The Ramsey Show - "I have 350k Of Debt And Haven't Filed Taxes In 8 Years"

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

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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 in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, Ken Coleman, number one best-selling author, a Ramsey Network star of Front Row Seat is my co-host today. Open phones at AAA 825-5-225. Teresa is in Providence, Rhode Island.

Hi, Teresa. How are you? I am good, gentlemen. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? Excellent. Are you in a good mood? That's the first question. Because I need you to sit back and think. I want you to count a three before you answer my question. Wow. Okay. I can't wait to hear what this is. say is his co-host. I just spoke with him for about five minutes. I think he's in a fabulous

mood. I don't know if that helps you. Well, no, I had nothing to do with it. Don't give me any credit. Wow. This is interesting. Okay. All right. Here we go. I need a weather forecast before we bring the question. Do. Okay. Here we go. Dark and stormy. I have an ex-husband. I have two children.

My ex has a girlfriend and a son. And we are all great friends. We give white trash new meaning. Without a doubt. every Saturday we go to brunch together and then we have a misery and we do something together that's miserable that's why we call it the misery trip but my point here is neither one of my children who are 23 and 21 financially sound out of school in good careers no debt bank in their coin like you read about can't buy houses so we're thinking of a family compound we're thinking of do we put it in a trust? Do we have each person have a quarter say in it? What happens

when one of them wants to leave this compound? Do we have to have a vote so that they can go out but they have to have equity to go with them so they could buy their own house? Not that I think anybody would ever leave the compound, but just to throw it out there as a possibility. So we want to do it the right way, but we all want to have our own little independent houses on this land. and it be done without, I don't know, shotgunning each other. And you should know, in our family dynamics, we have very expensive purses and very expensive guns. And I will agree with you, two guns to a purse is absolutely correct. I will say this sounds like a great idea for a reality show.

Oh, yeah, we could put Kardashians out of business. No doubt in my mind. Wow. Well, y'all are a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. So my problem is both kids want to do houses, but they can't afford it. Yes, they can. Singly.

Yes, they can. Well, they can in five years. Well, so what? They'll still be in their 20s. People buy a house in their 20s first time. That's not an end of the world. All right. Well, we, all right, fair enough.

We were all talking about if we did it and we kind of put a trust together. Because I'm on the hill coming down. I don't want anything in my name. I think there's more downside than upside here. This is one of those things that all of the very, variables would have to work perfectly for everyone to come out intact. And as we all know, all the variables never worked out perfectly. So there's just so many negative things that can happen from this that outweigh the few

positives that I wouldn't do it. Okay. You could get stuck. This weird relationship you've got could go sideways again. You know, it could be, you know, the kid could get stuck in there and, and, you know, or marries a girl who doesn't want anything to do with this compound, and then he's stuck. And then we have to have a communal vote, like it's communism or something. No, this just, no, I'm...

You're against it. Just maybe all by houses on the same block. That'd be fine. Or if you bought a piece of property and everyone had their own parcel that was marketable, and everybody's not pissed if they sell it later, you know, then... Oh, that's an option then. So just get a larger piece of land where it can be parceled out to each of us. But again, as long as everybody's cool when I sell my house and move.

At that point, I don't. Well, right. The older ones will, like I said, I'm on the hill down. So I was looking not to put anything in my name necessarily. Well, it doesn't matter. Just whoever has a piece of property, they have their own life, and they have boundaries, and they have legal rights. and they have relational rights to, at some point, someday sell this house.

Because about the only thing I'm sure of is there are no forever homes except heaven. And so at some point, your son is a grandfather, and he wants to move away where his kids are in Phoenix. And somebody's going to be pissed if the whole thing's based on, well, you're the one that broke it all up. you know and i don't i don't need that thing i just don't need any of that so our kids our three kids live within a mile of each other and within 25 minutes of sharing and i but everybody owns their own thing and everybody's allowed to buy or sell and we talk about it sometimes as as just you know family relations cheer one of one of ours bought it sold a home and moved up considerably the other day and we were cheering them on and we have a discussion about it but we don't

get to say, no, you can't do that or we're mad at you. Yeah, that freaked me out just listening to that. And I would say this, you got to know when you've got a win and take the win and be okay with the win. And I think the weekly brunch where you guys are all happy in this crazy scenario is a win. I think you should leave it there. That's a miracle in and of itself. So enjoy the weekly brunch. Don't try to make this whole living thing, this controlled community. It just feels weird. and someone's going to be let down. Yeah. Good question.

Good question. And, you know, it's kind of a theme I've been on for the last two weeks, Ken, and I'll circle back on it too, because one of the driving motivations was a 23-year-old can't buy a house. Yeah. Okay. Our 26-year-old can't buy a house in Orlando, Florida. Well, A, they can, but B, they can't have been first victimized

by the large banks, the car companies, and the student loan machine. And so if you're 26 and you have a $1,200 car payment because you got screwed by Lexus Motor Credit, believing you were building up your FICO score, and then you ran up a bunch of visa debt because you're building up points that matter not to anyone anything. And then you went and got a degree for $180,000 from a university that's somehow supposed to make you successful. in a degree field like left-handed puppetry or German polka history, and then you can't figure out why you can't get a good job and you're $180,000 in debt.

And then, you know, and you just keep going where these big banks, these car companies, the FICO program, the student loan program, has trapped the Gen Zs and the millennials. Now, the millennials and the Gen Z signed up for it. I went broke in my 20s because I was such an idiot. I signed up with these types of people, and they took my. head off. But when people start talking about a 23-year-old, 26-year-old, it's not affordable now. It's because they first and foremost have been screwed. And they're trapped in all these other debt payments. And that makes them think they can't buy a house. No, they got to get out of that

mess. That's right. And quit playing footsie with these big banks. Because let me tell you, Citibank runs washed up actors on there saying, what's in your wallet? Bradley Cooper does not really live in a lobby, boys and girls. I'm just saying, you know, and at some point, y'all got to go, I'm not going to get screwed by you people anymore. I'm not going to take it anymore. I'm not going to do business with people who piss on me all the time. I quit. And when Gen Z and millennials start doing that, they get out of that.

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I trust them, and you can too. Visit zander.com. For instant online quotes, or for a more personal touch, give them a call at 800 356-4282. Carlos is with us in San Francisco. Hey, Carlos, how are you? doing well thank you for having me sure how can we help so i kind of did what uh you probably did a long time ago i started a business and it was booming uh made my first million in a couple years and um it just kind of went it's it just my financial life just spiraled out of control and uh now i don't know if i should go bankrupt and um figure out a way how to get back on track um I haven't done any payroll taxes, and I owe since 2017, 2018.

I also haven't filed taxes since I was in 2017, 2018, and credit cards. I have over $70,000 in credit card debt. I have a commercial line of credit, which is another $30,000. that I owe the bank. I took an SBA loan out, which is the emergency funding. This is during the PPP time. Sorry, I might have. It's the one for COVID.

I qualify for that because I didn't file my 2021 or 2020 taxes, so I had to actually get a loan out to keep my employees on board with me. And that's 132,500 there. So, altogether, it's well over $350,000 in debt. Is your business still open? It is. I just had to let go of all of my employees, and I had to minimize all of my accounts. Currently, I think I have like four or five accounts that I drive to every single night.

My industry is janitorial business. So, yeah, it's tough. So what are you making with the three or four accounts? So it's 9,777, that's per month, and I did the math on all my expenses, they equal out to about 7,877 a month. Are you married? I'm engaged. Okay. When do you plan to get married?

Oh, Jesus. Not anytime soon. Okay. All right. What does she make? I'd probably say around the $3,000 a month. Mm-hmm. Okay. How old are you?

28, no, 38, sorry. 38. All right. Well, this is a really, really scary situation, and it didn't happen suddenly. It's happened pretty gradually. Absolutely. So really, really bad news for you that apparently you're not aware of. 941 payroll taxes are not bankruptable, and neither is the IRS.

So all of your taxes are going to be there if you file bankruptcy. I'm not sure if this SBA loan is bankruptible because it's COVID-related. It might be. Certainly the credit cards in the line of credit are bankruptible. but you're not the you know the problem doesn't go away with bankruptcy is my point you've still got a massive problem and um so the first thing i need you to do before we even talk about bankruptcy is when you get off the phone i want you to go to ramsysolutions dot com and click on tax e lps endorsed local providers find the tax person in your area that we are

that's ramsie trusted and i want you to sit down with them and develop a strategy to get caught up on your filings. Typically, when you have not filed this far back, they'll take three years tax returns. You don't have to go all the way to 2017. And then you, of course, owe those taxes. And I don't know what they'll do with the potential owings from those others. The 941s, however, you withheld taxes on your employees, right? Right.

and then didn't pay it. Correct. Yeah, that's a trust account, and those live forever. And the IRS puts that in the extremely serious bucket. Yeah. That one is like really scary. So you need to develop a strategy with a tax person on the 941s and on getting your returns caught up, because here's what's scaring me.

Apparently you didn't realize not paying income tax. is not a criminal offense. Not filing is a criminal offense. Correct. 2,561 people went to jail last year. They put people in jail for not filing. Okay? And you have not filed a lot.

So I want you, but I've never, in 35 years of doing this, seen someone actually get prison time or get criminally charged if they come forward. But if the IRS comes and finds you, you're going to be screwed so you need to take care of this proactively tomorrow you need to meet with a tax person and start developing a game plan on your back taxes and your back 941s then you can start looking at whether or not we you know what i would do is just not pay the credit card and cut it up i would not pay the commercial line of credit and i would not pay the sba which by the way is what happens if you file bankruptcy right yeah they don't get paid

So I would not pay them and I would take all of the cash flow above living expenses and start dumping it first and foremost on the 941s and then secondly on whatever back IRS taxes you have. And if one of these others comes after you and tries to shut you down or foreclose on something or whatever, that might force you into bankruptcy. But we're going to address the things that are not bankruptible, which is the IRS in this case, before we bother with. with a stupid line of credit or a credit card. Yeah. And then you go to working as hard as you can work and you properly pay and file your taxes every day for the rest of your life from this day forward.

