaveRamsay.com

slash events for tickets. It's going to be hilarious. It's going to be fun. We're also going to tell you the truth about your marriage, money how y'all can come together about intimacy all these things that folks are wrestling with and nathan we want to give you guys this gift to start you guys off on this journey you guys got to hang in there with each other running hard and fast for 24 long months all right let's go to tony in norfolk virginia tony what's going on man how can we help hi how are you doing? Good, good, good. Okay, so let me keep it as brief as possible.

I'm a high school Spanish teacher, and my salary is in the upper 40s. That's my contracted salary. And I had $15,000 of student loan debt back from college that I paid some of it off. It was higher than that. It's now down to $15,000. Life's a homemaker. We have kids now. Just so you know, I bought my house before I knew about Dave Ramsey, so don't get mad at me. No, we're not. We're not, man.

But I have Baby Step 1 already done with, and this house that I bought is actually an older house, and I did that to sort of keep the price low. But there are things that need to be repaired around here. And so I have a tax return coming in. And what my wife and I were discussing, and I just want to sort of give you guys advice about it, should I throw my whole tax return at the student loans? Or should I hold back a significant chunk of it in case some sort of repair pops up around here? How much is the refund going to be? In the neighborhood of six grand. Of six thousand. And what kind of repairs are you just saying? Is it cosmetic or is it? For example, it's an

older house that's on a well. It's sort of out in sticks and the water needs treatment to make it fully potable. Like, you know, it's because we've been buying water and drinking that rather than drinking what comes out of the well because it needs a water softener system installed and all those kinds of things.

Yeah. But you guys, I mean, you can have bottled water or whatever, right? I mean, like, you're not dependent on that well. Is that well,

I mean, is it? I'm on a well and I got you, Tony. Yeah, if that well goes out that well goes out right then there's no there's no toilets showers nothing exactly but my yes yes but i'm asking like the urgency of it like is it is it is it you don't know when it's going to go out is it that oh yeah no when we bought the house they said we have three months like no it's it's it's still it's still it's still working now. The problem is the water needs to be softened and conditioned because it's eroding our pipes, basically.

Like the acidity and things like that in the water need to actually be treated because it could lead to other plumbing problems. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, your food and water, I mean, you have your basics that you need to be covered. Now, a water softener, looking at what that costs, if that's something that you absolutely need to do. I just don't want you to get caught up in this house and it keeps sucking down your money and your student loans hanging around. So it's a prioritization that you're going to have to do. So if the question is ultimately, should we add a couple more thousand bucks just to be safe? What I don't want you to do is pull that and feel like we're going to start remodeling.

We're going to start upgrading. You're still in this debt emergency. But if you know you've got a big thing hanging over you, I don't have a problem with you putting that aside if you know it's going to come. Knowing it's happening. And if you get to the end of this year and you need to pay it off, then you can just dump that money onto that student loan. But let's get that sucker paid off. And thanks for being a teacher during this madness. What a saint. 888-825-5225.

This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dr. John Deloney, joined with my good friend, best-selling author, host of the world-famous Rachel Cruze Show. The world-famous. Rachel Cruze. You know one thing we do well here? What? We spend a lot of creative energy, time on our titles. TV shows and podcasts. Good grief.

The Rachel Cruze Show, the John Deloney Show. There's just so many meetings about it. It's just like, wow. So many. So crazy. And this is unveiling. It's just like, wow. So many, right? So crazy. And this is unveiling. We've got it, guys. Here it is. All right, let's go to Matt in Cleveland. Matt, what's going on, man? Hey, John. Hey, Rachel.

Hey, what's up? How can we help? Hey, so I have a question. I'm starting to feel a lot of kind of resentment or frustration towards some of my friends who are being financially irresponsible. Like they'll be going on vacations when I know that, you know, like either they'll complain about money issues or things of that issue or they won't have jobs. I know Dave says to share your journey, but that doesn't seem to work.

