The Ramsey Show - App - You’ve Gotta Wake Up and Pay Attention to Your Money! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey,, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thanks for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jade Walshaw Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Sula is on the line in Hartford, Connecticut. Hey, Sula, what's up? Hey, how's it going? First of all, thanks so much for the work that you do. I've been following Ramsey Solutions for a while now and subscribe to the YouTube channel,

and I'm really, really happy with, you know, the results that I've seen following what you guys are putting out. So thanks again for what you do. Well, thank you. And I think I butchered your name. Pronounce it for me. It's Salah. Salah it's salah salah salah okay i'll get it right sorry about that okay what's up tell me what's going on all right so um some background i'm 22 years old i graduated college um i got married a year ago or yeah about a year ago. And I've got a baby on the way, which has been kind of the driving factor in getting my affairs in order. Wonderful. Yeah.

So my big thing is I know that I make definitely gross over $100,000 a year, but I'm just struggling with, you know, just balancing everything. I feel like somehow, some way the money's not stretching the way it should. You know, I come from a family who definitely didn't make that much money and somehow things felt different. So I always thought six figures would be that big number, but it's just not what it's not what I thought it would be. It's not as much as it used to be. Is it just you working or does your wife work as well? My wife was working, but we agreed that once we have a child that she would be a primary homemaker. And so she's not working now. Okay. So tell me a little bit more about your debt to where you're feeling like this $100K isn't what it used to be. Okay. So the primary debt that I had when I first started getting into credit cards,

I would just get a 0% interest and then flip it onto a bet with a 0% intro offer for a balance transfer. And I did that about three times. So how much credit card debt do you have? So yeah, now I'm sitting at about $6,000 in outstanding debt. That doesn't include the month-to-month cards that I'm paying, but those are almost paid down to zero, probably like $1,000 between the three or four cards. I pay those fully month-to-month, but the two that are in 0% interest, they end in March and they're about $6,000. What's the total amount of the debt? All the balances combined?

Probably $9,500, I believe. Okay. What else do you have? I have $5,500 in student loans that, of course, just started being due for repayment. And my wife also has about $10,000 in student loans. Okay. How much on your cars? No cars we i'm a car guy so we own our cars out right what's your mortgage no mortgage i rent so wait a second how much is your rent 1500 a month okay and how long how

long ago did you start trying to follow our stuff, a month or two? It's been like three months, but I mean, I didn't really have much income to go off of. Initially, I started, I'm an Uber driver. I have a full-time job with my degree in, effectively, in IT. And I also started Uber driving, and I started kind of kicking that into high gear to try to get these credit cards paid off off and that's been my avenue. So you're just getting started and you've not really gotten the budget dialed in yet? No.

That's really all this is because I'm looking at a guy who makes $100,000 a year. You got $25,000 of student loan debt or of debt, period. Actually less than that. So I don't think it's a lot of debt but i don't think it's the big fire and exploding thing that you think it is in your head i think that if you guys get on a simple budget and you live on eighty thousand dollars instead of a hundred thousand dollars you're knocking this debt out super fast that's that's if you just

okay we're gonna we're gonna cut back but if you really got crazy you'd knock this out very quickly yeah beans and rice rice and beans a detailed written budget on the every dollar app you and your wife agree that we are doing nothing except eat and diapers and electricity and pay rent. That's it. Nothing. We're doing nothing until we get this paid off. And $2,000 a month and you are free in one year.

Yeah. You guys are newly married. You got a baby on the way. You guys have been spending a lot. That's what I'm seeing here. Well, and I'll add to this. I'll take up for you just a little bit. You live in a very high tax, high cost high-cost-of-living town.

That's also true. Connecticut is the highest-taxed state in the Union, and Hartford is a beautiful town, very expensive. Agreed? Yeah, that's kind of my big thing. I know it's $100 gross, but, I mean, after taxes, it's definitely not $100. No, I know. I know it's not. I know it's not, but you can do this. You can still live on.

Even in spite of that, you can do this, okay? This is doable in New York City. It's doable in L.A., and so it's doable in Hartford. And thankfully, you have a good rent situation, so that's good so i think the thing is that the piece that'll come to this is you and your wife are in agreement that for a short period of time we're going to live like no one else so that later we can live and give like no one else including super big time take care of this baby and so you have a new reason to delay pleasure, and that's adults devise a plan and follow it, and children do what feels good. You're going to do great. So we're going to give you a gift to say congratulations on a new baby

and help you get started on all this, and we appreciate you following us on YouTube, and the gift is we want you and your wife to go through Financial Peace University and get signed up in the EveryDollar app, the world's best budgeting app. And it'll break every one of your paychecks down for you. It'll show you how to use the baby steps exactly. And Financial Peace University will teach you the things you should have been taught about money but weren't taught, the things we all should have been taught about money but we weren't taught.