Oh, yeah. That has affected your ability to do business because it's a monster in the closet. Absolutely. Yeah. And you wake up in the middle of the night and you don't know why. I know. It's called stress. And you're hurting.

you're hurting and you're scared. Yeah. It's terrifying. So that's what I would do. Are you in a good church by chance? I don't go to church. I do believe in God. I just don't have the time to.

I work. You don't have the time not to now. You need a relationship that is above and beyond hard work. You're not afraid of hard work. You've just made a mess, and you need some people in your life that love you, regardless of how messy you are. and that's the place to get it. So I'm going to suggest you plug into that

because the answer to being terrified is to be in community and have friends. Lonely people are super terrified more than people who have friends in their corner. Make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. So get some people in your corner.

I have a homework assignment for you, Carlos. We don't have time to unpack it, but what I would have loved to have sat with you on is to identify what was going right. In other words, what was working when you were really killing it? You started the call saying we had some great success. I think you mentioned over a million dollars of revenue. I think you need to at some point spend enough time to write it down and say, well, what was working? What was I doing right when we were crushing it? And in times of failure where businesses can go up and down, one of the great exercises is to identify that. now here's the reason for that go back to doing that that's right what has to change what do i need to do in order to start doing that again because that was a formula that worked and i think right now you're in a desperate situation and so if you can get some clarity through that exercise and start to repeat that again that's your best chance to make more money and dig yourself out of this so carlos when you're working really really really hard and you're managing the money we're going to

buy food, lights and water, shelter, transportation, and pay taxes, back taxes in your case. And that's all you need to be doing right now. Complete focus on that and complete focus on any new accounts you can add and start growing the business back again with a proper accounting system that keeps you caught up on these things because where you are is terrifying. I'm sorry, man. You call me back if we can be more help as your fight. through this. We'll help you any way we can.

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with Code Ramsey at checkout. Do it today. That's join delete me.com slash rammy. Codes, Cod Ramsey. Half a point drop in the Fed. What's that going to do to mortgage rates? Probably going down some more. What's that going to do to the housing market?

Probably going to heat up a little bit. So, Merry Christmas. If you're buying or selling a home, it's a big deal. And with the clickbait and the headlines and all the data out there, you can't do it, it's awful, it's horrible. It's not great, but it's not to the point you can't do it. You can do it. Home prices have held steady all through the winter.

They're hovering right around $424,000 median sales price in America. Mortgage rates are at five and a half and probably going on down. uh with this um they generally follow the fed as we all know they're not directly tied but generally follow it if you want to learn more about the housing market trends and get free tools to help you buy or sell with confidence go to ramsysolutions dot com slash market and always remember that there are ramsay trusted real estate pros that you can get connected to at ramsysolutions dot com as well darrell is in orlando hi darrell how are you hi dave hey ken how are you guys great man What's up?

Just got a question for you. Luckily, it's kind of a good question. Really, I want y'all's opinion on this. I'll throw out the question, and then we'll fill in the details after for you to formulate your thoughts. So the question is, my wife and I are both recently 61, so she's retired. I've got nine more years. So what I'm thinking, what we're considering, would it be reasonable for us to to cut back on my 401K contributions to free up some fun money for us.

How much are you putting into your 401K, percentage-wise? Percentage-wise, 16%, which right now is about $30,000, $33, $34,000. It's the max plus the catch-up. So you make $200 a year? About $220, yep. And so $34 from $200 is $167, $1666. and you can't have any fun on 166? Oh, no, we're having fun now,

but we're thinking we can have maybe a little more fun, do a little more giving, that kind of thing. Okay. We're empty nesters. Why do I have a feeling I'm going to hear a ridiculously large number in this 401K right now? I wouldn't call it ridiculously large. Well, a little bit of background,

and thanks to your teachings, Dave. Our net worth is about 2.1. 1.3 of that is cash investments, the other 800 in real estate. So my thought is if I don't even touch the money that's there, they should probably double over that nine-year period. It'll more than double over the nine years. It'll double in about seven, assuming you're invested in good mutual funds. Yeah, yeah, they've done well. Is your wife work outside the home?

No, no, no. She's retired teacher. Oh, you said that. You said that earlier. Okay. So what are you talking about reducing this? Cutting it back from maybe 16% to like 10% and free up about about 12,000 a year, about a thousand a month, which is, you know, I kind of look at that as maybe an extra cruise. Okay. Well, you're certainly okay. And yeah, yeah, you're right. Your 1.2 in mutual funds would be 2.4, you know, when you're certainly okay. and yeah, yeah, you're right. Your 1.2 in mutual funds would be 2.4, you know, when you're 68, and when you're 75, it's going to be 5 million. And that's if you don't touch it and you just let it grow. And I've got a feeling you're going to be able to do that. House is paid off, right?

I think so. Yep. Okay. Zero debt. All the real estate's paid off. Zero debt. No debt. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I mean, kind of what we're doing is sometimes the way people view retirement is, you know, suddenly. Okay? Like you save, save, save, save, save, save, save, then you retire and you live off the savings. Okay? Right. And so what we're doing is kind of going for the last, last nine years, we're just kind of going to go in the middle. We're going to save a little less. We're going to save a little less and use that money now rather than later. And is it going to hurt you, not substantially? Yeah, I probably would do this, yeah. But I'm just, I'm just curious. If you told me you had a half a million dollars in your investments, I would say no.

Yeah, I get that. Okay. And Darrell, I have no problem with what Dave said. I always lean that direction and live life. But I am curious with your income and no debt and just how responsible you've been, this is all about $12,000. Yeah. Could Dave and I not find $12,000 in your existing budget? Oh, we could, but it's just like I said, we do things now. I mean, you know, We'd go on trips with our friends, but, you know, this would be a little extra here again to not only maybe do an extra trip or two, but also give some more to our local charities and that kind of thing, which we do quite a bit of now. But this would just, I mean, the way I look at it, it's about $100,000, $108,000 of spending now to versus, I did the math. there's a difference of about 180,000 at the 16% versus 10%. Yeah.

So. Well, and you're not counting what it's going to grow to over that nine years. But still, that's, that's okay. It's not, none of this is going to put you anywhere near anything except really wealthy. And so, yeah, you're fine. You're fine. And I think I would do that. And in your situation, it's what your desire is.

So there's one of the things that, um, we, get a lot of Ken, and this is not that call, but it's like I've saved and now I don't know how to have fun. Right. You know, I've got this big old pile of money. Now, how do I reprogram my brain from being frugal all the time to actually enjoying some of it? And so, you know, Daryl doesn't have that trouble.

No, no. But Daryl's okay. He's done a good job. And you've got, you know, you're a multi-millionaire at 61 years old. Congratulations, sir. The American Dream is alive and well. There are Daryl's out there. everywhere, boys and girls. Your communist college professor was wrong. They're everywhere.

This is the greatest land the world has ever known. The greatest opportunity for someone who has nothing to become wealthy in the history of mankind. There are darrells everywhere. And we've got the data to prove it. Yeah, pick up Baby Steps Millionaires, the book, the latest, not the latest, one of the latest bestsellers I've had. And the study on millionaires is the white paper in the back of it, you can look at all the research. It's there. There's a lot of Daryls out there, and he's done a great job. Oh, yeah. And I want to make sure people caught this. He's still talking about working nine more years. And as Dave pointed out, that 2.1 or whatever it was, he's going to double, more than double in that nine-year period. And then through their 70s, it's going to

double again. And if they live in their 80s, so long term, the amount of money he's got already is going to be way more than enough as it just does compound interest. Amanda is in Columbus, Mississippi. Hi, Amanda, how are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. So my question is, how do my husband and I navigate money and in-laws during the holidays?

So we are, we'll officially be out of debt in 18 months. We have about $105,000 left with a combined salary of $162,000. We both decided not to travel while we were in the process of paying off debt because we're broke. so we can't even, you know, afford to travel. Good. However, my in-laws are wanting to come see us, and we don't have the greatest relationship. The biggest issue is that they both have an alcohol problem.

My father-in-law is very violent and unpredictable when drunk. He's, like, tried to attack my husband. He's attacked his daughter. They verbally attack me. What's that got to do with travel? Well, they're basically, saying that we want to come see you. Well, that's fine. Come see us. Get a hotel.

Well, we told them that, but the issue is that they drink. And so even if they're visiting, if anybody's visiting your home and gets violent, they just have to leave. But they have a hotel. Yes, they will have a hotel. So we did make it clear that we, you know, we didn't want them to stay with us. I mean,

this has nothing to do with you being on Baby Step 2. This has to do with how you're going to, how you and your husband are going to make a decision of someone coming into your home. I'm potentially drunk and potentially violent. That's all this is. It has nothing to do with travel. Has nothing to do with Baby Step 2.

It's just how am I, what kind of boundaries am I going to put up? What kind of communication am I going to have? I wish Dr. John Deloney was here. But, I mean, you're done. You don't want them to come. And you don't want to be near them. So again, how can anything do with Baby Step 2? But if your husband wants to have them come to the hotel and visit, come by.

As long as you guys are sober and not violent, you're welcome to come by. But don't bring the drunk and don't bring the drunk and don't bring the violence with here and won't work out. You know, that's all that is. This is Dave Ramsey. We all want to know that the money we give to charity is doing something that matters, that it's making a real change, giving someone lasting hope. And here's one way to make sure of that. Give to pre-born. They're the real deal. Proven, transparent, and changing lives every day. I trust pre-born,

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855-601-2229. That's preborn.com slash Ramsey. Andrew's in Los Angeles. Hi, Andrew. How are you? I'm good, Mr. Ranji. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I have a question. So about 10 years ago, my dad passed away. And so my mom, she took on a lot of the life insurance money. And so she downsized her house about three years ago and used half of it to pay for the house and use the other half to show his income. Well, she's been nickel and diming that for the past three years, and she's out of money. So if she downsized her house, why did she need to use the insurance money? She sold it, and so she used, it was half of the insurance money and half of the equity that she made from her previous house.

Oh, I see. How much insurance money did she receive? I want to say roughly 300,000. Okay, so she used 150, seven years after he passes. No, I'm sorry. She used, so she received about 300 from there and then received another 250 from the last previous house that we had. So she used equity to pretty much pay for this new house three years ago. How much was in?