Listening to the show all the time, I feel like financially winning is what Dave teaches. And so, I mean, I'm kind of, I feel like I'm the crazy one sometimes, but listening to your show, I feel like the normal one. I don't know. So how can I stop the feelings that I have of not everyone wins. So whenever I hear the word resentment, the word resentment or resentment in general is the absolute death bell of a relationship. Whenever you cross that line to, like, I'm frustrated with you, that means you're in a good relationship. I'm annoyed.

I'm angry with you. That means you're in a good relationship. That means there's things about this that you care about. When you get to the resentment part, it's an ash, right? It's hard. And when we talk to folks whose marriage, when they resent their, their partner, man, that's hard to come back from. My first question to you is, it feels like you have an air of superiority around your friends that I'd want to challenge you on that you, you handle money differently than they do there. You feel like they're being irresponsible. There's a gap

between, um, friends like, Hey, I don't make that decision. I'll make that decision. Yours feels a little bit higher than that. Do you feel like you're better than them? Walk me through where your head's at, man. Um, it's, it's more just when they're going on vacations, but, I mean, the next day they'll complain about their problems. I'm like, come on. Like, if you didn't take that vacation, like, you'd have the money to do, you know, to pay your car rent. I mean, car lease. So, Rachel, I'd love to get your thoughts. I have something with my buddies, with my longtime friends, which is when they ask for my opinion, I'll give it to them.

Yeah. And if they don't, it's such a tight relationship with them that I feel free to mock their choices. And we do it in good fun because we love each other, right? But I don't hold the outcome. I just am committed to sitting with them when things are challenging, right? Yeah. So when they call me and they say, I went on a vacation. Now I can't make rent. I get to say, well, challenging, right? So when they call me and they say, I went on a vacation. I didn't, now I can't make rent.

I get to say, well, duh, right? But I'm not going to hold, it's not my fault that they made that decision. I'm not going to hold that. Because yeah, there's a level of responsibility, Matt. I feel like you're taking on for your friends and that's what's like stirring up all these emotions. And so being able to see, my counselor did this about a different

relationship my life but i wish you could see me but he like had these scissors and he was like pretending to cut these like strings he's like cut the strings yeah cut the strings you're not emotionally responsible for this so matt you're not respond you're not responsible for their choices and yeah if they're just complaining all the time then you can say hey are you good if i just kind of share where i'm at what i see see? And in a loving way, just be like, yeah, I mean, that costs two grand and your rent's 600, you know, 1,200. Yeah, you could have used it. I mean, I don't know.

It's just math. But it's not emotional because you're not responsible for them. That's right. Matt, can I ask you one other question? It's going to sound like I'm coming after you, but I just want to get to a little bit deeper. Is there a part of you that wishes you were going on these vacations with them? Part of me wishes I could go on the vacations.

Part of me does wish I could go on those vacations with them. So that's a big moment, man. And it's okay to be frustrated that the choices you're choosing to make in your life are cutting out on some fun right now. That the choices you are choosing right now are annoying, right? They are keeping you from firecrackers and whatever. I get that, dude, and it sucks. The moment you can say, I'm frustrated, and you can pause and say, am I frustrated just because I want to be going on a vacation, but I'm sticking to this budget for the time being because I'm playing a long game with my life? Or am I frustrated because I love my friends and they're making ding dong choices? Or am I just a grumpy guy, right?

If you find that I'm just frustrated that I don't get to go, then you can circle back to, I'm making a series of choices because I'm investing in my future. I'm investing in my family. I don't even have yet. I'm investing in filling all these things. I want to be able to help my neighbor in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Man, then you've got to – frustration is okay, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's just part of the process. And like Rachel said, you don't own their outcome, right?