And so we're going to give you every bit of that, and it's completely free. You hang on. Austin will pick up, and we'll get you signed up for that. Jade, one of the things we saw with the EveryDollar app, you've been doing some of these EveryDollar webinars, is that showing people how to do the budget. By the way, you can sign up for those if you just go to everydollar.com slash budgeting, and Jade will be doing those,

and Rachel Cruz and George Campbell as well. Anyway, one of the things we're finding is we've always said it feels like you get a raise when you're on a budget. Yes. But we've actually found a piece of research that they said literally is 10 to 15% a year. Yeah. Well, most people are finding $332 extra. That's just money that they were piddling away at target groceries yeah they're able to find that money that i mean so when you happen to your money instead of the lack of money

happening to you the efficiency increases yeah you get a raise and you it'll feel like you got a raise and then you don't use that raise to go buy a new car that's what most people do most people get a 232 raise and go take out a $400 car payment to celebrate. No, no, no, no, no. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Neighborly has 19 service brands nationwide and a network of local service

pros. Molly Maid, Mr. Reuter Plumbing, and Mr. Appliance, just to name a few. Visit neighborly.com to find available service providers near you. Today's question comes from Rachel in Florida. She says, I have a quick question. I just transitioned from Baby Step 2. I have a little over $60,000 in school loans. When I'm looking at my debt from smallest to biggest, do I look at the school loans individually, which would make them a list of smaller loans? Or should I look at it as a whole, which would put them at the end of my debt snowball? Yeah, I would look at them as individual because most of us took out, you know, a giant amount, right? But they blast them into all these little pieces.

And generally, they have their own interest rates and all that. And they have their own payment. They have their own payment. When that one's paid off, that payment goes away. That's right. And by the way, yeah, let's talk about that for a second. Because let's say, oh, I have $30,000 in student loans, but it's technically six or eight or 10 little micro loans, right? When you make your payment every month, a piece of that goes to every single one of those. So if you are doing a debt snowball, for instance, and you're listing them from smallest to largest, along with your other debt, whenever you make your minimum

student loan payment, that is satisfying all of those small loans. And then when you're ready to make an extra payment, you pick the student loan that's the smallest. You've a lot of times got to call it in and say, I want all of this money to go to the principal of this specific loan. Because if you don't do that, they're just going to consider that a pay ahead payment and they're going to split it up on all the loans again and you're never going to make any headway. Right. So that's very important and a very good question. So yeah, list them in order as smallest to largest and do it like i just said and you'll be good to go yeah exactly because that way see when you eliminate that 3400 one you don't

have that payment anymore exactly so your minimum payment goes down as well and exactly because your total of payments goes down yeah that's right and the whole process then you're getting the benefit of the snowball see the benefit of the snowball folks is that when you pay off a loan the payment you used to have there is now freed up money and it goes to the next one and that gives you extra you've got more disposable income to pay extra on debts every time the snowball rolls over and you have this satisfaction of traction you're in a you're in a psychological feedback loop this says you're winning yes and when you have a sense of traction you're in a you're in a psychological feedback loop this says you're winning yes and when you have a sense of hey i'm doing this exercise i'm following this eating regime and therefore i'm losing weight you've got a feedback loop there that tells you

to keep doing it that's right and uh so that's a big deal that's a huge deal all right curtis is with us in lansing, Michigan. Hi, Curtis. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for having me. I've been a big fan for a few years now. Cool.

How can I help? So I followed all your stuff, bought your book and everything about three, four years ago. I got my car paid off. All my credit cards paid off, and then I took probably about 50 steps backwards and stopped listening, and kind of life hit me. And I, you know, quit my job, wanted a better job, and went to school. So I just got done with school and just been working now for about two months at my new job. And I just kind of want to know.

I got student loans coming up. I got everything, all my bills set out for the month. I'm only with the student loans coming up. I got to get a car repair. It's not looking too good for me, and I'm going back to school full-time in January. Why? Well, for my job, I kind of have to.

