The Ramsey Show - Be the Tortoise Not the Hare

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan Dr. John Delony & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: I'm bringing a ton of debt into our new marriage," "Should I keep putting my money into Bitcoin?" "Should I sell the truck I bought with my grandfather?" "When should I move out of my mom's house?" "Should I help my husband pay off his debt?" "Is Webull a good platform to start investing?" Support Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp ◎ Get 10% off Byrna product bundles and more! 🏥 Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries 🏡 Get started today with Churchill Mortgage 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe 🏦 Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! 🥗 Save 15% on your first Field of Greens order with code RAMSEY 💸 Learn more about opening a high-yield savings account with Laurel Road 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more 🗂️ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at The Nokbox 💵 Learn more about Timothy Plan 🏛 Get started with YRefy or call 844-2-RAMSEY 🔐 Visit Zander Insurance for your free instant quote today! Next Steps 📱 Watch the full episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🎟️ Get Tickets to the Money & Relationships Tour 💼 Connect with a RamseyTrusted tax pro for help with payroll and more 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! 🪑 Check out Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman! 💪 Invest with confidence! Get tickets to Investing Essentials Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from Franklin, Tennessee from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show where we help people with their money, their relationships, their work, their mental and emotional health, with just about everything. I'm John Delaney joined by my good friend George Kamel, and we're taking your calls live, 888-825-5225. If you were born in the last century,

the call is toll free, and if you were born in this century, you don't even know what that means. 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Orlando, Florida and talk to grace Hey grace, what's up? Hi, how are you guys? I mean, I don't know a way we could be better. We're actually doing pretty good right now. I Love that. I love that. Thanks for having me. What's up? I was calling in because I am getting married later this year

My fiance has no debt, but I am bringing in quite the load. I have about $180,000 in student loan debt, that's all private, and about $15,000 in credit card debt. And I've been told multiple things. I've been told to file for bankruptcy while I'm single. No! You can't even tell me this. You can't even discharge that $180,000.

Yeah. So, I just, I see a lot of options. I've been grinding. I got a higher paying job and I'm really trying, but I'm just curious, you know, is default in the right sense? Did no one bring up the option of paying it off? They have, but I mean, my monthly payment is about $800. I've defaulted on two of them already because it's four separate loans. And I just feel like every single month I'm barely scraping by. What's your

income every month? So I just took a sales job. I was working in ministry before. My base income is $55 for the year, so I make about $3,500 a month not including commission. I'm just starting to make any kind of commission. What in tarnation was this degree for? I wanted to go to med school, and so I went to a private school. I went and played volleyball. I made terrible choices. I didn't have great oversight from my parents on what signing a private loan meant, and

now I'm 27 and I'm really, really feeling the weight of that. So you didn't graduate? I did graduate, but I ended up feeling like I was being called into ministry, so was obedient to that. Decided that I wasn't going to be. Were you also called into 200 grand of student loan debt? No, no, no.

OK. But I was 18 and stupid. Okay, so what's the actual degree you got? Biology. Okay, and you're not in that field currently or are you working in a closed field? No, so I work in medical device sales. Okay.

So you can make some cash in that gig. Yes, yes, I'm just starting though. I'm literally three months in. All right, what does your fiance think about marrying somebody who's gonna bring 200 grand and of debt into the marriage? He actually is not scared he knows that this is right and this is from the Lord and he is like we're gonna do this together we're gonna tackle it together. So why won't you allow him to love you as he is signing up to do for the rest of your life. I know.

You don't believe him. No, this is about shame and embarrassment. Yeah. He's signing up. He knows. If you were lying to him, that'd be a different thing. He knows. And he looks at you and says, I love you, and it was good build a life. This is going to be issue number one of about 10,000 you and I are going to have to tackle together over the next 75 years. Let's make a run at this thing. Yeah. And if you want some encouragement, go check out our friend Jade Warshaw's story. Her and her husband were making what, 30 grand when they started paying off almost half a million in debt.

So we've seen worse. And what they did was they got their income way up. By the end, they were making over 200 grand. And you guys will be too once you're married. Let's set a plan. We're gonna say, all right, we're gonna throw five grand of this debt every month, that 60 grand a year, it's done in this amount of time.

And bada bing, bada boom, you're out of debt in less than three years. Yeah. So it's not as, I don't want you to think this is like, oh my gosh, everything's on fire. It's bad. Let's not mince words, but it's not the end of the world. I need to file bankruptcy and start over.

And can I challenge you with something? Yeah. I didn't hear you say this, and so I'm reading the tea leaves, and so maybe this isn't you, but maybe this will help another caller who's not you. If God wants your attention, he'll get it. Yeah.

And sometimes we feel called into things, and I can imagine feeling called into ministry, but if you've already dug yourself a $200,000 hole most ministry is not gonna pay you enough to cover that. Right? If you're somebody who on a regular basis is just waiting to get some kind of word or some kind of... I hear that more and more these days and what it's doing is giving people this pseudo permission to sit on the sidelines and wait for life to just happen to them. What I want you to do is to begin to take full action in your life and if God wants you to go a different direction, I promise you, you'll know.

Yeah. But I would love to see you take this job and until you start raking in big bucks, drive for Uber at night. Get up early and do, I don't know, I was gonna say do a paper route, but those don't exist anymore. I don't know what else you could do, but here's the thing, I want you to begin to feel some skin in the game because right now you feel like a loser.

Yeah. And you're not. You're just another student of which there are millions who did what everyone said, you have to go to this private school so you can get into this medical school. And then suddenly your heart was pointed in a different direction and you dug yourself such a hole.

Now you think you're such a loser, you can't do ministry because you can't afford to. Yeah. You don't even think that you're worth marrying. It's nonsense. Right? Yeah. Will you do a homework assignment for me?

Yeah. Will you write 18 year old-old you a letter? No, listen, I'm being serious. Write a forgiveness letter to 18-year-old you. You know who does stupid stuff when they're 18? Every single 18-year-old who's ever existed. They don't all do $200,000 worth of stupid, right? But we all would love to have things back

from when we were 18. And you've gotta stop carrying that crap around, especially into a new marriage, to a man who's like, I want all of you, including the $200,000 in debt. Yeah. But you gotta let yourself go get married. You gotta let yourself go be a great salesperson, right?

So you can be the saleswoman of the year, go get it. Yeah. The richest irony is that your name is Grace and you have none for yourself. Mine is John, which is a toilet, so everyone can see that one pretty clear. So Grace, there's two parts of this. One, there's the emotional healing that John's talking about

and then number two is the tactical, I gotta work my butt off doing three side hustles and guess what, you guys are gonna get married, it's gonna get paid off. If it's two years or four years, whatever it takes, it's going to happen and so I think right now it feels like it's never gonna happen, therefore I need a shortcut

and there's option C that we forgot about. Brass tax here, if you file for bankruptcy, you can clear the 15,000. That's it, student loans are not dischargeable by bankruptcy So whoever's telling you to declare bankruptcy They haven't done a Google search yeah exactly they haven't googled right Yeah, it's a lawyer. So that's scary. Well yikes. There we go. Well, they probably want your money as if they're a bankruptcy lawyer They're like, I'll take the money if they're a bankruptcy lawyer.

They're like, I'll take the money even if it doesn't help you. Exactly. Oh, Grace, I'm so sorry. Alright, so you're in on this, Grace? Are you ready to rock and roll? I am, and I feel empowered, so thank you. Alright, here's the deal. Your marriage gift, George and I are going to hook you up with Financial Peace University. I want you to watch the digital lessons. It's nine lessons. You and your fiance watch them together. I don't want you to look at him and hold his hand

and say, I'm so glad that you picked me and you better be really glad that I picked you and we're gonna ride or die together. Second thing we're gonna send you is the Every Dollar app. You gotta start practicing budgeting and it's gonna give you some skin in the game so you don't feel lost, okay? And the next time you are looking for a hack

and somebody has Googled something and they're like, oh you should just holler back girl at us I know you ain't no holler back girl, but just holler at us and we will give you the next right step This is the Ramsey show triple 8 8 2 5 5 2 2 5. We'll be right back Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys.