Divorce yourself from that outcome. And I think one of the hardest things when it comes – I mean, probably anything in life, but specifically money with people in your life. So whether it's parents, spouse, friends, parents, in-laws, right? I mean, all these people in your life and when they make different choices than you make and you hear the complaining and all of that, I mean, that's a very, very real thing. And understanding that until they ask your opinion. Yeah. Just keep it to yourself. Yeah. Or like you said, Matt, already, like share your story, share where thing. Right. And understanding that until they ask your opinion. Yeah. Just keep it to yourself.

Yeah. Or like you said, Matt, already, like share your story, share where you're at if you long for that. But that is a hard thing for people because there's a level of control

we want to have over the people that we love because you do see them harming themselves. You're like, dang it, dang it, dang it. But listen, they're grownups. And they get to make their decisions.

And my guess, Matt, is if you sat down with them, they'd say, man, Matt, when you're not around, we all talk about you. We want you just to have some more fun and smile. And so what if we figured out ways to do some things together that maybe didn't involve this? Or we're jealous, Matt, that

you're not late on any of your bills. Yeah, exactly. You pay your bills every month. So thanks for that call, Matt. And next time you get sideways, pause for that one moment and say, is this just because I'm jealous? Is this because I'm frustrated? Or is this because I'm trying to hold on to somebody else's outcome, man? And free yourself from that.

I love that analogy, cut the strings. That's good. All right, let's go to Amy in Hartford. What's up, Amy? How are we doing? Hi there, you guys. I'm doing well. How are you today?

Good. How can we help? Sure. So my husband and I have been married for just over a year um and we're actually looking to buy our first house and we're just wondering if we couldn't run some numbers by you guys and see what y'all think about um where we are with our numbers what we can afford what we should be looking for in a first house absolutely yeah let. Bring it on. Bring on all the numbers, Amy. I leave the math to the others.

I might get my cell phone calculator on in just a second. But sure. So right now we have about just under thirty eight thousand in our savings. We've managed to actually pay off all of our debt. So we're 100% awesome. So I can't get that free stream. My husband's not here. He's at work. It's my day off. So we've got probably about $25,000 worth of debt that we've paid off. So we're pretty good at saving and hitting it hard where it counts in regards to debt. So he makes probably about $45,000 a year. I'm just under $30,000. But in the next maybe two months or so, he's going to be going after a

different job in which he'll probably make about $70,000. So he should be bringing in just under $100,000. Okay. Do you guys have any, is the $38,000 the only savings you have? Correct. Yeah, we've got a little buffer in our checking. It's just under $5,000. Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, our rule of thumb when it comes to buying a home

is that I want your payment to be no more than 25% of your take-home pay. I want you to be able to put down 10% to 20% for a down payment. And that 25 your take-home pay. I want you to be able to put down 10% to 20% for a down payment. And that 25% take-home pay, your mortgage payment, is on a 15-year fixed rate. So doing that math, so the $70,000 job, is that a guarantee it's happening and he's waiting to transition,

or is he hoping he has it? No, it's guaranteed. It's actually a family-owned business. So he's actually going to be working with his dad. So it's already been talked about and agreed upon this pay rate. Okay, awesome, awesome. So I would do all your calculations

off of $100,000 income. But that $38,000 though, Amy, I want some of that to stay as your emergency fund. Do not spend that all on the down payment. So you guys have a little ways to go to save it for that down payment, depending on what house you want to buy, how much that's going to be.

But run those numbers. That's kind of the formula we use. And you guys are in an awesome position. No debt, emergency funds. It's pretty fun. Just being newlyweds, man. That's super cool. That's an exciting place to be, Amy.

That's awesome. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney with my good friend Rachel Cruz. We're taking your calls on life, money, 888-825-5225. We have somebody in our lobby that wants to ask a live question. He's got the headset on. He's standing on the debt-free stage, not doing the debt-free scream. Not yet.

But he wants to ask us a question in person where we have to look each other in the eye. Which is kind of funny, Andy. This doesn't happen very often. Does it not? No. That's really cool. So I'm just overwhelmed to be here today. Well, we're grateful that you're here. Which is kind of funny, Andy. This doesn't happen very often. Does it not? No. That's really cool. So I'm just overwhelmed to be here today. Well, we're grateful that you're here.

