The Ramsey Show - Learn When To Move From Intensity To Intentionality

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, Ken Coleman-Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author,

host of the very popular Ramsey Network program called Front Row Seat. He's my co-host today. The phone number here is AAA-8-2-5. 5-2-25. Rachel is in Nashville. Hi, Rachel. How are you? I'm okay.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I was calling because I recently found out that my husband has been hiding some credit card debt that I didn't know about. How much? How much? 30,000 that I am aware of. 30,000 that you're aware of.

Yes. Okay. So you don't think he told you everything? No, I do not. He recent, like, when I confronted him about it, he wouldn't answer me. How did you find it? Got into my bank account app to upload a check and saw a notification that my credit score had dropped significantly. And I looked at it and then saw. that there was $30,000 of credit card that attached to it.

To your credit score? Yes. How did you get a credit card that you didn't know about? He signed your name fraudulently? No, I, well, I'm an authorized user on it. Mm-hmm. Authorized users don't have their credit damaged. Well, apparently.

Well, it's tied to my credit score currently. All right, so he's run up. So you guys have got your money separate, and why didn't he tell you about it? I don't know if he was embarrassed or just hiding or just counting on the fact that I wouldn't find out about it. I'm not sure. Well, I mean, why does he care if you find out about it? It's his business, right? You all have separate stuff.

I don't know. He told me that it shouldn't matter, or I shouldn't care if my credit score is okay or not. No, that's not the point. The point is why is he hiding debt? I don't know the answer. I mean, he's trying, so now he's trying to do a cash-out mortgage refinance to roll the credit card debt into our mortgage. Okay. Well, there's a lot going on in this conversation, okay? We can separate it out into three or four pieces. Number one, we'll go with the last thing first. do not refinance credit card debt into your mortgage ever unless it's to avoid a bankruptcy and you're not bankrupt you're just out of control have a horrible system and a questionable marriage

but a refinance does not help any of that it treats the symptom the debt is the symptom not the problem and i'm asking questions that you don't know the answer to that you need to be asking to trying to find out what the actual problem is why did he run up this debt what's he buying with it and, you know, and the answer to the overall situation is, the most concerning of all is your marriage. He's lying to you and flippant about it and thinks it's perfectly okay that he's actually done harm to your score. I mean, does this not sound weird?

This whole thing sounds weird. Yeah, it is. And I don't know how to proceed because he's... It's a marriage. issue is how you perceive. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, we've been, we've been going through counseling and he doesn't want to do anything about it.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, Dr. John Deloney says, behavior is a language. Yeah. And when someone says, I don't want to work on our marriage, they're saying, I don't want to be with you. Yeah. I'm sorry. So I would get with the counselor this week and say, we need to be real,

clear with this guy. I'm not signing a mortgage and we're going to heal our marriage. And as we feel it starting to heal and trust starts to rebuild, we're going to combine our finances so that this never happens again. I have full access to everything. He has full access to everything. We both have a vote. But right now, he's acting like his 14-year-old girlfriend is inconveniencing him. And you're not that. You're his wife. Yeah. So the parts of you that said this all sounds crazy are absolutely correct. This all sounds crazy.

See, I really want to know where the money went. I want to know that, too, but I can't find anything. I mean, from what I can look at, I can't see anything crazy. And then he was like, you didn't find anything, did you? Which makes me think that he is hiding things. Yeah, yeah. And proud about it. Yeah, it's like.

Yes. I'm worried there's other things even going on after having done what I do for so many years. I hope it's not, but there's got a lot of symptoms here that this money's going to something that's really going to piss you off later. So I really, I want you to get to the ball away to the bottom of this and start from Ground Zero and rebuild your marriage from the ground up. It's your only shot. Existing in the current situation is not, status quo is not going to work. it's not going to work. I don't think this guy wants to be married. I'm getting passive-aggressive vibes where he wants to have her call this off because he didn't have the guts to because he's a liar. This feels, Dave, I don't know if you're catching that vibe, but that's what I'm catching. He wants her to be the one to say, I'm done, I'm out because he's a weakling. So he's manipulating her. Well, before it comes out that he has a girlfriend.

That's it. I think he's trying to push her. I don't know. I do not know. We can't tell. But we've done a lot of this over the years, hon, and it doesn't turn out well with the type of an attitude you're describing. And so the biggest thing is, is, okay, I've got a problem, the situation's broken, we work on it together, we fix the problem. That's how good marriage works.

And this is not. So, yeah, you need to talk to your counselor, and your counselor needs to grow a pair and drag them in there and go, look, this isn't you guys, you're, screwing around with all of us and I'm not going to have it. As a good counselor will hold him, a good therapist will hold him accountable for this misbehavior. So, um, and for this lack of repentance and so on. Your credit score is, is not on the list of things I'm worried about here. Getting rid of the debt, not signing the mortgage and healing the marriage, not in that order

are the three things I'm worried about. All right. Nick is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Nick, what's up? Uh, yes. I'm just recently hearing about your Baby Steps program. I've only been listening for about a week. But I have a couple of questions.

I'm 52 years old, and I'm debt-free, and my house is paid off. But I really don't have any money in saving. I have about $500 in savings right now. What's your household income? $4,000 a month. Great. I work for myself. So I have a janitorial business that I operate.

Nick, I bumped into a commercial. It's my fault. I'm going to have to put you on hold and bring you back when we come back from the break. When you've saved up and paid cash for a reliable used car, you want that thing to last. And the best way to keep it running for the long haul is to take care of it with people you trust. That's why I'm proud to welcome Christian Brothers Automotive, is the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey Show.

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thousand dollar month income no debt including his house new to the baby steps i think that's about how far we got into it nick and your question today sir so um i guess i'm on step three of saving up an emergency fund correct but currently it's going to take about two years before i can save up say 20 000 and i'm wondering if i should start investing at some point before i have that that full emergency fund saved up. Okay, you make $48,000 a year. Why do you need a $20,000 emergency fund? I thought that was three to six months of my...

Well, that would be more than six months. So three months would be $12,000 of your income, not your expenses. And it sounds like your expenses are $3,000 because it sounds like you're saving $1,000. and so if that's the case, then $10,000 is plenty. Okay, $10,000 is plenty. So do you have, I'm totally new to anything with regard to investing. I don't know anything about it. Do you have any recommendations?

Sure. I would do investing after you get the $10,000 saved, and you can go to ramsysolutions.com, click on our smart vestor program, and those are mutual fund brokers, advisors, that don't work for us, but that have agreed to do stuff the way we teach. And I put mine, and Ken puts his, in four types of mutual funds, growth, growth, and income, aggressive growth in international for a very stable, conservative portfolio.

And then you fund that with your Roth IRA, and if you've got 401K, your Roth IRA, and I think you said yourself employed, you can do a simple IRA as well. There's a lot of different ways you can do it and keep the government's hands off of it. but the other thing I'm going to do is look at maybe adding some income to the equation, at least short term, to be able to get the emergency fund funded as fast as possible because, you know, you're struggling on how quickly you can do that. $2,000 a month you'd be done in five months on $10,000. And that would be fine for right now because you're obviously a very conservative person.

Your expenses should not be so high if you don't have a, house payment and you don't have any debt at all. So I'd also be looking at your budget. Yeah, I agree with this, Dave. I think people need to understand that the gazelle intensity that we preach in Baby Step 2 when you're knocking all that debt out, that needs to continue into Baby Step 3. Because when you get to that emergency fund, in this case, somebody who's brand new to it, there is a level of accomplishment and a level of relief that kind of come together and it just puts you in a really, really good place. So I absolutely agree with extra jobs, sell stuff.

Let's get that $10,000 accumulated really quickly. Yeah, but you will jump on to baby step seven as soon as you finish that. That's right. Apparently no children involved and at least the way you presented this and no house payment. And so boom. You know, now we just, all we have left to do is to invest. And, you know, and so I really want to do what I can do with my career overall to get my income up overall in these premium earning years to be able to do that.

So, Ken, it's also interesting to mention, we've seen several pieces of data, and I've observed this, too, just taking the calls over the years. The highest income earning decade for a male is in their 50s. That's correct. 50 to 60 years old. And so that's when it all comes together, and there's an arc, boom. And in the 60s, you kind of plateau out, kind of ride the horse out into retirement. But, you know, until then, that's when everything comes together, your experience, your education, your history, your failures, everything starts to pull in together and you mix up

this really neat gumbo that's got a great taste to it in your 50s and 60. That's right. In your 50 to 60 year old decade. That's presuming that there has been some intentionality prior to that. And I really recommend to get it in your 30s. If you do that, then you can build on it in your 50s. Absolutely. Daniel's in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. It's an honor to talk to you.

You too. How can we help? Yesterday at 12.50 a.m., we suffered a house fire, and it looks like it's going to be a total loss. Is everybody okay? Yeah, everyone's okay. We have two cats that are still missing. We're hoping they got out, and we live right by the woods, so we're hoping they're just hanging out around the house right now. We had a good Christian public adjuster reach out to us, and we wanted to know what your thoughts were on that and what the correct next steps would be to take from here. Well, a public adjuster's job is to make sure that the insurance company pays every stinking dime they're supposed to pay. And you've got to cross every T and dot every I to cause that to happen.

and sometimes you've got to lean on them. Is he willing to lean on them? Yeah. Yeah, they seem like they're, I've done my due diligence on them and I already looked into the company and they seem like they're a pretty awesome company. Yeah.

I'm a fan of the concept. I've seen good ones and bad ones. Okay. Okay. And so I've seen them that embarrass you by the way they behave, and I've seen other ones that are too wussified to punch State Farmers.

in the mouth, which is about the only thing State Farm freaking understands. Who's your insurance with? The home insurance is with AAA. Is with who? AAA. AAA. Okay. All right.