I was kind of signing on. That was one of the requirements. I go back. But you're not going into more debt, right? You're going to pay cash or figure out a way? Are they paying for it? So it's kind of difficult, that part, because I'm a firefighter, so I have to go back for paramedic school. And the townships, they're in talks right now of paying for it,

which we get right now a bonus every year of $3,000 if I'm a paramedic. So it will kind of pay itself in the next few years. So, yes, I'm going to have to make a monthly payment on it. I won't be able to take student loans out on that. So it's going to be about $300 a month on top of the student loans I actually owe starting next month. So that's kind of where I'm at with that. So hopefully they can pay it, but I'm not going to, you know, count on that. I'm just going to pay it monthly. But then I was wondering if I take a personal loan out or a consolidation loan and just pay it all off and have one big payment.

Nope. Okay. Nope. Um, no shortcuts that work. And that, that one doesn't work, doesn't it? That doesn't help you. It actually hurts you. Uh hurts you in general you may raise the interest rates as a matter of fact the loan the thing where they're taking out of your pay for the paramedic school hadn't getting interest true and that loan would have interest so there's one part and another one you got might be a lower interest than the consolidation loan interest is and so net net net you end up paying more getting screwed over by one of these debt con consolidation deals. So what are you making now as a firefighter?

So for probation, you know, first year, we start out at 46. And then the next four years, I'll get a 10,000 increase. I'm going to be topping out about 76 78 after four years and then we get you know little bonuses throughout the year which that's not included in the 46 for the first year how much student loan debt have you taken out total what are you oh sorry just 4,500 okay and then you mentioned a car repair. Is that it? Car repair, and then I am currently kind of behind on working my butt off, trying to get everything caught up bills-wise. I bought my house about five years ago, so I should end October, I should be all caught up on everything that I kind of got behind on.

What caused you to get behind? Just school, working, you know, by myself. Screwing around, not paying attention. Pretty much. And then, you know, two and a half years of schooling full time. That doesn't cause you to get behind. You were making money during that time. You could have paid your bills.

You just weren't paying attention. So you've got to own this, and you've got to step up and step into it and say, this ends today. I don't think it takes until October to get this mess cleaned up. I don't either. How far behind are you? So I am about two months behind on my water water and it's just all been i've been you know got half of them up so so you're doing five you're on probationary fire so you're doing 24 on or 48 on 48 off uh 24 on 24 off or 24 on 48 off yep so it's 24 on 24 off 24 on 24 so you have a lot of free time for your nice juicy

extra job side us and i want you working all the time next so should i because i was thinking about getting a second job yeah it's not six of them but then i would i was wondering because i can pick up a lot of overtime and I also can do on-call. Whatever's going to make you more money. Whatever pays you more. Yeah. Okay. I want you to work all the time.

Hey, are you behind on your rent or mortgage at all? Not behind to where I'm like 30, not even 30 days behind, so almost two months. But this next paycheck paycheck i should be all caught up until the next month your stress level is killing me yeah it's been uh yeah so i just kind of picked myself up you know good good i'm glad okay now that you picked yourself up let's run let's run hard run hard man i want you to go make a bunch of money as much money as you can make in the shortest possible period of time legally and morally i want you to make a bunch of money as much money as you can make in the shortest possible period of time legally and morally i want you working all the time and i don't want

you doing anything but working and paying bills i don't want you partying i don't want you going on vacation i certainly don't want you eating out you eat at the fire station and you eat cheap ramen noodles peanut butter and jelly dude i, you are getting out of debt. You are sick and tired of being broke. And you get fired up and wired up. You can clean this mess up really fast. You are kicking the can down the road again with some of this. It's dragging out and dragging out and dragging out.

And I want you to lean on your supervisor. They need to pay for this. If they're requiring paramedic school, they ought to pay for it. That's right. They ought to pay for it. And I know the township has to approve it. Well, let me just tell you, you've got a young firefighter here who's asking you to pay for it, and you're requiring it.

You ought to pay for it. That's right. So step up. Push in. Push in. Push in. Push in. Hustle.

Grind. Hustle. Grind. Push this out. Clean this mess up and get it behind you. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for being with us, America.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Dead Freefree stage. Matt and Sarah are here. Hey, guys. How are you? Doing great. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Elmwood, Illinois, which is just outside of Peoria. Yeah, fun.

Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And how much debt have you paid off? About $200,000. Excellent. And how long did this take? About five years and four months. Five years and four months.

Way to go. And your range of income during that time? About $82,000 up to about $124,000. Ooh, way to go. Very cool. What do you all do for a living? I'm a territory rep for an ag company. And I was an elementary teacher for six years, and now I stay at home.