So she's been, right now it's $240,000. It's owed. Oh, she owes money on the house. Yes. And so my question is, what should we do? Me and my fiancé are planning to buy a house in the next year. I'm suggesting maybe she sell the house and she can help me invest in a house. And so she has a place to live with us.

Where my brother is suggesting she ran out the house and used that to, pay for itself. And might I also mention she has zero debt also, just other than the house. So the house that she currently lives in, she owes $250 on? Yeah, $2.40, yes. And what is it worth? Roughly five. Okay. And so why does she, she, for 10 years he's been gone, is she not work? No, she was not working. How old is she? She's 57. Okay. Well, there's the problem, huh? it's not the house that she needs to get a job she thought

300,000 was 3 million it's not and now she needs a job so what should our plan to be there's not our plans her plan should be she gets a job your plan should be you get married

and start a life and no you don't move in with her and no you don't use any of her money and she needs her money and no we don't have a plan she needs a plan she needs to get a job and quit burning through this cash and you need to get married and have a life and just wave over there at your mom and say i love you yeah i'm scared for her i'm scared for her too because her habits are horrible i cannot believe somebody's gone she's 47 years old when he died and she's developed zero income

since then. 57. She's been unemployed for maybe five years. No, she's 57 now, you said. Yes. Yeah. So he died 10 years ago. Roughly.

Yeah, 47. That's how that works. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, she's not working, dude. Yeah. Yeah, it's not your problem. What we're trying to help you see is, is that while you have the emotions and you can have the emotions for her and feel bad

for her and be scared for her but also have to live your own life yeah i'm scared for you mom you need to get a job matter of fact you needed to get a job five years ago when you lost the other one or whatever happened five years ago so she worked five of the 10 years but um otherwise you're going to lose this house because you're going to burn through this money this is not there's not enough money here to support you have you not figured the math out on that mom and uh i love you i'm cheering for you i sure hope you go get a job and i hope you quit burning through this money uh because that's what really, really, really desperately needs to happen. And I'll, you know, I'll introduce all this Ramsey stuff.

And they'll help you because we'd love to help her. I'd be happy to do that. But, um, wow. But yeah, you don't, you, you're not in a position to rescue her. And you're using some of her money to buy you a house that she lives in. Yeah, that's a little self-serving. No, thank you. Now, I'll pass on that one, too.

Let, you know, you guys need to just love her for where she is and coach her and cheer for her. and hopefully she'll follow some of that, and that's where I would go. Josh is with us, Josh, in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Josh. How are you? Doing good, sir. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Yeah, so it's struggling to pay off a mountain of credit card debt and helping with my spouse sticking to a budget. Mm-hmm. How does putting together the budget work at your house? How involved is your spouse putting it together? I'm the one selling the budget. Yeah.

They don't. So she's having trouble sticking to your budget that she didn't have a vote on. No shock. Yeah. The problem is it was up to me to create the budget. She did not want to be involved. Yeah, that's fun. But she has to get involved once it's created and look at it.

it and have a vote because we two adults need to accomplish our common goals that we have in this marriage, which is survive and prosper. Yeah. So, honey, we've got to sit down and look at this together. This is what I think it looks like. Now, I need you to look at it and make your changes, and then we are going to both agree to stick to after we make the changes, because we actually have to be adults, devise the plan and follow it.

Children do what feels good. And we both have to be adults in this, and gosh, I need your help. I need your vote. I need your set of eyes. I need your wisdom. And I need your input. And I need your buy-in. And all those things come together. But you can't do a budget and then come in like Moses coming down from the mountain with two tablets and go, this is what God says. It doesn't work. Yes. And one struggle is we come from two different perspectives on budgeting and money. I was raised more on the Ramsey Method, and she comes with a Hispanic household, and they more of the freely spend, and the bill is cold. That's not a Hispanic disease, dude. That's just a disease.

Everybody's got it. Gringo's got it, too, man. So, you know, that's just, no, that's hillbillies, Cajuns, Italians. We all got that same disease, man. So, no, that's a, it's called growing. up and I'm going to live on less than I make. I'm not in the U.S. Congress. And so we need to sit down together. But it's about her being a grown woman instead of a little girl who's being taken care of by her man. That's bull crap. So the two of y'all sit down together and work on this

together. Ken, when people work together like that, it increases communication, cooperation. You're agreeing on your dreams. You're agreeing on your fears. It changes everything. Yeah, it does. And I think in this case, it's less about obviously the race of somebody, but it is the environment that they grew up in. And so your household was very different with how they approached money and her house was different. So now we've got to get on the same page. And I think I would be asking more questions of your wife. And I would be asking her, is it the principle of every dollar, knowing where it's going? Or is it the process that you just don't like? And it seems, and I would ask these questions. You may already know the answer, but to get her in a conversation, she's not on the

witness stand, you know, you're not attacking. You're just going, hey, help me understand what about the budgeting process you don't agree with or don't like? Because I need your help. Yes. But the more you can get understanding of why she thinks or acts the way she does about money, the better chance you have at getting on the same page. And so this is a conversation. It might end up in counseling in a good way. not a crisis, but hey, we need a professional to help us communicate our fears, our desires around money so we get on the same page. But Dave, you're absolutely right.

When we listen to DeFrey screams, it's most obvious. When you hear the story, no matter which spouse brought the idea home or Dave's book or whatever has happened, once they fully get on the same page, it's unbelievable momentum, and we hear it all the time. And by the way, it's not just money momentum, relationship momentum across the table. Yeah, the typical debt free scream says it changed our marriage. That's right. We started working together.

It increased communication, increased cooperation. It's just so much easier. But I would just frame it in, I need your help. We've got to be two grown-ups, and we've got to do this together. Your vote counts. The holidays can come with a lot of friends. pressure to spend. Family, friends, secret Santa at the office, all the things. But y'all, this season should be about peace, not payments. That's a big reason why I love Fairwin's credit union. They share

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Spend with peace of mind knowing that you're sticking to your budget and staying debt-free. And check out the Fairwinds Smart Bundle today at fairwins.org slash Ramsey and open up the smart bundle and grab your exclusive Ramsey Be Weird debit card. That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsey.

Fairwinds is federally insured by the NCUA. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studios. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and host of the front row seat on Ramsey Networks. co-host today. Gina's in Boston. Hi, Gina. How are you? Hi, Gina. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Yeah, I think I really need your wisdom today. I've been following you now for almost a year. I'm a single mother of two boys, both teenagers now, but I solely with myself. But I'm about to, I'm engaged and about to get married middle next year. He's a very good man, very hardworking, but I think he's dealing with financial situation.

He has multiple debts and lots of things that don't just seem right with him. And most of these things he didn't tell me. I got to find out over the course of our dating for about a year because I was able to step in. We've put in some structure, but I'm a little bit worried about what happens when we get married and how do we manage finances. What do I do? How much debt does he have? About $100,000. Okay. And what does he make?

About 58. Okay. And what kind of debt is it? 80,000 student loan, which he abandoned until I made him pick up again. And so he started making payments on that. And then there was between credit card debts, different deaths that have been defaulted. Okay, did you say that he didn't tell you about these debts and you had to find them? No. He didn't tell me except for the student loan. okay why

I don't know so when I stumbled on it I asked questions and I went straight to the government side I did a case look up and I saw a series of about three or so dead

and he claimed that I mean he knew about some of them I don't even know it didn't make any sense no answer but by didn't you tell me he said he was worried he was scared

that I would you know feel bad about him or not trust him But he's willing to start making payments. And so he, together, we're able to put a structure. I'd be praying out of seven ladies' deaths introducing to Dave Ramsey. Well, the big question is not the debts.

The big question is, is this guy going to lie to you every time he's ashamed? That's what I'm worried about. And so I don't know how to make progress with, you know, settling down and do we make finances, do we separate those things. Yeah, I think you guys need some good pre-marriage counseling because trust was broken. and you're uncomfortable with a lack of trust. Yeah, I agree. There's a good sign that when you brought up the student loan that he said,

okay, I'm going to pick it back up. I think he wants to please you, but he's got to get healthy himself. So I think Dave's right, some premarital counseling, and maybe some one-on-one counseling for him. I would press pause. If you were my sister or cousin or family member and you told me this, I'd say, I would press pause, and I'm going to tell you that today. Until you can answer the question and looking in the mirror and say,

I completely trust this man. You really shouldn't put a ring on something that you don't trust. It's a bad idea. Because that parlays into a whole bunch of things then. And so, well, he was ashamed. Okay, I get why he hit it. And it's perfectly logical, but there's one person on the plane, planet that you have to trust, and that's got to be your spouse.

And if you can't, then that's either a sign of the relationship is struggling or broken or, you know, one or both parties, how we're interacting. And sometimes that is a, everyone should spend time on pre-marriage counseling, by the way. The data says that the likelihood of your marriage surviving is greatly increased with in-depth pre-marriage counseling because you're not only learned. how to talk to each other. You learn how to deal with all the rest of the family in that process. And boy, that's a thing. And so on. So, yeah, you guys need to do that anyway. But in this case, you could dig this out. It might not be anything serious. But you can't, you're, you have

doubt. And doubt is not how you walk down the aisle, not on something as major as trust. So, yeah, you got to get where you say, I trust this man. I'm committing. my life to spending my life with this man that that's a lot of trust and so um yeah and and you're single mom with two kids and he's going to be involved with the kids and you got to be able to trust him and he's got to be able to open up to you you got to be a safe place to say i made a mistake a safe place to have a discussion that's uncomfortable and uh maybe you are maybe you aren't i don't know but uh um but i would spend it on that pat's in Iowa. Hi, Pat. What's up?

Hi, thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I like an opinion whether my wife and I can buy a winter home based on a financial situation. A winter home. Where's the winter home? Florida. Oh, a winter home where it's warm in the winter. That's what I was wondering, too. Where are we going? That's pretty cool. I thought we were going ice fishing for a minute. Okay.

All right. And so, you've already got it in Iowa. You're in it. Yeah, you already got that figured out. Okay, cool. So what does the Florida home cost? Well, we're thinking around 300,000. Do you have 300,000? Well, yeah, we do.