I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch for decades. Dave. I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. They don't know what to do next. Terrifying. You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not

mess this up. Or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow That's exactly the two options. It's saying I love you to your family term life insurance Jeff Zander and the team at Zander insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years They're the only people I trust go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282 or call 800-356-4282. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm John Delaney sitting next to the one and only George R. Campbell.

What is your middle name? Not true. Starts with a P and I'll never tell. Reddit, if you guess it. I want to hear your best of guesses. I'm sure it's Googleable. I'd like to mystique You know as public figures. We got to have a little mystique John I Regret that entire sentence. I don't have any mystique do I no no I don't think I think I'm kind of mystique free

Well, you are a private guy. I mean you're big on privacy You know you want to live out in the woods. No one can find you all that yeah, there is that but it's not really mystique It's just I don't know how I was on social media at seven years old John. I was ready Explains I was in that I was well chat room I was anxious and depressed before anyone else was anxious and depressed. Let's go to Boston and talk to Anthony. What's up, Anthony? Hello, you're me alright, and we got you brother. What's up? great Anthony, what's up, Anthony? Hello, you hear me all right? Yeah, we got you brother. What's up? Great

so I graduated the undergraduate about four years ago, and I've been working in consulting ever since and I've just been treating Bitcoin as like a savings account just kind of dollar cost averaging into it for a decent amount of time now and I'm contemplating if I should you know pull out and reconsider long-term savings strategy or continue down this road I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Are you talking about all of your money? Do you have an actual savings account? Do you have money in the bank? No I don't have a savings account but I have like a 401k but this is like the majority of my savings. Do you have any debt? I have about 70,000 in student loans, federal and

state combined. How much do you have in Bitcoin? Probably over 200,000. Woo! Can we just salute you? Most people are kind of Bitcoin light and you're all in. And I got to tip my hat because there's like people who play around on the edges. Anthony's not fooling around. You went full bonkers. Does your social media profile include the word Bitcoin? No. Okay. No, you're not.

I just want to know how far in the spectrum you are. Okay. Bitcoin bro 27. That would be awesome, no. Okay, no, you're not. BCB, like Bitcoin bro. I just wanna know how far in the spectrum you are, okay. Bitcoin bro 27, that would be awesome, Anthony. You've done really well. And the truth is when you put your money into any single item, a single stock, a single cryptocurrency, you're putting yourself at risk. And it may not feel that way because for the last, the Bitcoin bros will tell you,

it's just been going to the moon forever. We don't know what the future holds. We just saw, I mean, chat GPT this week, China comes out with deep seek and all of a sudden it tanks the stock market because everyone's freaking out. And so all it takes is one thing to happen in the news or everyone starting to dump their crypto for you to lose big. And so I would, if this was, if you were in a, in Vegas right now, I'd be like, dude, cash out and go home. And so that's what I'm telling you to do. Cash out, pay off your debt, get an actual emergency fund in place,

and then you can still invest, I can't call it investing, you can still speculate in crypto and put some money there, but I wouldn't do it until after you've taken some prerequisite steps, which is pay off your debt, get an emergency fund in place and liquid cash in a high yield savings account, then begin investing 15% of your income

into retirement accounts, then any money beyond that, some fun money, you can put it into Bitcoin. And here's the deal, at the end of the day- Don't think you're gonna do that, I'm just telling you, I'm gonna sleep well at night knowing I told you that. If you were to ask me and George,

who are both husbands or both fathers, this is what we would do with our money. So it's not just like Instagram, back of the Instagram reel, like, yeah, bro. Two things I want you to think through. When you talk about guys who own real hard assets, like who are wealthy with tangible things, I'm thinking of Warren Buffett, I'm thinking of with tangible things. I'm thinking of Warren Buffett,

I'm thinking of Dave Ramsey, I'm thinking of guys like that. They invest in things they can touch and feel. And I have no doubt in my mind, like I basically live in a, I wanna say Bitcoin, but I have a digital currency anyway. Dave Ramsey doesn't hand me cash every month. It deposits in a series of ones and zeros

into my account, right? And then I move that into this account and to a retirement. So we basically have a digital currency. It won't surprise me if this technology is used at some point. It also wouldn't surprise me if tomorrow some AI kid in St. Louis with a laptop figures out how to decode and spread Bitcoin out everywhere using AI. It won't surprise, so it's such an insanely risky gamble to hold two or three or four years of your life worth of money, especially when you're leveraged $70,000 into the government. Do you get that?

Mm-hmm. And so it just sounds bonkers to me on the other side of this thing. If you told me, hey, I've got a house that I own that's mine that no one can ever take from me, I've paid it off. I don't owe anybody anything, especially the government. I want to put some money over here and see what happens with it. I'll shake your hand. High five you. I do that just not with Bitcoin, with other stuff. So I'm totally game on that. But tell me what your resistance is because I can hear it you're not buying it I

don't know I think it's kind of like if it's not broke don't fix it I understand like definitely volatile and I've experienced a lot of psychological what's the word ups and downs psych. Psychosis? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, psychosis, but I think like the last four years all I've done is dollar cost average and effectively outperformed every hedge fund on planet Earth. So it's like, I don't, I assume you're saying that they're like, I guess having all your eggs

in one basket sort of argument. But you are zoomed into a very particular spot in history and I'm trying to help you zoom out and look at the big picture and go, it may continue to go up or like we saw in 2022, Bitcoin took a 50% hit. Even the housing crash of 2008 didn't take a 50% hit in the stock market.

And so it's way more volatile than the traditional stock market. You can handle that risk right now as a young single guy, but we're telling you as married guys who have seen a thing or two, that it's not a good long-term play. And here's the other thing. Go Google and you can dig into the researcher. I'm sure you're a tech guy, so you've probably got more sophisticated problem-solving software than I have. Everybody thinks they can beat the market until they can't. And everybody thinks they've figured out the magic serum, the Harry Potter wand that nobody else has, that trillion-dollar hedge fund managers don't have access to, but I

figured it out in my basement. I've got it, until they don't. And so if you by yourself in your room have figured out this thing, you're the one guy who's kept this thing afloat for four years, awesome. You said it best, I think, and George and I have talked about this on air, I think in moving into the future, as everything is being leveraged, it's going to be disrupted and everything's going to look different in five years and robots are gonna be mowing or whatever is going on I think the the wealth of the next hundred years is gonna be peace is how can I get off this insane roller coaster that I've put every egg in the

basket every single one so that's George and I telling you solve for peace you have been on the roulette wheel for four years and you haven't fallen off. Your moment will come and George and I are just saying, man, the wisdom is knowing when to leave the table and go buy breakfast for your friends in Vegas and then put the rest of the money in your pocket. Especially when you're sitting on all of these student loans,

which tells me if you had the money to pay off your student loans, most people go, yeah, I'd love to pay them off. But you said, nope, I'm going to hold because of really what it is at the end of the day is it's a greed. There's a level of pride and greed that goes, nah, I'm going to keep riding this ride. Well, it's arrogance. I'm better than the system.

And if you want to think, if you want to use a Vegas analogy, you went and pulled $70,000 out of an ATM machine, I mean off a credit card, except the credit card is the government, who can garnish your wages, take your stuff. And you went and put that money on a roulette wheel. That's what you've been playing, and congratulations bro, you made it. I have too much anxiety for these 24 seven cryptos.

I mean, you could pull up at 3 a.m. and it's going up, down, up, down, up, down. Okay, now it's here, now it's there. Well, some people, Ivan will go with you. I mean, cocaine and meth is an issue, right? People use drugs and they like the ride. I even get that. There's just a moment beneath it.

I made it sound like I do coke and meth, I don't. I understand it intellectually. But at least have enough wisdom to what they don't tell you on Instagram is that the big players have a house. The big players are not leveraged 100% and you get these young 21, 22, 23 year olds who get out of college and put everything into these assets and they think they're playing the same game these bigger guys are playing, these wealthy multimillionaires, billionaires are

playing. They're not. The billionaires long tails are covered. They've got their housing taken care of. They've got their insurance. They've got life insurance covered. And then they go play with big sums of money. And so you think you're playing in the major leagues, you're not. You're playing right into their hand. And at some point, they're going to take your money off the table. So you got to build the foundation, build a foundation, man, and at least pay your debts to the government for crying out loud, brother. This is the Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Hey guys, this is Jade Warsha. Listen, I get it. The student loan situation is bananas, but it's time to make progress, not excuses. So if your payment and interest rate have you treading water, refinancing could be the solution for you. Look, if I were in your shoes, I would contact Laurel Road today

and get a free 30 minute consultation. You'll work with a student loan expert and you'll go over your refinancing options. Hey, for refinancing to make sense, you've got to check certain boxes, like making a good income. And bottom line, Ramsey's advice is that you only refinance if you can get a lower rate or a shorter term.