Yay. That's pretty cool. Very good. What kind of debt was this $200,000? It was about $40,000 in student student loans and then the rest was our house looking at weird people all right how old are you two i just turned 29 yesterday and i'm 28 and you have a pay-for house sir that's so whacked way to go none of your friends do way to go that's so weird in such a good way yeah excellent excellent what's this house worth

uh it's about 300 000 today excellent very cool and how much you guys got in your investments so far just over 100 000 excellent so you're almost a half a million dollar net worth already and you're not even 30 boom boom i love you guys you You're amazing. Wow, that's inspiring. So what happened five years in form? How long y'all been married? Six years. Okay, so you got married and said game on. How does that work? Yeah, it actually started before we got married. So during our premarital counseling, our pastor, Pastor Marty, just shared the struggles that people have with money fights and money problems. And he shared you with us and gave us the book and we left that meeting just determined not to be uh to have money fights or money problems not

to fall victim to what most people do yeah exactly very smart yeah and so we kind of left that meeting and uh we sat down we we really just budgeted and that became our our focus we sat down we budgeted every month we had our meetings uh i knew the day that we were looking at our budget and matt was like no orange juice we're not getting any more orange juice we were cutting the budget matt went for the orange juice line in the budget yeah so we really looked at the budget and tried to figure out anything that we could cut and we just threw everything at our debt. So, wow. So how much orange juice were y'all buying?

Dollar 28, but old Mac got it. I'm just saying. It counts. It counts. Hey, it all counts. And that's really what I learned is if you can really find anything in your budget that you can cut and just throw that at the debt, it goes quickly. Yeah.

Pretty amazing. What happened to get this income up? You went from $82,000, $124,000, and you started staying at home. So explain that a little bit. Yeah, so well, our income now is down to about $84,000 today with her staying at home. But during that time, it was just gradual raises. And then I took a promotion at work to become the sales rep. I was working in the factory, but now i've got a sales

rep we're able to move closer to home too so wow so you got the freedom now to stay home you get to be the stay-at-home mom wow i love this at 29 years old 28 years old that's pretty stinking cool very cool very very neat yeah that's uh that's like too much common sense to be believed. I mean, okay, my pastor says the main thing people struggle with is money fights. We're not going to do that. Oh, there you go. So how many money fights have you had? Very few. I'd say rare.

Take out the orange juice, none. Yeah, exactly. That is great. Well, it's different when you have money. It's different when you're both going on a trajectory and the discrepancies or the arguments are more about how can we get there faster, right? As opposed to you spent and no, you spent. Like it's a very different feeling.

Yeah, and I'd say that we, you know, I said we find any way that we could to save money. And, you know, we were taking online tests to get $10 a test. And we decided we had some woodworking talents and some crafting talents. We started a small business. We just tried to find anything that we could to just start paying

off the debts. Now that we're out of it, it's almost hard to spend money. I have to push her to actually spend money on, spend $20 on buying something or buy that $4 coffee or whatever. Get you an orange juice. Honey, I want you to get all the orange juice.

I like it. That's very good. So what is next? What do you, you got a paid for home? Not a payment in the world. How's that feel? That's awesome. It's awesome.

It's hard to describe, but it's just awesome. There's no stress. No, that just like a weight lifted off your shoulders. And I think we brought home our son and, in a couple weeks after we brought him home, we paid off our house. And we're sitting there on the couch just looking at our newborn child, and we're like, wow, we live and we own this house. And it's just a great feeling.

And you're going to be freaking loaded in a couple of years. Little boy, things are going to be okay. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I like it. Well done, y'all. Thank you. Very well done.

I'm with Jade. What's your first big thing now that you're debt free? Well, right now we're just adjusting to the one income now, but hopefully in the next year or two, maybe a big trip. Like, we've always wanted to go to Alaska or back to Europe again. That's cool. Oh, definitely. You can do both.

Yeah. You got to do it. Not or, both. Yes. You live like no one else. Now you can live and give like no one else exactly you put yourself in a position to change your family tree and your kid is going to get to do things and see things you never thought you would do and that's what's happened to us it's pretty cool and my grandkids now yeah now they get to do stuff that would have completely was outside my realm of reality.