We like a little rundown or where I'm at. Sure. What's your net worth? Well, our net worth is about 1.3. And net income, social security, and two pensions is about 85. And our yearly RMD is about 22. And what's your age? We have both 75.

Okay. And what's your current home worth? Current home's worth about 280. And you've got family in that area? Yes, sir. Okay. So you're going to have 300 and 300 in real estate, 600 out of 1.2, and the other 6 or 800 will be in your retirement, I assume.

Yes. I would do that. Yes. Okay. If I'm paying cash, you have no debt, you have no debt, right? I'm sorry, you have no debt, right? No. Okay.

And we rarely, really touch the portfolio except for the R&D. Yeah. So how much time are you already spending in Florida? Four months. What are you doing when you're there? What kind of housing are you just renting a house? Yes, we're renting a house. We've been doing this for about eight years,

and the rent runs about $13,000 for the four months, We figured we could use that to cover them maintenance on something we buy. Yeah, easily. And it goes up in value. Yeah. Actually, that's exactly what I was going to suggest, because some people think they want second homes and they've never done it. And, but you've been doing it. You've had your practice run.

You've tried the shoe while and it fits. So, yeah, that even ensures even more that I'm doing this. Way to go, man. Congratulations. Retires a millionaire. Yeah, so fun. And boy, boy. getting out of Iowa in the wintertime.

Have you ever been to Iowa? I bet you have. I remember a February. It was a speaking gig at one point, and I remember getting out of the car to go into the hotel, and I couldn't breathe for 15 seconds. This blast of cold air hit me, and I'm like, who lives here?

And I went around the town interviewing people. How do you do this? No, it's great. I love that. So that's a classic there. Are you old enough to where, like, when you're growing up, People had the goal of someday retiring in Florida? No question.

Okay. It was like the retirement state. No question. When I was a kid, that was like you had arrived if you got a place in Florida. And that's- Boko del Vista or whatever it was on Seinfeld. Ha, ha, ha. This episode is sponsored by Better Help.

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And if your therapist is not the right fit, you can switch any time for no extra cost. This month, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey. Well, if you feel like me or, you know, feel like sometimes you're starting from scratch with your money. I don't feel that way now, but I remember feeling that way. It's not because you aren't disciplined, and it's not because you're not consistent.

It's because you're emotionally overwhelmed. And emotions are part of personal finance. Managing your money, part of it is managing the emotions. In our new book, What No One Tells You About Money, Jade Washaw gives you a clear picture, a clear guided process that helps you diagnose the emotion and put together a system to actually follow common sense while admitting that there's an emotion involved. Hello. Pre-order right now for 2499. This is an incredible book. Get over $100 in free bonus items, an enhanced audiobook, early access to the e-book, instant access to an exclusive video. your financial checkup with jade an exclusive three-week online book club and live Q&A with jade pre-order at ramsaysolutions.com or click the link in the show notes and we'll get you started you really should try this one andrews with us in chicago hi andrew how are you

good how are you david and ken better than we deserve what's up so um i just got a quick question basically regarding the investments so my wife and i we've been married for going on three years now We've got a five-month-old daughter. We've worked through the first three baby steps, paid off everything except for the house, got our three to six months saved. And we both invest into our 401K through, like, our workplaces. And we're just looking, like, where do we go next to get to that, like, 15% that you guys recommend? Okay.

So you maxed your 401Ks? Yes, sir. I match at 3% at my work, and my wife is same with her employer through her school. Now, max means you put all you can put in, not up to 3%. Sorry, I thought you didn't match. No, I'm sorry, Max. So have you got a 401k that has a Roth option? It does not.

No, that's what I was going to ask about it. Okay, so here's the thing we found out. Match is best. So get all the match you can. You've done that with your 3%. Does your wife have a match? I am 90% sure it's the same at match at 3%. Perfect.

That's easy. That means we still need to put 12% of our household income away somewhere. What is your household income? Roughly, probably right around that 90,000 a year, roughly. Okay, all right, cool. So 15% is, you know, 14,000 and some change, right? And so, and we're already putting 3% away. So let's call that 3,000.

So let's just say we need to put another 10 or 11,000 away. You both can do a Roth IRA and just go to Ramsey Solutions.com and click on SmartVestor. pro. Okay. And I click on SmartVester. You'll be introduced to one of our SmartVester pros or two or three of them, and you can choose which one you want to work with. They've got the heart of a teacher.

They'll sit down, teach you about this, and then show you how to do it, and help you actually create the Roth IRA in some good growth stock mutual funds. And it sounds like you guys need to be putting away somewhere around $10,000. So you could put, you know, five or $6,000 each into a Roth IRA and have a really good plan going with the 3% over at work, and the 3% over at work also needs to be in good growth stock mutual funds. If you take your options that you're allowed to invest in down to the SmartVestor Pro when you sit down with them, they'll help you pick out your 401K options while they're getting your IRA signed up.

And then if you want to open a 529 for your kids college, you can do that there too. Very easy to do, but it's like anything the very first time you do it, There's a little bit of intimidation, but investing is really not that intellectually challenging. There's not that much to it. And so once you get started on it and you start understanding it, you're going to go, oh, that's all there is to it. Oh, that's it. No big deal. And you'll be just fine.

So that's really good questions, sir. Very well done. You're going to be very wealthy. That's cool. You're getting started early. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Very good. Carlos is in Austin, Texas. Hey, Carlos, how are you? Hey, Dave, it's an honor to talk to you. I've been listening to your show. I was 14, and I'm 26 now. Wow. My question is, so my wife and I, we recently lost our baby,

and this kind of got us rethinking, like, you know, what are we doing with our lives? So I just had a question, is it? a good idea to take money out of our investments and pay off our house or should we just leave that money and let it keep compounding and I kind of had hopes of leaving my corporate career and trying to retire and live off of that at 26 yeah um man I'm sorry that you lost your baby Um, yeah. It's heartbreaking, but doing nothing, doing nothing for the rest of your life, because your heart is broken, um, it is a method of hiding from the pain.

And if you don't want to work in corporate America, I don't blame you for that, but we need to be doing something. Well, for sure, yeah. You're too valuable. You need to be adding value to our lives out here. Yeah, I think it's just how do we do the corporate exit, you know, and my idea was like, well, I want to, this year I've been doing stock option trading, and anyways, pretty much quit that. Good. Just with everything going on. Yeah, it's kind of funny.

I asked AI, I said, what would Dave Ramsey say if he knew I was trading options? He said something like, you're playing with fire in a suit, douse, and gasoline, so that kind of woke me up. Hold on, let's get the real man's, let's get the real version. That sounds pretty good. That's what I thought. I'm going with that. I'm curious to know what your current nest egg is if you have one at all. By the way you set this question up, what is your financial picture as far as investments?

Cash, like $420. How much in your retirement accounts? Well, that's accounting my retirement account. Oh, that's your retirement accounts. Well, you've done really well for $26. But, dude, you're not ready to retire. I mean, 4 and 20s, no, it's a return. Yeah, I mean, my whole goal, your dream, I guess, was like, oh, you know, if I keep doing the stockoffs and training, I can, you know, create a new income and leave my corporate job.

Yeah, I think you do need to create a different income, not there, and I think you do need to leave the corporate job after you have created a different income, but I don't think you need to retire. Yeah. You don't have enough money to retire. right that's kind of the problem i'm facing here's a fun exercise i i'm going to give you my book i'm going to give you my book as a gift find the work you're wired to do it has about a 20 minute assessment in it it's going to spit out with the help of AI a really good job description where you can use what you do best to do what you love to produce results you care about and i'm going to tell you it's a great exercise in this time of hurt but it's also going to set you up because you're

because I think you know the answer. I don't have time to pull it out of you, but I think there's a couple ideas that if you could make a smart financial transition from where you are today to where you want to be, I think you would pull the trigger on it, and I think that's the kind of life you're looking for. So hang on, we'll give you that book,

but I want you to really lean into the results and ask yourself, who are the people I really want to help, what problem or desire they have, and begin to lock into what your why is as it relates to work, and I think you'll find it'll help you heal as you see that even though this is a devastating loss, you and your wife aren't on the shelf. You will recover from this pain in time. And I think this pain will inform you, both of you, and how you live your life going

forward and begin to look to the future as you heal. Yeah. I would not spend my energies trying to escape. I would lean into my marriage relationship really hard and because she's hurting as much or more than you are. And I would talk about that. I would talk about, you know, who have we got to see to help us process and work through grief? What is the process there?

Because this is a new experience and it's a difficult experience. And not working is not going to make it all feel better. that's the problem and so I think you're barking up the wrong tree on that part you're barking up the wrong tree on that part Hey, it's Rachel Cruz. The holidays are here, which means family time and giving back and remembering what the season is all about. And let's be real. It also means shopping.

y'all if you're anything like me december gets really busy and really expensive it's harder to stay intentional with your spending and that's why i love shopping on amazon especially this time of year named the lowest priced u.s online retailer for nine years running by profitero a third party analytics and research firm amazon's prices are up to fourteen percent lower across top categories and beat competitors by up to five percent in key gift categories Between amazing deals, stress-free shopping, and fast shipping, Amazon makes gift-giving simpler, the holiday season a little brighter, and helps me keep my budget in check. That allows me to get back to enjoying this season. What more can a busy mom ask for? So for more information about Amazon's low prices and easy, affordable holiday shopping, head to Amazon today. Our question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi defaulted private student loans don't just disappear, but you can make them go away.

Why Refi offers low fixed rate refinancing that gives you hope and a path forward, a clear path. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states. Today's question comes from Bobby and Idaho. My financial advisors tell me I need long-term insurance for estate planning purposes. I'm 50 years old, and he told me that a term policy may not reach out far enough, considering my age, and that a whole-life policy would be permanent. I'm leaving a home to one of my children and would like to leave the other children my life insurance proceeds. which type of insurance would you recommend? Well, I'm going to get out of the way because, you know, Dave's not said a whole lot about whole life, but in the past. And I feel like this is a perfect time to let you maybe hit a teed-up ball down the fairway.