I'm not any experience with their claims except on an auto claim once, and it was a good experience. A guy with AAA hit me, and I got paid pretty quick. That was good. So, hmm. Yeah. The inventorying of your stuff, the detail that when you don't do the detail, you get underpaid by 20 or 25 percent type of stuff

is where the public adjuster service is really valuable. Are they taking a percentage? Yes, sir. They're taking 10%. Okay. All right. And what's the house worth, do you think? I bought the house in 2024.

The property has a big detached garage on it. It was a tiny house. I bought it for $150. The actual house part itself was probably worth about $150-ish. Not counting the lot or counting the lot? Because the lot didn't burn. I'm not sure. Yeah.

All you've got is the improvements and your contents. So you take lot value off of your appraised value, and now we've got a total loss, and that's what it is, and it's a rebuild. They're going to push it down and rebuild it. or give you the money to rebuild it. Did you have a mortgage? Yes, sir.

Yeah. Yeah. And so the mortgage company is involved in this as well. Because they're one of the stated beneficiaries on the policy. All right. Yeah, I think if you've got due diligence, I mean, you're only 24 hours in and be forewarned, okay? Number one, you're only 24 hours in. Number two, the public adjusters that do a great job are the best.

there's some of them that don't be careful with that then the third thing is um this is one of the most emotional things that can happen to someone that you ever seen the list of like 10 things that if three of them happen in a year you're in the hospital it's like divorce death of a parent death of a child uh major car accident house burning high stress high trauma things this is on the list of the top 10 okay so You're 24 hours after a top 10 event, and you're making a major decision. So, you know, you do not have to retain them immediately. You could wait 24 more hours and just kind of let some of the adrenaline go down,

because you're just, you're burning the candle right now at both ends. I mean, you've got to be emotionally fried, right? Yeah, it's pretty rough. I would be. It was obviously a lot. My girlfriend lived there with me, and we had a full-month old. And everyone got out quick, but she was pretty hysterical. That's pretty heartbreaking to see the person you love like that.

Hey, Daniel, I would be using good questions. I would interview this guy like he was going to be taking care of your baby. What are your goals at asking that? What is your goal with our case and have him state it, push him, and then say, how do you think you're going to accomplish that? Put him on the spot and trust your gut on this stuff. If he does a great job, he's going to get you more than 10. percent extra above what you would get if you handle the case by yourself.

So he's worth his money if he does a good job. Listen, identity theft doesn't just happen just because you're careless. You can do everything right and still become a victim, whether your information is skimmed online, stolen through a scam, or exposed in a data breach, which happens every day. Then it becomes your problem, your time, your money, your paperwork galore. That's why I've told people for years to have identity. identity theft protection, and the only plan I've ever recommended is from Zander insurance. Zander monitors for signs of fraud, even home title fraud, and they send alerts when something

looks off. Most important, if something happens, you're not stuck spending hours on hold, filing forms and arguing with companies trying to fix it. Zander's dedicated restoration team steps in and does the hard work to help restore your identity. You can even protect your kids for free on their family plan. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 to protect yourself today. Identity theft is everywhere. Zander is how you fight back. Zander.com. If you have a simple tax situation like you haven't had any major life changes or big investments, use Ramsey Smart Tax. Ramsey Smart Tax is very inexpensive. It's affordable. Keeps filing simple. And it's got built-in support in case you need a little help.

filing early means you get the best deals and you get your stress off your shoulders. So as soon as you get all your tax documents, go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash smart tax and start filing. By the way, I read an article this morning. The IRS is saying the average refund is double this year what it was last year. You say what you want about President Trump, but that's called the big beautiful bill. And that's where those regulations came from. And that's where that refund's coming from. So, yeah.

which means you ought to file if you're getting a refund. And next year you should change your W-4 so you don't get a refund. Don't be loaning the government money for free. Ramsey Solutions.com slash smart tax. Sandra's in Chicago. Hi, Sandra. How are you? Oh, I need some advice. Okay.

So I've been with my partner for eight years. We have two children, ages three and six. And he's expressed that he doesn't want to get married. It's just a piece of paper to him, and so it's been hard for me because I do want to get married. Now, financially, he takes care of me and the children. I have $25,000 in savings, but he has a lot more. He's going to inherit assets, two buildings, I believe, and he has money from before. Now, we currently live in his home, his parents' home, which he owns,

with his brother because his parents are deceased. So we don't pay mortgage. He covers all the household expenses because I'm a stay-at-home mom, and that's to about $4,000 a month. And I do households here and there, so I maybe bring $500 monthly. How can we help you? So I have two questions.

Should I disregard this and not care about marriage? And should I invest those $25,000? I'm just afraid of if something were to happen, how do I care for my children since we're not married? And I'm not entitled to anything is my fear. Yeah, if he up and dies or up and leaves, you're screwed. And so that's why I'm afraid to... You're like a homeless single mom.

No, that's not funny at all. That's terrifying. Yeah. He doesn't understand this. He thinks... I don't care if he understands it. That's the reality. I'm scared to death for you.

Yeah. You're very vulnerable. I definitely am. I feel it. Yeah. Stressed out all the time. Yeah, it's an undercurrent in your house that you're not valuable enough to marry, but you're valuable enough to have kids with. Correct.

I'm sorry. Thank you. So I don't think you're going to do anything about it, though, are you? I mean, you're eight years into this system. Yeah. I just, I can't afford to move out and be a single mom. I'm hopefully starting a new job soon, but. How much is that?

going to pay? Next to nothing because I can't. It's going to probably have to be part-time. So let's address your fear. Okay. The fear is legit in the sense that you have no plan right now, but the fear goes away when you have a plan. So you have got to start digging into what would have to be true for me to work a full-time job that would take care of me and the babies, right? Well, what would have to be true? I'd have to have affordable child care, and we've got to dig into that. If I can't afford daycare, what does that look like? I will tell you that there are solutions to this. But until you begin to dig and go get answers to the fear question, can I survive without him right now?

You're telling us no. That's not true, but you're going to have to go dig and figure this out. And you can do it. And I've got to tell you, if it were me, that answer that he gave that it's only a piece of paper would be everything I need. to know about being committed to this guy long term. And I think you're going to regret this and this is going to eat away at you. When you're an old lady, I think you're going to regret if you don't make a change at this very pivotal moment. So I think you've got to say to this guy, I disagree. But do you want to be with me? Because if you do, it's marriage. And if it's not marriage,

now we need to begin to decouple. And this is what it's going to mean. But I think you've got to, before you get to that point, you've got to go, what does it look like for me to be able to take care of myself and those kids. And that $25,000 cash becomes an emergency fund if you have no debt. Do you have any debt? I don't. How old are your kids? Three and six. A little boy, low girl. Yes. Okay. Both. Would you want this for her, your daughter? I don't know. Then fix it. Easier said than none. Then fix it. Because you're modeling for her that this is the way life's supposed to be, and it's not.

Yeah. It's not. You're being held hostage and financially. And you feel it, you feel vulnerable, you feel disrespected, and that's in the air of your house, and it's translating into your daughter's body. And she thinks this is how men are supposed to treat women, and it's not. Fix it. You've got to stand up and fix it. And amazingly, Junior May decide he wants to paint or get off the ladder. I don't know. But I'm not sure he's worth it. But Mr. I've got, I inherited my mommy's house with my brother.

Oh, whoa, aren't you a dead gum producer? You're killing me here. And so, yeah, I'm not impressed. So this is two in a row. The last guy with the house fire, same thing. He was a four-year-old kid and his girlfriend who says, hysterical living together. So here's the data, folks. If you are 35 to 54 years old, this is actual data we just got a hold of the other day. The average married couple has a net worth of

329,000. 50% over 50% of the couples in America living together are not married in America right now. We have more unmarried people shacking up than married people shacking up right now. But the data says it's not working financially. And the data says it's not working relationally. So here's the thing. Married couples on average, $329,000 between 35 and 54 years old. Unmarried male, not $300,000, $87,000. So one-fourth of the net worth if you're an unmarried male.

So if he wants to know why he should get married, that's the reason. Unmarried female. one-tenth, 35,000, one-tenth, 10% of the net worth. And that's where she's sitting right now. She's sitting with 10% of his net worth, or 10% of an unmarried guy's net worth, but 10% of what she would have had had she been married for these eight years on average. That's the averages. Okay.

The average married couple 65 and above, $608,000. Unmarried male, 218, $218. one-third. Unmarried female, 174. 25%. Net worth. 40% of all the public are married, 75% of millionaires are. You getting it yet? Married males outlive unmarried males, an average of eight years. Married females outlive unmarried females by four years. cancer survival rate among married people, 20% higher than unmarried people. Hello. Is this microphone on? This used to be a show where people would call up and I'd say, your car is stupid.

Sell the car. It's gotten to where the answer to every question is, get married. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Financial stress does not just damage our bank accounts. It can also take a toll on our risk. relationships and on our mental and emotional health. Money fights are one of the leading sources of conflict for couples. I know this personally. My wife and I have struggled over the years with money conflicts over and over again. Therapy can help even with money. Therapy is not about giving you

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off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey. Lori is in Canada. Hi, Lori. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. How are you today? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Wonderful. Same here. I'm looking for some, I guess, tough love if it's at all needed. But just kind of my backstory here, I'm going to be reaching the end of Baby Step 2 at the end of April, which is so excited. I'm so happy I've been working myself at the bone. Congratulations.

Thank you. And then for Baby Step 3, it won't take me long. I have very low expenses. I'm planning to save about $6,000 for a three-month emergency fund. And so by early June, early mid-June, I should be about done doing those two steps. Now, I'm trying to plan for after Baby Step 3 and maybe scaling back from my part-time job because I'm working two jobs right now, 70 hours a week. And I'm feeling a bit nervous to lose that extra 2,000 a month in income.