So what's going on, man? How can we help? So I pastor a church in Southern Illinois. We have about 400 people in attendance. Right before COVID started, we were about to pull the trigger on building a new sanctuary. Last year, we did our first Financial Peace University class at our church. This year, we just started a new one last week. And, man, it's changed myself and my wife's life.

Matt and Nikki are here with us today. We've seen a variety of different families in our church just greatly changed by the program. And, man, it's brought in a whole new attitude. But one of the things going through it is that we're looking to borrow around $2.2 million to build a new sanctuary. Scripture says borrow is slave to the lender. Dave repeats that often. And so I thought, do you guys think it's hypocritical for a church who is practicing the principles of Financial Peace University

in their personal lives to go out and borrow money in a church setting? So before you answer that, as somebody who used to meet with people behind closed doors on hard conversations, you get a sense when somebody already has an answer in their heart as they're asking the question. Even the way he framed it. And so, Andy, I feel really strongly that you have an answer. Yes. Walk us through where you are and how you got there. Okay.

Well, it goes a little further than that even. And so recently God's been doing a great work in me just through this last year. And so the thought process is that, number one, the answer should be no, we shouldn't. We should practice what we preach. And if we tell you to do it in your personal lives, we should do it in our church life. Secondly, the state of Illinois is kind of different right now, and I don't want to go too much into that. But one of the things that we've just started at our church is to actually help families.

The educational institution in Illinois is not good. And so one of the reasons for starting FPU was to help our families live within their means so they could help afford Christian education. And so this year our church started to adopt this program to where we will partner with a family for up to 50% of biblical education to every one of our members. We just rolled that out. And so one of the thought processes is we would rather educate our children than build a building. But at the same time, we're literally out of room. And so it's one of these catch-22s.

But it's hard to go borrow $2.2 million when you're telling your families, man, live within your means, go into biblical education. Beans and rice, beans and rice. Exactly. And so it's hard to go borrow $2.2 million when you're telling your families, man, live within your means, go into biblical education. Beans and rice, beans and rice. Exactly. And so it's a difficult situation. So I've got a really strong visceral reaction to this question for a couple different reasons. But I want to turn it over to the wiser, calmer one of us first. What do you think, Rachel?

I mean, you answered it. I mean, yeah, my answer is going to be it's consistent. So whether it's someone's opening a business, I never tell them to take out a small business loan. For a church, it's the same way. And what's difficult, though, I understand, it's the building constraints. But I'll tell you here at Ramsey, we were in a building about

10 miles north of where we are right now, and we were outgrowing it, and it was like, man, but there wasn't cash there to buy something. and so we could have you know taken a loan out and built something like this you know years and years ago but we rented out another space and we rented out another space and we were in five different buildings and it was so inconvenient it was not fun we had like a little shuttle that went around

and like oh it was just it was it was not it was ideal. But we move at the speed of cash around here. And we do that because we really do believe the borrower is slave to the lender. And your whole paradigm shifts. Again, whether it's a church, whether it's a business, whether it's your personal life, when you owe someone money, the way you look at things. And so to be able to say, man i we invested into this program like what

you guys are doing is what how creative and how amazing and fun of that education and just move at the speed of cash just save over time and it's going to be uncomfortable it's not going to be fun but also covid hello you know i mean you couldn't meet for for months probably you know so like it it really uh thank god for covid because if you went and borrowed 2.2 million and couldn't even use it at that point, God may have saved you right there. For me, it's that, and I get real personal with it. I tell teenagers, I've told teenagers for years, when they were whining about their parents,

this and that, my parents this, and I'd always tell them, if your parents are paying for that car, they're paying for that fill in the blank, they get to speak into it. It's theirs, right? And anytime a church, a business, me, when I hitch myself to somebody else,