Remember, the point is to pay off debt faster. Maybe you just need to keep rocking the debt snowball. But if refinancing does make sense for you, Laurel Road offers low competitive rates and interest rate discounts are available for stuff like auto pay. Listen, you can't mess around with student loans. If you want them gone, you gotta go hard.

So go to laurelroad.com slash Ramsey to find out more and schedule your free 30 minute consultation. That's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five. If you were born in the 19th or the 20th Show, 88825-5225. If you were born in the 19th, or the 20th century, I guess, 1900s,

that's a toll free call. If you were born in the 2000s, you don't even know what that means. It just means you can call from anywhere, anytime. 88825-5225. John Delaney joined with George Camel. Listen, if you just listened to that last call talking about putting all my savings in Bitcoin, and I know I've got $70,000 in student loans, but I've got, I've got this thing figured out.

Whew. There's so much nonsense about investing, how to do it, what to do. And the one thing that we don't often do, George, is we don't often put down TikTok and put down the blogs and put down Reddit and actually ask, ask questions. And I've got it figured out. I've got it figured out. I've got it figured out. I've got it figured out.

I've got it figured out. I've got it figured out. I've got it figured out. I've got it figured out. Whew. what to do. And the one thing that we don't often do George is we don't often put down TikTok and put down the blogs and put down Reddit and actually ask people who are very wealthy, what is your playbook? Will you just show me please? Like don't just tell me like here's what I think and here's what's going to happen. What are you doing in your house to keep you and your family safe and your legacy secure? So here at Ramsey Solutions, we have an amazing two night virtual event so you can watch this from your house. To get real questions, Dave Ramsey opens up his portfolio and says,

this is how I have built what I have built. Dave Ramsey, George Camel, it's called an investing essentials. It can be overwhelming, it can be confusing, and here's what we're gonna do here. George and Dave, not me, because you guys are way smarter than me. Love for you to be there.

I would love- We could use a studio audience, John. We could. The last time I heard Dave talking about this stuff, I was like, oh, you're good will hunting. Like, it's just, he's beautiful mind with it all. This is stuff people go, well, we've heard all of it on the show. No, you haven't. Not this stuff.

This guy's pulling out formulas that I think even mathematicians are astounded by. But here's the thing, people think Dave over the years is just, he plays hillbilly on the radio, and I'll tell you what, I'm a simple man. Dave is a savant when it comes to algorithms and why he does what he does when it comes to his money. Especially real estate. So night two we're focusing on real estate, real estate investing, buying investment property. And Dave pulls up real properties that he owns, showing you exact calculations of how he gets their cash on cash returns. And there's APODs, John, it's amazing.

And listen, the number of calls we take from people who are scrolling TikTok and went and immediately got married and bought a duplex and they're going to live in one half and they're going to rent out the other half. We live in the bathroom. We rent out the other four bedrooms. That's right. And then we're gonna stack cash on cash on. Listen, Dave's gonna open up his playbook. Dave and George are gonna walk through step by step how they do it so you can get clarity and you can get this, just the playbook on how you can invest with confidence and start building wealth. March 4th and 5th, it's virtual. You can watch it on your iPhone. You can watch it on your

laptop. If you're a crypto bro, you can watch it on those two big curvy screens that you watch your whole life go by on. And tickets are 199 bucks. We charge for this one because the return on this thing could be amazing. I guess you reserve your spot, but there's not really spots. It's virtual, right, George? It's a virtual ticket. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash events, or you can click the link in the show notes if you're tuning in on podcast or YouTube. Go check it out.

I would, except I have one of the highest privileges in the world, which is I just text you on Saturday morning. I'm like, hey, George, should I move my money to this, to this, and you go, yes. You have the pleasure of sitting next to Dave and on a break, you're like, hey, Dave, can you tell me about this? And he just goes, I don't know. He's like, yeah, just do it like this on a break, you're like, hey, Dave, can you tell me about this? And he just goes,

I don't know. He's like, just do it like this and this and this. My favorite is that Dave says, ah, who's going to care about this? They don't want to go that deep. And then people were like, please, we want to go deeper. Tell us more.

Yeah, exactly. So Dave, Dave calls it nerdville. Cause it really is, we kind of nerd out. We obviously cover the basics. We're going to tell you how to invest, how to pick mutual funds, retirement plans. We cover all that, but then we go deeper into what about beyond that?

What's beyond the baby steps? That's right. And it's the question that when you're scrolling TikTok, they don't give you the reasoning or the math behind it. They just give you some- 60 seconds of excitement. Some proclamation they got off somebody else's TikTok account.

So ramsysolutions.com slash events, or click the link in the show notes. So let's go to Sacramento, California and talk to Braden. What's up, Braden? How you doing? Man, I could not be doing better brother. How are you? I'm kind of in a pickle. We got you. We got you. George loves pickles. I specialize in brined cucumbers. Yes. Do this. That was a deep pickle reference George. People don't know John this is me educating the masses. That was fantastic brined cucumbers. Alright so what's up Braden? Okay so I finished my first baby step. I have about a thousand or twelve hundred bucks sitting at home but

I got a fifteen thousand dollar loan out on my truck and I work a lot under the table so I don't have income and I had to have my grandfather sign on to my loan. Wait, wait, pause there. What? Do you sell drugs? No, no, I work for a lot of farm properties. I make about 4,000 a month. Just cash? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know the government listens to this show too, right? I'm totally playing with you they don't. Yeah see they just they just scrambled your signal there they're on to you now Braden. All right all right so you make four thousand bucks a month in cash all right? Yeah so he signed on to my loan and I just got news that they

are pretty heavy in credit card debt and they need to take out a secondary mortgage on their house because they both are disabled and can't pay for it. But they can't take it out because they're stuck on my loan for my car. So I kind of already know the answer. I just need clarification. Do I just sell the truck? That's the answer. Yeah, it's going to hurt. would hurt how you gonna get to work? Well, I got it for three grand under Or about seven grand under

market value And I paid nine into it. So I have about 14,000 I can get out of it Just to get something else, but I just kind of needed that clarification from that. Sell it right now. Yeah, how much could you sell it for? Top dollar? I got it for 20. I can get it for 27.

And like I said, I only owe 15 on it. So you can sell it for 27,000 today? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, do it right now. And then go get yourself a $9,000 truck and never borrow money from your granddad again. Never put a family member in that kind of position again. And here's how you go car shopping from now on. You have 9,000 truck and never borrow money from your granddad again. Never put a family member in that kind of position again.

Okay. And here's how you go car shopping from now on. You have 9,000, that's your new car budget. Not 10, not 12, because the salesman was like, oh, you could upgrade to this model if you just put the one you can afford in cash is the one you drive right now. And then with more savings,

you're gonna be able to save up with no debt to upgrade that over time to where it's not crushing your life and hurting your relationships. How old are you, brother? I'm 19. Okay, you don't know this yet, but I'm going to tell you a secret. If you go to do work for a 45-year-old on his farm and you roll in there in an 88 truck and it's got some character to it and some patina and it's got some dents in it

they're gonna look at you with more respect than if you roll in there with a 2025 car that cost $120,000 because they're gonna know oh you may be good with tools or throwing hay or whatever you do but you do not know how to handle money you don't know that yet because you're 19 and I totally get that but brother dude if you just go get a truck you can afford that's gonna run and run and run and run that you can actually work on yourself Now George these trucks are like They're like mobile iPhones There's some mobile homes at this point some people have to live in them John they because the payment is more than rent

$120,000 it's insane. I just got to Newark, New Jersey and talk to Lucas. Hey Lucas, what's up? How you doing? It's an honor to speak to you guys. I really appreciate you guys taking my call. You got it. Hey, we're right up against the clock, so you got just about a minute and a half. Get right to your question for me. Perfect. I'm 24. I live with my mom. I make around 135. I want to make sure that I'm ready to step out in my mom's house. And if I am ready, do I buy a house or do I first rent to get that experience?