And so I'm looking for some advice on how to scale back from a gazelle intensity mindset and nurture a prosperity mindset after I'm done baby step three. Very wise. Good for you. Yeah, when you're running wide open and you cross the finish line, you don't suddenly stop. it takes a few steps to slow down. It does, yes. And I want to take. Think of a sprinting a foot race, right?

Like a 40-yard dash, okay? Yeah, you're not going to slow down. It's going to be a few yards after that for you, slow down. But by the time you get out there 100 yards after the finish line, you'll be back to a normal pace again. So it takes a minute to slow down. That's thing one. Thing two is anytime you're looking at something and I have anxiety about or worry about it,

you said. Facts are your friends. So look at your budget. I think you're doing a detailed monthly budget, aren't you? I sure am, yeah. So instead of white knuckling the budget, look at the budget and go, now that I have no payments,

how much room there is, oh my goodness. And so that gives you mathematical, tells your brain, the math tells your brain, it's okay to slow down. It may take your heart a minute to catch up, but your brain will go, oh, we're okay.

Yeah. Because you are okay. Because you're putting, you know, you're putting more than the part-time job towards the debt and then towards the emergency fund, right? Correct. So that means when you do away with the part-time job mathematically, there's still the more-than part, the margin.

Yes. So you're okay. math says that. But what you're trying to adjust for is the emotions, but I'm telling you, emotions are something you tell what to do. They don't tell you what to do. Yeah, you know, I'm listening to you, and I think a little exercise would be, what is my focus now? You know, we hear a lot about what's my why, and you're getting through this because you want to be free. But it's really, what am I doing in order to get the why? And so now as you move out of Baby Step 3, ask yourself, what am I intentional about now? Because you've been intense, super intense. Now let's move from

intensity to intentionality. And so now ask yourself, what is my financial focus now? Right? And baby step four, super clear. We're trying to build wealth now. And so I think if you can reframe into the next what, I think it will naturally help you slow down, as Dave gave it, the beautiful metaphor there kind of out of a sprint. How long have you been fighting this? I've been at this baby step two since February of last year. So 70 hour weeks for a year plus? No, no. The 70 hours a week was a very recent addition before I was working about 50 to 60 hours a week. So I've been at it for a question of time. You've been hard at it. So my point is this. When you stretch something to this degree that's never been stretched before, it's, it's

impossible for it to return to the same shape. So you can, we have the number of people that, the number of people that we coached that do what you have done, they go back to being irresponsible dufuses with credit cards is almost zero. I don't want to go back. I don't think there's any chance you will. That's my point. If you didn't doing this for two months, you might go back. But when you've been fighting it like this by yourself for a year, scratching and clawing,

and we can hear the visceral intensity in your voice, kiddo. I love talking to you. Because you're like passionate. You're getting it. You are getting it. Thank you. And so that tells me that you have stretched to a place you've never stretched before, and you will not return to the same shape.

And so you're great. You're going to be fine. You're going to be great. And just be intentional, not intense. If you just tell your money what to do, you're going to have money the rest of your life. That's all you've got to do. Just tell it what to do. You don't have to freak out.

You don't have to work like a crazy person. You don't have to do beans and rice. You don't have to do gazelle intense. You just got to tell it what to do. That's intentional versus intensity. Stay on every dollar budget the rest of your life and watch your net worth climb. As Ken said, have a new target that you're aiming at. And it's one that is a little bit more joyful and comfortable than running from the wolf of debt that's chasing you through the forest.

It's really true. Your brain and heart, your nervous system, all of that. Has been reshaped. Yeah. And it will adjust, by the way, when you, you. you adjust your new focus. It's a miracle of the way our brains works, all this research on focus. Avery's in Hartford, Connecticut. Hey, Avery, what's up? Hi, Dave. It's a pleasure talking to you. I'm very excited. Honored to have you. How can we help? So my fiance and I are getting married in

October. Yay! Trying to stress the importance of budgeting. But my question is, do we budget together when we don't have visibility into each other's finances, and should we budget together or separately? You should budget separately, but you can do some practice budgets together as part of your pre-marriage counseling. In other words, you actually run your money separate until you're married. Do not combine finances or someone you're not married to. Then after you get home from the honeymoon, you can do what you've been practicing. So sit down and do a role play almost and say, oh let's pretend this month we were married what it would look like and you put all your money in the table i put all my money on the table and put all our bills on the table and we go okay what will we do

with our money this month and that'll create a really good fight yes it will reveal expectations and it'll be great it'll be great for your pre-marriage counseling you really well because where you spend your money reveals your dreams your fears your values jesus said your treasures where your heart is. And so you're a spender, he's a saver, or the other way around. You know, one of you grew up in a household where people didn't care about money and the other one, they were screaming about it all the time. And so all these things are going to start coming out when you start looking at this together. But the money is not actually the thing. It's revealing who the two of you are and what your differences are that will work for you if you learn to

use your strengths for each other and guard each other's weaknesses. So I'm not the natural savor at my house. My wife Sharon is. So that's our natural safeguard. She's a straight up tightwad. She saves everything. There's way too many leftovers in my refrigerator and I have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars and there's freaking leftovers in my refrigerator. It's awful, y'all. I'm complaining right now. I like day old spaghetti. I'm just going to put that out there. You can come to my house anytime. And so we get it a lot. So it's her nature though. And I love that. and I'll know one, you know, I'll have a lot of problems in my life, but my wife being, you know, spending money like a crazy person is not going to be one of them. Her husband, on the other hand,

me, I have, I'm the spender by nature. And thank God I like making money. Yeah. Because I've been good at spending it. So, you know, you learn about these things when you start working this together, Avery. So make sure you're doing it. Get the every dollar budget out and run an app, run, get the app out and run a budget as if you were Mary. But don't combine your finances until you are, married and do get some good in-depth pre-marriage counseling. It's one of the indicators of a marriage that lasts, by the way, because you get to talk about what's wrong with her mother. I mean, his mother. I mean, your dad. I mean, can you imagine that the pre-marriage counseling my kids went through? You're marrying into the Ramses. Talk about fraught with danger. No comment. There's no air. There's no air at the table. I mean, you got Rachel Cruz, me. There's no, no. No. There's no.

There's no room for another word in, I'm just saying. And you still get two of the finest dudes on the planet. You get two good sons-in-laws, I'm telling you that, and your daughter-in-law. Yeah, we did great. You really did. We did. They did great. They did.

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So if you want real help instead of a sales pitch, go to Guardianlit.com slash Ramsey. That's Guardian, L-I-T-com slash Ramsey. Attorney advertising. Results may vary and no specific outcomes guaranteed. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the fair win. Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman, number one bestselling author, host a front row seat. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Megan's in Phoenix. Hey, Megan, what's up? Hi, Dave. First of all, pleasure talking to you. I love your faith in God, and it's great to be on here. But I was a kindergarten teacher who left teaching to be home with my kids, and I found myself doing contract work and just private tutoring to make money.

But then I did not pay my quarterly taxes, and now I found myself in a pickle, where now I can't afford to pay my taxes. So I didn't pay the quarterly taxes the past two years, and now I'm thinking, am I just working to pay that unpaid tax? Like, did I screw my family over in this sense? Okay, so a portion of the money that you made should have come out to pay quarterly taxes, correct? Yes, it definitely should have. Okay. And now you're having to pay it, but you already used the money before. So I don't know how your family got screwed over.

Your family got the benefit of money that really wasn't theirs. Yes. In the earlier years. And so you didn't screw anybody over. But you create a mess, obviously, by not taking care of business. So what's the tax bill? For 2024, $13,000. And this past year, it's going to be 11,000.

Okay. So you need, so 13 and 11, so we need $24,000, and you're married, I guess. Yes, yep. Okay, and what does he make? He makes 85. Okay, and how much money do you all have in savings? We have about $1,500. Okay, all right.

And how much debt do you guys have other than the IRS? We have about 70,000 in debt between cars and student loans. Okay. All right. And what do you owe on the cars? How much of that's cars? 26. Okay.

Thank you. All right. And so you've got about 44 in student loans? Yeah. Yes. Okay. All right. And 24 to the IRS.

I mean the KGB. Yeah. Okay. So if you owe. 13, that means you probably made close to 50. Yes. Okay. And so are you planning to make 50 this year?

I'll make a little less than that, and I will say for this year, I do have money set aside to pay quarterly taxes for this year. Yeah, but I mean, if you, okay, why would you make a little less when you have a problem? You would make more. You work more. Right. Um, I, one of the things that I did for contract work isn't, isn't a thing anymore. Um, it was working with migrant students and, and that program got, it's gone. Okay. All right. I can imagine. All right. Um, but you're going to have to take on a bunch more of the other kinds of students, not only to offset that, but to, um, you know, you've got to grow this business in order to pay this. Okay. So, basically, we're going to work a debt snowball, which means you have to offset that. of $94,000 in debt, but anytime you're working the debt snowball, the IRS is first.

And you and your husband have a household income of about 135, and every dime of that we can squeeze out of our monthly budget, we're going to throw at the IRS until it's gone, and they're going to be cleaned up in about a year or sooner. Well, they need to be cleaned up a lot sooner, really. And then you're also going to think about is the 26,000 one car? Yes, it is. Okay, that may be something that has to go away too in order to make this work. The car payment on that's substantial and getting rid of that,

and anything he can do to pick up extra work. Is there anything you could do in addition to tutoring to create income for a short period of time to clean up the mess? I mean, I can pick up more clients, and I know that's a, it's the tradeoff with that is being at home and taking care of my kids is the problem. If we don't have any family around to kind of help with that. Yeah. Yeah.