I didn't even know it existed. Of course, it didn't exist, some of it, but way to go, guys. So proud of y'all. Who was bragging on you and cheering you on as you went along? Definitely our family. It has a big impact on us, and they showed us what it was to love and give, and we're so excited to be able to do that now. We're even going to be teaching financial

peace university uh we start our first class on monday thank you at our church so you'll be great coordinators we're very excited argue with me i'm not even 30 and got to pay for the house mic drop mic drop don't try it love it way to go yeah my pastor used to say that a man with an opinion is our man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. And you now have an experience. So, yeah, everybody's opinions don't matter. You just grin and go, well, you just don't get it. Wow.

Well done. Amazing. Well done. Thanks for teaching the class. That's amazing. Good stuff. All right. Now, when you're teaching the class, I'm 30 years old.

I'm going to say it over and over so people hear this. You have a paid-for house. What do you tell them the key to getting out of debt is? For me, it was, like, not comparing to anyone else, not caring what anyone else's thinks. You know, live your own life. Do it the way you were taught to do it or what's right in your eyes. Don't care about what everyone else thinks. Don't live up to the Joneses.

For me, it was definitely budgeting. I think I live with an ultra, ultra, ultra nerd, and he's looking at the budget every night. He's at the orange juice level of nerd. That's a different level of nerd. Micro. And for us, it was that budget and taking time and having a meeting. And I think we grew so much together just having

those conversations and because he is the old turner i use that time to learn and i ask questions him up you know yeah of course he's the one that's always trying to tell me to spend money so now now okay now that we got there he's a he's task oriented now we got the task done it's in the budget now we have to line out if it's in the budget we have to free down we have to put fun in there now we have to do something fun with that money yeah i like it hey we've got the baby steps millionaires book for you in the live and give box a financial peace university membership you'll be able to bless someone and have them come through your class and you can give them a free membership that way

same with the total money makeover book It's all the live and give box. And just to say thank you for coming down and doing your debt-free scream. We're so proud of y'all. Thank you. You guys are a power couple, man. Very cool. You're amazing. And you brought a little guy with you.

What's his name? His name is Weston. Weston is how old? Eight months. Oh, look at him. And he's got his debt-free scream earphones on. He does. He's ready.

So he's not going to freak out, hopefully. Maybe he'll never know what happened but we do have the video of the day that his life was complete his family tree was completely changed yes that's pretty cool we'll have that excellent stuff matt sarah and weston peoria illinois 200 000 paid off house and everything five years and four, making 82 to 124. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah!

He got through the earphones. He's screaming. That's so fun. Well done. Hopefully we don't have any permanent damage there. That's his debt-free scream. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 26.3.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. Jimmy Buffett, rest in peace. It takes no more time to see the good side of life than it takes to see the bad. There you go. A little Margaritaville for you. All right. Up next is going to be Lazer. Lazer is in New York.

Hi, Lazer. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Lazer is in New York. Hi, Lazer. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question. I recently started listening to you guys, and I'm here in Baby Step 2, looking forward to 3 and beyond. And I'm wondering about the efficacy of investing in mutual funds in the stock market

based on many of the people buying from those companies are using debt to do so. The ethics of that? Correct. If I'm investing, putting my money into companies that are going to make me a profit, people using debt. I don't believe in debt anymore. Okay.

Well, that's, you know, it would depend on what level or what type of ethics you're talking about. For instance, I've got a good friend who is Muslim who has talked to me and taught me some of the things that the Koran says. And so if you're Muslim, there's very strict usury rules from a religious perspective, usury being anything having to do with interest. I'm sorry? I'm Jewish, and there's as well for usury in the Bible.

Yes, usury is in the Christian Bible as well, but the Muslim view of usury is anything associated with interest you're forbidden to participate in, and that's not true of Judaism and Christianity. It's just usury in Judaism and Christianity generally, I mean, there's a few different groups that might be nuanced differently, but most of the time that uh my that your tradition or my tradition are talking about usury it's excessive interest now i'm with you i don't believe in debt you know that you called dave ramsey and jade bosh are you talking about debt we hate debt and we get people out of debt and we don't do anything at ramsey to put people in debt we don't even take credit

cards in our online store you can only use a debit card because that would be very hypocritical in our case. However, then I've gotten questions from other people that are once removed, and yours is a little bit on that line. So let me think how to equate this from an ethics perspective. It's almost like you are not in control of other people's behaviors and you can't control them. And there's no set of ethics that demand that you do. And so if someone buys one of my books with a credit card on Amazon, I can't control that. I don't have any. The only way I could control it is to not have the book on Amazon, I can't control that. I don't have any.