Go get yourself an apartment this afternoon and be moved out by this weekend. What makes you think you're not ready? To be honest with you, I was just taking that next step. You make $130,000! You've taken this step. Are you in crippling debt? Not at all.

I have zero debt. Oh my goodness. Dude, you're making more than double the average income in the United States. When's the last time you went on a date? Actually, I have a girlfriend. Well, she needs to call into the show because she should not be dating somebody who makes 130 grand and lives with his mom. Okay.

Say thank you mom, I'm ready to fly the coop. Yes. I want to be an eagle. Because as Dave says, if you stay, you become a turkey if you never leave the eagles nest. Well I kind of like that. So here's the deal, I want you to go get an apartment this weekend and by the way, you can get a nice apartment. Don't get a dive, get something that's actually pretty cool you make 130 grand

congratulations that's awesome 25% of take-home pay that's the end yeah not something stupid but something cool and then I want you to wrap up the key actually don't do that wrap up a copy of the lease and give that to your mom as a gift this weekend and take her to a really nice restaurant and say thanks for letting me crash at your house I'm ready to go be a big boy now. Thank you for raising me. Bye, Felicia. This is The Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, everyone, listen, we all have stories. The family and cultural stories that we were born into, the stories of the things that have happened to us, both the good stuff and the challenging stuff. And we have those stories that we constantly tell ourselves. And none of us can go back and change any of our old stories, but the world is waiting to see what each of us is going to write next. As we enter 2025, I encourage you to examine your old stories and be intentional about the new stories that you're gonna write.

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Camel. Let's go out to Chattanooga and talk to Beth. What is, where are you, Beth? There you are. What's up, Beth? Hi. How are you doing? Oh, I'm great. Better than I deserve. Outstanding. Exactly. We're the exact same. We're better than we deserve too. How can I help? Okay. My question is than we deserve too. How can I help? Okay, my question is about MTI insurance and do you think it would be worth it to get that if you're purchasing a new home?

Are you talking about life insurance? No, not life insurance. It's mortgage protection. Oh, got it. Okay. Yeah. We are actually looking to buy a new home and I've had several people tell me about that. So I was wondering your thoughts if it's worth it or not. No, it's not something that we recommend. Why are you, did you hear that you need it from someone else?

No, well, yeah, kind of. Did you hear that you need it from someone else? No, well, yeah, kind of. My husband is self-employed and I'm kind of concerned because he had a heart attack a couple years ago and also he has problems with his back. So if he becomes disabled, I wanna be able to know that I'm not gonna be living on the streets. Yeah, well the only time we'd recommend something like that is if you don't qualify for term life insurance.

Okay, I do have term life insurance on him. We got it through Zander. Great, how much do you have in the policy? 300. Okay, and what's his income? 300,000. About 300,000 a year. Okay, so we'd recommend

he makes 300,000 a year? Gross, yes. Wow. Beth, what is this I'm afraid I'm going to be on the streets song and answer, tell me yourself. My brain couldn't even fathom when you said he makes three, oh gosh. How much money do y'all have in retirement savings?

Probably about 75 right now. I'm a little bit behind on that. I got a late start. You have 75,000 in retirement? Probably close to that. How old are you? I'm 62. And why are you guys buying a new house right now?

We just want a different location. Can you afford a different location? Can you afford a new house right now? Yes. Do you guys have any debt? Yes. We do. We have probably about $120,000 in debt right now.

But part of that will be paid off. We do. We have probably about $120,000 in debt right now. But part of that will be paid off. Across what? It's mainly business loans. Okay. So I'm confused where this $300,000 is going, because it's not going to retirement. It's not going to cash flow, because you're going to debt. So where is 300 grand disappearing into? That I'm not sure. I feel like I don't know. I mean, I do try to do a budget and stay on a budget.

And I do do the snowball and, you know, going down. Beth, do you do this or do y'all do this? We do have, no, mainly I do this. Okay. We're working on the y'all do this? We do have, no, mainly I do this. Okay. We're working on the y'all part. We do have contract labor that we do pay out every year too. So that takes up a lot of that 300. Well, yes.

Not a lot of it, but part of it. Here's what I'm hearing, and I want you just to please trust me on this one me and George on this Yes. Yes, that's why I called. Okay, so number one Don't buy a house yet You've got some gaps in your marriage and y'all are hoping a new location is gonna fix it It's not gonna bring you the safety that you think it's going to in a fact I'm gonna tell you right now based on your financial situation and just the ambiguity in your around your financial situation

It's gonna make it worse You and your husband sit down and have a come to Jesus Bear our souls everybody being honest. I'm gonna pull credit reports on both of us. Where are we? Yes, because I don't think you can breathe at night, because you don't know where the money is. And he keeps telling you, I make $300,000, A, you don't know, you've never seen it. B, you don't really know how much debt

he's holding business-wise, you kind of know some of it. And it could be 70 or 80% of that $300,000 is labor cost. And so he could be making 300 grand and be completely broke. He could be. And if he's using your family credit cards to buy stuff for the business, you guys got a mess on your hands. No.

No credit cards. Well, bank loans, whatever. If he's taking personal loans out for this business, you might have yourself a big old mess. So here's what I do before I did any kind of house purchasing, I would say we're gonna have a sit-down conversation about the realities of our financial situation. With 75,000 bucks in the bank, a very unknowable, I don't even know where we are. We owe $120,000. Maybe the business does, maybe we do, or maybe it's a business loan that we secured with our personal, like, you

might have a mess. You're not in a financial position to move quote unquote, just because we want to. You're just not, you don't have that kind of money. Okay? Now, he may sit down and clarify all this, and it may be a really scary, hard conversation. If I were you, I would start with the words, as your wife, I'm really scared right now. And I just want to see it. Does any of this ring true to you or am I out to lunch? Part of it might ring true and part of it you're out to lunch, to be honest. That's good. I like going to lunch sometimes. I went to Chick-fil-A today. It was fantastic. They are. I kind of, I pretty much know what's going through the business because

I kind of, basically I do the book. Okay. So, you know, I don't think he's hiding anything from me at all. Well, less about hiding it, and more of it just kind of, like George said, it just kind of, it just runs through like a net, water through a net. It just goes over. Okay, yeah. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. What do you pay yourselves each, yeah, I don't think he's being deceptive. I believe you that he's not.

I think you guys are aligned in knowledge, but we're not aligned on a plan. That's right How much does he pay himself every hour of this business? I agree. Um Not much. He just pays himself when he can so One thing I'm working To do is to start paying ourselves first because it's been just paying bills first. Okay, so when I ask you how much y'all make and you say 300,000.

That's business revenue. That's not your actual income. Yeah, that's not income. No. Because you said you have expenses, there's people you're paying, so you guys need to sit down and figure out what is our income going to be for 2025,

and if it's $200,000, we need to be throwing the majority of that at our debt. We got to cover the bills, the four walls, food, utilities, housing, transportation. But beyond that we're not going to let this money disappear because we've been doing that for four decades now and we're going to have to retire one day. What was your revenue last year that you reported with IRS? I can't remember, I think between his and mine it was like a hundred and eighty I think. That makes more sense. So that would be your gross income for the year, meaning you're probably taking home

closer to a hundred twenty thousand, so ten grand a month take home pay. You know that money's going, you only got 75 grand in retirement. Right? So here's it. Just sit down and have a, where's our money going? We make too, if you're making 180 grand over the course of a year, y'all combined, y'all make way too much money for you to have $75,000 heading into the last, the fourth quarter of your life. Right? George, how often do you hear, when you sit down with people, how often do you hear, we just wanna do this thing, and you look at their situations like,

hey, y'all can't do that thing. You know what I mean? It's heartbreaking, especially when you get into your 60s and you're going, hey, we'd like to retire next year. And I go, the math says you can't. I'm the bearer of bad news now, cause I broke your heart, but it's not a decision you get to make.