You need to solve for that on the short term. Yeah. It's not a long-term prison sentence, but you need to create income because of this foie because of this mess. Yeah. And if you create the income, it's going to make the mess go away and you're going to get your life back. Because if you didn't have a car payment and you didn't have the IRS and you were making, you

know, 40 or 50,000 without having strain on the kids. And he's making 85. You guys could work through the rest of that death snowball fairly easy. But these two things are the glaring problems in my face. And I'm like, it's 50,000 of your 94 is those two things. Right. Yeah, half of it. Megan, let me ask you a fun question, okay? If I told you that you could have $100,000 cash in three days, but for three days you had to work a 10-hour shift, and you had to, and in order to do that, you had to have somebody to watch your kids for three days. And I gave you a week to come up with child care for three straight days. Could you do it? Yes, 100%. So I'm not, I'm trying to be nice about this, but when I hear this defeatist attitude towards child care, and I hear it a lot,

I think you've got to get more innovative. And that's why I created a fantastical scenario. for you to get your mind to say you would pull it off. The good news is it only takes a year of being completely out of control crazy, some kind of very discomfort uncomfortable thing that we do for a year. This is not saying, I'm going to raise my children this way. It's not saying for the next decade the kids are going to be in this situation. I'm going to be in this situation. But this tax thing has highlighted the fact that you all really are not in very good shape financially.

and you've got to, you know, for a short period of time, you've got to punch this as hard as you can punch it. And when you do that, I think you can move the needle. So I'm going to go completely crazy with your income. I'm going to look at selling that car. I'm going to look at him picking up an extra job. I'm going to get on every dollar budget. We're not going out to eat. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there.

And you're not going on vacation. You're broke and you owe the IRS because you're screwed up and didn't pay your quarterly. And you have got to clean this up because the penalties are unlawful. Unbelievable. The interest is unbelievable. Every day that sits out there is just killing you. Matter of fact, if you can go borrow on a credit card and pay them off, I would. Because you're just moving one debt to another debt in this case, because they have unlimited power to come screw with your life. They're unbelievable to work with in not a good way. So, yeah, put them on a payment plan so that you don't have them coming after you, garnishing your wages or hitting your checking accounts or anything else, and then get on, get rid of that debt as soon as you can. It's the first thing to go. And of course, meanwhile, you're paying the quarterly on your current situation. Ouch, that'll bite you. Dave, real quick, I'd love for you to give us an answer as to what is the psychology that is necessary when you get yourself in a big financial hole and it feels impossible to get out of?

You've done it. She feels it. And I sympathize with that. But what is that, what's going on? psychologically that has to be defeated. You can do anything for 90 days. You can do anything for 90 days. As a matter of fact, you can do anything for 180 days if it changes the whole rest of your life. It's not a death sentence for 10 years, but the next 10 weeks are going to really suck. Hey guys, George Camel here. Listen, we need to talk about your phone plan because for a lot of you, it's like a bad roommate. You know the one. unpredictable moods, always asking for money, hard to get rid of, and they never do the dishes. And that's what the so-called big wireless carriers are like. They're counting on you overpaying forever.

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Maria is in Orlando. Hi, Maria. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you for taking my call. I didn't even know where to begin. I'm saying there's. I have some credit card back that, long story short,

I basically ignored for the last several months, you know, a couple of them have gone into collection. And I'm just hoping you can help me figure out how to speak with these collections. so that I can pay what I'm able to pay and get out of this hole. I put myself into. How much credit card debt, huh? About $18,000. Okay.

What do you make of year? It varies, but roughly $55. And why have you been ignoring them? I was actually paying them off, and then last, summer, I had some big loss of income compared to the previous summer, and I had some medical bills, and I paid off the medical bills and neglected the credit card ones, and it kind of just snowballed from there. Okay.

And are you single? No, I'm married. My husband does not know I have been. Oh, he doesn't know this debt's here. Why? Mm-mm. Yes, mostly because I've just embarrassed. I don't know.

You guys have separate finances? Yeah, for the most part. So what does he make? He's retired now, so he has his Social Security every year, and then he's 401K and he's stadiums from when he... Now, how much is in his 401K? I don't know. Yeah, you do.

No, I have no idea. You don't know if it's $10,000 or $10 million? No. We have one joint bank account. I know how much is in that account. I don't touch the joint account. Because you've done this before, and he keeps everything from you? I haven't really done it before, but he's always, from the beginning,

I've always kind of wanted to have my own step or thing. And it's not working for you, isn't? You know. Yeah. And how long have y'all been married? 16 years. Okay. Why have you not told him?

Because you're ashamed. You said that, yeah. Yeah. Does he have any debt? She doesn't know. No, we don't. There's a death. No, no dad.

How do you know? Because he had done most of your baby steps. But you don't know what's in the 401K, but you're sure he doesn't have any debt. That's inconsistent. No, no debt. I can guarantee you that. The house is paid off, cars are paid off. No debt. Okay. Part of it is I was paying, some of it is because I was paying off the credit card,

and we paid off the cards last year, the year before. How much money is in the joint account? I'd have to look again, probably like 50. 50? 15. 15. Okay. All right.

So here's what this is about. This is about behavior. It's not about dead collectors. This is about shame and marriage. And you don't want to come clean because of the instant you come clean. First off, he's going to be disappointed, and rightly so. In you hiding this, number one, but number two, you're doing it at all because he's very, good with money and he's not going to be happy that you aren't and then he's got the money he probably

got a million dollars in his stinking 401k write a check and pay this thing off and that's actually what ought to happen because a married couple one of them doesn't know it yet owes $18,000 so sorry dude but then what you owe him Maria is the two of you get on the same page and handle money together for the rest of your lives full transparency period This, I'm going to be independent and then go do stupid stuff has got to stop. It's killing you, girl. It's eating you up. You're not even sleeping good because of this.

No. I know. Scary. And here's the weird thing. As soon as you sit down with him, that's going to be a really difficult two-hour discussion. And the next day, you're going to feel 100 pounds lighter. because you've been carrying deception around in the name of shame. And if you're not careful, it becomes an identity, and then you've got a real problem.

And it's not an identity. It's just you screwed up. You did a thing, but that's not who you are. You are not defined by the worst thing you ever did in your life, nor are you defined by the best thing you ever did in your life. So there's more to it than that. So, yeah, I think you've got to sit down with him tonight, and then you guys need a new system. Your system sucks. I do my thing.

You do your thing. it's not working. So you guys need to be on the same page, and it sounds like this, honey, I need your help. I need to know what's going on with the money, not because I want to mess up your stuff, but because I want to get in on how good a job you've been doing. And I want you and I to work together, and I want to see everything that's going on with the retirement in case you die. I'm going to need to know what you want me to do.

But you don't want him to die and him have a million dollars worth of investments, and you don't have any idea how to do it because you have this all separated. Now you're just out in the cold with a bunch of money. And you don't want, you know, you don't want to live in shame either. Please do not let the sun go down with a secret. It's eating you up, my little sister. Let it go. Okay?

Tonight you tell him, okay? Say okay. No, I will talk to him, yes. Okay, and tell him every bit of this. I'm going to be able to be. I didn't want to tell you because I'm ashamed. I feel inept. And I need your help. I need to work together with you on money from now on. The way we've been doing it for 16 years is not working. I'm not as good at it as you are. I don't want you to do it all by yourself. I want us to do it together so that I know how to do this in case something happens to you. Yeah, Maria, just real quick, do you trust him? Yeah. Yeah, I know. I ask an obvious question because I want you to hear it. It's a matter. Well, let me ask you this.

What do you think his reaction would have been if a couple years ago, before he got into this mess, you said, you know what? I want to have combined finances. I want to do this together. I think you're better at it than me and you know what you're doing. What would his reaction have been? I'm probably welcome. Yeah. So I'm always going to bring this up is because emotionally I want you to hear that that kind of guy who you love and

who would have been on board with this from day one, while he will be disappointed, I think this is a good man. And I think he's going to welcome you going, I messed up. I don't want to ever do this again. If $18,000 is the cost of us getting on the same page, I'll write the check. I think so too. That's what I'm getting at. And I hope that takes the edge off.

Money well invested. Yeah, because you're right, I'll guarantee you he's loaded. I just have a hunch. There's a million dollars in that 401k if there's a dime. I think you're right. I absolutely felt that. And I feel for her too. And I get, that's why, by the way, she's so shamed.

You nailed it. She's a shame because he's been so good with money. Yeah. It just, the weight of something like that is multiplied every day you carry a secret. And when you shine light on stuff, the bugs run to the corner. The roaches run for the hills, man. They get out there and do little down. in the dark, but it's hard for demons to exist when you shine light.

Demons don't like light. They run. So when you just lay everything out, there's no place to hide. You's got to be who you is then. So clean. Most people don't struggle with money because they can't do math. They struggle because they don't stick to a plan. And when your bank makes your money feel confusing or hard to track, plans fall apart fast. And that's why I love Fairwin's Credit Union and their mobile app. Because let's face it, most banks build systems that make it easy to swipe and hard to stay organized. But with the Fairwinds app, you open it and you know exactly what to do. No clicking through 11 menus just to move your own money.

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So if you want to bank someplace that's both faster and wiser, check out Fairwins. Go to fairwins.org slash Ramsey. That's fairwins.org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Addison and Autumn are with us. Hey, guys, how are you doing? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. Where do you all live? We live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yeah.

Fun. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off? You paid off $184,000. Goodness. How long did that take? 32 months. Wow. And your range of income during that time? It went from $127 to $200,000. Excellent. What do you two do for a living? I work in a family business doing drywall. And I'm a wedding photographer.

Awesome. And you're making a couple of hundred a year between those two. Excellent. What kind of debt was the $184? thousand and thirty-two months. Our house. You paid off your house! You two weirdos! How old are you guys? I'm 26.

I'm 27. And you paid off a house? Yeah. I just, I can't, I'm speechless. That's amazing. Congratulations. So $184,000 mortgage. What's the house worth?

It's around 340, somewhere around there. Okay. How long have you two been married? Almost three years. Yeah. Three years in April. So you got married, bought a house, And the first order of business is 32 months later paid off.

Well, the house was already bought. Oh, it was already bought. Yeah. He bought the house the week that we went on our first day and met. Oh. Yeah. So you were stuck with it. Yeah.