But we would always say term life. Tell them why, Dave. Yeah, so, Bobby, you don't have a financial advisor. That's right. You have an insurance agent. Financial advisors don't tell people to buy a whole life. None of them. everybody in the whole financial world thinks whole life is crap except the people that sell

whole life and their life insurance agents to sell whole life and they're dinosaurs they're dying off because people have learned to add in modern day America so well here's what I would recommend I would recommend whatever money you are going to put with your life insurance agent that instead you actually get with an investment advisor and put that money into like a real investment life insurance is not an investment life insurance does not leave an estate we're not trying to leave your children wealthy by you buying life insurance bad choice much better off take what you were going to pay in premiums and just use it to become wealthy and leave that wealth to your kids if it's not as much as the policy and you die too soon oh well your kids are going to have

to be on their own. Oh, well, weren't most of us? Hello. So you don't leave someone wealthy with life insurance, whether it's term life or whole life, period. You certainly don't do with whole life. And so, no, you know, the only reason you carry life insurance is if you have a family of children at home and a wife or a husband at home that need to replace your income if you die. You are beyond that, and this person is just trying to sell you some crap. And so you need to do what's known as run away from this person. And I don't think you need life insurance at all, term or anything. I wouldn't tell you to do that.

Based on your question, I would go a different direction completely. Bejew is with us. Bejew's in Long Island. Hi, Bejew, what's up? Hi, Dave. Great to talk to you again. You too. How can we help?

When my dad passed away last year, he left my mom $96,000. No problem. she has she had brain surgery so she's not all there so i convinced her to put the money into an auto-renewing CD with my brother and in october oh so we wouldn't touch it and with your brother yeah why because she only has two sons so it it was we thought it'd be like an easy split putting in a CD I didn't think of anything else okay I don't know why your brother's on it that's what I can't figure out. So what happened? How can we help? Yeah, so in October, we had a falling out, and he kind of separated himself from us. And who's us? You and your mom? My mom, yeah.

Oh, okay. And after the falling out, my mom, we were kind of like, you think he took the money, and I was like, Ma, it's in the CD in both our names. He can't. Yes, she can. But it turns out, he took it out in March, so we were like, oh, what do we do? And I'm like, I don't know, this is my fault for than suggesting it. And when I went to the bank, they're like, you can take it to court. But I was just like, you know, I talked to you before and, you know, you're the Christian guy and I was just wondering, you know, what better advice? I don't want to just deplete it and get him worse, getting more angry at us, you know?

I'm sorry, we're worried about pissing off somebody that stole $96,000 from their widowed mother? I couldn't care less if he's pissed off. I want to put him in front of an 18-wheeler. Yeah, that's like one emotion. What a bomb. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, back in March compared to the fight in October, I was like, well, he kind of planned this.

Yeah. And I kind of talk about it and stuff like that, but, you know, we're like, it's gone. Okay, so have you talked to him since you discovered he stole your mother's money? No, he separated himself. I know, but you don't, you know, his phone number? Oh, yeah, yeah. But you didn't call him and say, hey, you stole. mom's money?

I did that. Oh, what did he say? He turned everything back on it, saying, hey, you did this, you can't have everything. It's not you. It's not me. You took mom's money. Yeah. Okay, so you do whatever you want to do.

Wow. I don't know because you guys were so dumb, you put his name on it, if it's really stealing or not. Ethically and morally it is. I'm not sure it is legally, because his name was on the account. account. Did he fraudulently sign her name, or did he just sign his name and took the money out? When I went to the bank, they just told me one person can take everything out. Yeah, okay. So he was just a joint on the account. It wasn't, yeah. So he technically ended

anything legally wrong. It's March. It's been a year. My guess is the bum has spent the money, don't you think? I couldn't even tell you. I mean, like, we think. Well, I mean, what would you think? If you were going to guess. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, based on how we know him, yeah. Yeah, he spent it. So your mom's completely cold broke now? No, she still has income from disability and Social Security and stuff like that.

But, I mean, she doesn't mean money now. Yeah, she has a small checking account like $14,000 in there. But not, you know, and she didn't have any plans for the 96, and it was supposed to be for the both of us anyway. It was just that he took it all versus half and took it now versus after her passing. Is she ill? How old is she? She's 81, and she had a ring tumor glial blastoma. They got the majority of it, but it kind of left her worse for wear.

As sad as this is, Dave, I don't know if it's worth the money and time to try to get nothing I just don't know if there's anything to get from it yeah I mean your only option here is to hire an attorney and pay them to go after him and but you can't attorneys and courts don't make people have money when they don't have money and if he spent it all it's just gone and even if you won a lawsuit you can't get blood out of a rock right yeah and so you're gonna spend you're going to spend $10,000 chasing your mom's money. I don't care whether you or your brother got any money. I couldn't care less.

Y'all are like grown-ups and you should be taking care of yourselves. But I do care that he stole from his widowed mother. It's like a new level of scum, you know? And so, you know, on that basis, you have to decide you have two options. One is you just throw up your hands and say, forget it. It's not worth it. It was a dumb thing to do to put his name on the account, which it was a dumb thing to do. And I'm just going to forget it, and I'm going to walk away because there's nothing

I can do about it anyway. Or you could spend $10,000 and never get a dime or might get a little of it if you sued him. Maybe. Yes. You know, but I, you know, I don't. What would I do as painful as it would be for me? I would just walk away. okay my mom has the same thing because she doesn't want more trouble at this point she just wants

well this guy's not worth i don't care if we have trouble with this guy or not this is guy you want trouble with he needs to go away way away and stay away he doesn't want to see me again if i'm you this is not good not because of what he did to you i couldn't care less what he did to you but you just i mean there's a couple things in the bible you don't steal from okay widows and orphans and when you look that up The things that happen to people who steal from widows and orphans, it's really nasty. This is a Bible thing you don't want to get across, okay? And so I don't want to be this guy.

He's in God's crosshairs. It's bad. Wow. Don't let big grocery bills spoil your holiday plans. Shop at Aldi first. They've got USDA choice meats like beef, pork, and even your turkey, along with fresh produce, holiday desserts, and more. And you'll find all of them at the lowest prices of end. national grocery store. A family of four can save up to $4,000 a year by shopping at Aldi.

You don't need a membership or some loyalty app either. So stop overpaying this holiday season. Go to aldi.us to find a store near you. That's aldi.us. Savings based on regional analysis of Aldi versus select competitors. Prices may vary by location, product availability, and the market. Chip is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Chip, how are you? Fantastic Dave, Ken. I hope you all are doing well today.

Better than we deserve. How can we help? Well, you know, Dave, I've had the blessing of being married 30 years. No, 30 years. I can't even get it right. Retired 30 years, 20-some-odd years, but because my wife introduced me to you many, many years ago. I thought she was having an affair, but it was just Dave Ramsey. She was listening to us listening to it every day. Who is this Dave guy? I got me some round glasses and a goatee. No, I'm just kidding. It's going to be that way. But we've also been teaching Financial Peace University for many years and making a difference in people's lives, and we appreciate it. And graduated from F. DMT this year. Wow. A lot of thank you is for these things, but really my call is on the retirement.

So I've been with a big phone company for 30 years, and as, you know, the big AI and everybody else kind of pushes us out the door, it was kind of time to go. But I've started a financial coaching business on the side, so I'm still going to be doing some work. Good for you. Just helping people and trying to make a blessing and a difference in their lives. Got an NFL player that was broke to zero and trying to get them out of debt. That's terrible.

But it's what we can do. But the question is, is when it comes to the retirement planning of funds, and I've talked to some of your smart minister pros, you know, I feel like I'm in the toothpaste style, Dave, because, you know, people want me to do index funds and ETS and mutuals and annuities and bonds and oh my. And I feel like a deer in the middle of hunting season. Who are the people? Well, the different ones are different brokers. So you have your major brokers that I'm talking to. They're fiduciaries. But I'm also. talking to financial planners through my shirts that are quote unquote qualified certified they may not be vester pros and none of your pros have sent me in any weird direction they've given some good advice but like I said it's just a lot of confusion with the ETS the you know mutuals the bonds and you know the biggest

one was you know one of my financial planners wanted me to put a million and a half in an annuity and I'm thinking no why and then another one wants me to do at least There's an old 60-40 rule where he puts about 40% of my money into bonds, which I'm like, yeah, why? And my dad did that. How old are you? I'll be 60 in April. Okay. And what size is this nest egg?

We've got 2.2. Okay. Good for you. Good for you. Good for my wife. She's the one that kick my rear. Well, you know, let's just quiet all the noise. I don't do any of the things you're talking about.

Yeah, I know. I'm 65. We don't teach it either. I'm 65, so why would you? Yeah, I'm in agreement. Okay. Well, that pretty much shuts up everything. This is what we teach. I'm going to have your four buckets.

My personal, you know, mutual fund portfolio with my SmartVestor Pro is one-fourth in aggressive, one-fourth in international, one-fourth in growth, and one-fourth in income, all with long-track records. I hardly ever change funds. I buy funds that it perform as well are better than the funds in their same categories, and they almost always do, and I just don't worry about it, and they just grow. I mean, the S&P was up 17% this year so far, and my funds are up more than that. It's been a crazy couple of years.

Yeah, so, I mean, why do I need to do anything else? Mine's all been converted to Roth over the years, so it's all growing tax-free. It'll all be left tax-free in the inheritance. There's no RMDs on Roth. So I'm completely free of tax and free of tax constraints. And I don't touch any of it. I don't need any of it. It's all just growing more and more and more and more.

And it's very simple. You do not need bonds. You do not. See, the bond thing is based on a theory called asset allocation. And the theory of asset allocation is that as you get older, you should take less risk. And the problem is that the financial planning community, some of them, have over-indexed on that theory to where they take a 60-year-old and start putting them in bonds. Now, if you don't smoke, you're not obese, and you're fairly healthy at 60, the data tells us you're going to live to 90 on average. so that means these morons are putting you in bonds for 30 freaking years that's stupid

agreed okay then why do we why are we even entertaining this as I said I'm looking at the toothpaste aisle and I should know better yeah I mean your teeth are clean and your breath smells good and just keep using the one you've been using there you go just you know I mean it's that simple it's um yeah there There's enough opinions out there in the financial world. They're like armpits. Everybody's got one. It usually stinks.