The only way I could control it is to not have the book on Amazon. Or I can't control it if they go to Barnes & Noble and use a credit card. Now, it's humorously stupid. Yeah, it is. But it's not unethical. Yeah. Okay. I don't see how it's different than using a credit card and getting credit card

points of investing in the stock market and making profit off people other people's debt well the the profit for instance let's just say like take home depot okay uh home depot makes their profit off of two things the sale sale of construction materials and hardware, and they have a huge operation called the Home Depot credit card. So some of Home Depot's profits are from the credit card division. And that would be true of almost every single company in America, for that matter, of any size that would be traded on the stock market certainly all the banks make money off of debt uh that's their prime almost everything they make is

off of debt um and so you know if you bought a mutual fund that bought bank of america stock and bank of america stocks went up your point, you know, then my mutual fund has profited. But that's so many layers removed from me putting them into debt that I don't see the ethical issue. If you do see an ethical issue, Laser, I don't require that you do it. And generally when someone does that, they're doing it more on a religious basis than they are a pure ethics basis. It's a religious ethics, and that's driving someone to that. And so, you know, another example, kind of similar question that we get into sometimes is investing, not investing in companies from a Christian or jewish perspective that are engaged in sin

and so you wouldn't buy into a mutual fund if it bought um a liquor stock or a cigarette stock or a whatever okay but that again you know you you it's very difficult to parse all of those things out and keep up with it. Because also, if I buy a stock from you and you profit from me buying a stock from you, that has nothing to do. That's like me buying a Chevrolet from you and you made a profit. Yeah. Or I bought a, some, you collect shoes, the Air Jordan shoes. I buy some of those and you made a profit. None of that profit went to Nike and none of that profit went to Michael Jordan. That's right.

So if you don't agree with Nike and don't agree with Michael Jordan, you and I doing that transaction does not send them a profit. Chevrolet doesn't make any money if I buy a Chevrolet from you. Yeah, that's good. They made money on the initial sale of the car to the first person down the line but when so when you're trading stocks back and forth uh the person you're buying from is who's making the money there now he is correct though in saying that the stock goes up in value based on the profitability of the company the profitability of the company is because people

went into debt that's right that is a correct conundrum. That is a correct ethical quandary that he's asking about. I have not been bothered by me controlling other people's behavior. I have to control what I engage in. Yeah. And that's my ethics. But I can't I can't make you do something in the name of my ethics. Yeah, that is a very, it's definitely something, it's an interesting thought to think about at the very least.

It's very conscious. It is very conscious. But I do, you know, I've been sitting here thinking about it and I really think it's, you can't control other people's behavior and I think that's the bottom line. Some people are going to buy things they can't afford and go into debt in doing so. And when that happens, yeah, that's going to make somebody's profits go up and their

stock's going to go up. But like you said, that's really good. It's so far removed from you. You didn't tell them to do that. No one told them to do that. No one caused them to do that other than themselves. It's kind of like this. You know, I can't buy stock in Pizza Hut because some of their pizzas are sold on credit cards.

Okay. That's as nuanced as then you probably can't buy gas at your corner convenience store because they sell pornography. I mean, you could go down the line with that you could say well i won't buy stock in pizza hut because it's a caloric food and it causes obesity and glutton glutton oh i mean you could go is that what happened to me now i know i'm a. I thought it was my fault. Look, I mean, that's the thing. You can go down that road in so many areas. I'm not making fun of you, Lazer.

I'm making fun of me. But yeah, Lazer's got a valid question of conscience. Don't violate your conscience anytime you're doing any investing or money transactions. And money is a good subject area to test your conscience okay i'll tell you another thing another reason you can't buy gas at the corner stock market they sell lottery tickets yes and that's the ultimate in gambling and it's a tax on poor people because 80% of the lottery tickets purchased nationwide are purchased in lower income zip codes. And the rest of them are purchased by people who don't do math or can't do math or haven't chosen to do math.

It's hard to go to that level of jot and tittle, to use an old King James phrase, the minutia and the detail. Let's use a different word. Well, it's the minutia and the detail is what it amounts to. If you go into the nuance, you can get to legalism real quick. And you don't want to get to legalism. Then you're looking at everything. You almost have to pick your battles because where things are manufactured, what type of labor, what were the, like, you can really go. You're pretty much going to be in a cave.

Yeah. And that's sad that it's on everything. Stay out there swinging in the culture and have an impact that way. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. If you enjoyed this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to RamseySolutions.com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation.

That's RamseySolutions.com and click Get Started.