The math does that for you. Otherwise, you're gonna just carry debt until you die of stress and anxiety. And so in a situation like this, they can clean it up, but they need to be aligned on the plan of, all right, we gotta throw five grand a month at this debt, that's 60 grand a year, we'll be done with the 120 in two years,

then we can start tackling the mortgage, then we can retire. And by the way, all the questions I just asked Beth to ask her husband, sit down and get answered, a bank is gonna ask you the exact same questions before they write you a check for a mortgage. So you're gonna have to answer these questions anyway. It's best that you all do it together behind closed doors

and unite and then go attack any of your financial goals moving forward. That's our one of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be right back. 888-825-5225. I'm John Delaney, joined with George Campbell. Hang on, we'll be right back. ["The Ramsey Show"]

Live from Nashville, Tennessee, I'm John Delaney, joined by my good friend, George Campbell, and this is The Ramsey Show, where we talk with real people going through real challenges with their money, their work, their relationships, their mental and emotional health, building wealth, all of it. You call in, we've got an opinion and an idea or two. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225.

We have an amazing call screener, Christian, waiting for your call. Our board is completely lit up, George. Let's go out to Salt Lake City, Utah and talk to Kathleen. Hey Kathleen, what's up? Hi, Kath. Hi. You're Kathleen. I'm John. Yes. What's up? Hi, John.

What's up? It's a good day. Yes, ma'am. How can I help? So my husband, my ex-husband has not been able to hold down a job due to his health and he has not paid alimony or child support in five months. His only assets are his 401k and a little bit of the equity in the house that I got in the divorce that he gets read he gets that equity when I refinance when I finish school. So I'm wondering if it's fair to ask him to cash out some of his 401k to pay his responsibility. I know there's huge punishments, but he's working on disability and that can take a long time,

but he's got no other assets to feed his kids. no other assets to feed his kids. Hmm. Shooosh. What a mess. Because, I mean, at the end of the day, it's going to fall on his kids on the back end, right? Yeah, right. Like, I'd rather he, you know, keep his kids alive now than, I don't know, well...

Well, I mean, no, but they're going to be propping him up right now, or they're going to be propping him up in the future? If he cashes it out, then he's gonna be calling them when he's old and can't work. Yeah. So let me ask about your situation. Are you unable to support them right now without his check? I'm getting some financial support from my family. I'm going through school.

I've still got years to go before I can have any training that can pay anything more than fast food. Okay. I feel like fair is, that word has stuck with me. I'm like, is it fair? It's the wrong answer, it's the wrong question. It's more like what is necessary to keep the roof over our heads and keep the kids fed and keep the basics here

I wouldn't use it as a punishment, and I don't think you are you sound like a lovely person is he for real? Hurt or is he trying to end around not having to pay? No, no, I believe it's genuine. He can't work. Okay, so let's take the alimony piece off because that's that's that's a third rail right now Let's let's pretend y'all are still married. And I know that's a big stretch, okay? Your husband who's working in your home gets hurt and he can't make any more money. Y'all have to have some hard conversations

about the house you live in. And you think I'm not gonna disrupt the kids' lives. The kids' lives are already really disrupted. I need to go to school right this minute so that I can finally get a degree, so I can finally get to earning some real money so I can take care of everybody long term. That makes sense, unless you can't afford to do it right this second. So our housing, we refinanced this house when it was at the bottom of the interest. My interest rate is 2.6 my mortgage is a thousand dollars okay I can't rent a studio apartment in Utah for under a thousand dollars I got you I get it financial sense means that

the kids and I stay here if I was still married to him we would keep this house if we were still married I would ask him to petition some kind of hardship to get into his 401k. His parents are paying his rent. I guess my parents are paying my mortgage. Yeah, I mean you can contact your attorney and you can say, hey I want him to forgo his stake in the equity of this house. That didn't put cash in your pocket. He needs to do a bankruptcy because of his credit card debt since the divorce and so he's threatening that he needs a bankruptcy and I'm worried that this is an asset on his in his name.

I'm gonna be honest with you, i think you're grasping straws here uh... you he owes you money the bank says he does morally he owes you money he doesn't have any how much is in this mystical four one that you that you think he can give you to have two hundred fifty thousand dollars in it how old is he he's forty two years. And he's done working? Is he gonna have to fight with disability forever? He's gonna have to fight to get on

disability. He hopes that he can rejoin the workforce someday, but based on his last 10 years of health, I don't see's the question I'll ask you. I mean, I guess you can. What's he gonna do besides call your kids and ask for money? I just feel like I'm asking my family for help to take care of his children. They're your children too though? Yeah, no they are and I have a plan. I'm getting through school as quickly as I can. I'm selling my blood money. No, I mean I know everybody's working hard. I think there's just a global situation here, which is the guy's hurt, he can't work.

And we don't like him, we're mad at him, he blew up our life, all those things, fill in the blank, the divorce and all that. He didn't have it. But I mean, doesn't he have it? Can't he get into that 401k? Isn't it better to use it now? Then when?

Then when? When he's 65 and he has zero, nothing? I don't see him living till he's 65. Who's the beneficiary on the 401k? Um I don't know if he switched it over to his new wife and his kids but I have a life insurance on him that I kept from our marriage. Okay what's the policy value? Uh his is 500,000. And you're the policy value? His is 500,000.

And you're the beneficiary? I am. Okay. Here's the deal. I don't know enough to know Utah law. I would go sit down with somebody and even see if you even have a claim to it. I don't even know if you have a claim to it.

My gut says if you, the attorney, the courts, they're gonna say, hey, this is a last ditch thing that we would need to approve in order to garnish his retirement to make this happen. They're gonna explore every other option and they may end up where you are, going, this is all this guy has and here's how much we're gonna garnish to make this work,

but he's broke. And so we can't just rob his entire retirement and just give it to you. They might have a different option. So we have a guy who's very unhealthy, has been, he's got early onset dementia, he's got, and he's unable to work, he's trying to piece together social security and piece together disability.

And maybe you can find a judge that will force him to cash out part of his 401 and take the 35 or 40% penalty, whatever he's gonna have to pay, and give you the other piece of it. Is it fair if I, because my sister's supporting me and I'd like to pay her back someday, is it fair to say, hey, if you forego the equity

that I owe you, then you can not pay me the child support? Yeah, that, if I'm you. That's the best solution based on what you told us. And I think if you went to the courts and an attorney, they'd probably tell you something similar, is let's explore that before we garnish his retirement. But that doesn't put cash in your pocket. No, but I mean, my sister, she can float me, but not forever.

I think we need to figure out how to make Kathleen's life sustainable without the outside help. And that might take some sacrifice in the short term. You might need to pause going to school. What are you going to school for? I'm going for radiology technology. Okay, it may be that you can't afford to do that right now and you have to go work three or four jobs and it's an awful economic trap that single moms find themselves in. And I know that sounds like a two steps back and I don't want to. I just don't think anybody's in a situation to do anything that they want to

do right now. I think we're in a, we have to, we have to do some different things. You can get with a lawyer and try to go get, do what you got to do. I don't know what the laws are. So you need to sit and get with an attorney there. I would be, I'd want to look in the mirror first. We'll be right back. People tell me about their experiences with big banks all the time. Bad service, fees that nickel and dime them to death, and predatory lending that tries to catch them in never-ending cycles of debt. So if you're ready for a bank that puts people over profits, check out Fairwinds Credit Union. I recommend

Fairwinds because they share our Ramsey values of helping people get out of debt and live generously. If you go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey you'll see the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans. This account bundle is designed to help you take control of your finances and stay out of debt. And Fairwinds also has a great mobile app that's safe and secure so you can manage your transactions with peace of mind. Fairwinds has been helping people avoid big bank traps for 75 years. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more.