So, you know, it's like, well, I think this is, you know, this is actually an interesting, because this is a great guy. But here's a guy who has taken our financial training, has lived out the principles, he gives his wife a lot of credit, and yet he was allowing all of the flashy sales pitches, what he kept calling the toothpaste aisle, to create some doubt. And I think that I appreciate him calling you. I think this is important that everybody rewind and listen to what Dave said because these are facts and how the stock market has performed over decades. And so if you can return to the fundamental facts of the investment strategy that Dave teaches and that we teach here, it's a nice reminder.

So write it down and save it and listen to it when people come at you with all these pitches. And I think it's important, too, to say that not only is this what we teach, we've taught it for 30 years, but also it's what we do. Correct. I don't have like a Dave plan and then a plan for the little people, you know. There was a financial person that was big in the news for years ago and had their portfolio on Money Magazine. And they're like, well, that's not what you tell people to do. And the person said, well, you know, I'm in a different situation. No, I'm not in a different situation.

I'm the same situation all y'all around. You eat what you cook. That's it. All the time. I kill it. I drag it home. I eat it. It's that simple.

And then I tell you all exactly where the deer are. Let's go get one. You know, I mean, come on. This is not, this is where the ducks are. Go get you a duck. I mean, what is it you want? I mean, so it's not a, this is not a thing. By the way, it's also.

There's not, you know, there's no secrets of the rich. No. And I want to point out, it's not a suggestion, Dave, that's kind of worked out for you. It's worked out for everybody who's ever adopted that plan. It is a solid strategy, those four types of funds. Never had anybody call me and said it did this for 25 years and I hate you. Right. Never had that hate mail. Correct. Most of my hate mail is on people who think something's going to turn out some way and they don't like the suggestion. And they've never done it. That, you know, and that's where the hate, that's where the trollers come from, the

the trolls and so i get to be billy goat gruff you know and so that that's it but the um you know if you actually do the crap we teach on this show you actually are going to be where chip is two point two million dollars at you know at 60 years old yeah this is this is it is you know you're not going to have 40 million in bitcoin but you're also not going to be bankrupt so you get to choose which one what what game do you want to play here boys and girls but we eat what we cook i mean we cook what we cook we are not in here telling you to do something and then we don't go do it because we've got more money or whatever i didn't hit a certain point and quit doing the stuff i hit a certain point and did more of the stuff you know it's like well this is fun let's do it

again i mean it's called touchdown that's how you score touchdown i want to score another one let's do this again let's do this again let's do this again over and over and over and over and over and over again. Rinse and repeat. My pastor was making fun of me. He said, Dave, you say the same thing over and over. And I said, so do you. Fair point. You know what, Dave, I think it would be awesome. Hit the four funds, hit our core financial strategy for people so they don't have to rewind. This is how much we're going to serve people. A fourth in growth, a fourth in growth in income, a fourth in international, and a fourth in aggressive growth, all with the longest possible track record, preferably 10 years or more. If you're buying an independent mutual fund for an IRA

from your SmartVestor Pro, like a Roth IRA, you definitely can choose funds that are longer than 10 year track record. Inside your 401k, they may or may not. But get good long track records and then, you know, look at them once a year and go, wow, look at this. This is what's happening. And some years they go up, some years they go down, but most years they go up and some years they go way up. And like this year. You know, I'm going to be. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman-Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author,

host of Front Row Seat, a long-form interview program on Ramsey Networks, absolutely incredible. He's my co-host. Alex is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Alex, what's up? Hey, Mr. Dave. How you guys doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Awesome, man. It is truly an honor to speak to you guys. I just want to say that I hear you every morning to and from work, and I just got to say, I think you have changed my life, and I haven't even did my debt-free screen yet. But I have a quick question. I need some advice. I need to know what to do with a promise that I did my 14-year-old two years ago.

She was 12 at the time, and I told her that I would do her sweet 15. And her sweet 15 is five months away. It's right around the corner. I was kind of hoping she would kind of forget about it, but that didn't happen. Okay, I am 36. I'm married four kids between me and my wife. We make $175,000 a year. We have a paid-for rental home that brings in about $15,000 extra, so that's $190 a year.

The only debt we have is our mortgage. We owe $230,000. I have $25,000 in my Lafair-Rae. My wife has about 60. I got to say that I did some not so bright things three, four years ago before you came into my life. And I think we're in the right track now, but this party is going to cost us around 25,000. And I need to know. $25,000?

Yes. For what? For a 15-year-old? It's a sweet 15. It's something big that we do in our culture, how we were raised. And at the time when I promised it... I'm sorry, I'm so confused. What culture are we talking about?

I'm Latino. I'm a Hispanic. Well, let me go deeper real quick. Go back when you were a kid. So, I mean, 25, 30 years ago, what did the part, what did this traditional 15-year-old party consist of? Yeah, like when you were a kid. Describe the part of...

Because your mom and daddy didn't spend $25,000 on your sister. No They spent closer to like 9,000 But that was It consists of a venue A band Decorations The dress alone was like $3,000

Which my brother Payed for it already Your brother paid for your daughter's dress Yes She's uh my brother's my daughter's godfather So it's kind of falls on him And he did the purchase of the dress already.

You didn't answer my question, though. What did it cost when you were a kid? Maybe $7,000 to $9,000. How old are you? You said you're 36. Yes, sir. So 20 years ago, you're saying your parents spent $9,000. Yes.

And they obviously had some money. No. I can say that, we don't have a Dave Ramsey in Spanish for us guys or for the guys who don't speak English or don't understand, you know. Well, how do they pay for it? How do they pay for it? They just, they just work. They just work nonstop. That's, that's all. I remember my dad just working nonstop, and that's how they did it. Okay. So let me, let me move that over into the land of Gringo for a minute to try to relate, right? Um, so it's, you know, it's normal or traditional in the Anglo community for me to pay for my daughter's wedding.

Mm-hmm. Okay. What is not dictated by the tradition is what we spend. Correct. It would be commensurate with common sense and with our income. Okay. Okay. So, you know, you've got to decide in context of your world what is reasonable. The reason you're calling me is it feels unreasonable to you.

It does. The amount. Not the tradition. The tradition is very normalized for you. You've made that clear. I got it. I got it. I learned something today that I didn't know, okay?

It's very normalized for you. And that's fine. I'm getting the tradition of me paying for my daughter's wedding is very normalized for me. I didn't think anything about it. But also didn't spend money. I didn't have. And I didn't, and we didn't go spend money that was crazy as a ratio just because I was guilted into it.

And this feels very much like the language you're using around describing this, you sound like a man who is trapped. I honestly feel like that. Cornered. That's exactly how I feel. And I have trouble. as a dad being cornered by my teenager. It's quite the other way around.

Yes. I do the cornering. They don't. Yes. So. It makes it, it makes it hard on, on me to make that call because,

uh, she is close to perfect. Um, she helps with straight-aid kid. That does not earn you the right to visit the land of stupid. Yes. That's not what we're doing. So I think you sit down and you say, honey, I love you.

I'm proud of you and who you are. As per the tradition two years ago, I promised that we were going to do this. Your uncle has bought the dress. We are going to have a very nice party. And here is the budget that I am setting for the party. You don't get to set it. You're 15. Yes.

You don't get a vote. You just get to come. That's how it works. works, okay? And so when Rachel came in and said, you know, Winston came in and asked for my permission to marry Rachel, we sat down, he said, okay, here's what we're going to put towards the wedding. We didn't say, how much do you guys want? And they were like grown-ups. They were adults coming out of college. They weren't 15-year-olds. So, you know, honey, I'm going to help you with your car. I'm going to decide how much that is. You don't tell me with my money what I'm going to

do. And so I don't know what's reasonable here. Maybe 25's reasonable. But I'm not going to be held hostage by outside forces in my own freaking house, or by a 15-year-old, or even by a tradition. Now, I may want to honor the tradition because it's part of who I am and part of my cultural history and makeup. I don't have any problem with that at all. I wanted to honor paying for the wedding. You know? It might be time to learn what a potluck is. Have the family bring a dish to pass. I mean, what does the kid care about? I'm okay. I'm okay if you cut it in half. I'm okay if you said, or if you said 15. I'm just not okay that someone else is setting the number. Yeah. He just rent, he's like somebody point a gun at him or something. Said you're doing this. No. No. So I'm going to

flip the power structure here, a little Alex. That's, that's where you need to go. And then you can honor your wonderful daughter, in context with the culture. When you're tired of feeling stuck with money, there's just one solution. To get different results, you have to do something different. No one accidentally wins with money. You have to have a game plan, and that begins with our get started assessment. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash start, answer some questions. and we'll show you what steps to take next.

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We're going to show you hand-to-hand how to work the Ramsey plan. Exactly. Just answer a few questions and you'll find thousands of dollars on average in just the first 15 minutes. That's extra margin to move your plan forward. And every dollar still has the same great budgeting features to help you tell your money what to do. Hey, don't go another year feeling broken stressed. Start every dollar for free in the app store or on Google Play. Emily is with us in New York.

Hi, Emily. How are you? Hi, good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question is about if my husband and I are financially prepared to start a family or if we should wait a little bit longer to be responsible.

You're ready. Maybe I see would you like the background, or is the bad of blanket answer? I'll take the background as a courtesy, but here's the thing. We don't tell people to not have babies due to debt. We tell them to not have huge numbers of babies, but, you know, your first baby, start a family is a wonderful thing. It's the best thing you'll ever do while you're alive, and we don't tell people to not do that because of a certain dollar figure around it. But let's hear it, and I can give you some

reassurance. How much debt do you guys have? Okay, so we actually just have 30K of student loans that are completely interest-free between the two of us. Okay, cool. And what do you go, is that your only debt? That's our only debt. And what is your household income? So our, that's the issue, is that, So our household income is $120,000 of a base salary with $50,000 in equity. And that's because my husband works. Equity means, so it's basically just registered stock units paid out quarterly because my husband works for a large company, and that's part of their compensation package. So he can cash those out how often?