I like it. Okay. I was stuck with a paid-for house. Now, what did you say it's worth again? Like $3.40. Okay. And it's a paid-four house in Lincoln, Pennsylvania. Yes.

Wow, man. That's amazing. So what in the world? And you're 24 and 26? 26 and 27. 26 and 27. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Wow. So, you know, all we hear about all the time and the negative things in the media is is that Gen Z, your generation is stuck. They can't buy a house. It's not affordable out there. It's impossible. Yet you went and bought one the week you started dating and convinced this young lady to marry you and help you pay it off. Yeah.

Yeah. How does it where do you people come from? How does this, how does this happen? How did you run into the Ramsey stuff? Well, we grew up, like our parents had like grew us up with Ramsey principals and like the envelope system. And so, yeah. Both sets of parents? Yeah, yes.

Both of you are financial peace babies. Pretty much, yeah. Oh, my gosh. I have to ask the obvious question. Was this an arranged marriage? No. No, but the parents were happy about it. Yeah, they were.

Dad was very happy. I think you found a good one. He knows about the envelopes. Wow. This is incredible. I'm serious. You had to go home. When y'all had both discovered that both your parents were doing the Ramsey stuff, that

had to be a little weird. Yeah, it definitely was. But it was really exciting because it was like, Autumn had the same values as I did, which, I mean, honestly, transformed or translated into the rest of our marriage. And it was just like, wow, this is very easy. I mean, this is so simple. simple plan and we were able to work together on it seamlessly. How did y'all meet?

A blind date. A blind date? We got set up. Wow, okay. So you weren't like going to the same church or something? No. No. All right.

Because I thought maybe your parents, if they'd gone through FPU together or something, that'd be too much. All right. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Pretty incredible. Yeah.

But we just like made a lot of really, like, wise financial decisions, like, right when we were like 18, 19. So we like cash flowed college and, like, bought cars we could afford. and, you know, all the things that you teach. So when you entered into this, all there was was the mortgage. Yes. And it was brand new. Yes.

You just got it when you started dating. Yeah. And you get married and 32 months. So you did about $60,000 a year for three years, give or take, around $5,000 a month, making $1.27 to a high of $200. Yeah. You lived on nothing to do that. You're pretty intense knocking that mortgage out.

It didn't really feel like nothing, though. We just followed our budget. Okay. All right. Let's get into this. What was your budget in your, one of your marriage based on what income at that time? Well, it was based on roughly, I mean, it was $127,000 a year. And so we just, I guess it was like $8,000 a month. I guess, I don't know.

All right. So what was the, what were their bills? If you just, if you can remember, what was you to cover all your expenses out of that? Oh, boy. Roughly. I'm not holding you to the month. You put like $5 a month. Yes. And it definitely near the end is when we started piling it on a lot more. So maybe $3 grand in the early years and $6 grand or $8.000. Yes. As Autumn's business, as Autumn's photography business started to grow, she definitely was picking up a lot more weddings. And yeah, the money just kind of started rolling in. I was like, wow, this is amazing. And we based our budget mostly off of his income because I was really consistent. So then anything extra that I made that was above the minimum amount that we set aside and planned for that I would make, we just threw on the house. So that was just our goal. And so. Yeah. Pull the taxes, just throw the rest of the house. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Good for y'all. I'm so proud of you. I know your mom and dad are proud of you. I'll both have you. And they all came, right? Both sets of parents came into a celebrate. They're in Nashville. Okay. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. Very, very cool. All right. Well, this is kind of makes the case of it's very important to choose a good mate. Oh, yeah. We've been talking about the value of marriage earlier. Dave went on a marriage rant that was great, and this really illustrates it. Here's what I want to know, because we put it to you guys, like, you guys were super intense. And Autumn, your response was, it was fine. We lived within the budget.

That speaks to contentment. So as a young couple, you're starting out and the world is your oyster, right? How did you develop that contentment? Was it a discipline thing or was it the way you were raised? I'd love to know why you were so content. It was definitely the way we were raised, but also like we're Christians. So, like, we knew that there was joy in contentment and just not comparing ourselves to anybody else. So it was just, like, how we could keep our, keep looking at, like, each other and just connecting with each other.

Yeah. Yeah, and we made the budget together, and we were both, like, okay with it. We still did so many fun things, too, so. I love it. I just don't sense a lot of time spent with Instagram influencers. No. Like none. I mean, I'm on Instagram.

I know, well, you have a job. I mean, you have a photography business. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think you're sitting there doom scrolling, wanting stuff. I mean, it's just, no, yeah. That's not you. Yes. Matter of fact, there's some data out right now that shows the amount of hours spent on Instagram

equals the number of dollars spent. It's ridiculous. Wow. Okay, quick follow up for this young couple, because a lot of young couples listening to this. They think, oh, I can't win. How are your, what are your dreams? You don't have to give this grand plan or share something you don't want to share, but how are your dreams or is there something that has changed now

that realize that you guys have zero debt, a house included, and you're 26 and 27? Yeah, it's kind of surreal because, like, I, it's something that as I bought the house, as I was, like, working, like, right out of high school at 18, it was something that I was, like, striving for. Like, I knew I wanted to buy a house and I knew I wanted to pay it off and then to marry someone who had the same values. And, like, when she, like, we both wanted to pay. at off right away. So it was just like it was really cool to be able to work on that, work on that

together and enjoy, enjoy that life together. So now looking forward, I don't know, I mean, we're just excited to build well together and build a life that is good for our family. Yeah. And we set a goal and we wanted to do it in five years before I was 30 and we ended up doing it way quicker and less than three. So I think that's just like so motivating and encouraging. Like when we set a goal, we can work towards that together and just be on the same page and like yeah it can go faster than we really ever expected it to go what do you tell people the secret to getting out of dead is honestly contentment like you were talking about just keeping your eyes fixed on the goal that you have as a couple or as a family sticking to your budget setting that have that conversation together and we were

both okay with every line on them how much we were giving and so yeah yeah yeah Yeah. Now that you're 100% free, no payment at all. Does it feel different than you thought it would feel? Yeah, it's just kind of like uneventful because life still goes on. Like we still, we were living in the house. So like. Nobody shot off fireworks in the backyard.

No, no. I was like sick when we paid like our last mortgage payment too. So it really felt just like, eh. Yeah. Yeah. I got the flu. I don't care. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, we're going to celebrate today. We're going to have fireworks going crazy. We're so proud of y'all. Y'all are amazing. You're like the perfect couple. You're Jen Ziers. Here's your poster children right here.

Addison and Autumn, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 184,000 paid off house and everything in 32 months from 26 years old and 27 years old. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one, we're debt-free. Yeah. Wow. It's interesting. I was checking out at a place other day

and young men work in the valet two high schoolers. One of them was in our classes in high school. And he's like, hey, man, stuff on YouTube, man, cool, thank you, man, and all the stuff. And he said, so give me, the other one pipes up and he said, give me a proverb, Dave. And I went, okay, where's that coming from? Because I love Proverbs, and this kid must have actually known something about who we were. And so, because if you read Proverbs, the Book of Wisdom in the Bible, over and over, you'll have a master's degree in finance.

And it happened to be the 22nd of March. And I said, well, here's one for you. Proverbs 227 says the rich rules over the poor and the borrower, slave to the lender. Oh, by the way, here's an interesting thing. Proverbs 226 says, train up a child in the way he should go. and when he is old he will not depart from it now keep in mind that there are not numbers in the original scriptures and so there's no 226 227 so if you actually just read that it says train up a child in the way he should go when he's old he'll not depart from it the rituals over

the poor and the borrower's slave to the lender train up a kid that to stay out of debt is pretty close but we separate those because proverbs are very disconnected sayings and we don't usually put them together. And I said, so train your kids up to stay out of debt. And so train them up when they go on a dating website to find another family that went through financial peace. See, when you change your family tree, here's how you do it. You cannot change your family tree simply by stacking cash. If you raise idiots, they will go through everything you made, no matter what you make. If you leave idiots money, there will be no money. It will not survive one generation. No kidding. We all know that. I mean, you can't leave them $100 million. They'll still blow it. You can't, but you can't

stack enough cash to leave it to idiots. So the way you change your family tree has two components to it. One is you raise godly, strong, contented young men and women that find each other and choose to marriage someone like them, and you leave them a stack of cash. In this case, this young couple has not had yet the inheritance of the stack of cash that is waiting on both of them probably. But instead, they are already almost millionaires at 26 and 27 with a paid for house, been married only three years in 32 months paid off their house. But mom and dad changed their family tree by teaching in both cases. These kids were raised in an environment of biblical wisdom, common sense, ways of handling money, get out of debt, stay out of debt,

be on a budget, they're financial peace babies. They don't have credit cards. They're not motivated by the name brand on your purse. They're not motivated by fill in the blank of stupid stuff that people in America do and consequently are broke, spending money that you don't have to buy things you really can't afford to impress people you don't even really like. That's the opposite of what we're talking about. And this young couple is like, this is like every parent's dream come true,

not only to raise one, but then have them marry another one. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Isn't that the most fun thing you can think of? The only thing that would add to that is if you had somehow officiated the wedding. That would have probably, you asked me, was there any more fun? That would have probably been, I mean, it would have been quite the, you know, you just zip in. I'm pretty boring and stuff like that. That's not a, that would not be a good thing.

To see you in a tux would be also exciting. A little, yeah, we're not even, you know, this. You ask, just keep it up, Ken. So the question was proverbial. Yeah. It was rhetorical. That's the word.

That's the word. Ritorical. That's the part where you're quiet. Yeah. I try to be when you're on. I really do. That's a great story. The point is, the point is the way you change your family tree is you change the mathematics of your situation, your net worth.