they get to tell me what to do that's just the rules right right and i think sometimes um like i i find myself speaking out about it's not because i hate institutions i think institutions actually do wonderful stuff on broad big scales but man when i owe somebody they get to tell me what to do and i there's a lot of yelling and screaming these days and people don't, they forget that, man, I hitched myself to that wagon. Most recently in my life, I haven't had a mortgage in a while, right? I got one recently and I'm having trouble sleeping because I am now in debt to the bank, right? And they get to tell me, nope, you're going to keep going to

work every day. You're going to keep filling the blank, right? And so I'm going to tell you, I think a remarkable conversation for a leader in a church right now is to stand up and say, this is going to be messy. We're going to figure it out, but we're going to do the right thing. And we are not going to hitch our wagon to a state a bank a federal government a whatever and it's not is it going to be inconvenient yep are we gonna have to have 14 services and do all this weird whatever yep right um but i think it's the right thing to do right and i'm just grateful for your heart man oh absolutely and i would say this too as someone who attends a church when i know because our church is debt free they paid off all of their building debt about four years ago and it was incredible and so now i know when

i tithe that it's not going to bank of america right you know it's not going to an interest payment it's literally going to a single mom because we have a whole cars ministry and it's buying single mom cars like that's like that's what it's good like it's going or it's going to my pastor right to help pay his salary what the the church staff like i know where my money's going and as a as a someone who tithes and gives i'll tell you the heart of your congregation to have that conversation with john just said yeah that builds trust and honestly i think that's a that's a beautiful conversation just to say it out loud yeah and i'm only putting one foot on a soapbox here because i could get myself in trouble you're gonna jump i wish every every

church in america any denomination would have a hard look in the mirror and say how much money are we paying to the salaries of our local bankers that could be going to feeding the kids in our communities that could be putting kids in schools that could be helping single moms we do a lot of bickering and yelling about you about government intrusion and social programs, and we sure like new shiny things in churches. Yeah, that's been the heart is that, you know, especially with this education program is, you know, churches right now, we're losing seven to one. And so for every seven kids in this generation, we're only getting one back in the next.

And my thought was, man, if we build a building in 20 years, we cannot have people to put in it. That's right. If we don't start investing in our kids now. And the big heart is that you pay this much money each month for brick and mortar when you can invest in the future of our

kids coming up. Yeah, and we're not mad at brick and mortar. No, not at all. Absolutely. It's a great thing. You got it. Praise God. It is that moving at the speed of cash. So No, you got it. It's out of the space and all of it. Yes, man. Praise God. There's something about being in a connection. Yep, moving at the speed of cash. So I think you know it.

I mean, even the way you asked the question, that was a great call, John. And I hope every single small business owner, I hope every single nonprofit leader, I hope every single pastor in this country is listening to this conversation and listening to your heart, man. Because the more money we pass out on other people's salaries that could be going to healing these communities, right? The only person to fill that gap becomes the government, right? That's the greatest, one of the biggest problems we have in society today is the church isn't playing the role of the church. Right, right. America, he said it, not me.

Just kidding. I'm with you, brother. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. Amen. So, man, I appreciate your heart. In Financial Peace University, we talk about what could the people of God do for the kingdom of God if they had no debt.

And that's on an individual basis. But we say, yeah, you put the government out of business, right? Like, as believers, if you didn't have your car payments, your credit cards, your student loans, and you were able to give outrageously, that is literally the movement. That is what changes. We did our Financial Peace University class last year. Our giving went up almost $100,000 just last year. Amazing. Congrats.

I love it, brother. Thanks, Andy. Well, thank you so, so much. God bless you guys. Thank you. Appreciate you. Man, pay off your debts and then give recklessly. Yep.

First hour in the books with my good friend Rachel Cruz. Big thanks to Kelly and to James. We'll see you just in a minute. Have a friend or family member that needs a daily dose of Ramsey advice in their life? Let them know about the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast. It's a quick hit of advice about life and money in under 10 minutes. Check out the Ramsey Call of the Day podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.