It's easy to join, no matter where you live. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Hey, Dave Ramsey here. Dr. John Delaney and I are coming to a city near you on the Money and Relationships Tour. You, the audience, will vote to choose the topics we talk about. Things that impact your life like investing in your future, money, stress, and marriage, and more. We're coming to Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Kansas City, Fort Worth, and Phoenix in April and May 2025. Tickets are at their lowest price right now grab yours at

Ramsesolutions.com slash tour welcome back to the Ramsey show triple 8 8 2 5 5 2 2 5 George that last call I think it's important just to say this. On this show, we're often able to help somebody with their money or their marriage and see a path through it, right? And when you're living in chaos, or the world is falling down around you, sometimes it's helpful to get somebody just to shine a light and say, hey, I see a path out where you can't see it. I'm at a different vantage point, right? shine a light and say, hey, I see a path out where you can't see it. I'm at a different vantage point, right? When military, when they're doing a raid, there's always people, eyes in the sky.

It's important to have people looking at a problem from different perspectives. Sometimes the situation's just bad and there's not a lot of great options. There's no secret thing you haven't thought of. That's right. Other than put down your anger and put down your hatred and just go do the next right thing and it sucks and I hate it not by your hand, but in your lap. Here we are the hurricane hit your house and Any amount of poking and yelling and screaming and raging and and running around your house is still falling down What are you gonna do next? Right?

And that's a that's a that's one of those bummers when you're listening to the show when you and I are on that like trying To help somebody it's like there's not a good option here. You can take a really painful route or maybe a less painful route, but all the routes are painful. And so choose the one that's going to get you the most dignity and respect and where you want to end up. And I imagine when something traumatic happens in your grieving, a piece of that grieving often looks like trying to find a villain, trying to find a shortcut to fix this,

someone that can take this on. Yeah, there's a great proverb that says, I finally confronted my anger and sat down, and she took off her mask and revealed herself as grief. And it's like, I wanna be so enraged and mad, and here's the reality, this just happened. And ugh, and that last caller, I don't want my husband who we got divorced, he's got this small 401k,

I don't want him to pass away because he's literally passing away and I don't want his new wife to get it. Exhale. This is just a bum, the whole thing's a mess. So anyway, sometimes there's not a silver lining, you to go straight through the middle of the storm and hang on. Right. And hang on. That's part of the show. We don't always have magic answers. No. Sometimes when we do, it is magic. It is cool. But sometimes it's so rare. And I'll pull up a seat on the curb next to you in front of your house.

They just blew down. And I got a I got a lighter if you got a smoke and I'll sit here with you. But it's nothing. Nothing's easy from here on out. Right. It's got to Toronto and talk to Bethany. What's up Bethany? How are you? Awesome how about you? I'm okay thank you. Excellent what's up?

My question my question is so I'd be paying off my only debt I have which is my car payment tomorrow so that would be clear. Congratulations. My husband has, oh, thank you. My husband has just a $7,200 car payment and he just took out another line of credit for 8,000. So my question is, I have about $600 spare for my car payment.

Should I help him pay back his line of credit? But my worry is that he paid off $10,000 line of credit last year, and he took another $8,000 and put it in stock. So my worry is that if I help pay him, like help pay his line of credit back, he's gonna take another line of credit and we're gonna be in debt still over and over again.

I'm more worried about the marriage than the debt. Way more. Me and my again. I'm more worried about the marriage than the debt. Way more. Me and my roommates in college were more aligned on our finances than you and your husband are. Yeah, we don't have joint accounts, we have separate. But I heard on the internet that it's best to have separate accounts, and here you are telling me? Yeah.

Okay, I'm joking with you, because this is the hate we get when we tell people combine finances for this reason, for transparency, accountability, because it's real hard to make financial mistakes when your partner is locked in arms with you. You have someone else to say, hey, maybe we shouldn't take out that line of credit.

So did you know he was doing this and agree to it? Did you tell him stop? Did he do it behind your back? So I didn't know he took out another eight grand. He was talking about it, but I didn't know actually he was another eight grand. He was talking about it, but I didn't know Ash was doing it. All I said was, well, he just paid off the 10 grand. He worked overtime to do that.

And he said, well, I really want to do stocks. I was like, okay, I'm looking to it. And he took out 8K for it. And I didn't think he would actually do it because he just finished his stocks. So he essentially went into debt to gamble? Yeah. It sounds like he has, he may have some addiction issues here.

Well, so he got into finances after reading Dave Ramsey books. He didn't read any book Dave Ramsey wrote, I can tell you that. Yeah, he wanted to do something different, I think, and he wanted to do stocks, which I think, and he wanted to do stocks, which I like, he's into stocks now. I have no idea what like he's probably day trading.

In which basically what day trading is, is it's gambling for financial nerds. Well, even better than that. It's a piecemeal donation to large hedge funds managers. That's what it is. He's just taking that $8,000 and he's breaking up in little pieces and giving it away to really rich men and women to make them richer. It's not good.

So let me answer your question simply. Should you help your husband pay off his debt? No. Should you guys pay off your debts? Yes. So there's a different piece of language that's gonna require some hard conversations, some resets, some alignment to go, we're doing everything together and that means no more

debt, we're paying this off once and for all, and you're not gonna make any decisions behind my back, I'm not gonna make any decisions behind your back. And I think what I'm hearing here, Bethany from Toronto, is your marriage is in a mess. And I would recommend sitting down, because this kind of stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's not like you all are completely aligned on raising kids and the future and vacations and holidays and savings. And then all of a sudden he pulls out an $8,000 loan

and puts it in the stock market, puts it on red 50 and spins the roulette wheel. This is two people who are barely roommates, who are trying to co-manage a house, but this isn't building a united marriage, that it's you and him versus the world, which is what you have to have to survive these days. So you sit down with him and you exhale and say,

I'm scared about us. I'm scared about the way we handle money. I'm scared about the way, I don't know where things are going and how they're going. Will you join me on this? But your marriage is on some pretty thin ice and that's worth addressing before you get into the money stuff.

But yes, once y'all are aligned, you both work really hard to pay off each other's debts because it's y'alls. There's one debt, it's ours, right? Let's go out to Tampa, Florida and talk to Victor. Hey, Victor, what's up, brother? How you doing? Doing great man. What's up? Hi, so I'm just getting into investment and I was just wondering if Webull was a good platform to start with and how do I start investing for a mutual fund or an index fund?

Why are you going with Webull? Why go with any singular app that you can get on your phone? So I started that one for mutual fund or the index one. Why are you going with Weeble? Why go with any singular app that you can get on your phone? So I had actually Weeble for about a year now. I haven't really done nothing with it. I didn't have it. And then I found you guys a channel and started watching you guys. So I didn't know if,

I really just don't have any knowledge on it. I don't know if I learned from you guys. The best thing I could tell you is what George and I do with our money that helps feed and honor and protect our wives and our kids. And that is we call SmartVestor Pros and we sit down with them and they walk us through and then they do the investing

on their platform. Or we use our workplace 401k. And maybe get on and do a index fund or something. Webull was designed for day traders, which if you heard on that last call, that's the kind of people who are using Webull. It's not to say you can't find some decent funds on there and invest in an index fund.

What I'm telling you is if you use one of those apps, it's going to psychologically get you to do something dumb. And that's their goal. And they're gonna give you notifications. And hey, we're paying and look out. You should make a trade today. We'll give you a free trade if you make five trades. You're like, oh, okay.

Or, oh, stocks are down. You wanna make a trade? And their whole thing. It's like tying your funds to a TikTok account. Is that right, George? Yeah. So Victor, if you want to do, I have no problem with DIY investing.

If you know what you're doing, you're comfortable with it, you've already built a foundation, but most people going on here are in crippling debt, trying to get rich off a stock trade. And that's not how building wealth works. And I guess the bigger picture is, I always go back to it like,

I'm friends with Dave Ramsey's Smart Vestor Pro, right? And so if Dave isn't playing around thinking he could beat the market and he's got a guy who takes care of the mutual fund allocation stuff, that's good enough for me. Because I know this, I'm not smarter than that guy when it comes to this.