Instead of retiring and having to eat dog food and calling up your relatives for money. you're broke and you worked your whole life and you have nothing to show for it because you spend everything you made your whole stinking life instead of doing that you changed your life yeah in the process your kids watched and it changes their life that's right and then they become a better version of you and a wiser version of you and you've changed your family tree add to that a high net worth and now you've got amazing things that happen so if you studied the old Testament, for instance, you would know that inheritance is very biblical when done properly and when understood that it's actually God's money that you're managing. So, see, David

was prevented from building the temple because of misbehavior and named Bathsheba. It was a UFO, an unclad female object. And so, yeah, he was prevented from building the temple. So his son, Solomon, what built the temple. What did Solomon build the temple with? His own money? No, with David's money. It was inherited money that built the temple. And it was somewhere around $20 billion in today's dollars to build that structure. If you do the biblical money narrative and you fast forward that with inflation several thousand years, you get a, you get a ridiculous amount of money. So this billionaire left billions of dollars to his son who built. the temple inherited money built the temple on the temple mound in jerusalem that's interesting

when you think about it yeah and so this idea of generational change is entirely possible and it can go negative and it can go positive but you've got the ability to change your family tree and that that last couple man that's just everything that's the whole thing so if you're working the baby steps we want to get you on every dollar because that's what everybody says says when they're doing their debt-free scream. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I say it over and over and over again. And all the time, what do they say? Got to be on a budget. Got to be on a budget together. Got to be on a budget together. Got to be on a budget. We have to be on a budget. Every dollar. We love every dollar. Every dollar got us out of debt.

Well, every dollar will get you out of debt because it not only is a budgeting app, but also hand spoon feeds you all the Ramsey insights to make you do the budget the correct way to work our system. And if you don't want to work our system, you're really not going to like every dollar, because we're going to be like up in your face going, this is the fastest way to get out of debt and build wealth and be outrageously generous and change your whole family tree. It's every dollar. And it's free. You can download it at the App Store or Google Play. Tadda, just like that. David is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hi, David. How are you? I'm doing well. How about you, Dave and Ken?

Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? So I am a Lutheran pastor, and my question is, should I opt out of Social Security and what steps should I take if I do so? Because, I mean, you've been mentioning changing your family tree. If I did that, I would actually change my family tree with investing and also helping out fellow Christians. Because, I mean, as a pastor... How old are you, David? I'm 28. Perfect. Okay. Great question. And I've counseled pastors, Financial Peace University has been taught in 50,000 churches in the past 25 years. So I've been asked this question a lot. And here are the, here's the three or four components to the situation. Number one, Social Security provides three things. Disability, in the event you became completely disabled. So you need to make sure you have disability insurance. You need that anyway, whether you have Social Security or not.

If you die, your children, your minor children will get money from Social Security. They won't get that if you opt out. So you need life insurance. You need that anyway, about 10 to 12 times your income. So those are the two main things. And of course, you're going to retire. And so you're not going to have Social Security when you retire if you opt out. And so you need to be investing for retirement.

But you need to be doing that anyway because Social Security is not enough. You eat dog food if you're on Social Security. So you have to do those three things if you opt out because you're, vulnerable if you don't. Disability insurance, life insurance, and make sure you're saving for retirement. The fourth component is the IRS paperwork says that if in order to opt out, you have to be a conscientious objector, which means I object to the social security system on a spiritual basis, okay? Not just I don't like it. Okay. I don't like it. Okay. I, as a Christian could object to it. I can't because I'm a pastor. I'm not a pastor. But I could

object to it on a spiritual basis saying it's a horrible use of God's money. It's bad stewardship. And so I easily could sign that in good conscience, but you need to be able to sign that in good conscience and say spiritually, I disagree with the social security system. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my. my co-host. D is in El Paso, Texas. Hi, Dee, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? A lot of our landscaping budget on trying to get grass to grow in the desert. Is it fair for me to ask him to spend feudal grass spending from his fun money? How much is he spending? I got to know this number.

Well, like, in a summer season between sod and seed and water, it's probably a like 250 to 300 bucks out of our $500 budget. Your $500 budget for what? The $500 is the line item for landscaping? Yeah, for like a season. Okay. It's not a lot. Okay. And what's your household income? Reveal amount compared to our budget. What's your household income? What's your household income? What? Sorry, 210. 210. $210. $2.000. Okay. All right. Yeah. And, um, So, yeah, and it's, so is it the futility that bothers you? We just have, like, even though we have a high income, we have a lot of other things that we're putting that money towards. So it's like we've carved out this number that we agree on.

And, yeah, so maybe it is the futility. And I don't mind it that he wants to experiment with growing grass. But this is three seasons now. So is it fair to just call it a hobby? How much does he enjoy it? Apparently, a lot. Well, does he enjoy it or is he just feel like it's really ugly and it's more of a thing that bothers him

versus he's really loving the time spent on it? That's what I'm trying to get at. I think that he's an analytical person who doesn't like to lose. And so I feel like it's almost like Sisyphesian. It's me against the grass. By the way, great way. Great word. You win the caller of the day for using that word.

That's fabulous. And him trying to beat the sun is, that's a tough one. That's a tough one-on-one battle. The futility seed is another one. These are some great lines. Oh, man. Okay. Because it is a very small amount of your world and it gives him joy, I don't care which line item it's in.

still leaves your house. They're still, you're still spending $250 on futility, regardless of what you label it. You could label it futility in the budget. Have you customized the feudal seed budget? That's a different kind of utility. Yeah. And so, just put it right there under, you know, subset of landscaping. And it's, you know, you name it what it is, but it still leaves your budget.

I mean, if you take it out of his hobby, oh, you're saying, though, it doesn't leave your budget because you're saying you would not increase his hobby by that amount. Right. Oh. And you've got another line item you want that money to go to, correct? Yes. Which one? What is it?

We're saving to put in a shade structure in our backyard. A what structure? Like a shade awning thing. A shade structure. Okay. Okay. And what does the shade structure cost? What's seven grand?

Okay. All right. And so there's $250 a month for six months is $1,500, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I think the way this would sound at our house, okay, net net, I agree with you that this is futile, probably. And net net, I agree that it's cool for him to want to do it anyway. And net net net, we're all in agreement on these three things. You have the money. It's no big deal. Okay. So it's not killing your family. Your children have diapers. All that. I mean, we're okay. So the, so at our house, it would sound something like this. Look, it's bothering, Sharon would say it's bothering me that we're wasting money on X because we're saving for Y. And I think we could get there faster. And I'll say, yeah, but it would bother me to not do the futility seeds. I need to do those. It's good for me. And so I'll cut the, let's cut the budget. other places and let you get let's get the shade thing a little faster by cutting in other areas. And she and I would end up negotiating some other area that we cut that didn't mean as much to either one of us because in this case this actually means something to him. He has a valid vote in this process.

It means something to you to increase the speed at which we buy the shelter from the same sun that's killing the grass. I wonder if these things could work together. But, yes. Oh, there you go. We'll have a large, we'll have a little patch of grass.

Yeah. Under the shade. That's underneath the shape. Dave, that's actually brilliant. I'm telling you. That's just why I'm here. You know what Stacy would say it would go like this at our house.

She would say, uh, so how do we feel? How do we feel? And she always does that. And it snaps me out of it. And I always go, we,

you don't, you don't feel. You got a mouse in your pocket? Yeah, you're never out there. She'll say that to me, Like, we should weed. I go, you don't weed anything.

Yeah. It's not weed. It's a passive aggressive statement. But it's a great one for a wife because it snaps me out of it and it lets me know that she's probably questioning money. We have a trash problem. Oh, that means I have a trash problem. That's right. We should go to the dump.

That's never the two of us. That's funny. That's funny. I like that. No wonder Stacy and Sharon get along. Right. The passive aggressive. And it snaps me out of it because I realize, oh, the queen is not happy with something.

We. Right. We are buying seed. in futility. Here's why I am on D's husband's side. I'm not anti-D. D. I get it. It's kind of a fun call. It is, but here's the deal, Dave. Yard work for me is very therapeutic. I enjoy getting out, doing a little bit of landscaping. I'm no architect, as you know. But I do enjoy the time out there. My brain frees up. I get some good thinking done because I'm on this menial task. I get it. He doesn't want to give up. yet. So I think the approach is, is how do you feel about this season? You think it's going to work?

How many more seasons are we going to try this? I want to give you the Stacy tip. We kind of felt that way about our Titans tickets. Oh, yeah, exactly. How many more seasons are we going to try this? How many more seasons? That's right. Yeah. Talk about futility. Boy, that's so true. You NFL fans know what we mean. Our beloved Titans, we got another uniform, another new logo. I don't think we have any new results. We'll see. Oh, Dee, it's fun. We're not giving you much of an answer, but I think he has a valid point. It is that. But I also think it's valid for you to bring up that because you feel like this is futile, we need to squeeze somewhere else in the budget if you're not willing to give up the futile seeds.

And I actually love Dave, and I'm being serious, Dee. I love Dave's suggestion. We save up, we stop the futility, we save up for the shaded structure, and then he tries to grow grass underneath that. I think that's actually a stroke of genius. I don't think it'll work, but I think it needs sun. But what do I know? It's the arid climate, Ken. It's not. That's it.