He can cash them out whenever after they vest. Like there's a vesting period. How long do they take for them to vest? That's what I'm asking. This year, it will invest at the end of the year, and then after that it's quarterly. Oh, wow. Okay. So he makes $170,000 a year, including his stock bonuses.

Yes, but not this. He won't make that this year because we just started with that company. We're also both 24. So there's a few considerations. We just recently got married, but we're living in New York City, and our, rent is crazy. We don't have a car where our budget, despite the salary, is pretty tight. We don't have a lot of free cash every month. And we have invested. That's the problem is that we actually had to move to the states for this job for my husband. So I had saved, him and I together had

saved about 150K before we moved here. And then I had to give up my job thinking I'd be able to get another job. But the immigration restrictions on what jobs I'm allowed to work have been so tight that it's been a few months and I have nothing. So before we moved here, in our home country, I was making about 80K, and now I'm making nothing. And I feel like I'm just kind of sitting around at home, and I've always wanted to be a mom, and I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And we're like, do we just start a few years earlier than we thought we would? Or should I try to find a job? He's not on a green card. What's he on HB1? No, he's on a P-N visa, which is because we're from Canada. Okay. Both of you are from Canada, so you're on a green card?

Um, no. So we'll work towards the green card process eventually if we want to stay in the U.S. long term. But right now, he's just on TN and I'm on a dependent spousal visa. Okay. So what is the plan? Are you planning to stay or not? Um, we'll see what his business requires. Um, as it's more of a following a passion for work thing that is the immigrating somewhere specific. So if the company requires him here, we'll stay here. If they require him in Canada, we'll go to Canada. Um, what can you? you do right now? What kind of work can you do? What kind of work can you do that is immigration allowed? Let me rephrase. You told us there were a ton of restriction, so I'm wondering what kind of work can you do that's not restricted. Yeah, so to explain, so basically you can get a visa if your work aligned with exactly what you did your undergraduate degree in. And I did my undergraduate degree in a science. And then I had been working in consulting and project management and a business role before we moved here. And none of those qualify for a visa in the United States. This has to be a very specific technical job like my husband's an engineer. But project

management does not qualify. But I don't have any technical science experience despite my degree. So I'm having a really hard time finding a job that I'm legally allowed to work because I never planned to move to the states. No, I get it. Now, does he have, in this situation, does he have health insurance? Yeah, he has really good health insurance. Okay. All right.

And it will probably transfer where you to go back to Canada and have great health insurance there, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we'd be fine with all the health care stuff. It's more just, I don't, I hear all the time, oh, baby's process. You don't need anything to have a baby.

Three years from today, you will not be in this situation. correct once if we get a green card something's going to happen you're either going to get a green card or you're going to go back to Canada right yeah yeah so so this is a temporary this income is a temporary thing based on all the story that you've told us and if I woke up in your shoes and you guys both want a child and God wants you to have a child I would go have a child that's what I would do and there's you know but do I want to be irresponsible and say no neither one of us are working. No, I don't want to do that. Or do I want to be irresponsible and have, you know, 10 kids and we make $30,000 a year and can't figure out a way to feed them? That's irresponsible to. I wouldn't want to do that. But to have a child when you're making $120,000 and you've got an uncertain immigration process looking in front of you in the next five years, I would definitely live my life. I wouldn't put my life on hold for his company, which is in a sense what we're doing. And so, no, I wouldn't.

do that. And I think you can afford it. I think you can make it. And, you know, you've got labor and delivery covered. And, you know, babies are not as expensive as everybody acts like. It's not the end of the world. And I think you guys can pull this off. You do whatever you want to do, but that's what we would do at our house. I just am so frustrating for her. I just bang my head against the wall metaphorically as I'm listening to this. You know, here's a law-abiding Canadian. She wants to work, and the goofball rules that the government comes up with sometimes makes me want to just scream. Yeah. You know, because this is an opportunity to work.

And if I understood her correctly, Dave, she can't do anything. Like, she can't even go to Walmart and work. Right. Right. She unless it's something to do with her degree field. Right. Her degree field. That's what she said.

I don't, I'm not knowledgeable about anything. I am not either, but wow. But it's, it is frustrating. But either way, bottom line, she ends up at home, and, I mean, makes her say I want to be a mom. Yeah. So that may be a blessing. I would tell them, get into every dollar, learn how to budget because I know that my parents, they scrapped by. I don't know what your parents situation was, but they hardly had any money when I was born and they figured it out. And in some ways, it's a, you know, that's a great way to get really responsible.

Yeah. Yeah. It just, it makes you pay attention and every dollar is a good way to pay attention. You're exactly right. You're going to make every dollar behave, you know, and you need to anyway, but especially wakes up when you've got another human you're supposed to be responsible for. And that's a, that extra responsibility gives us that adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. So we're going to do this. And, you know, I think she's being very responsible asking the question. I kind of poke fun and said, yes, just go out baby. But, you know, but I think it's a responsible question, which means they're going to be okay. Yeah. Well, you know, I loved is she told us how much money they saved before coming to the state.

this is a couple that has learned how to be disciplines a lot of money they saved 150,000 yeah yeah and he's making 170 they can make it on that this stuff best you can cash out don't hold that stock and stack it up and starve to death you know cash that stock in take care of that baby you'll you'll be okay just go on everything's going to be all right I'm going to be able to be. It's one of the best times of the year, but it's also the time of year when people let their money get totally out of control. Everywhere you look, it's just buy, by, buy. So you start swiping the credit card, and suddenly it's January, and you've got a mess on your hands.

Don't let that happen. Tell your money where to go instead of wondering where it went. With our budgeting app, every dollar. not only helps you stay on budget and in control of your spending this holiday season, it also helps you find extra margin in your budget, thousands of dollars of it, and every day will coach you to build better money habits and attack your goals faster than ever. So while most people will be starting in January with the taste of regret in their mouth, you'll already be winning.

Start every dollar for free by downloading the app today. In the lobby of Ramsey's Solutions on the debt-free stage, Britain and Paul are with us. Merry Christmas, guys. Merry Christmas. Good to have you guys. Where do you all live? So we're a small town outside of Savannah, Richmond Hill, Georgia. Oh, yeah.

Very nice. Beautiful area. Cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. Thanks for having. And all the way here to do a debt-free scream. How much you paid off? You want to do it?

$127,000. I want to get it down to the penny. $197. $8. I love it. How long did it take to pay that off? 27 months. Wow.

And your range of income during that two and a half years? We started around $120,000. and we're knocking on the door to 12. Wow, that's a big jump in that period of time. What do y'all do for a living? I'm a commercial insurance underwriter. And I just sell fertilizer to golf courses and landscape companies. Oh, good time to be doing that.

Well done. I just, yeah. Good for you. So what kind of debt was the $127,000? Dave, we had the millennial package. We had from car loans to debt consolidation loans. Peelock. Yeah, that was a good one. Credit cards. Credit cards. What else are we have in there? Personal, like, family loan. Student loan? Oh, yeah. Both of us. And the IRS.

Oh, even the IRS. We checked all the boxes. We put a cherry on top. All right. There we go. So, yeah, we had them all. That's a full package. Absolutely. The deluxe package. All right. So what happened two and a half years ago? Because how long have you all been married? 11 years. 11 years. All right. And what happened two and a half years ago that gave this little wake-up call here and you say, okay, things are about to change? Well, for me, he was just turning 40. I was about to turn 40. It was around tax season. And I looked at how much we made. And I was like, this is crazy. Why do we have no money? And then he kind of had the same wake-up call around the same time whenever we got the HELOC. And so I was just in goodwill one day and I saw the total money makeover. And I was like, hmm, I think I'm just going to get this. You bought the total money makeover in Goodwood.

That is awesome. That's the best part of the story. I love it. He read it in about two days. And then he told me I had to read it. So I read it in about two days. And it just kicked off everything. We were done, Dave.

Our septic system went out. And we had to take a HELOC out to fix that. So that was it for me. And she was, we were there at the same time. We've both been there a couple, you know, apart at different times. We hit that moment together and, you know, through God, found you guys. And you just flipped the switch and went hard. Hard.

Absolutely. From day one. Both of you together. There was no one catching up, no one to let no one. Not at all. Just the timing was perfect for both of you. Sure was. Wow.

That's unusual, but it's very cool. Yeah. It took a few tries and this one, this one is for help. Was there a moment in this process where you guys began to very much experience the momentum? You know, we talk about the debt snowball, and I'm just curious as a couple who did this, do you remember when you felt that momentum, like, okay, this is starting to pay off. We can see this. You're going to love this one.

So we had a whole life policy that I was convinced to buy in my 20s. We cash that bad boy out, paid off the IRS, and then a couple of the small credit cards. And we saw that number in the margin, you know, the margin started to show up. and so that got the ball rolling the snowball I guess we could say yeah so it just kind of went from there but you know just accepting that mistake um I didn't even figure out how much I had spent on that policy leading into this moment I just said you know what this is a blessing that that money's there and it got us started and from there it's it's been a long 27 months but it's gone pretty fast to it at the same time if that makes sense what was the hardest thing y'all did during that 27 months

you got like teenage daughters right i mean we do we might need to get them on stage to that question yeah our 17 year old um day was kind of a cuss word in our household for a little bit yeah i've heard you say that before and it was kind of true keep dad out of goodwell buying books right there was no more eating out um so that was that was probably the hardest was getting the kids on board um or just getting them used to it but now like our nine year old will say for in the store she'll say hey is this in the budget mom. So it's, she's there now. So, and our 17-year-old is determined now to go to college without student loans. So we got there. All right. Definitely. That's a breakthrough. Well done. Okay. So you did change your family tree. We did. Absolutely. They're watching and they're participating

sometimes grudgingly, but they got it. It did click. We stopped for Chick-fil-A twice on the way up here and didn't have to sweat about it. So that's a good change. Everybody got a combo? Absolutely. Even an ice cream. You know. Oh, you guys really really? Oh, you guys really? are debt free if you went for the ice cream. How did it affect your marriage? The easiest way to say it was such a stressor for both of us. You know, and the money, money lead, money stress led to just little arguments that we don't have to have anymore. They're still stressed and there's still life, but taking that money stress out of the equation, it's helped us. It's also helped us see that, you know, we can accomplish, if we put it together, we can accomplish, you know, whatever we

want to do. It definitely brought us closer. For sure. Yeah. Definitely. It makes you believe that in that unity and the power of it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Very, very cool. Well, congratulations you guys. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, y'all are amazing. This is a power deal. I'm so proud of you. We're excited to be here for sure. Who was, who was cheering you on in this process? We had a pretty good group of cheerleaders. Actually, through this process. We took FPU at our church. Oh, God. And then since then, it's Life Ridge Church and Savannah, Georgia. Yeah, okay.