And these people are not doing a retirement investing in Webull. So I would start there, you want tax advantaged investing in a retirement account, go with that with your employer, a Roth IRA, you can go with one of the big three if you wanna do that, Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, but I would not mess with these bells and whistles apps

that try to get you, lure you back in for another trade. That's how you lose your shirt, my man. 888255225, it's the Ramsey Show, we'll be right back. Self-defense can be a complicated issue, but there's one solution that makes it a lot easier. A Berna launcher. Berna's look like firearms, but they're not. They're non-lethal self-defense tools. They shoot chemical-irritant projectiles that stop a threat in its tracks without the fatal consequences

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But I'm telling you, it doesn't have to stay that way. Over a decade, I went from broke to millionaire, and I break it all down in my new book, Breaking Free from Broke. I'm going to show you just how toxic this money system is and how you can break free from credit scores and credit cards and student loans and auto loans and investing traps and finally live a life that you're not exhausted by a life with more margin, more options, and more peace. If you want to check out the book, go to ramseysolutions.com slash store to get

your copy of Breaking Free from Broke. That's ramseysolutions.com slash store. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm Jon Delaney joined by the one and only George P. Campbell. Today's question of the day is brought to you by WhyRefi. Now, we don't recommend refinancing on everything, but for distressed private student loans, there is WhyRefi.

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Today's question comes from Kurt in Florida. I'm a 30 year old business professional making six figures with a car payment and a mortgage. I bought a home in Florida mainly for my mom, who now lives with me. I cover all the household expenses including food and bills. She receives a thousand in Social Security every month, which she doesn't touch even though I ask her to at least contribute to the cost of groceries. My mom also pressures me to send money to relatives in another country even though I've explained that I don't have much left after my financial priorities

Am I wrong for asking her to contribute financially even though I can technically afford it? How do I set boundaries without feeling guilty or jeopardizing my financial goals? My father passed away three years ago So it's just me and her Let's start at the end here. How do I set boundaries without feeling guilty or jeopardizing my financial goals? You don't. You don't. You set boundaries. I love how Dr. Becky Kennedy says, boundaries are something that require nothing of somebody

else and they require me to act. And so I'm setting a boundary here. I'm not going to put any more money out there or I'm not going to send any money overseas. And then your body might feel guilty, your body might feel shamed for a bit, whatever. Fine. But then I'm going to go on and do the next right thing because I'm not going to be dragged around by my feelings, by the nose. And is it, am I wrong for asking her to contribute financially?

No. Is she going to? No. So what are you gonna do? You gonna kick your mom out over her not paying $500 in whatever bills? You get what I'm saying? Like, I mean, what are you gonna do? Well, it sounds like he's, by the way this is all phrased,

he's resentful that he even is in this position. I bought a home in Florida mainly for my mom. She gets this money, I ask her to contribute, and she's not doing it, she's asking me to do this for relatives in the other country. So he's fed up with this whole situation that he's put himself in. He set the whole thing up and his mom looked at him

and was like, yeah, I'm not doing that. And so you have a decision to make. And you want to be an honorable son, which I think is what has caused a lot of this, of saying, well, mom didn't prepare for retirement. She makes a thousand bucks a month, which by the way is below poverty level. Right. And now I need to float her bills. Oh, and by the way dad passed away

So now I'm the man of the house needing to provide for her and by the way, she pressures me dude You're a grown man. You just bought a house Stop feeling pressured to do something that you can't afford to do move on with your life So here's this is some tough love here George Here's Kurt's options sell the, tell mom you're on your own. You make 12,000 G's a year, go make it happen or continue to share a house with your mom and continue to pay the bills and choose every day. I'm not gonna choose misery by walking around looking at all the stuff she's not doing that I

would shoot. Move on with your life, right? There's not a lot of other, there's no gray area here, right, you're gonna kick your mom out and go on about your life, or you're gonna make peace with the fact that your mom gets a thousand bucks a month and she shoves it in an account somewhere, probably going to you, but maybe going overseas, whatever, fine. I'm just to a point now, George,

where we create these situations and what we want is for everything to be exactly how we want it and perfect. And I get to say what I... You can do that, but every one of those conversations, every one of those demands, everyone's boundaries comes with consequences. And the consequence might be, cool, your mom's out on the street. That could be a consequence. It might be that your mom nags you.

Okay, I'm moving on with my life, right? It might be that you're frustrated because your other 30 year old buddies are doing out doing stuff. They're hanging out. They're dating, having fun and you're stuck. You're taking care of your mom. I get that. That sucks, man. That's hard. And what an amazing place to be that you get to help and take care of your mom, right? You get to do that. And maybe you got to sell your car instead of having a car payment and you make six figures and you wanted to drive a Lexus but all I can afford is a Camry because I'm a guy who gets to take care of his mom because I make six figures.

Like what a blessing. Move on with your life. You stop the grrr all the time. I'm thinking about if you get rid of this car payment that's kind of like what mom would have given you for groceries. So you can kind of create that income for yourself by getting rid of this car that you couldn't afford. And choose to not be miserable.

Choose freedom. As my friend Dr. John Valone says. That guy's usually wrong, but on that one I think he's right. Choose freedom. You're taking care of your mom. What a blessing. What a blessing. It was backstage at a John Maxwell event I was speaking at and the other speaker you

may have never heard of, his name's Deon Sanders. Heard of him. Talk about feeling pretty good talk about feel my top three favorite Deon's talk about feeling good about yourself And then he walks back is oh he's keynote and after you right so Deon walks back there And he was having a conversation with somebody and he said the phrase I'm so blessed that I'm in a position that I get to take care of my mom And I remember thinking what an amazing perspective shift. I have to take care of my parents, I have to, I get to, amazing, right? And so you can choose that way of seeing the world

or you can choose that the whole world's out to get me. And my mom is blowing her thousand dollars by sending it to other people in other countries who may need it too. Right. So I'm just not gonna choose misery anymore. My favorite part of this question is the fact that he referenced himself as a business professional.

I've just never heard that in real life and I appreciate that, Kurt. I'm going to refer to myself as a business professional. I think you qualify for a business professional, or as they say in the biz, a BP. Let's go out to San Antonio, Texas. Nobody refers to that. That's batting practice. And talk to Kristen. What's up, Kristen?

Hello. How we doing? Well, I'm calling y'all. So not well. Thank you for your honesty. You have reached the bottom of the advice barrel. Most people are like, I'm doing so great. We're like, how's, what's going on? Like, well, I'm in crippling debt and super stressed. What's up? Well, I am calling because my husband and I, when we had some debt issues, we went to like a negotiation company. Basically, you know, they have us going into delinquency and then they negotiate. You give the payments to them instead, which tanks your credit, collectors come after you

and then they go, collectors come after you, and then they go, we'll help you settle and it'll all work out, right? Yes. Yeah. And I was totally against it. My husband, it just, okay. So this is the reality. So they have negotiated, we have a total of about $38,000 in debt with three different creditors, its credit cards.

So two of our credit cards were negotiated or settled I should say and we spoke to the representatives yesterday because I'm like I want to know can we get out of this? What's the penalty? You know, what is this all entail? And so right now, um, we still have one creditor that has not been negotiated yet. And I'm trying to tell my husband, I'm like, I want to get out of this. I think we can handle it ourselves. Um, but, uh, you know, he's kind of like well we're in it now and we need to you know stick with it so we can get out of this and I'm just trying

to see if we do have a path to get out of it. You do and you'll have to cancel the you know contract with them so you, check the document you signed for a cancellation clause, see if there's any fees or penalties for getting out of this. Yes, there is. How much is it? So the fees and penalties, so we've been 10 months into the program. Once they do your negotiations for every payment that you do, it's $347 per credit card that they are negotiating just to fees.

So, I mean. It's insane. And that's for 12 months is what it is. You see why I'm not a fan of these companies. Oh, absolutely. Hey, let's help you get out of debt by screwing you over completely. Exactly.

But they're like the payoff right now for those two would only be 16,000. How much money do you guys make? So we are very much a budgeter, but we're bringing home about 6,300 in that factor taxes. Amazing. Which tells me you guys on that budget can get out of this on your own.

And so I would figure out what the fees are and calculate it and go, all right, we're gonna be out of this debt faster on our own instead of hoping, wishing, waiting on someone else to do it while screwing this over. Just chalk it up to something that Dave famously calls a stupid tax. Maybe a sunk cost fallacy.

Ooh, I like that. You know, like that's a fancy word fancy word. We've got some fees we got to pay because we signed this thing because we were scared. We're not scared anymore. We're heading straight into the storm. We're gonna pay this stuff off. We make enough money, we'll figure it out. It's the never again fee. There you go. That's a nicer way to say that. I call me millennial millennial of you. The Ramsey Show will be right back. Okay, picture this. You sit down to do your taxes, but instead of stressing out, you're actually ahead of the game and filing with an affordable software that makes your computer shoot confetti when you're done. Okay, not that last part, but Ramsey Smart Tax does

make filing easy and doesn't make your bank account cry. Ramsey Smart Tax is a hundred percent accurate software that's honest about its pricing and is backed by a company who's been in the business for over 50 years. So go to ramsysolutions.com slash smart tax to take advantage of early bird pricing and stress free filing. That's ramsysolutions.com slash smart tax. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm George Camel here with Dr. John Deloney. If you've been listening to the show for any amount of time, you may have heard us do a baby steps millionaire theme hour.

And so from time to time, we like to hear from real life millionaires, not the ones you see on Instagram and private jets. Those are not millionaires. They're either faking it or they're billionaires. Real life people like you and me. There's only two, John. There's only two types.

The one that rent it by the hour and the people who own it. There you go. And so we're gonna hear from Kirk in Las Vegas and see how he did it. How did he actually create a million dollar net worth? Kirk, what's going on my man? How you doing? I'm doing great. How are you doing guys? Great, great. So tell us your story. How old are you and what is your net worth? I am 53. My net worth is 2.6.

Wow. Okay, give us the breakdown of the 2.6. Okay. IRAs 401k, almost 1.5. Non-retirement 370. My home and inherited home 620. And I have a side business, about 180-ish, somewhere in there. Awesome. That's impressive. Okay, and what's your household income? 220. And how long you've been making that kind of money? A few years. Okay. What do you do for a living? I'm an accountant. All right. Love it. And you do for a living? I'm an accountant. Alright, love it. And did you get a degree, I assume?

Yes, I did, yes. Okay, and what was your GPA? My undergraduate, about 3.3, 3.4, and then graduate with my master's, it was about 3.7. Nice. I like that undergraduate GPA. That means you went to class and you had a good time. Well done.

So that's a solid mix. So the majority here, you said how much in the IRA and 401k total? About 145. Okay, so that makes up the majority and then the next, you know, biggest chunk would be real estate. Correct. Way to go. Yeah, it would be my home and my mom passed a year ago, and I inherited her house. Yeah, how much inheritance did you get and when? 330 total, and that was November of 23, so.

Long after you were a millionaire. Oh yes, for sure. Okay, so that proves our point. A lot of people think, well, a lot of these people inherited their money, so it's easy for sure. Okay, so that proves our point. A lot of people think, well, a lot of these people inherited their money, so it's easy for Kirk to say, but you already did the hard work, and then you got a pile of money from Mom's Legacy.

Correct. Amazing. Okay, so what do you attribute this to? About 240 from her IRA, and then the home value is about 90. Okay. So when did you sort of get your finances together? I mean, you're obviously in the accounting world, you understand basic mathematics. If I put money away, I'll have

some. If I spend it all on stupid crap and pay interest, I'll lose it. So did you get this early on? Actually, yes. It's kind of funny. I didn't come across Dave's principles and teachings until about 10 years ago, but I've been living this way since I was in high school. I mean, I hate, you know, no debt, hated debt, you know, wanted to invest, wanted to become a millionaire, wanted to have options of retiring early or not. And so it was funny when I came across Dave's principals, I was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I do. You know, I was glad to see that somebody else is out there and it's, and they're telling

people this is what you should do versus, oh, just go get a loan, go get a loan, put it on a credit card. I was like, no, I hate debt. So have you ever had debt? Yes, I bought my house initially, yeah. Mortgage, okay, that's it, but no consumer debt. Oh no, I pay cash for cars, the whole deal, yes. Wow, what are you driving? Can I ask what you're driving today?

Yeah, we're both driving 2014. I have a BMW. My wife has a Mercedes, so they're 10-year-old cars. Brought them in there about three or four years old, somewhere in there. And you've maintained them well, been driving, you kind of drive them until the wheels fall off, and then you'll buy something else with cash. Hey, that's the plan. Kirk, I don't know if you know this, I know there's been a flurry of executive orders signed recently, but one of the new executive orders is,

it's illegal to drive a 10 year old car if you're rich. Gross. You know you're driving like a ticking time bomb, Kirk. Yeah, it's just not safe. You know you're not making a wise decision. And the other thing is your neighbors, they're gonna talk about you on their TikTok accounts because you have a 2014.

They probably think you're poor, Kurt. Yeah. Wow. Hey, where did this just like wild dose of common sense come from? At an early age, my parents basically said, you wanna go to college to save your money? We're not gonna have it for you.

So I started cutting grass, helping snow, had a paper route, buying savings bonds for college and that was the plan. And my dad taught me about money and stuff and that was a big interest to me. And I was like, okay, here's how money can work for you with investing and here's how it works against you with borrowing. And that was my philosophy from day one. And like I said, when I came across Dave's teachings about 10 years ago, it was like, oh my gosh, this is confirmation of exactly how I've been thinking and what I've been doing and then I took my wife to FPU because she was just the opposite.

I was trying to get her out of that mentality. And then finally she like, oh, okay, this is what you were telling me about. But now somebody else told her about it. So now she's gonna listen. Hey, it's the end result of that. She's on board. There you go.

Yeah, so I see, yeah. How long you been married? It's been 16 years. Amazing. Can I ask how your, I guess, financial freedom, your wealth, how has that affected your marriage? Has there been less money fights over those 16 years? What do you guys fight about now?

Fight about now, about spending it. Yeah, are you like, are you tight-fisted going, no, we gotta just, why would we do that? You're the frugal one and she's sort of trying to get you to let go? Yes, but I'm trying to, now I'm at a point where I'm trying to, she works in a stressful healthcare environment, hospital, trying to get her

to, okay, now you can retire early and do, just do per diem what you want, where you want, but, because now I have to, you know, they have to have freedom to do that, versus, oh, you have to do that versus oh you have to do your nine to five you know weekly and so now we're at a point now it's actually going to help her to you know have that give you the flexibility you mean you mean to show you you may tell you a hack here's a hack you can use with her for that what's that take her to

some concerts there in vegas oh yeah she she goes all time. But you go. Take her to a couple of comedy shows. I go with her sometimes. No, start going with her more and show her we're okay. I go during the non-tax season. A true accountant. I'm 80, 90 hours a week whatever during tax season. There you go. Awesome. Can I ask your plan for quote unquote retirement? Sure. Because you guys will have, by the time you're at retirement age, 10 years from now,

your net worth will be, my guess is, probably closer to six million. And that's if you do nothing else. Right, right. Yeah, plan is at some point, I mean I have a full-time job You know, I'm a controller for a company, but I also have my side business tax business Some points retire full-time, you know, what me work part-time as a controller and then you know The tax business in a salty business, you know, just do that you're running do it for fun

You get to choose your I can't do nothing. Yeah, I can't do nothing. I like what I do. I like helping people. So I can't do nothing. So I would at least do that and give my wife the freedom to, hey, you can lead your job and you can help me during tax season and we'll turn into a full-time thing.

And then the rest of the year you can travel because she's left to travel. So I try and travel more with her, but she goes with her family as well. That's amazing, dude. Congratulations, brother. So just talk to the 23 year old out there who might be listening going,

I'm gonna either listen to this TikTok I found on how to get rich quick or Kirk. What advice would you give that 23 year old? Yeah, it's funny because that's the advice that I had myself when I was 23 was, basically I tell young people now be the tortoise not the hare. I had to tell people that for 20 years and I came across Dave Feejings and I hear the same thing. I have no problem with the long run but start

young. I started investing when I was in the early 20s but at that point it was just IRAs and you know you only put $2,000 away. I didn't have an opportunity with a 401k until I was 27. So I was stuck doing 2,000 a year in an IRA back then, other than not retirement stuff, buying some stocks and stuff. But now there's so much out there. Start young, get it in there, and forget about the fancy car, the new car and the stuff.

Just delayed gratification. Be a crock pot in a world full of microwaves. You're an inspiration, Kirk. Thank you so much for sharing your story. What a hero, man. You're down the road from both me and George a little bit age-wise and you're a good light for us. I'm really grateful.

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