Just get a bag of rocks. Dave Ramsey here. Most people stay stuck with their money because they're not paying attention to it. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, stressed out and broke. Don't be most people. You work way too hard to be broke and feel broke, and you deserve to have something to show for it. That's why we built the Every Dollar Budget app. It gives you a personalized plan for your money that shows you how to free up extra money every month

and use it to beat debt and build lasting wealth. Plus, you get real coaches guiding you through your plan step by step. Look, most people hearing this will just keep hoping something changes, but not you. You're ready to make change happen, starting now. Go download every dollar in the app store or Google Play and start for free today. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Why Refi defaulted private student loans don't define you, but dealing with them can. Why Refi helps you to refinance into a low fixed rate payment that you can afford so you can take control of your money and get back to working the baby steps. go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey, might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Kristen in Idaho. My husband and I are in our mid-50s and both work full-time. I contribute 15% in my employer's 401k, but my husband works for a small business and doesn't receive retirement benefits. Would you recommend that I increase my investments to cover the both of us? I don't think so because just because he doesn't have an employer program, he still has an income, and he can still be investing at that 15% rate that we teach. So it's the principle, not necessarily the product. And in this case, if you invest the way we teach, then he can absolutely start investing in retirement. You don't have to double up. You can, but what I would use some extra in yours if I had to, Christian. Yes. But the first thing I would do is both of you do Roth IRAs.

you can do $8,600 each every year right now. And so that's $17,200 bucks. That 15% of $100,000 would get you that, right? So, I mean, that's $17% of $100,000 income. So if that doesn't get you with what you're doing in your 401k to 15%. So if he makes over $100,000, you'll need to do something more than, or over $110,000. You'll need to do something more than two Roths. but you can do 8600 apiece at at age 50 and that all you know both of them in 8600 your name 8600 and his name go to ramsysolutions.com and click on smartvestor pro find a smart vestor pro in your area they can set that up and have it auto-drafted out of your checking account it's very easy to do in the four types of mutual funds we talk about growth growth and income aggressive growth and international that's how mine is set up that's how kins is set up and if that plus your 401k doesn't

get you there because he makes 200k, which, okay, he works for a small business and doesn't receive retirement benefits. The likelihood I'm making 200k is pretty low, probably, okay? So more than likely, you know, that'll do it. But if it doesn't, then you could add some to yours. But I would want you to do two Roth IRAs before you talk about adding to yours, to Ken's point. And so I think you can get there without any trouble. London is in Atlanta. Hi, London. How are you? Better than I deserve. How are you? Just the same, sir. How can I help?

So I'm on my last credit card of my debt snowball, and it's at $7,800 that I got. And the entire time that I've been paying it, I've had a 0% APR on it until the start of this year. And now it skyrocketed up to 28%. I'm wondering if it would be smart to seek a debt consolation. to get a lower APR or if I should just bear down and what do you make pay it off of that APA I make 4,700 right now but I'm getting married in two weeks and what does she make not quite sure we're not quite sure she's starting a new job so but she'll be making 15 an hour part-time why part-time the it's a career advancement for her and this is kind of an

entry level and they're offering full-time for a little while. Okay. I'm sorry, part-time $15 doesn't sound like career advancement to me. Well, it's for a pharmacy position, so there's a lot of room for growth. Is she a pharmacist? No, she's a tech, so she's working. All right. Yeah, she needs to get full-time work, and if they don't provide that within 30 days,

she needs to get a different job. There's no, this is not, career advancement on counting pills out. not, no. No, it's not, you know, she's not a pharmacist's going to make 135. She's not. So, anyway, side from that, because that, but that does bring us to the point of while she's working part-time, she needs another part-time job too, because you guys have a $7,800 debt. What other debts do you all have? No, that's all of it. Does she have any money? Do you have any money? Not in

retirement? I've got $1,000 for my emergency fund, but aside from that, No. She doesn't have any money? No, no debt either. Okay. All right, good. All right, cool. All right.

Well, the answer is, you know, no, I would not get a consolidation loan. You're going to get yourself off into some deep water with some bad paper or some bad loan terms there. What I would do is shop for a different credit card that has a zero percent and just do a balanced transfer. But here's the thing. It's $7,800. I want you to pay this off in like, $1,000. two months. I want y'all to work like 24-7 and cleared up right now. That's kind of been how I paid off my other credit cards because I was taking up sidework,

but my sidework's kind of slowed down right now. We'll get a different sidework. Okay. Get more sidework. There's always sidework. Lots of sidework. What do you do for a living? I'm a machinist. Oh, great. Man, you can find some work for sure. are definitely people.

Good Lord, and you're in Atlanta? A market that size? Oh, you can find work for sure. Well, I'm north of Atlanta. I'm over closer to Blue Ridge. Okay. Well, you may have to haul a little bit to get to some work then. But anyway, yeah, you're, you're, anyway, yes, I would pick up extra work, side work.

And it's not 78,000, so this should not be around long. And so the interest rate, if you only have it for three months, the interest rate almost doesn't matter. Okay. If the debt is going to be around three to six months, max, the interest rate is almost irrelevant. But if you want to burn some calories and go get a 0% transfer credit card or a 5% interest transfer credit card, I don't care. Anything like that, transfer it to another card and then cut this one up and then cut that one up as soon as you do the transfer. And then still pay it off just as fast. But you have a $7,800 problem.

You don't have a $700 problem. And $700 is the interest we're talking about. out. So that's, you know, 700 doesn't solve your problem. If you got another zero percent, it doesn't solve the problem. It's still sitting there looking at you. You need a grand. And you're getting married and you need to go get as soon fast as you can and clean it up as fast as you possibly can. And, you know, that's how I would go out this. Susan's in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hi, Susan. How are you? I'm fine, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can we help? we have a second home it's um my husband and i were recently married i didn't do anything for about a year with the home i rented it for a year and then when we started to delve into it we thought we flip it real quick uh but it's kind of become a nightmare and to bring it up to code it's costing us a lot So the question is to keep, you know, plugging along, cash flowing it, or we brought a contract in, we're looking at $80,000 to $100,000 to get everything done. There is a mortgage still on the home. So we're kind of looking at what option...

How much is owed on the home? $80,000. What will it sell for as is? As is, I don't think it's going to bring much because it's been pretty much gutted. That's the big problem. as is what will it sell for have someone look at it and tell me what do you think it's really going to sell for all the emotion about you being pissed off about this house or whoever guttered it I don't care about what will the house actually sell for maybe 125 sell it I wouldn't put 80 in it

sell it and put a few dollars in your pocket move on okay okay yeah why put 80 into that you put 80 into it now you not it's got to bring over 160 for you to break even on that investment and it's already a piece of crap house that you hate. Right? Not exactly, but I understand. Yeah, I mean, no adjective you used towards the house was positive. Yeah, anyway, that's what I would do. If I woke up in your shares, this thing is a leftover from another life that was imported into this new marriage

and it needs to be jettisoned from the new marriage. I want to clean house, no pun. Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and fast. free to use. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's Ramsey Solutions.com. The Ramsey Show is going on tour. This April, next month, we're headed to Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Anaheim.

If you've never experienced this show live in person, well, you have the opportunity. It's a perfect date night. If one of you is a spender, one of you's a saver, come out of Rachel and John and George and Jade and Ken. settle the money debates live in front of everybody. Tickets are already sold out in Anaheim. We've been told there's three left in Denver, which means Denver sold out. Charlotte and Phoenix, don't wait.

You're going to be sold out soon, too. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes, if you're listening on the podcast or on the YouTube. Come out and see the show live in person. Josh is in Chicago. Hey, Josh, how are you? I'm doing well, Dave.

How are you? Better than I do. deserve. What's up? So my question is my wife and I have been going back and forth on whether or not it makes sense to keep our country club membership at this stage in our life and finances. Ooh, who says keep it? Who says get rid of it? You know, I would say I'm probably leading more keep. My wife's probably leading more get rid of it. But at the same time, I'd say in the recent months, it's been a little bit back and forth of there are times where we'll talk about it and she says keep it. You probably had a big upfront on it, right? So we've been there for six years. We joined

as junior members, and we had a pretty small upfront, actually, but then the catch is now as I'm getting older and kind of progressing up the different membership classes, if we left and came back, I'd then be hit with a big downstroke. I'd be hit with about a $50,000 downstroke if we left and came back. Oh, a $50,000. Okay. All right. And what's your household income? So base salaries end up right under 300 and then with bonuses and everything, we pretty commonly clear a little over four, sometimes a little more than that. Is this a golf membership also? Yeah, yeah.

And how often do you play? So I'll play two to three times a week during the season. We're in Chicago, so I mean we get, I mean, Memorial Day through Labor Day. What are your dues? So monthly dues before we walk in the door are 865. And during the winter, it's about that. We don't really eat out there much during the winter. and during the season we play quite a bit, eat there, pretty involved socially.

So maybe two grand to $2,500 a month we're paying in season. Yeah, but that's in lieu of restaurants and some of that. Correct. Yeah, so, or green fees, for that matter. Do you have any debt? We do. We do have some car debt. Should be cleared by the end of this year, but we've about $77,000.

in car debt. And it's that in our house that we have. Okay. Well, based on your usage, I don't know why you're thinking about getting rid of it. You have the money. I mean, you have the income to support that. Some of that's the equivalent of a restaurant bill. So basically it's $1,000 a month, $12,000 a year. And you play unlimited golf, I assume. Correct. And usually you got like a food minimum, right? Yeah. I'd say the reason I'm, actually, I don't, in my category, I don't have a food minimum. Wow. Okay. So the 2000s, if you actually did eat then? Correct. Or take, or take guests on the golf course, yeah. Exactly. Okay. So you can afford all that. If you weren't using it and you're just burning $1,000 a month and you never golfed and you didn't

go over there and eat, then, yeah, that starts to be the time that season has, that sun has set, right? And so we sunset the idea and we move on because it's not, it's this season of our life. We're not there. An example would be one of the guys working here is a member of a club that we have a corporate sponsorship into. And he said, I can't go play golf. I have little kids. And he goes, I'm not paying $1,000 a month to just say I belong over there. And food's okay, food's okay, but it's basically a golf club. And so he's like, no, I'm out.

And so because he's not that, and he, you know, someday he may want to join something again. But it's probably a decade from now because he's got little kids. and around to golf's five hours, you know? So that was kind of where the question came from a little bit. So my wife and I were early 30s and we've got two kids, I mean, I've got a one-year-old and like a four-month-old. And so I do see my golf usage dwindling a little bit. But at the same time, I mean, it's something I do want for my kids

when they are old enough to enjoy it. And let's say five, six years, something like that. My thought was if I left and rejoined, I'd be hit with a huge downstroke at that point. So does it make sense to kind of keep it during these next, five to six years where I won't be using it quite as much. Yeah, but you're going to use it. If you're going to use it some, it's just a utilization thing. You know, don't pay for a subscription that you don't read.

