The Ramsey Show - Build Wealth Faster by Understanding Opportunity Cost

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Open phones here at AAA 825-5-225. It's a free call, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one, bestselling author and host of the uber popular front row seat interview show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today as we take your calls and your questions.

Thank you for being here. Ray, he starts us off today. Hi, Ray. How are you? I'm doing fantastic, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

First off, it's an honor to talk to you. Me and my wife found you back in January. We both read the total money makeover. And actually this Friday, we drove to town and sold my dirt bike. And with that check, we'll be able to pay off our auto loan and be debt-free. Wow. Look at you, man. Game on.

Yeah, we're excited. My question today, though, is about our family business. So I'm a third-generation farmer. I'm 27 years old. and we have had a tough couple years on the farm. We've racked up about $2 million of debt these past two years. And we see things getting better in the future. So we'll hopefully be making more money, you know, markets and all the other factors going into that.

But we've had to do a lot of deferring updating equipment and a lot of other things to make it by this to this far. And so my question is, how do we, from this point on, be debt-free, but also trying to not go back to going into debt in the future when things get tough again. Wow. $2 million of losses in two years? Yes. So I guess I should say we, last year we made about $12 million in revenue. and, you know, milk markets is our main exposure to price risk. We milk quite a few cows.

And so it's very regulated on the federal milk marketing order, and so we don't really have a control over how much we get for our milk. We mainly have control over the expenses. So we've had to go without updating equipment. We haven't been able to do a lot of different projects that we've been wanting to. a lot of our amazing employees and guys we work with have been going with smaller pay raises these past couple years just so that we can get by. And we've had to liquidate cattle to try and break even, and it's been difficult.

We see getting better in the future, but we're going to want to say it again. Why do you say getting better in the future? You know, a lot of it has to do with my dad. I trust him a lot. And, you know, when we talk about, you know, what markets look like in the future, whether it's, you know, ag in general or just, you know, milk prices going forward, we see things getting better. And I trust his judgments. And to be honest, we've gotten as far as we have because of him. And, you know, many other friends that are in the similar boat as we have, probably five X times amount of debt.

And they don't see a way forward. And I'm grateful for what my dad has done to get us to this point. And, you know, I'm competent and trust him in that aspect. And, you know, I see I'm not as experienced. As you can tell, I'm only 27. Yeah. I haven't seen much of life. I appreciate that.

And I appreciate your honor and your dad. That's awesome. I, I mean, just a blind trust of him is not what we need. We need to have a reason that he thinks the market is going to adjust so that you can become profitable. And I don't know enough about it to comment on that one way or the other. So the thing is, I mean, obviously you keep expenses down, revenues go up. The difference is called profit, right? That's no kidding, huh?

And so as that happens, you clean up the debt first before you do capital expansions. And from this point forward, you start setting aside percentages of your profits for retained earnings so that you build a cash war chest. So if the markets were to cycle down like this again in the future, future, they don't take you out. And that's what we do at Ramsey. We take a percentage of our gross revenues, of our net profits every month, and set them aside as additional savings called retained earnings. And so when COVID hits and we lose a bazillion dollars worth of revenue for a few months there, we don't go out of business because we're sitting on a war chest of cash. And that's how you build up in the future. But of course, in order to get it.

there, you've got to, you know, experience a turnaround in the marketplace, which, again, I have no expertise to comment on that one way or the other. Yeah, we're flying blind on that. I do want to ask a derivative, though, what is the biggest driver of you going into debt? Is it that lost revenue? The expenses are out of control. I mean, what is it? Well, it definitely is lost revenue. Well, so last year, my best, you know, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but say about $12 million. in revenue, whereas in some years, you know, back in, I think it was 22, we made well over 16 in revenue. So it, there is a lot of swing, especially these past couple years in, in milk

prices. And we've tried to, you know, cutting expenses, like I said, and trying to make do with, you know, the small margin that we had. So am I hearing, so is it a drawback from consumption because of pricing that's caused that $4 million gap? Well, in terms of, you know, You know, our production has stayed pretty consistent. Okay. But, you know, in terms of pricing, there's a lot of factors. It's a government price control, and they just took the price down. Okay.

And so they drive you out of business is what they're going to do. So if they don't turn around. And it's not as competitive. Right. So price competitive, right, not in the state. Well, and so the reason I'm digging into that, I wanted to make sure I totally understood that. I don't know how you can have confidence, and I'm just kind of circling back to something Dave said. I think there's some wisdom there.

I love the honoring your dad, but I mean, if this is a government problem, then I wouldn't have a ton of confidence unless the milk lobby, and I'm speaking in general terms here, I know it exists, but that's your only weapon to kind of fight this or else you're stuck. And so as you're looking long term, and again, I don't have great knowledge of it. I can look at it from a macro standpoint and understand it, but I would be looking at that and making sure that I know what. what's going on? Am I talking to the lobbyist? Do I know what they're projecting, Dave? Because I mean, your hope is, and your dad's hope is that the pricing structure moves back up, and you're in the 16 range again, as to the 12 range, which makes you profitable. Right. You clear the $2 million and you pile cash up so the next time this happens, you don't go into debt. And you pile cash up so that you can do your capital improvements

with cash above your emergency funding, you know, and so the next time you have an upswing, you use it for, you know, much more wisely. What do you do, though? And again, I'm asking you from macro level. I have no control over what the government does. And, you know, when they're going to just set the price somewhat arbitrarily, that scares the crud out of me. I wouldn't, that as a business person, I'm going to enter into a business that I live and die

based on the whim of the latest administration. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Shoot me. That scares me to death. I don't control my own destiny here. And so the markets aren't, and even free market is not controlling the pricing.

It's just a subsidy situation. So I don't know. You've got to figure all that out. And long term, you've got to figure out, do you want to be susceptible to this? If collectors are blowing up your phone every day and you're living in constant fear of the next call, you're not living. You're surviving. You don't need more noise or more stress. You need help you can trust.

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Their attorneys have helped more than 55,000 people settle over $600 million in debt. And when the noise stops, you can breathe again. To learn more, go to guardianlit.com slash Ramsey. That's guardian l-it.com slash Ramsey. Attorney advertising, results may vary and no specific outcomes guaranteed. with us in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hi, Tom. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks. Sure. What's up? I am a master electrician working for another master electrician for the last four or five years. And I recently discovered that we're about 20 weeks behind on payroll, which equates about $18,000.

I'm looking for some advice on what I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You haven't been paid in 20. 20 weeks, but you recently discovered that? I've been getting paid, but not, you know, like two pay periods in a month or three pay periods in a month, not four. And it's accumulated into, yeah, and in February, the most up-to-date pay period I have is October 4th. Why are you just discovering this? Well, that's a phenomenal question.

It's definitely my fault that I have failed to realize it for this long. I've been building a house. I just had a baby. I got married this year. Which would be all the more reasons I counted all my paychecks. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay.

So why is the guy not paying you what he owes you? Well, it used to be a company of five employees, and then everybody left, and it was just him and myself. and then he got stiffed on a $25,000 job. He put a lien on the property but never got paid for it. And I think he just transferred that deficit from supply stores and lines of credit to not paying me because I don't charge interest. But never bothered to discuss this with you. Correct. And when did you discover this?

I discovered it the week before last on a Thursday. Okay. Have you found a new job yet? Well, I'm not working for a crook. Why would you? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I agree with you. My biggest concern is that I file a wage claim and he declares bankruptcy. Oh, that's probably very likely. Yes. You're not going to get the money by sticking around, though. You discovered he's a snake. Now that we've established that, we also know one thing about snakes. All they do is buy. They don't do anything else. Don't be shocked.

And don't think the snake's going to turn into a rabbit. It's a snake. Leave. That's part of the moral dilemma I've been having. It's not a moral dilemma. It's common freaking sense. Well, I have not been working. You know, I made it clear that I don't want to work until we're paid up.

But my thought was by creating the illusion that I would continue working for him, maybe I could, you know, get some of this money paid up before I tell him I'm leaving. Okay. Let me try it one more time. Okay. This guy doesn't pay people and he lies about it. That's not going to change based on any action you take. This is a guy. This is what he does. He's a liar and a thief. That's who he is. The best thing you can do with liars and thieves is to distance yourself from them so that you don't get lied to and stolen from. I'm afraid, sir, you've lost your money because you didn't keep your finger on the pulse. And that's on you. It's also on him because he's a snake. But dude, you need to get a job yesterday and quit trying to figure out a way to get

this snake to not be a snake. He's a snake. Yeah, I just think you're afraid of something. That's why you're doing this moral stuff and throwing these words around. That's all that is you justifying your lack of inaction. And you've just been two lessons you've got to learn here. You have not been paying attention on what's going on. Cost yourself a lot of money. Number two, you're afraid to step out.

You think this guy's the only guy that's going to pay you, and you're in one of the most sought-after trades there are right now. And there's a massive need. There's a line around the block of people hiring master electricians. There's such a shortage of people in the trades. Yeah. So you can go get something tomorrow and you should have yesterday. He offered to transfer the titles on some trucks and trailers to me.

Do you think I just take that and run? Yes. Yes. Like instantly. That's a best case scenario. Yeah, yeah. I won't file a wage claim if you give me a truck and a trailer worth what you owe me. 100%.

And I won't file a wage claim on you with the state. Yeah, he needs to do that. And that's redemption for his thievery. Okay? Yeah, take them. And hey, maybe you set up shop for yourself then. If you've got a truck and a trailer, let's go, baby. Yeah, that is the plan.

That's a guy I can trust, the guy in my mirror, right? Very true. But now you're going to have to have someone help you with the books because you don't pay attention to them much. Very accurate. Sorry, Tom. You walked right into it, buddy. you, man. But yeah, you can be a good electrician and a bad businessman. So be careful if you're setting yourself up in business that you learn the business skills too. So, wow. Ouch.

You know what that is? That's a guy who works his butt off. That's right. He works hard. And most of everything he's gotten, he's outworked everybody else. Yeah. And he thought he could outwork this. And folks, when you get in a situation like this, what you can't do, and Tom's a nice guy, and he's an honest guy and a good guy, we're picking at him a little bit, having some fun. But we've all done things like he's done. What he did is he took his personal character of high work ethic, high honor, high integrity, and tried to superimpose that back on the guy who's a snake because he thinks other people are going to be like he is. And, you know, what that'll leave as a scar.

Yeah, it already has. Here's the great news. Until the very end of that call, we thought he was getting nothing. And so the lesson here is, and again, not picking on Tom, but there's fear. We didn't have time to break it down, but for him holding on, and I'm going to tell you, fear of the unknown, just hold so many of us up, us, all caps, I've done it. When we don't know what's next, right, whether he goes out on his own or he's got to get out on the street, you will put up with things that you would not normally put up with. And I'm telling

you, for everybody listening and watching, there's a lesson here. He's terrified of something. Maybe he just change. And that's normal, by the way. Doesn't make Tom a weirdo. That's all of us. So learn the lesson there that when we have that fear, the fact that he called us today is good, get some insight from other people, Dave, because what will happen is is you get into this, you know, in this loop that I can. Rumination. Thank you. That's the word. And it's really dangerous can hold it back a lot of progress. So I spoke at a church yesterday and between services, go out and talk to people and all this stuff. And a guy came up and he's like, how do you get over the fear running your own business? And I said, I'll let you know. Yeah. Great statement.

Right. I mean, the editor, John Johnson of Ebony Magazine said, the entrepreneur is the only person who could go from sheer terror to sheer exhilaration and back every 24 hours. That's right. And so, yeah, that's so, yeah, I got me a truck and I got me a, a trailer, and I have the skill, but now good, as scary as good. It is scary. And I won't acknowledge that, right. So yeah, you're, you're right to. That's very good. Well, I tell you, that's a good guy. A couple of lessons, though. If you listen to this show, you can learn things. That's the idea. It's not just entertaining, although Ken is quite entertaining. Thank you. Thank you very much. But the, you know, two takeaways is, one, you've got to pay attention,

what's going on. Yes. In detail. Yeah. Because no one. else is managing you, but you. That's right. And then two is, don't try to make a snake into a rabbit. They're just snakes. Yeah. And so just because you might be a good person doesn't mean you can expect that of other people. You can't always expect other people to react the way you are going to react to do what you would do in that situation. Because let me just tell you, if Tom was in charge of the payroll, the first day he couldn't make a check, a payroll check. He would have been sweating and terrified and would have sat down and told the guy. Day one. That's right. He wouldn't not lied to him. He wouldn't hit it from him. Running a business is hard work. You're the CEO,

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money you can put back in your business or into the baby steps. So stop wasting your time, your energy, and your money. You run the business. Let Health Trust Financial handle finding the right health insurance. Go to health trustfinancial.com today. That's health trustfinancial.com. Ever wanted to see the person who's calling in to ask a question? Be in the room when we answer it? Well, now is your chance. The Ramsey Show is going back on tour. You can experience live Q&A, crowd debates, local debt-free screams, even raw confessions. Yep, we're going to be in Charlotte doing one show. We're going to do one in Denver, one in Phoenix, and one in Anaheim all in April.

There's around 300 seats a night. Last year we sold out in 72 hours. Grab your tickets right now at ramsysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Ken, which of those are you going to be in? All four, Dave. They got me in the anchor spot. So I'm trying to keep things somewhat controlled and on the rails. You're trying to keep Deloian Rachel on the rails?

It's hard work. That'll be a lot. It's a lot to ask of one man. I'm excited. It's going to be fun. Ethan's in Salt Lake City. Hey, Ethan, what's up? Hey, Dave.

I'm so glad it's you on the air. I've been listening to you for a little bit. And I'm like, you know what? I need a good butt chewing from Dave. And I was hoping it was you today. I'm just going to leave the studio. I've never heard anybody ask for it. Wow.

Careful what you asked for. No, I need it. So a little bit of what's going on. I mean, I got really great job. I mean, I made six figures. I made about 140 last year. Good. What do you do?

Honestly, been really blessed. Industrial refrigeration. Good for you. Well done. Okay. So, yeah, a really good trade. work for my dad. He takes care of me.

But recently bought a house from my dad. They moved and he took a hit on selling the house to us but gave us 100,000 gift as a down payment.

And that also left us with 150K in equity. And I was like, I mean, this was a step up in life. Might as well take it. And the payment They were like, oh, it would be tight, but you should be able to do it.

And my first mortgage payment come out, and we're getting ready to have a kid, and I just paid outright for the kid, and I watched my checking account go. And I was like, both. And then... How much is your mortgage payments, sir? So it's $3,000, and about $3,700 total with utilities. Okay. Mortgage payment's not your problem.

It's your truck payment. How much is it? So I actually don't have a truck. My company pays for truck and gas and everything. Got a car for my wife because the other vehicle we had broke down. How much is your vehicle for your wife payments, sir? 514. Okay.

What other debt do you have? So recently also found what I thought was going to invest in? Smith on some mineral rights in Idaho. And so bought that. That's about 400 a month. That's 4,000 total there. And then I thought I was a big boy with a big boy job and saw a bike, pedal bike, but it's the Ferrari of the pedal bike world.

Okay. So you just keep going about buying and buying and buying and buying. So have you figured out that's the problem? I guess you have. Yeah. So sell the pedal bike and sell the mineral rights and get yourself on a budget and stay out of restaurants and quit buying crap. Is that going to work? Yeah.

That's what I've been doing. Yeah. So what will the Ferrari bike bring? So it's actually pretty good return. I'm trying to sell it for 9K, which is about 5,000 under. what it should sell for. But I owe, that's what I owe on it. Okay, yeah, you can get rid of it.

Okay, what about the mental rights? So it is a lease to own, so I'm paying the guy. I could reach out to him and see if I can cancel our contract. Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that. That entails. Yeah, just say, what do I need to do to be out of this because I can't afford it? About a house, I got a kid on the way, and I'm broke.

and I can't, I got to, I got to get, I got to have some relief here. What do I do to get out of this? Just quit paying you, I lose the rights. Sure, done. You can have, I'll give them back to you. I'll sign them back today. That's probably what it is. So, you know, you just got to work through everything like that.

And so what you do is just figure out the last time something made sense and go back to that point and undo everything since then. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, before I bought the house. Yeah, yeah, the house is probably a bit much. But I don't think it's really. your problem. I think it's all the other crap. And you don't have a plan. You're not living on a plan. You just look and see how much is in the checking account and that tells you if you're okay or not. That's not a budget. You need a budget. You need to get on every dollar. I'll give

it to you, give you a free trial on it and get you started. You and your wife sit down the night, give every dollar a name. You make freaking 140K. Stay out of restaurants. Don't go on vacation. Get rid of the Ferrari bike in the mental rights. And let's get this thing to balance. I think you can do it. Yeah. That's a pretty light but shoe. That's not bad. Yeah, just realistically, I've been on the edge of this because tomorrow's, we really like her car. It's really reliable for her and the kids. You probably need to sell it, too.

I think you need to sell it. Yeah, probably. I think if I get rid of everything. What if you didn't have any payments about a house payment? I think your life would be pretty good. Oh, it would be amazing. Okay. I think your budget would balance, and all of a sudden you wouldn't have been calling Dave.

But you keep buying crap and just going, it's going to worry okay. It's not going to be okay. You got yourself into a mess. Yeah, paycheck to paycheck. Is anything about that feel good to you? Does this work? I mean, you could get her a $10,000 car. People don't die in $10,000 car, is I?

I own a couple of them. How old are the kids? My son's four, my daughter's two, and baby three is any day. My point is, those littles don't need the nicest minivan or the latest SUV. They don't care. They're just going to throw goldfish on the car. carpet anyway. And grind them in with their grimy little feet. We hear this all the time. It's rationalization. You're not the only person it ever does it. Well, I've got two kids. I got a third

on the way. You got to go get a car I can't afford. Nobody cares. Get you an old worn out minivan that just gets you from here to there until you've got a little money piled up and then pay cash for her a little better car. But you guys, you know, you've just been acting like you're in Congress and spending money. You got to stop it. And you know what to do. You already knew what to do for called. And that's why you set the call up the way you did, which was kind of humorous and fun, by the way. But really, I mean, look in the mirror, you and your wife go grown-up time, three little babies, and stupid butt stuff has to stop. And, you know, this is grown. This is, what are the kids? Adolting. Yeah. Yeah. We're adulting now. Okay, Dave, question for you. I haven't

asked you this in a while. Freaking-ferred. What is going on in the mind of a human, because we've all done this where there's this awesome feeling about getting the Ferrari of pedal bikes. And you know deep down that you can't afford it, but you still do it anyway. What's going on? They're not looking, no one looks at whether they can afford it. What happens is when you do not have an overall plan, like a budget, okay, and a detailed game plan. This is what we're going to do with our money on purpose. It could be a Ferrari bike. I don't care. I mean, you can buy whatever is in your detail plan. When you say, can I afford this couch and you look at it as a part of your overall life plan and the numbers, then you can tell if you can afford the couch. When you're

just walking through the furniture store and you're disconnected from all those other numbers, then you go, of course I can afford the couch. It's only, you know, whatever. Of course I can afford a $9,000 battery bicycle thingy. whatever. But it's the Ferrari. Tesla of bicycles. But yeah. Probably catches on fire. But the, I mean, but what it amounts to is I can afford that boat.

I can afford that. Yeah. When you don't look at it as a part of a hole and you look at it as a standalone thing, then you go, I make $140,000 a year. I can afford a $10,000 thing. That would be true if you don't look at it as a part of the overall picture. But when you plug it into the overall picture, it screams insanity. And same thing with your car purchase, same thing with your house purchase, all these things.

And you just go, yeah, if I didn't have anything else to think about except this one couch, sure. But lots of times, but we never do that. And so it's not, it's compartmentalizing rather than looking holistically causes us to be insane. When you've saved up and paid cash for a reliable used car, you want that thing to last. And the best way to keep it running for the long haul is to take care of it with people you trust. That's why I'm proud to welcome Christian Brothers Automotive is the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey Show. At Christian Brothers, they treat you like family. You'll get digital vehicle inspections so you can see exactly what your technician sees,

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Patrick's in New York City. Hey, Patrick, what's up? Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I'm 66 years old, in relatively good health, still working. I own my own business. I have a net worth of $9.5 million,

and I want to make sure it's in the right place and by the grace of God and a lot of years following Dave Ramsey. from a bunch of different shipyards throughout the U.S., the discipline paid off. Man, you're amazing. $10 million net worth, dude, I'm proud of you. Yes, sir. Wow. Just to be clear, I've never lived high on a hog on first-generation Irish Catholic out of the Bronx,

so I'm not impressed by, I heard you say Ferrari before and that sort of thing. I live very simply, and I'm very content. Good for you. Good for you. How can we help you, sir? You're amazing. Right now, I have approximately $580,000 in cash in the bank. I have another $3.9 million in CDs with various maturity dates. 401Ks from my corporate life in my earlier days working for people.

I have approximately $3 million. I have approximately $1.4 million in properties. There's no mortgages, and they generate about $1, $8,500 a month gross, the 40 taxes and that sort of thing. I own three vehicles that are less than a year old. They're all paid for, and my Dave Ramsey emergency cashed one in the proverbial cookie has about $30,000 in cash in it. Well, plus $580 in checking.

Yes, sir. And 3.9 in CDs. Okay. Wow. Way to go, man. So how can I help again? And I'm still working. Should I move that?

that cash at roughly $580,000 in cash, should I bring that into, I don't really need it. I'm not trying to sound highfalutin. Should I move that into CV? Should I put that in some other investment? I have two adult children that are self-sufficient, and obviously, please God, when my time comes, all of that will be done. I do have a will, but I do not have a revocable living trust the will. I trust.

You don't need one. Um, the, okay, I do not have that, that much of a percentage of my net worth in cash, in CDs in cash. Um, instead of doing that, um, you don't need that 3.9. You're not even using the income off of that 3.9 or that 580 for that matter. Um, and those could easily be put into something very simple, very low keys into some mutual funds and make you a, about three times more money. Okay. And so if you got $4 million and it earns you 3%, what is that, $120,000 a year, did I do that right? Yes, sir.

Okay. And if it doesn't earn you 3%, but it earns you 10%, that would be like $360,000 a year. So that money sitting in CDs cost you a quarter million dollars last year. Good Lord. It should have been, it should have been invested well. and so it's something to think about. I mean, and here's the thing. If you got it in good mutual funds and the stock market doesn't earn what it always earns.

Like last year, it was like ridiculous. It was crazy. I mean, we made like 26% on our money last year, but that's not real. This year we're down 5% year to date. Okay? But we have a little war going on and a couple of other things. And so, but the overall market, I mean, look, right, I just pulled it up a minute ago. It's, no, it's down two.

percent year to date. So you would have lost a little bit since January 1 after having made ridiculous money last year. But the average is you're going to make way more than you would on a CD. And that's why I don't park that kind of money in cash unless I'm using it for something like retained earnings here at the company. We've got substantial cash position with that. but in terms of my personal investment portfolio, very small percentage is actually sitting in cash. If I'm parking money, like I've got some money right now, as an example, parked in an S&P 500 fund, so just a mutual fund, and I'm going to be buying some real estate with it later. But instead of leaving it in a CD and waiting to buy real estate, I'm leaving it in there,

earning three times more on average than I would have made on a CD while I'm waiting. Now, right now, that money's lost 2% since the first year. But I'm really not worried about it. It's 2% doesn't matter one way or the other because I'm probably not going to touch it next few months. And by then, you know, I'm sure the market will be back up. So anyway, all that to say, you've done an incredible job. I'm so proud of you. If you leave it exactly the way it is, you're not doing anything wrong.

But could you turn the knob a couple of clicks and make another $300,000 a year on this money? Probably. by sitting down with a smart vester pro and learning about some places to park that instead of CDs and instead of in cash equivalence. Patrick's going to lose a little sleep tonight off of that revelation that you gave him. But he's done so well. I mean, this is, by the way. He hasn't done anything wrong.

This is the Baby Steps Millionaire right here, living on less than a million. Ten million. I know. Unbelievable. Just incredible. Right at 10 million. Way to go, man. I'm just so proud of it.

It's great. But this is like you did a 99 or 98% great job and all we're doing is just clicking it on that 2% saw. So nobody's criticizing you, Patrick. You got it, man. If you leave it exactly the way it is, you are a stud. I'm so proud of you. Very, very well done. So folks, here's the thing you want to think about.

And this is the concept we're teaching right here. It's called opportunity cost on your money. When you take a block of money and you put it in one thing, by definition it can, not be in the other thing. It loses the opportunity to be in the other thing. And so if you take $100,000 and you buy a car, you not only bought a car, but you lost the opportunity to invest that $100,000. That's what opportunity cost me. So let's say you had that $100,000 invested last year. you would have made $25,000 on it last year. And instead, you bought a car for $100,000 that is now worth $40,000.

And so you traded $100 for $40 instead of $100 for $100 and a quarter. That's the opportunity cost. Now, it's okay to buy a car and they all go down in value. Okay? I've got cars and mine all go down in value. There's no exception to that. But anytime you're looking at something going, I'm going, I not only am, you were talking a while ago about making a purchase decision.

When you're buying the Ferrari of bikes, what else could I have done with that money? What's the other option? What opportunity did I miss out on? And so if you got a million dollars invested or sitting in a coffee can in your backyard in cash and it didn't make a dime or it could have been in a gross stock mutual fund last year and would have made $250,000, you lost the opportunity by doing the coffee can to do the $250,000. Yeah. It's a great illustration.

And I actually did have a guy call in one time that had money buried in a coffee can. How much was it? It was not that much. It was like a half a million. But I'm like, dude, do you not understand that cash in a steel coffee can, the old metal coffee cans, it's going to rust. Yep. And then bugs are going to get in there.

the cash is going to actually get destroyed. So when your relatives dig it up, it's going to be like this little green powder. That's all that's going to be left. And that's what you traded your half million for because you're a paranoid freak. And so, oh my God, literally buried it in the backyard. No kidding. I mean, who, you know, I actually know a few. I know a few people that their relatives will be out there with the old metal detector.

Looking, looking through the backyard when the old man kicks it. because we're no, he's crazy, and he buried the money back there. But you miss the opportunity. That's what you need to think about. And it's always a good thing to say, gosh, if I buy a $100,000 Mercedes and 20 years later, what would that $100,000 be worth? And 20 years later, what's that Mercedes worth? And that's the opportunity you miss by going wondering.

You miss the opportunity to drive the Mercedes, by the way, if you put it all in investments and have no life. Yeah. So you ought to get a good car, too. That's okay. Yeah. But just think about, try not to think about the idea of the purchase or the investment as a only this. It's, if I do this, what am I else could I not do?

What opportunity am I missing? And so I guess, you know, in modern lingo, we might call it FOMO. Yeah, it's exactly right. You know, the FOMO of finance is opportunity cost. And that's what we're talking about with him. If he had that $3.9 million invested instead of sitting in CDs, he missed the opportunity to make another quarter million dollars. Hey, let's play a quick game of Would You Rather?

Would you rather keep overpaying your phone company every month or save $600 a year with no contract and no price hikes ever? Easy answer. That's why I love Boost Mobile. With their low rates, you can unlock up to $600 bucks in savings over the so-called big carriers. You can bring your phone, keep your number, and pay just $25 a month forever on the unload.

limited plan because you've got better things to do with your money. So go to boostmobile.com slash Ramsey to make the switch today. Based on average annual payment of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile customers, compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. See website for full details. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. The number is AAA 825-5-225, and she's in,

Chicago. Hi, Angie. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I just wanted to get some advice. My husband and I are retired. He's 65 and I'm 70. And our home is paid for, and so are both of our vehicles. But we have a lot of credit card debt, and it's kind of choking us so that it's hard to make groceries even. So I'm just looking for some direction. How much credit card debt do you?

Part-time. It's probably $35,000, $40,000. Okay. And you both work part-time and you're collecting Social Security? Yes, and he gets a small disability pension from the military, and I have a small pension from... So when I pile all of that together, what's your monthly income? About $3,000. Both of your own Social Security and both of your working and both of you have a pension and you only got $3,000 coming in? Right. It's a very small. pension. Very small social security. Yeah. He gets 1625 and I get 1250.

Total. Right. Does that include your jobs? The jobs, I get it $400 a month and he gets paid by the job. He does trailer repair. So very. Okay. And what are your cars worth? Um, my car is probably worth $5,000. He's got a truck. It's probably worth $15,000. What's your home worth? About $300,000. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Okay. And how is your health and his health? Good. We're both so far. It's good. Good. And I have about $13,000 in an IRA.

Good for you. Okay. All right. Well, two things come to mind immediately. One is you can't do this backward and expect it to work. You don't pay the credit cards first and then figure out how to eat. You eat first. Keep the lights on first. Keep the homeowners insurance paid first. Keep gas in the car first. Then with what's left, you pay what you can on the credit cards. credit cards are not first in line, they're last in line after you survive. Okay, so it's not like after we pay our credit cards, we have the money for groceries. No, it's after we buy groceries, we run the money for credit cards. You see the difference? Yeah. Yeah.

So that's the first thing we adjust. The second thing we adjust is, I mean, you're only 65 and 70. Get a job. Well, we both are working. Part time, making nothing. Right. $400? I mean, you're starving to death.

You're too broke to retire. Well, that's true. Yeah. I mean, what if you guys went to work for a year? Like full-time jobs and made 30 or 40,000 bucks each, and you paid off all these credit cards? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought of that. You didn't think you was going to hear that today, did you? It's not what we want. It's just a lot physically, physically honest. I'm not telling you to wait tables, but, I mean, I'm talking to an intelligent lady that can carry on a conversation. There's a lot of customer service stuff you can do. It's not physically draining.

Here's the question I have. I'm listening to your stats, Angie, and I don't think I've ever been on a call like this where I've heard somebody who has a paid-for house, paid for cars, and you have $35,000 to $40,000 of credit card debt. So what is the cause of that? It's just accumulated over time. There's just always been a lot of things. more expense than we had income and it just kind of accumulated and then when we

couldn't buy groceries and we put it on a card or when I needed $1,500 or worth of car repairs and didn't have $1,500 on me, I put it on a credit card, things like that. Well, we're going to have to spend enough more years in the workforce to reverse the trend to get your incomes up and enough of a nest egg, a little bit of a nest egg built to where it doesn't leak again down into this, but cut up the credit cards and let's go crazy and get them paid off. I'm not asking you to sell your house, but before I keep this credit card debt around five years,

I would sell the house. And instead, if it's me, I'm going, I'm going to roll up my sleeves to go do something and just get rid of this mess. It's just lingering. And you guys are walking around acting like you're retired and you're broke. and the good news is you still got your health. And in today's world, 65 years old is not that old.

I am and I work. So, you know, and at least they claim I work. I think we could call it work. Yes. Show up pretty regularly, you know. So, you know, yeah, you can do that. You can go do something. I don't know what your past career was, but go.

pick up a job doing that as a consultant or anything, and him too. If you, you know, again, you don't have to go swing a hammer. No. And you don't have to do something, you know, carry a waitress tray of 800 pounds or something. I'm not asking you to do that. But I think there's something you guys could do to generate a few thousand dollars a month and a few thousand dollars a month to make this credit card debt go away. Yeah.

Because it needs to go away forever. This is not a sustainable situation. So first thing is reprioritize and take care of you. what we call the four walls of your house, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities, before you pay any bills. You eat first, then you pay bills. You don't pay bills and then hope you can eat. Then secondly, we've got to get your income up to be able to address this overall issue.

Or we got to start selling stuff to cover it. And I don't think that's viable here. I don't think your house is crazy. I mean, if you're living in a million-dollar house or something, I'd probably have you move down-in-house and clean up this mess. but your house is not out of control, your cars are not out of control. Thank God they're paid for. But your problem is you just do not have enough sustainable income to live on. And that's what caused the credit card leakage to your point.

That's right. There was margin issue. So here's why baby steps two and three are so important. You've got to get that debt paid off. But then you've got to have that three to six months of emergency funds so that you aren't tempted to solve the problem with a credit card. There just was no margin for you to be able to have a rainy day fund. And it's really important at the advanced age here to have a really well funded. I know. Hey, look, man, I'm not far behind. All right. I'm trying to catch you. But I mean, it's really true,

though, because if you have limited income at that age and a car goes out for $1,500 and you don't have an emergency fund, you fix it. That's what they do. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the things that we would tell you to do, kiddo and hang on we're going to set you up with a free offering on every dollar the app and that helps you put your budget together and you and your husband sit down and look at the numbers and the numbers are going to tell you eat first pay bills last that's a short term fix your long-term fix is create income to clear off these credit cards and chop them all up light a candle tonight and have a plastic surgery party finally mortgage rates have dropped and you know what that means people who have been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market.

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it's stronger than pre-approval. It makes you look like a cash buyer, which makes your offer rise to the top. So don't let this moment pass you by. Get ready now. Go to churchillmortgage.com to get started today. That's churchill mortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. Homebuyer Edge and seller guarantee are available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only and not available in all states or locations. NMLSID 1591, NMLS ConsumerExis.org, Eagle Housing Lender. Bethany is in Ashland, Kentucky. Hi, Bethany. How are you? I am so thankful you took my call. I'm doing well, Dave. How are you guys? Better than I deserve. What's up? My husband and I are ready to sell everything and change our entire lives. We need your help.

Okay. We started out with $750,000 in debt when we first started our journey and we met you. And we got that down to $450,000. Well, actually, $439,900 now. Way to go. That's a bunch. It is. It's crazy.

And we have this unique situation where we bought a house on 125 acres in Kentucky. It's a beautiful farmland. but we've always known we would want to build our house one day. The house that's on it is not our ideal home, and I know your principal is if you don't love it, you know. Maybe you can consider selling it. And so that's kind of where we are. The house we bought was for $190,000.

It was a steal. The house and acreage? Yes, sir. That includes the 125. So the house and the 125 acres was $190,000. Yes, sir. I got you. I'm catching up.

Okay. What is the $439,000 in debt? $250,000 is what is left of my husband's medical school student loans. So your husband's a doc? He is, and he's a great doc. Great. What's he make? Currently, he makes $325 annually $16,000 a month is his base salary.

Okay. and you have $250 in medical, and I assume you have this mortgage, or something owed on the land, is that right? It is $162,000 outstanding. So is that the two debts? That's it, isn't it? That's the whole thing, isn't it? No, sir. It's 195 for a car.

It's actually the 10-day payoff. I just called today, and the 10-day payoff is 19-5 on our Honda Odyssey. We have five boys, ages six and under. And so is that your only three-year-old? debts? 8,400 less on a stall meal for a total of 439,900. And all of this was purchased after you decided to get, or before you decided to get out of debt? I'd like to say that, but we got married in 2016, and that's when we moved from Ohio to Kentucky and bought a house because the land was a steel, and we had not yet been convinced of the...

Okay. From the time you started getting out of debt, did you buy a Honda Odyssey? in a sawmill. No, not since we've got this. Okay. Not since we've got this. Okay. So you're not falling off the wagon. You're just plowing through past mistakes.

Yes, sir. We want to get out of this stuff. And we're ready to sell everything. You make $325,000. You've already paid off $300,000. I don't know what. I mean, and your mortgage is a portion of this. Mortgage is baby step six.

So, I mean, I think you can be. be dead free with that great income. You should not have any personal overhead to amount to anything. You pay off the sawmill in the Odyssey pretty quick, and then let's tear into the medical debt, and you should be done in a couple more years, shouldn't you? Well, sir, I love that, but I'm, my husband and I have been discussing this, and we think that we could get 450 easy out of our house if we sold it today. Okay. And where are you going to live? And sold everything, because we can sell We can sell the house for 450 if we put the offer for 500. We can sell the sawmill for 30K.

We can sell the dozer for 30K. We can sell our car for 195 and buy a beater. And then we're like, where are we going to live with five boys? Do we rent? Do we buy something for about 100 to 150 with whatever equity, whatever, after we sell everything? You know what I mean? All the assets. I mean, I'm talking full liquidation.

Go Dave Ramsey. Like, we are done. Well, you know, full Dave Ramsey is not necessarily full liquidation, okay? That's, you know, we're going to liquidate with wisdom and to accomplish the goals. And accomplish the goal you want to accomplish. But for sure, I'm selling a bulldozer and a sawmill. No question about that in a heartbeat. And if you want to move, if you don't like the property and you want to move, well, sure, you could move down.

And that's not as a temporary measure. But then you're sitting there with $325,000 income and zero debt. the first thing you're going to do start stacking cash to buy another piece of real estate, right? Right. Yeah. And that's okay. But just think through where you're going to live and what you're going to do. Let's not do this impulsively.

I want to have a strategy. You know, okay, my desired future is to be debt-free. What must be true for me to get there? Well, I could sell everything. Where would I live in the meantime? Okay, what would I drive in the meantime? You've got to solve for that. If you solve for that and you're okay with the answer to those questions, then do

it, but it's not the only way out. You have a fabulously large income, and you live in an area with zero cost of living. Yeah, I've got a question. If we could just eliminate the debt, some generous person comes along and pays off the debt, would you want to stay on that property and build a really nice house where you are now? No, sir. That's the downfall about the property. There's no other house seat to build on. Okay, then sell it. See, that to me is the old on should you sell the house. Yeah. It's not because of the dead.

It's because you're not going to stay there anyway. Yeah. So do it. And that's right. We rich do. I love it. Listen, listen, I rented for two years. You love it, but you're not going to stay there.

Right. No, I think she loves the strategy. Yeah, we want to build a house for sure. We want to, my husband and I have a dream of building a business. That's multi-generational impact where our boys to grow up into and it could be a family thing. Okay. So that land and this house don't figure into the equation, true or false. that's true then sell it then sell it but that's that's different than that that's different

it doesn't fit into the equation for your future is different than i'm selling everything including every stinking thing i love and i'm going to cry when i sell it uh just to get out of debt that's a different that's a different answer and so you're not doing that you're selling stuff you're going to sell anyway because you're not stay in there if you could if you win at the end of the game you're not on that property. And so sell it now and advance the piece around the board. That's what you're saying. And yes, definitely sell the sawmill.

I don't know whether you sell a stupid car or not. Again, you've got a $325,000 income. You ought to pay that car off a couple months and keep it. Right. If you got it, since you've got a tribe of youngens to run around in a odyssey with, right? So I don't care. You make enough money for that to not be my problem. But yeah, you get rid of the mortgage and the sawmill.

and whatever, and the medical debt hanging around your neck, and you rent something for two years, and you buy a big old piece of ground somewhere for cash, and then you start talking about how we can build a house on that ground, and you work your way back out of this, and it's a five-year plan. And three of those years are probably going to be somewhat uncomfortable. We'll call them the adventure years. Yeah.

But with all those boys, five boys under that age group, they're going to tear it up anyway, so just go. rent, let them have some land, you know, get a ranch with plenty of rooms. And I love this idea of now you've got this doctor who's got a huge upside, zero debt. You're actually really fortunate to be in this situation, to have this land. And considering the mess you made, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm with you. Okay. Took me a minute to catch up. I just want to make sure you're not, you know, only doing this. And I do want people to get out of debt. And I do want you a sacrifice to get out of debt. And I do want you to

you do this, but I want you to do it with a plan and with a strategy, not just, you know, Dave Ramsey said. That's not a strategy. That's right. Okay. A strategy is I want to be debt free for my family so that I get control of my largest wealth building tool, which is my income, so that I can invest and change my family tree and create a generational business.

That's exactly right. You know, you work you through your so that's. That's why you're doing it. And yeah, I just want to get there as fast as I can. She's saying. Well, do it. Sell it. And it's over.

Pull the plug on it. And by the way, go ahead and put the sawmill in the bulldozer under the stupid column. And you put a check there. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies. And there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends of me. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect your family.

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Are you sick and tired of working so hard and have nothing to show for it? I feel like a rat in a wheel, Dave. Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, get nowhere. Well, that's normal. Normal's broke. You don't want to be normal. You want to have a different plan than that. You don't have to live that way.

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Start every dollar for free in the app store or Google Play. Amber's in Kansas City. Hi, Amber. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I apologize in highly emotional in the process of getting divorced. And I'm terrified I'm going to lose my home. I own this home with my daughter prior to getting married. I had $100,000 inheritance put down as a down payment. So my mortgage was $118,000 total after that. And I met my husband, and he got the mortgage in his name only, but my name's on the deed, too. and I found out that accidentally he had ran up a bunch of debt.

On the house? Against the house and in loans and credit cards. And the situation became very dangerous. So I got a no contact order and the judge ordered that he pay for X amount of dollars for so long. and he purposely did not pay, which got everything behind. So what did the judge say then? The only we used that as a means to get him to sign a divorce, like settlement. Oh, so you let him off so he would go away?

No, I didn't have a choice. Yeah, you had a choice. You just chose to let him off so that he went away. I don't blame you, but that's what you chose. Okay, so how much? is owed on the house now. $1,000. Right.

And what do you make of your, huh? Last year I made about $47,000 gross. Okay. All right. I won my own business out of the home. And I have somebody that's willing to help co-sign. No. And we get...

You've already got a mess. You don't make it make it worse. What's the house worth? $315,000. Great. Okay. What other debts did you take on to get rid of said deadbeat? Just what he put in on his house. So 214,000? About, yeah, about 100,000 because the mortgage was 118. Yeah, but I mean, you got a $214,000 debt now. On a $300,000 house, you make $47,000 a year. All right. How's your business doing? Is it growing? Yes.

How long has he been gone? He had to move out in July. Okay. And you're safe now, right? No. Why aren't you safe now? On the property, like, he's highly intelligent. He shut down my...

Shut down your what? Did you call the police? They won't do anything. You have a no-contact order. Of course they'll do something. You can't prove. When somebody shuts down, you can't. cameras.

You can't prove it. What is your, what is your, what is your business? I run a dog daycare and boarding business and I make a lot of money compared to doing social work, which is what I did before. And this is what I'm meant to do because I've asked God. Okay, kiddo, listen, stop, stop a second, okay. You can't breathe because you're terrified. So we have to solve for making sure that the abuser goes away or goes to jail.

Otherwise, you have to go away and reset your life somewhere else so that you can breathe again. This is not sustainable. No one can live in this stress. I know, but it's a process because he was drugging me and raping me. and so I have stuff turned over to the police. But that was all before July. He's been gone since July, and the only thing since then has cut down cameras, right? Yes.

Okay. So here's the thing. I can't move because I move it. The same things will happen. So running from it isn't the answer. Why would the same thing happen? Because he messes with the technology. Like the other day he started with, apparently you can get an app for a cell.

phone bar. Okay, just a second. Wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, now we're starting to sound, okay. Now, okay, so you need to contact your attorney, you need to contact the police, and you need to contact your pastor, and you need to get some people in your corner. It sounds to me like just in the few moments I've had with you that I'm talking to a terrified lady who is dealing with extreme trauma. That's what it sounds like to me.

It sounds like my little sister has been the. through hell and now you're looking over your shoulder at every shadow. And I really don't blame you for that because you've been through extreme stuff, kiddo. But it sounds like you're probably going to have to go start a fresh life somewhere else. The good news is you know how to care for animals and you can restart a business somewhere else while you work another regular job to get that started and take your 100,000 out of this house and move cities and go somewhere else and let's just start fresh. You need A lot of distance between you and all of these events and this moron. Do you agree with that?

Yes. And he's not all-powerful. He cannot find you when you just simply leave. He's not all-powerful. He's just a moron. He works in IT. He's highly intelligent. You've told me that three times.

I don't think he's highly intelligent. I think he's a bully and an abuser and a twerp. He's trash. I don't care if he's highly intelligent. He's not that intelligent. He's got you believing he's omnipotent, but he's not omnipotent. I'm not impressed. You need to leave and go get you a life, kiddo, somewhere.

You've got to do something different. This is not working. And, you know, staying there saying he's highly intelligent and he keeps coming on your property and nobody can do anything about it is not a solution to your problem. that exasperates the problem. So we have to throw some dynamite in this situation and something has to change. And I don't give a crap if he thinks he's highly intelligent. I kind of doubt it, actually.

I think he's got you believing a bunch of stuff that's simply not true. He has completely got you what we call buffaloed. But I don't blame you. You've been traumatized by the jerk. But I'm telling you, if I'm you, if I, oh, wait a minute. Wait, where we go, where we go? Okay, so, hey, Amber, do you not have family in the area? No, they live a couple hours away.

Good. Go be with family this week. Pack your suitcase, get your kids, call your clients and tell them you can't keep dogs this week, and leave. You need some distance between you and this. Does that sound like something smart to you? You're going to have to take some action steps. Okay, because your dad and your brothers need to know this so they can beat the hell out of this guy. Somebody needs to stand up to this guy, okay?

And it's not you. Somebody needs to get between you and this moron, and you've got to get some distance between yourself. So you need to check yourself into a domestic violence shelter or you need to go be with your family tonight, right now. Get off the phone, go pack your suitcase and go do that right now. You've got to put somebody in between you in this mess. to where you can start to get your perspective back. But you have some options. They're not pretty, but you have some options.

The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is sponsored by YREFI. If your private student loans are in default, it's a mess. But YREFI can help you clean it up. Why Refi helps borrowers refinance with low fixed rate payments and a clear plan forward. So you can clean things up and get back to making real progress. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Declan or Declan, let me say that right.

I think it's Declan in California. I'm 20 years old, run my own business, and I'm on track to earn $250,000 this year. The income isn't consistent yet, but it's growing. I have $100,000 in savings, and my only debt is $20,000 on my current car, which is worth about $25,000. I'd like to buy a used C8 Corvette for 50,000. I could pay cash, but I was thinking about financing part of it to keep liquidity in my business and build credit. My business relies heavily on personal brand and social media. Image and perception matter in a car like this could help with credibility and marketing. I don't want to make a decision that looks successful,

but is dumb financially. Is buying this car a reasonable move if I can afford it? Okay, so we have a lot in that question. Well, first of all, We want you to follow the baby steps, right? So you've got 100,000 in savings, and you're only debt is 20,000 in the current car. So when you pay that off or sell it, and at that point, then you're looking at the used Corvette for 50,000. The question, Dave, I bring you in here. I know our formula on assets like a car, which is not actually an asset, depreciates. If it's in his business and he can pay cash and it's for his business, is that a,

viable option there. Again, assuming he's got the cash. No, I wouldn't buy it for that. But if you make $250,000 a year, can you drive a $50,000 paid for a car? Yeah. If you pay cash for it, yeah, you can do that. It's that simple. But all this other crap about I'm going to look successful or whatever. Here's a good way to look successful. Be successful. Yeah. And quit worrying about how you look. Instagram is not the real world, even if you are making your 250K on YouTube or Instagram as an influencer at 20 years old. That scares me. But yeah, if your income is steady at 250 and above, you really think you're going to be making that. Can you afford to drive a $50,000 car?

The answer is yes if you pay cash for it. Right. And so, yeah, I would sell my current car and I would buy the Corvette for cash. But I wouldn't do anything about, I wouldn't run all this credit. and marketing and all that BS through your head. Just go, I want a Corvette. I've got the money. And it's not a big percentage of my overall world.

And that's, you know, our rule of thumb is if you can pay cash for it, it's not brand new. And all of the things that you own with wheels and motors are less than half your annual income because they all go down in value. Then, you know, it's okay to purchase that. and don't buy a new one unless you have a net worth in excess of a million dollars. Those are our three contact rules on vehicles of any kind, cars, boats, pop-up campers, whatever else, right? And so, yeah, so I was in a city, I'll just say, in Ohio last week, doing, you know, working. We were out there traveling.

And we went by, I guess that. city they make or maybe the manufacturer or something of the of a RVs is there. I've never seen so many thousands, thousands of RVs, like parked all across the side of this hillside. Wow. It just blew my mind. I thought, that is a lot of rust. That is a lot.

Yeah. Because every one of those thinking things is probably 100 grand. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and more. And there's thousands of them. Where are those things going? It just blew my mind. I felt like a country boy going to town.

I'm like, what are they doing with those things? But it's crazy. You know, it's funny they're making money on the financing of all of those. That's where the money's at. I guess, because, man, they're sitting out there in a field rotting down look like to me. Oh, my gosh. Really? I'm sure they're being shipped to China or something.

I don't know. Wow. Crazy. Yeah. So, Declan, in business, when you do anything for appearances, you can write that down under the dumb column. We don't do stuff for, we do things that give return on investment in business. And trying to appear to be something is never a return on investment. Just be the thing.

And then people will figure out that you is the thing. Yeah. Like if you're basing all of your success on the car that you put in. social media, TikToks or Instagrams, for that mean, you don't have to spend cash on that. I'd go rent a car like that. That's where you start rationalizing. The number of these guys that are music artists, and they rent a jet for the day to do their video, and it never leaves the ground.

That's exactly right. Like they had a jet. Such an illusion. It's hilarious. So play the game and has a fraction of the cost. Yeah. Julie is in Houston. Hey, Julie, what's up?

Hey, we're big fans. Thanks so much for taking my call. the day. Thank you. How can we help? Well, okay, I have a question about a specific long-term care option. And this is, so it's an indexed universal life insurance policy. No, it sucks. Okay. So here's the back story is. So my husband and I are nearly 60. We're pretty healthy. We're still, I'm still working husband, semi-retired. What's your next day? college. We have about 2 million in mutual funds. We have no debt. Whoever's trying to sell this too, you stay away from them.

Okay. So we're getting a little money from an inheritance, about $100,000. So that's that our question is for $2,000 premiums, we could buy this thing, you know, which, of course, if we do get sick, has six years of a really good payout. Or we could just put it in with the rest of your investments. If I had $3 million, let me tell you, I'm 65, okay, net worth of hundreds of millions. I am not, I'd have zero long-term care insurance. I want to buy long-term care insurance for people. I want people that have a million dollar or less net worth to buy long-term care insurance

because a nursing home stay is 100, 100, and a quarter a year right now, and the average time is 2.9 years. Yep. So you've got a $300,000 exposure is what you got. On average. You can self-insure that with $2 million. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Just self-insure it. I would not. I would just, if he has to go the nursing home, and by the way, he will before you on average, 75% of the ladies outlive their husbands. That's the average. He'll be a little.

beast in a nursing home, so hopefully he won't make. Hopefully you won't get there. Or maybe it's long enough that the $2 million is $10 million and you just hire somebody to live at the house and take care of him. Yeah, okay. That's kind of what we were wondering. I mean, it sounded good, but it doesn't. It isn't good.

It's a piece of crap. It's whole life, life insurance that you're prepaying up front. And then supposedly the cash value will cover your long-term care insurance. You'd been much better off to just invest the money and let the interest off the money by your own long-term care insurance, but even better yet, in your situation, you guys can self-insure through it. Yeah, okay. But long-term care insurance is excellent if you're over 60 and your net worth is under a million,

million, million and a half. Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay. But that's, but never, never, never, never, never use life insurance as an investment. 100% of the time those policies suck. And this one sucks particularly bad. Index universal life is one of the worst products on the market.

market today. And it's only sold by those goobers that sell it. Everyone else in the financial world looks at it and laughs at these morons like they are the payday lender of the middle class. So, again, if this is your financial planner pitching this, you need a new financial planner. I don't know who's pitching this to you. Or Charlie over at the church, then you just need to distance Charlie to no business with Charlie at the church. If this is what the crappy pedals is, hope I wasn't unclear. Just be careful at Charlie. He's not all smiles and handshakes, folks.

By the way, my favorite line of that is he would be a real bear at the nursing home. She knows I got to get a nurse for my husband. He would terrorize the whole. A large nurse ratchet. Come back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studios. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, and number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Naomi is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Naomi. How are you?

I'm good. How are you doing, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, first of all, I want to thank you for taking my call. I have $112,000 in debt. I have four credit cards, and I also have a car loan and a personal loan, some student loans. The student loans right now are defer. I currently have, I totally have actually three jobs. I have two jobs that make me about 90-k a year, and then I have another job, which I'm a waitress,

and I make about $12,000 a year, and that's cash pay. Okay. So that's like $102,000 is your income, and you have $112,000 in debt. Agreed? Yes. Okay. How old are you? I'm 40.

Okay. Are you single? I'm a single mother, yes, of two. How old are your babies? One of them is. 18 and the other one is 7. Okay. All right.

18 year old adding some income to this equation? He's starting to. When? He has a part-time job and he's seeking a full-time job. Yeah. Time to be a man, my son. Yes. Yeah.

Because his Princess Warrior single mom mother has helped. him get all the way to 18, and now he needs to not be a burden, but instead be a blessing. Okay, that's one thing. Okay, cool. All right, so it sounds to me like that you've been raising two kids on your own in the Los Angeles market, and this is a very tough road, and you work your tail end off, and you feel stuck. That's correct. I currently have, I'm going to, by Friday, I'm going to have $9,000 in cash, which I'm

trying to pay a credit card off, and I have. my emergency fund of a thousand dollars in euro dollar in euro money euro why is it in euros um i was stationed in the um in europe and so i brought back some money that i had myself so you were in the military yes i am oh you are now yes okay thank you for your service okay i would convert the euros to dollars immediately. We're not playing foreign currency. We're just trying to have $1,000. Okay?

That's correct. And then I'm going to list all of your debts, smallest to largest, and I take it your credit cards are probably your smallest debts, correct? That is correct. Yeah, so list them smallest to largest. We're going to pay minimum payments on everything. Cut up the credit cards and get in attack mode. How much do you owe on the car?

On the car, I owe $30,000. That's a lot. Okay. And the student loans, are they on hardship deferral? They're on deferral. Good. And they're 30,000 on that. That's where they need to be right now.

Okay. So that's 60 of your 112 is those two things. And then you've got a personal loan. What is that? Just at the bank or credit union or to an individual? It was through the credit union. Okay. All right.

Ouch, and how much is it? That one is, I believe, is 24K. Okay. All right, so here's what I would do if I were in your shoes. It sounds like you've kind of got this on the run a little bit. And number one, 18-year-old starts bringing some money to the table, and at least carries his own weight, no pun intended. Okay, number two, we're going to list our debts, smallest to largest,

and attack them in that order after we've converted. the 1,000 euros into $1,000, okay? And that's probably going to give you a little extra to throw on the other things. So we're going to list the debt smallest, the largest attack them in that order. We're going to get on an every dollar budget. Every dollar needs to behave. What you have tried to do and have successfully, somewhat successfully done, is survive. And while you were surviving, you just thought I can work hard enough and be real careful and everything will work out. And it didn't. You work hard. You work like a crazy person. You're a hero. You took care of your kids. You're amazing. I'm so proud of you. So are you getting child support on the seven-year-old?

No. Why? He makes about almost, I think about 150 to 170,000. And he pays zero for child support. Why? I don't know. Well, I think you should drop by the JAG office and say, gentlemen, I need some help. I think JAG will help him pay. They're really good at it, by the way. Okay.

Like tomorrow. Yes. Yeah. Give him all of his information, say seven years. He's never paid a diamond child support. and, you know, that's what Jags for. They're for you. They're going to help you out.

They'll take care of this. It'll be amazing how efficient they are at it. Because in the military, they do it all the time. So you guys, you know, take care of you and you should be taking care of. All right. So that'll help, too. And I want you on that every dollar budget because I want every dollar to behave. I want you to pretend like I hired you and I'm paying you $100,000 a year.

And your job is to get these bills paid. And you would be very detailed if I told you that, right? That is correct. Yeah. And so I'm going to give you every dollar and get you signed up for it because it's going to guide you on what to do and it's going to help you lay out every dollar has an assignment for the whole month. And I just want to commend you, Ken. I mean, to fight what she has fought for all these years, you know, as a single mom working her way through this,

it gets lonely and you get tired. Yeah. Well, you got three jobs, and that doesn't even count the waitressing job. So you get three and a half. So you're not going to be stopped if you've got a plan. But two things, I want to circle back to you need to take this deadbeat to the law and make his life so miserable, he starts coughing up money. Don't get weary on that. Take that warrior mindset to that.

The second thing is, if you have any equity in that car, do you have any equity at all in the car? upside down? I should have equity. How much? It's a Toyota. I don't know. All right. Here's what I want you to do.

Okay. Look it up because that $9,000, if you've got some equity, pay that car off. I mean, sell the car, rather, excuse me, sell the car, take what's left over that $9,000 and get yourself a functional car because that car payment of yours is pretty big, I'm guessing. What's your monthly car payment? $7.40. ma'am, that's a $85, that's $9,000 raise essentially. Sell the car and use that cash to get a functional car. It's just paying down the credit cars.

I agree with Ken. I just want to get you some more breathing room quickly. So let's pretend that the $30,000 car is worth, or $30,000 debt and the car is worth $35. If you can sell it, get that $5 in your hand plus this nine and buy you a $15,000 paid for a car. That's a nice car. Yeah. And now you've got no car payment? Zoom, zoom, we just kicked this thing into high gear.

Yeah. And because that car is 750 bucks. Jeez. Wow. Yeah, that's a good catch, Ken. I walked right by that. I missed it. When people hear my story of paying off debt, they say things like,

dang, that must have been so hard. I can never do that. And I tell them, sure you can. It's a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. But do you know what's really hard? Working your whole life and never having anything to show for it? never having the long-term gain, just feeling broke and stressed and maxed all the time. And sadly, that's the hard that most people choose.

Listen, you're capable of transforming your situation and living a life of freedom, but you need the right tools to do it, like our every dollar budget app. In minutes, it'll build you a step-by-step plan that's tailored to your money situation. And every day, it finds ways you can free up extra money in your budget so you can get rid of your debt and actually build wealth. So make the choice today. Short-term sacrifice, long-term gain. Choose the tool to help you get it done fast. Download the every dollar app and start for free today. One of the best things you can do for your finances is to have a really good tax pro in your corner that you can trust. They'll help advise you on the best moves to make your situation for your small business or whatever. Yeah, save some big money on taxes. And if you've had big life changes in the past year, yeah, you need to think about that as well. A divorce, a death, a new big job, something big happened, good or negative.

You need a tax pro in your corner, and especially you're running something complicated or a small business. Ramsey Solutions.com slash tax pro to find CPAs and enrolled agents that have been vetted by the Ramsey team and are Ramsey trusted. David is in Mobile, Alabama. Hi, David. How are you? Hey, Dave and Ken. Thanks so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, first of all, 15 years ago, I was in a bad place, lots of debt more than I care to admit. But thanks to you and your team over the past 15 years, my wife and I are now in Baby Step 7. I've been on the debt-free stage.

I've been on the cruise, been to your place, and we're Baby Steps Millionaires. Why, I'm proud of you? I'm so much for all you guys have done. Good for you, man. Along the way, we've raised our kids to be. Ramsey kids, I guess. And so my oldest son, he's been married now for about a year. He and his now wife have been through the high school curriculum.

They went through Financial Peace University during their marriage counseling. No debt. Cashload college vehicles, everything, no debt. And they've just gotten approved for their first mortgage to buy a home, very reasonable house. And they've got $30,000 to put down. And the mortgage lender kind of threw us a curveball the other day, and she told them if they would take $5,000 and put it in an account and use that to secure a $5,000 note and pay it for six months, that would give them some credit and potentially lower their rate by up to 1%.

Okay. You're being overcharged. Okay. If you go to Churchill mortgage and they do manual underage, and they do manual underage. There will not be a difference in the rate. Okay, well, we're actually waiting on Churchill's proposal to come back now. Yeah, and they can do manual underwriting, no credit required. You're saying the kid has absolutely no credit at all.

Zero credit. Perfect. Yeah. Okay. So, man, is he had a job? He does, yeah. They both have a job for a year now, both have good jobs. She's a school teacher.

He's an engineer. They've been paying rent during that time? They have, yeah. And they have $30,000 to put down? Yes. There's no rate difference whatsoever. Great. So the mortgage lender that you have is incorrect for whatever reason.

I'm going to be gentle. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. Like I said, she has applied at Churchill, and she's waiting on that information to come back. But that kind of threw me a curveball when I heard that. Yeah. Hang on.

I'll have Christian pick up, and we'll make sure our team holds their hand and connects them into Churchill because I don't want them to do this other deal. I want them to get a good manual underwriting mortgage loan. We do it all the time and have for decades with no credit at all. There is no interest rate difference. And so this lady at a minimum just does not know how to do it. And so you need to get away from her. It's that simple.

So Ken, George Camel and Whitney bought their first house that way. John Deloney bought his house that way. lots of other people thousands and thousands and thousands of others but a lot of mortgage companies don't know how to do it and I don't know what kind of hook or crook this lady's trying to pull here but um it's scary right they don't want to do it either they don't want to screw with it but yeah and so um what manual underwriting is before see i got my real estate license in 1978 before there was a FICO score, the banks actually used to do an analysis of the individual in detail to figure out if they could pay the freaking bill.

It's called underwriting. And so they would send out, when I would write a contract in 1978, 1988, 1982, they would mail out a VOD, a verification of deposit to the local bank, and the bank would verify that the $30,000 is in the bank. They would mail out a VOE, snail mail, a verification of employment to their employer. And he would send back this, how much they make is how long they've been working here. And they would mail out to any creditors at landlord and get a record on how they actually paid their rent. That's called underwriting alone.

And you're doing an analysis of the person's life to see if the indications are that they can pay the bill. You have their income, you have their track record with their rent, you have their down payment verifiable, you do all of those things. And that's how loans used to be written. And then along comes FICO. And FICO is like a monkey can make this loan. It's like they look at the number and go, ooh, who you've got the loaner. You don't have the loan, right? And so it's done. The mortgage business has been dumbed down to where people like this lady is telling this guy to go get a stinking secured loan with her company so she can create a credit score so she can go, who got the loan.

That's exactly what has happened here. Yeah. And so it's just dumb. But this is the ridiculous thing of FICO. And so FICO has got way too much power. It's not that accurate to start with. And so but Churchill mortgage and a few other mortgage companies know actually know how to do manual underwriting, which doesn't matter if you don't have a FICO score. This kid does not have a FICO score because you can't have a FICO score if you don't borrow money.

It's the only way you can get a FICO score. FICO score measures how much money you borrowed, how you paid it back, what type of money you borrowed, and how quickly and all that kind of stuff. It's an I love debt score. So if you don't love debt and you haven't borrowed any money and you don't have any open accounts for a year, your FICO score will just disappear. I haven't had one for 30-something years. And so apparently I'm not here. I'm not real. I'm a hologram.

because I don't have a FICO score. What? Yeah, what? Look at me. I pay cash for stuff. It's crazy. And so that's, you go to a mortgage company like a Churchill mortgage that can do manual underwriting if you have no credit, zero credit.

Now, if you got bad credit, that's a different problem. Like you haven't paid your bills on time for two months or two years. You've got a different issue then. But zero credit is a wonderful place to be. and you get the exact same rate as someone that's stupid enough to have an 800 FICO score, which means you paid the bank sometime or another $100 grand in interest, because you've been paying and paying and paying and paying and paying and paying, playing their game, playing an I love debt score game.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And that's what people get into. So this kid is second generation and doesn't have a FICO score. That's so cool. It's cool. Well, I mean, again, dad starts paying attention to the Ramsey Ways. and when you're raised up in that, 15 years later, some of that sticks, right?

He's a millionaire. He's a millionaire. He's a millionaire. So the son gets it. But see, this is the whole thing. You mentioned the word game. It is a game. These banks, they understand what they're doing.

They need you paying interest. That's where they make their money. So it's a game. So we're going to create this system that everybody needs to play ball by. Diana's in San Francisco. Hi, Diana. How are you?

Oh, I'm doing great. Thank you for taking my call. I think you guys are terrific. Thank you. How can we help today? I'm 79 years old. I have no debt, except for my house. I owe $125,000 at less than 3%.

I have $96,000. I've heard you speak of stock market and mutual funds. And I understand the four ways you put in. I'm wanting to know, actually, if I can do something like that with what little I have. But my initial question is gold, silver, and you have coin, you have solids, you have paper. How are you feeling about gold, silver? I buy my investments, Diana, based on track record. and the track record on gold over the last 50 years is it's earned about 3% a year.

Average. Meanwhile, it takes you on a roller coaster ride that makes you want to throw up. But the average is out about 3%. So I don't own any gold except some cufflinks. That's the only gold I've got, or silver. And so I think I'd probably sit right where you are. If you want to move a little bit of that into some mutual funds, you could, but be very calm and very careful and learn a lot about it before you do it.

Hey guys, I've got big news. The Ramsey Show is going on tour and this is your chance to be more than just a listener. You get to be part of the show. So hear questions asked live and experience the kind of momentum that only comes from being in the room. We'll be in Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Anaheim with a limited number of seats in each city. So last fall, we completely sold out in 72 hours. So do not wait. Get your tickets at Ramsey Solutions.com slash event. or by clicking the link in the show notes. Good friend of ours just dropped by to talk about his book restored. Chris Brown is a pastor, author, speaker, radio personality, church leadership expert. He planted a church here in Columbia, Tennessee, just south of here, just a few years back. I spoke over there yesterday, thousands of people coming out. It's an incredible young church exploding. It's kind of like, Ken, it's kind of like going to a youth conference.

A lot of young people. I mean, it's a lot of fun. The praise and worship is a blast. It's a lot of fun. anything but boring. And Chris and Holly have been friends of ours for 20 years. Chris was on our speaking team here for a while. So me and Ken and Chris have shared the stage many, many times and shared airplane seats, for that matter.

A lot of hours flying around all over the place and working together. But the book is restored, transforming the sting of your past into purpose for today. And Chris Ken and I, of course, know your story. We've heard you tell the story many times from stage. heard you walk through what God has done in your life. But was there a specific event in your life that made you want to tell this story now? Actually, it was a story from being at Ramsey Solutions. It was a story of my first time I ever spoke at Catalyst, that conference back in 2015.

It was probably my first big event. And we had a time where we got in a boardroom and we dissected the talk in front of the board. And it was super, I was super stressed out about it. And we dissected it. And I was talking a little bit about my past, but I was not peeling off the layers and I was not vulnerable. And someone spoke up in the room. I won't mention anybody, but his initials are DR. Yes, right.

Sounds familiar. He spoke up and he said, hey, Chris, people are going to see you on that stage and they're going to perceive something like a silver spoon kind of guy who's always had it right. And you need to be more vulnerable. And I was scared to kind of pick that scab of a traumatic childhood and some really bad things that have happened in my life. And it was at that moment I realized that I need to be more vulnerable and more honest about my past and to steward it. Of course, we are all like big huge fans of stewardship and love to raise the banner of stewardship all over the place. But one thing that we need to steward all of us and those of you listening in is we need to steward our past and steward what's happened in our past so that we can have purpose today with that pain. Yeah, you know our audience well, Chris. You know some of the emotions. You know the stories all too well. And inevitably, there are a lot of people right now watching and listening to you. And they're in some deep pain. Yeah. You know, maybe some relationship stuff that is causing to make financial decisions that are causing more pain, whatever it is. To the person who is in the middle of it feels almost like it's unbearable. What would you say to them?

Yeah. And actually, a lot of the book, I kept this audience. in mind because being on this show, call after call of mistakes, of shame, of regret, of guilt, of money mistakes, relational mistakes. I would say the goal is that we would take our pain and it would turn into somebody else's hope. I want someone to read this story and read the things that have happened in my life. It's the same thing with you with your bankruptcy. We hear what happened when you came out of the bankruptcy and it gives people hope of, you know what? If he can get out of that hole, then I can get out of the hole that I'm in. And so I think Proverbs 13, 12 says hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. And so the goal

is to, just like the mission statement here, is to inject hope into people's life. And if you're listening in today and you've made some mistakes, I love this line when you're speaking, you said, who here's ever made a mistake in your life? And then everyone goes, you know, raise their hand. And you know what that makes you? And you say, 13. You know, we've all made mistakes with money. And so that would be my prayer is that everybody listening in would say, hey, yeah, I have made a mistake. I can own it, but I want to steward it and maximize it for future. I want to inject hope into someone else's life.

And sometimes the mistake you made and other sometimes it was a mistake other people made. I mean, the trauma and your childhood is not your fault. Yeah, yeah. That's the situation around parents that were screwed up and family situation that was dysfunctional and all that kind of thing. And it leaves you without food or it leaves you without shelter or it leaves you without comfort. and that's not that you're a victim of that but it's still something it's still a part of your story and it still has value yeah yeah well you meant you used the word victim and of course you guys have all heard it before we can have a victim's mentality or a victor's mentality the sting is going to be

there in your past regardless so it's what are you going to do with it are you going to suck the nutrients out of it and make sure that you use it and maximize it and leverage it for me i'm a believer I'm a faithful person so for me it's leveraging it for the kingdom leveraging it for eternal impact. But man, all of us who have made mistakes, those of you have made mistakes with money, take what you've learned, the principles you've learned, and then help your neighbor, help somebody in your class, help somebody in the workplace. And that's what the whole book's about is to leverage whatever's happened in your path. You can't change it, whether it's happened to you or you did it to yourself, and maximize that for the kingdom or maximize that for

maximum impact here on this earth. The book is restored and transforming the sting of your past into purpose for today. Chris Brown is our guest, local pastor, friend of ours, and a member of our team in the past, and we've gotten to work together all these years. So one of the things that people ask all the time since we're people of faith, and they ask you the same thing as a pastor, I'm sure, is, okay, if I'm in the middle of this stink, maybe I caused some of it, maybe some of it was brought on me by other people. Either way, I'm in the stink.

Where's God in the stink? Yeah. Yeah. You know, the world, the Bible says, and I believe it's in Matthew chapter 7, I believe it just says there will be troubles in this world. But Jesus says, but I have come, take heart, I have overcome the world. And so we do have to know that there is evil. There is darkness in this world. So things are going to happen to you. And we have a, we have a responsibility to be the light in the darkness. Have you heard it before, a thermostat or a thermometer? We are to bring the light and we are to stay close to Jesus. Whatever you, whatever you're struggling with

today and you just need to know that Jesus is right there with you. That's been huge for me to know that my hope is not just in wishful thinking, but my hope is rooted in the promises of Christ, a hopeful expectation of a better tomorrow based on the promises and the character of Jesus. It's just a big difference between that and hopeful thinking. I've run into so many people that verified the same experience I had 30-something years ago at the darkest of moments. like I see absolutely no way out and I have this strange peace anyway. It's like this does not even make sense that I have less anxiety and I have no idea how I'm going to get out of this and what it's going to look like. But here I sit at the bottom with a baby and a marriage hanging on by a thread bankrupt and I have no idea what all this is going to happen.

Of course. But I remember distinctly sitting there having this peace that passed. us understanding. Yes. Yes. It's just, and it's strange. And I think that's God just showing up and going, you're going to be okay. And even if your brain doesn't tell you that, it just soaks through the rest of your body. And the rest of your body goes, for some reason, I think I'm going to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, I know you write about this in the book, and your story is very powerful. I'm very excited about our audience checking this out. But one of the things that we humans have to face in the process of healing is dealing with shame. Yeah. Shame is such a powerful emotion,

even years later. How did you unlearn shame, if I could word it that way? Or what would your response be to someone who's just kind of wallowing in some shame? Yeah, I think shame is just, I think it's a gap between your expectations and what actually was reality. So I think for all of us, we just need to understand that we are going to make mistakes. So when you make one, you're not shocked. It's just, it's not if you're going to make a mistake. It's when and how big is it going to be? Because we are fallen humans. Romans 323 says that, that all of us have fallen short. the glory of God. And so for me, that fell off me when I'm like, don't be surprised when you make a mistake. Also, the fact that we learn from our mistakes, and that really helps us in the future,

and it builds our character. So that fell off of me really, really fast that way. And then anytime that you're helping other people, it helps reduce the shame because now you've leveraged something out of it. The Bible says in Proverbs 1125, those who refresh others themselves are refreshed. And so for me, I've used even my bankruptcy that happened in the recession in 2007, 2008. I've used that to take biblical principles that I've learned from Dave and learned from Ramsey's Solutions. And I've tried to like just maximize everything I learned as I've clawed and clod out of bankruptcy to be successful with money again and try to restore that shame. So the refreshment now just trumps the shame. That's good.

Pastor Chris Brown, we're proud of you. Thank you. We love you. Glad you're glad you stopped by it again today. You're welcome anytime. The book is restored. Transforming the sting of your past into purpose for today. Be sure you check it out.

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers. built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use.

Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's Ramsey Solutions.com. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 168, better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. Albert Einstein says, try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. There you go. Felicia's in Chicago.

Hi, Felicia. How are you? I am so well, Dave. It is a beautiful day, and I'm on this side of the grass. So I am praising the Lord. I love it. I love it. How can we help?

All righty. So I am a 23-year-old blue-collar homeowner from the Midwest. I'm in a pretty, I'll say, uniquely blessed financial situation that I can't really find many resources on just how to navigate. So from age 18 to now, really, I guess I made a lot of really dumb financial decisions. I wrapped up about $15,000 in credit card debt, bought a brand new car in 2021, got underwater in payments, and I even took out a debt consolidation load from those credit cards. You did all the stuff. But I did all the stuff, yeah.

You know, they say you make up for the mistakes you make in your early 20s and your later 20s. I'm doing it now. But I kept using the cards on top of paying my mortgage. And at worst, I was over, I want to say, just over $25,000 in consumer. So in November 2025, my mom passed away from cancer and left my sisters and me, the beneficiaries of her life insurance policy. And I used that money to completely wipe out all of my debt. So now at 23, no, I still have my mortgage. I'm sorry.

Okay. So you're debt-free except the mortgage and you make what a year? Yes. I make just about a little over 80,000 a year. Good for you. Okay. Your question is what? Thank you.

So I guess my question is that just how should someone who just escaped debt manage money responsibly when they've never had a savings before? I just saved my first $2,000 and I kind of feel like a little kid. and your mom just gave you a $10 bill, you know? It's like... Okay, so... First and foremost, I like... I would use the story that is your life as my motivation.

Okay? In other words, if I misbehave with money again, that is bringing shame to the legacy that my mom left me. Sure. I don't want to disappoint her. if I'm you. Right. I never thought of it like that.

That is a fantastic way looking at that. So when you look at it and say, I've got to do this because mom got me cleaned up this time, there's not going to be another one of those if I'd screw up again. And so I need to honor that memory, cherish that gift. And the way to say thank you for it is to be a grown-up going forward. forward. Now, then once we say that, we say, okay, how do we do anything well? Well, it starts with a plan. I mean, if you want to get in the car and leave Chicago and you say, I want to go to Florida, you don't just start driving. You actually load a map on your GPS, and it starts to give you a

step by step first when you leave Chicago. You're going to go to Rockford and then you're going to, or whatever, and then you're going to go to, and then you're going to go to, and then you're going to go to and if you keep doing and then you're going to go to you'll look up and you're in Florida and so if Florida is wealth what are the steps what's the what's the map look like to wealth from where you are and you know and so we're going to lay out a game plan that's a budget and we're going to give you every dollar and give you a trial run on it where you start where you take this app and you download it and you take your income and I want you to tell every dollar of your income what to do as if it was your job to manage money for you incorporated.

It's your job now to be an adult, not a child, and manage money responsibly for you incorporated. And you have to report to your boss. You have to look and turns out your boss happens to be in your mirror. Okay. So your job is to manage money for you because you make too stinking much money and you got this wonderful one-time. get out of jail free card, and you can't screw this up. So I've got to make this money behave. As you said, I've got to be responsible. And I love your attitude.

I think you're awesome. And I think you're going to be able to do it. I talk to some people sometimes, and I can't tell if they're going to do it or not. I think you're actually going to do it. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And listen, let's get gazelle intense in the baby steps. You know them well.

So you are on your way to fulfilling baby step three, right? So what's the target? Is it three months expenses? Is it six months? What are you going to do? Right down a number. Right down a number and just chunking money out of your income to get there. That's right. And then once you get done with that, now it's 15% of that income. And we're going to start investing for your future. And at 23, you're going to be a multi-millionaire. If you say 15% of your income with an $80,000 income, you're going to have $10 to $20 million when you get to $65. Oh, that is so hopeful. Oh, my goodness. That's the gift your mother gave you if you're a grown-up. If you're a child, you'll be broke and living on social insecurity.

So choose well. I sure will. Oh, that is fantastic. You got it, kiddo. I'm proud of you. You can do this. So lay out a written game plan and then use the money that you find in the budget to walk right up those baby steps, as Ken indicated.

That is perfect for you. and we're going to do it all in mom's memory, all to honor the free get out of jail free card that she gave me. And I get a clean slate. I get grace. I get the chance to start over. I get a do-over. Remember playing football in the backyard? You get a do-over.

Oh, love do-overs. You know, that's what this is. She got a do-over, man. She gets another shot. That's so cool. Ben is in Austin, Texas. Hey, Ben, what's up? Doing good.

How are you, gentlemen? Better than we deserve. What's up? All right. I am, fingers ago, financially, a few years ago, wife moved out, we're going to separation, comes a block, to lower your feet. To help me out at one point, a friend gave me a loan for $26,000. Good Lord. The backup, this has been the most expensive thing in my life.

That was originally backed up against my 401K, and he said, look, you know what? You come March, you go ahead. if we need to do that. I typically met cash positive unless a bunch of legal stuff comes up and then all the positive that I was goes out the window. So, here's my question.

Cash out of 401K and paying that off or I've been finding some personal loans through the year when that's upgraded, so 570, there's other things that will end up costing me an extra $5,000 over the term of the home. So if I cash on my 401K, what do you make? 110. Are you past the divorce now?

No, sir. We're still in the thick of us. Okay. So how are you going to cover the future legal fees? That's part of the issue. I am currently... So this guy loans you $26,000, and he wants it back before the drama is over.

You know, when he lent it was... The deal was he would have it back by March. Yes, sir. What made you think you were going to have $26,000 by March? You know, honestly, sir, at the beginning of it, well, a couple things. One, I thought I was going to be net positive enough to pay off most of it. Net positive on what? Well, so, sir, typically I'm making, net positive $2,000 a month.

Oh, you're talking about your income. You were going to make enough income to pay him back by March. When did he make the loan? Yes, sir. September of last year. Well, honey, you're not going to make $26,000. from September to March at $2,000 a month? Absolutely.

So initially the plan was, I wasn't going to be able to pay off the full 26th by then, but I was going to pay off a lot of it. So, and to be honest, sir, I was, I need to pay the lawyer, and that was, that was where I was that. So how are you going to pay the next lawyer? Yeah, this is a mess, dude. All right, so I would borrow money to keep from cashing out your 401k because it's less interest to pay your friend off.

And you guys got to slow down and do a little math here before you do these deals, son. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.