Since then, we've taught one college FPU and two adult FPU classes. Wow, thank you. That help us stay accountable through the process. Teaching it, you have to do it. Absolutely. Kind of hypocritical if you don't. Exactly. They were cheerleaders, our parents.

Our parents, our kids were. They were. Part of the time, yeah. Absolutely. Good. All right. Well, very cool. Very cool.

All right. So someone's listening, and they just had to get a helock to cover an emergency see at the house, and they're pissed off, and they're wondering if they can really do it. Tell them, what is the main thing that you learned in this process that you have to do if you want to get out of debt? You know, just stop doing what you've been doing and start today. Budget. You can talk about it.

Yeah, and budget, absolutely. Actually, budget. Don't just talk about a budget. Actually do the budget. But yeah, just start. I mean, really, that's the, you know, we talked about it and talked about it, and we decided it was just time to start. We were done. Sick and tired of you and sick and tired.

Yep. Amen. Absolutely. So that's it. Just go. Just you can do it. It doesn't matter where you're at, just start. All right.

Very proud of you guys. Bring your daughters up and let's introduce them, get their names and ages and let them, since I had to participate in all the pain, they can participate in the debt-free screen. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So this is Addison. 15. We just had birthday, so forgive me if I get these wrong.

This is Carson. She is nine, and this is Maddie. She is 17. All right. Very cool. That's a beautiful family. Congratulations, you guys. Thank you.

I'm proud of you. Very well done. Paul and Britain, Maddie, Addison, and Carson, Savannah, Georgia, $12,000 paid off in 27 months. Making $120 to $2.12, and it all begins with the total money makeover from Goodwill. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free!

Yeah! Road trip to Nashville! Woo-hoo! Very exciting. You know, it's hard to get three teenagers, well, two teenagers and a free teen to get excited about doing anything with their parents. Those girls bought in. That's good. You could tell.

I mean, they were really, that wasn't like, oh, I've got to have to do this. There's no eye roll. They got on the program. And I love that. Very, very cool. Well, what happens is a family tree has really changed. You could change it with the actual math because you have a, huge amount of money later, and they will have a huge amount of money later. But also, it doesn't

change unless the people in the family tree are also transformed. So it all ends here. We're not doing this in this branch of the tree ever again, ever, ever, ever, never. It ends. When you do that, it changes. It's a big deal, you guys. It's a big deal. Thank you. Do you want to keep more money in your pocket and not Uncle Sam's? Then listen up. There are tax deductions and credits you could maximize before the end of the year by connecting with an experienced tax professional like a Ramsey trusted tax pro.

They know the tax code inside and out, so you don't know. have to, and they can help you file when tax season rolls around. Get a trusted tax pro by going to ramsysolutions.com slash tax pro. Our scripture of the day, John 15, 1 and 2, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts. off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. Tom Brady said, to be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't. Consistent, determined, and willing to work for it. Amen. Seventh round draft pick, just a reminder.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, definitely one of the goats, for sure. All right. And, and And Sandra is in Houston. Hey, Sandra, what's up? Hey, my name is Franzy. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm just excited to actually talk to you.

I've been watching for so long. I have a problem. I'm a widow. My husband passed away a year and a house ago. And he was my main source of income in our household. And I was working at a teacher assistant making like $24,000 a year, and he was making like 80,000, and, you know, we were okay, but I was in debt. And I always wanted to get one of these friends that you have, but he was never on the same page with me.

So I couldn't do it alone, and it's true is to say you have to be on board both of you all. So we never really did any kind of budgeting. I handled all the bills, but never had helped mentally, you know, from him just painless here. And so he passed away suddenly within three months, he had colon cancer, and, uh, and, uh, and, Now he's gone and I'm left with all this. And now before he passed away, he did tell me, he apologized. He said, I know you were right. You know if you ever are in a difficult situation, I want you to sell the house.

But I know nothing about that. We have a home. We've had it for 21 years. It's value that $420,000 and my balance is $113,000. People tell me to go get a heat lock, but I just think that will make me in a bigger hole. my question to you is if you think it's wise to sell my house and use equity to because there's like I don't have a lot of credit card that's what I do have like my lot next to his lot where she was paid out because we had life insurance to his job um but he had life insurance for his job how much

life insurance did you get it was 50,000 and you used that to pay off some debts this is lot 30,000 and yes we fell behind and not house because the three months I was in a hospital I didn't work and there was no money coming in so I had to pay like almost 7,000 or mortgage yeah to get caught back up that was smart yeah but then the homeowners association I was behind on that I'm still behind us speak and I felt behind again in my house I have a three adult kids but one does not disney my oldest two daughters that live with me but they were a mess out there with their father passed away once a full-time

student about to graduate the other one I graduated. She just started a job. So what do you make now, Sandra? I still like $24,000. It's not a lot. What do you do? I'm a teacher assistant. How old? How old are you? I'm 60, 60 years old. Okay. And how much other debt other than the house do you have? Credit card is like $10,000. A car we just purchased that I was, my other car was the transition. How much do you owe on the car? We got it 11,000, now it's 16,000. How, I don't know, the interest, and only made one payment on it. And I just found out that when I made one payment for 120, 420, only $30 both sold to the principal because of very high interest. That's not the point.

Okay. So you owe 10 and you owe 16, and what else do you owe? Credit cards. Oh, I said that. Um, my lot is going to cost me like $20,000. Your lot? mark my lot next to his yes you own a lot next door to the house no no a lot I'm sorry the cemetery lot oh yeah we want to double because I want to be very next to him and it's not it's going to cost it's going to cost how much 28,000 dollars yes yes it's very expensive yeah that's a little ridiculous it's a very expensive to die know. I mean, and I just, you know, I want to sell my house, but I've never done that before.

I don't know how it works. I have no clue. My older daughter said, Mom, I'm on board with and she just got her job. She said, I would do where you want. Let's sell the house and just start over. So you can start over, but you still have a $24,000 income. That's still going to be troublesome. So regardless of what we do, you need to work, we've got to do something to work on getting your income up. I'm also an eBay reseller making like $2,500 a month. That's another $30,000. So that means you have a $55,000 income.

Yeah, and then it's Social Security, what do you call it, Spousal? I get like $2,300 a month. Okay, that's another $30,000. That's a little different than $24. So I'm not sure. Why can't you pay these bills if you got that much money coming in? Because I'm behind on my house. The house payment is $1,500, and it's an adjustable rate mortgage.

How far behind are you? Two months. Okay, because you have 24 plus 60 coming in. You have $84,000 coming in a year. You should be able to pay a $1,500 house payment. Yeah. Where has the money been going? Well, I don't know.

This crazy car I bought is $420 a month, $125. So you paid the car instead of the house? No, no, no, I just got the car. I just got it because I had another one that had paid cash for, but it was breaking apart. And I had to get one in the drive time just trick me into getting this crazy car. You know, 2014 and Chevy. And, you know, $420 in my son of good, but I just found out that it's just all inches. You know, and I wish I could pay it off sooner, but, and I don't even know how my income, every time we would file for an contract, we'd always get a refund.

So this time, I want to get, whatever I get, I want to pay it towards, I guess, a house, right? Because I'm, I've been here for 21 years, and it's emotionally hard to give it up. I had a close friend of ours he can't see anything. As it is right now, there's nothing, it'll repair anything. We can, they'll give you like 320,000 cash. Mm-hmm. But I don't want to go and put it. No, that's not necessary.

You know, if you're going to do it, get a real estate agent, it ran, Ramsey Solutions. It's Ramsey Trusted. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and put the house on the market for full retail. But I don't think you need to sell the house. I think you need to get in control. You may need to sell the car or even throw the keys back at them and let them take it back. But the house is not the problem. You're out of control because you got $84,000 coming in between the disability, the 24, or his social, the 24 and your eBay business. And And so, honey, you have enough to pay these bills. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put you on hold,

and we're going to put you with a Ramsey coach and have them come sit down with you and see if we can't get you straightened out. Because one of the things our book tells us is to take care of widows. So we're going to go by the book, okay? And you hang on, Christian will pick up, and we'll get you set up with that. Because I don't think the math, I mean, all I had was 24. It's one thing, but 24 is not all I've got here. So there's a lot more.

and I think it's just you're discombobulated after the loss of your husband, and it's hard to get organized and get focused. But I think if we didn't do anything but catch this house up, you'd catch it up pretty quick. And if we didn't do anything, I mean, you stop the credit cards, stop the car, and just let's get the house, let's save the house. And then let's keep the house current and keep lights on and food, and then we'll worry about what we're going to drive, and later on we'll worry about the credit cards.

But let's get this stuff in the right order. you're paying the wrong things if you have to choose. So pay the house and lights and water and food, and then we'll figure out the rest of it. But I think you've got enough to pay it all. Yeah. You're just going to have to get on a real tight budget and learn how to run every dollar

and learn how to make this money behave. But I think she can do it, Ken. Yeah, and I think the encouragement is our coach is going to help you. Let's get her into every dollar. Let's get her in there for a year because this is going to walk with you daily. It's like being on the air with, Dave and one of the personalities, you have the means to do it. And I think that's what we want

you to hear. You got to come up with, okay, what are my next steps? You can do this. And I agree, I would not sell the house. I think that's an unnecessary move. Yeah. And you got $112,000 mortgage. That's a small. That's a really, you have a very reasonable thing to go into old age with here and try to get that cleared up. Yeah. And the house that you got stung on the car. And whoever's suggesting you buy the, you sell your $420,000 house for $300. Well, that's not somebody's your friend. We don't do that. So that puts us our 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. Thank you.