Don't pay for a membership you don't use, right? But if you're going over there and playing golf, you know, a Chicago club's tough. There's some iconic clubs there, obviously. And, I mean, I played Medina up there the other day, and it's incredible. as an example. But I'm sure, based on the numbers you're giving me, that's not what we're talking about. But anyway, there's some iconic things up there. I think when you cease to use it enough because of whatever reason, kids or whatever,

then you would cancel it. But today you're doing that in anticipation of that because today's actual usage justifies keeping it. Makes sense. and and you know because you can't go back uh in baby step two i would keep it because of your income now if you told me your income was 100 grand i would have we went in having this conversation i just i don't care about your junior membership you just can't afford it but you're you know you're making 300 plus and it's 12 000 and you can't get back in so you stay in to stay in

and but i wouldn't keep it 10 years with non-usage either Yeah, I think it's an ROS return on spend there. And I mean, I'll tell you what happened to me. I joined the same golf club. I got bit, I've always enjoyed golf, but I really wanted to play a lot. And for two years, I did. And then I found another hobby. And that this season of my life, I don't have time for two hobbies because I go all in.

Mr. Pickleball does not need a golf course. It's essentially what happened. My own wife said, so when was the last time you played golf? And I said, well, it's probably been three weeks. because every nice day I was trying to get a pickleball game. And so it came down to I realize it just doesn't make any sense. It's all it was. Vincent's in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Hey, Vincent, how are you? I'm doing good. How can we help? I got a Shelby, a limited edition, GT 500. And it's worth about 105. I owe about $65,000 on it. But the question I have is, I owe the RS a little bit of money, about $18. thousand dollars and got some credit card bills and the card's value i'm trying to wait to at least get up to

a hundred fifty thousand or i should just sell it now and clear off all my debt and everything else if you did not own it and you had forty thousand dollars in your checking account and you said i could either clean up my debts or i could go borrow another 65 and buy a car that i hope goes up in value you would never do that. You need to sell this car. It is a fabulously cool car. I love the car. But dude, you're broke.

You don't even be driving a $100,000 car. You're broke. I don't think he anticipated that response. Yeah. I mean, it's a hundred. He said a $105,000 value, 065. Take the $40,000, clean up a mess and move on. You can, you know, when you become wealthy,

someday and you have extra money, you can buy cars. It's okay. I buy cars. I like wild cars, crazy cars. I like it. It's fun. And that's a neat vehicle. A 500, a GT 500. A GT 500. Boy, that's going to be a sad day. Yeah. Make no mistake about it. So what we're suggesting here is not painless. No, it's, I just, that's a beast of a car. Just removed your little finger. I would get one more burn out of it before I sold it. I would burn those tires one more It's a hawse. But yeah, it's a classic muscle car. It is going up in value.

I don't disagree with you there. I don't think you're in a position to borrow money to invest in collectibles going up in value. And that's essentially what you have done. And so I would tell you to get out of it, even though my 15-year-old redneck boy says that's the coolest car ever. But yeah, still got to sell it. It's that time again, folks. Tax season is here. I know.

some of you would rather bury your head in the sand until April 15th than face your taxes. But here's a better idea. If your tax situation is complicated, get in touch with a Ramsey trusted tax pro today. That way they can take the stress off your shoulders once those tax forms come in and teach you how to keep your tax bill as low as possible. But don't wait, Ramsey trusted pros can book up fast. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash tax pro. to find one who serves your area with excellence.

That's ramsysolutions.com slash tax pro. Scripture of the day, 1st Corinthians 13, 6, and 7, love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Thomas Oll said facts can be ignored, but their consequences cannot be escaped. Logan is with us in Ilisbury. Illinois. Hi, Logan. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I'm 29 years old. I'm a single father. Basically, extenuating circumstances over the last couple of years has led me to this mountain of debt, and I just, I can't even look at the bills anymore, and I don't know where to start. Okay. How big is the mountain? A quick list, $26,000 in total would kind of get me set straight. Be debt free. So $26,000 in debt, okay. And give me a little breakdown on that.

What kind of debt is it? A lot of it's credit cards. How much? Credit cards. I've got one that's 2775, 28%. I got another one that's only 639. I got another that's 2,000. 980, and then I think one that's another 600.

That's only $7,000. Yeah. Okay. So they're emotionally heavy, but they're not that much. So what's the other $19,000? I have a 2016 Chevy Malibu, $10,139 left. That's 13.63%. that thing is just, I mean, it's falling apart.

And what's the other $10,000 in debt? The other debt is mostly medical. I'm looking at a lot of medical. There's one from my last apartment that I had to move out and I just couldn't afford it. Are you paying them monthly right now? No, I am not. They went to a collector and I owe $2,2009 to them. Medical bills are paying any of those monthly?

right now? I just, yeah, I'm trying. Okay. And the, um, different places. And the, um, what's your income? Uh, 40,000 salary. I just got a new job. So I'm starting, uh, in two days.

What were you, what did you use to make? Uh, I was making a little bit more than that. I was making about 45 with, but I was working a crap tonne over time. Um, and I was not seeing my child. So this is, so you were making more money, but we're not current. And so you took a job making less money? I did, but I'm driving an hour, two hours less a day. I'm not driving an hour to and from work every day.

Okay. So that's going to save probably about $2,000 to $3,000 in gas. I am a, I'm going to be a paralegal. And how old is your child? He's nine years old. It'll be 10 in May. Okay. And so he and your ex live around you there?

Yes. Yes. She lives about 20 minutes away, going through court proceedings and everything right now to get custody. And that's... How long have you been divorced? We were never married. We've been split up since he was about one years old, and I've been fighting this uphill battle for the better part of seven years. And you've been seeing him during that time?

Yes, all the time. More so... So why is there a battle if you're seeing him? I just, that seems the way it goes. I fought for joint custody. She had the majority custody in the split up. And then I had to fight to get joint custody. Finally had joint custody for the last couple years.

And then there was issues that gave me protective custody over the last six months. And now I'm doing trying to get full custody or majority custody. But the judge wants us to do mediation. And that costs $600 per party. And I had to pay the attorney another three. Were you a paralegal in this previous job doing all the overtime? No, I was not. What were you doing?

I was working at a warehouse on a forklift. Yeah, I'm going to tell you, I appreciate that you're saving gas on the hour each day, but you need to be working crazy hours where you are now. You really do. You can get out of this pretty quickly. Yeah, so here's the thing. You've spent 90% of your brain power fighting custody for the last however many years. You spent almost 0% managing money.

Agreed? I mean, you put all of your energy into the nine-year-old, which is good. You're a dad and you're trying to do things for your kid, and I don't blame you for that. But you get what you lean on. And so you're going to have to lean on this money. piece from an income production standpoint, a side hustle temporarily, long enough to clean some of this up and to start to plow through it to get rid of the credit cards and cut them up and get this car paid off and whatever else we've got to do to get this thing moving, right?

Yeah. But, I mean, you're not paying on the old debts anyway. Just let them sit for now. I don't care about your credit. And then I want you to pile up some cash. Let's get this car paid off as fast as you possibly can, get these credit cards paid off as fast as you can. The interest rates are bothering you. I know that because you brought them up in detail.

Yeah, it seems like the interest rates are not your problem. I said they're bothering you, but I don't say they're your problem. Interest rates aren't your problem. They're only your problem because they've been around so long. But if you pay off these cards, $7,000 cleans up your credit card net, all of it. And so $17,000 makes your life hole. and so if I'm you, I'm going to go find $1,500 a month, which is $18,000 a year, and I'm going to cut into my monthly budget to the tune of at least $1,000 a month.

That puts $2,500 a month on $17. That's a six or an eight-month program, and you're debt-free except the medical bills and the old landlord debt, and you can breathe again. Yeah. But right now, you've focused all of your energy into, You've spent zero time analyzing and attacking the money thing because you spent all of your calorie burn on this custody fight, which is totally acceptable. I'm not shaming you for that. I'm just pointing out that when you bother to care about the money, one-tenth as much as you care about this custody thing, it's going to straighten up.

But you have to lean in on it hard, like you've been leaning on this other thing hard. And what do I go first? I know some people say interest rates. Some people say, I don't give a crap about your interest rates. I want you to get your budget on beans and rice, rice and beans. I want you to pick up 1,500 a month in side hustle, and I want you to put $2,500 a month towards credit cards. If you do that in three months, the credit cards are gone, and in four more months, the car debt is gone. That's seven months.

$2,500 times into $17, that counted up. Interest rates don't matter when you're doing it that fast. And so list your debts smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one. and then get pissed off about this. It's been riding on your back too long. You need to get this thing off your back. And by the way, your head will be clearer to be a better dad and to fight these other battles if you're not broke.

And then go clean up the little medical bills. They're like a bunch of freaking mosquitoes around your head. And then call the landlord and offer them 25 cents on the dollar, lump sum once you've got a little money saved up, and they'll clear that. You could be debt-free in like a year. completely debt-free in a year. But you're going to have no, you're going to get nothing done during that year

except nine-year-old, work all the time, nine-year-old, work some more, and pay debt. And that's the only thing you get to do for the next year. Complete focus. And you can knock this out very quickly. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, to help you do it. And we're going to get you signed up for every dollar. Christian will pick up and get all of that happening for you. You can do this.

you've just been completely focused on something else, which, by the way, was the right thing to do, you should be focused on your kid before you're focused on money. But the great news is that cleaning up the money also helps the kid because it puts you in a better position to fight when you're not broke and staring at interest rates all the time. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus.