The Ramsey Show - Make Sacrifices Today To Achieve Your Financial Goals

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

🤔 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Think you’re good with money? Take our Money in America quiz!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss: "As a single mom, what is the best way to get rid of a day care debt that is past due?" "My boyfriend and I both have student loan debt, how do we start investing once we are debt-free?" "We are in Baby Step 3 and wanting to set up a special needs trust for our child. Should we pause Baby Step 3?" "I have an inconsistent income and 4 kids. While paying off debt, how much should we keep in savings?" "As a truck driver, should I live out of my truck versus buying a home to save money, or is that being too frugal?" "How do you pay off your credit cards when the minimums are half my take-home pay?" Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Get episodes early in the free Ramsey Network app! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧮 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Set and actually reach your goals with the NEW 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner! Hurry—they sell out every year!⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🏠 Get organized and prepared to buy or sell a home. 🛡️Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget 📚 Set and actually reach your goals with the NEW 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner! Hurry—they sell out every year! Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Go to⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Casper Sleep⁠⁠ and use promo code RAMSEY to learn more. Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!  Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one, bestselling author, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour.

She's my co-host today and my daughter. Open phones at AAA 825-5-2-2-2-5. Rachel, before we jump straight to the calls, you guys just got back from doing a Ramsey, something we've never done, the Ramsey show on the road. And it was you and George and Ken in Chicago, right? That's right. At the Den in Chicago, this kind of little club set about 300 people. And it was so fun. So we took live calls from the audience.

We played some fun Ramsey Show trivia, which they all knew it. They all won the game because they're all big fans. They listened to every show. I feel like everyone that was there. But it was great. A lot of laughs. A lot of good conversation. And, you know, you get reactions from the audience.

They're clapping. They're laughing. They're, uh, when someone asks the question, you know, and they know it's great. It was a really fun time. A little groan in the audience. Yeah, it was great. It was good. So, and we're taping another one tonight in Orlando with Jade and Deloney and George.

That's right. Yes. Okay, cool. So these are all sold out. We're doing a little test with these. I think we're doing four or five of them here in the fall. And if they all go as good as Chicago, you'll be hearing us all across the country in the spring. We'll do a bunch of them for you guys just to come out and do what we're doing right now in your presence.

And you guys get to be there and ask questions live. And the only problem is we can't hang up on you to pretend. you from you so um yeah you can't put people on hold yeah we did learn that yeah sometimes we do that around here we protect you from you but can't do that in a live setting it's a little harder i just push the button and the microphone still standing there with that guy yeah that's it so yeah you got to be careful with that but hey open phones here at triple eight eight two five five two two five katherine's in grand rapids michigan hey katherine how are you i'm doing good dave how about you and rachel better than we deserve what's up in your world

Okay, so my question is, how am I as a single mom supposed to balance my debts and maintain my health and take care of my daughter at the same time? Well, it sounds like the income is smaller than the outgo, probably, isn't it? It's definitely not great. Yeah, you wouldn't be calling me if you were making 300K. No, definitely not. So what do you make? I make between 28,000 and 30,000 a year. And how many children do you have?

I just have the one. She just turned 13 months a couple weeks ago. And I actually called into the show in April of last year when I was so pregnant. and I did do what was advised. What was that? But it's to make sure I got a second job work as hard as possible until my due date. Did that help? It did a little bit, but as soon as I went back into the workforce,

all that I had things up for my maternity leave and my return to work vanished with the first couple weeks of daycare. I bet. Daycare is outrageous these days. Wow. And so you make $28,000 a year? Yes, just between $28,000 and $30. What do you do? I am a groundskeeper slash student supervisor for my local university. Okay. All right. And are you getting child support? No child support. Her father is not. from the U.S. so and we don't have any extradition with the country that he's from so it doesn't

help in any matters wow okay so he just disappeared yeah all right katherine do you have family in the area do you have yeah i live in the same town as both my parents and my dad's parents okay everybody's a little swamp themselves sure do you have good relationships with them in general though? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, the long-term answer to your equation is more income.

Well, no kidding, Dave. Okay. But so what we've got to do is the long-term answer is to be thinking about what career can Catherine engage in to make $100,000 a year starting 10 years from today or five years from today. And what has she got to do to get ready for that career? Okay. Because obviously what you're doing, we don't want to project that out 40 years.

That's an unfun life. Okay? So number one thing, we start thinking out into the distant future and what has to be true. Do you have to take a class, get a certification, get a degree in something to get to be and do something that pays more than the something you're doing now? That's kind of basic, but that's really where we got to start. Then we can roll back from there. I'm sorry? I have been looking into doing some classes with either parents.

software or Google's Coursera courses. Okay, in order to do what? Not to either do something in the medical field or management. Okay, both of those are pretty vague. I want you to spend some more time dialing in exactly what you would be doing after you finish these courses, and I needed to pay 50 grand. Right. Or more, okay?

And so I don't care what you're doing. We'll send you Ken Coleman's book, finding the work you're wired to do, and it's got the assessment in it, and that will help you. We'll do that as our gift. And so you're already thinking like I'm thinking. Good. That's your long-term goal. Now, your short-term fix has got two components to it.

One is the dreaded part-time job and family helping you with a babysitting. Some. And two is, I want you to be sure you're plugged into your local church, and they know what you're up against. because they will help. I have reached out to the church. Good. They will help.

And if I'm sorry? The only help they can really give in my area is help with, like, rent and utilities, which would pay some of the monthly daycare fees, but it would not be enough to cover it all. Yeah. Well, and it sounds like possibly that the daycare arrangement you've made is one you can't afford. You may have to redo that. I don't know what that is.

but it's a very difficult thing you're facing. Yeah, that's so hard, Catherine. This is not an easy hill to climb. No. And I wonder, too, Catherine, if there's anything from home in the evenings and just knowing your experience as a groundskeeper and I'm sure there's some logistics there. I mean, I don't know. I'm just making this up.

But I'm like, if there's even like a landscape company that you could work for for eight hours a week to help with scheduling, you know, doing like some kind of admin work for them or whatever you can do from home, even just picking up a couple of hours. to just create some cash buffer is going to be big. And if the church can step in on those utility bills and rent, I mean, that will free up. I mean, I don't know how much the rent is, but a couple of hundred bucks at the minimal for a period of time too.

So it's kind of puzzle piecing some of this together for probably the next six-ish 12 months until you kind of can project out possibly a job change to be making more in your full-time job. What you don't want to do is get paralyzed and throw up your hands and say, oh, this can't be done, because it can be done. What it is going to require is not a single answer. There's not a single silver bullet.

It's turning the knobs, all of these knobs at one time. The extra job, the church, the long-term thinking with money, the daycare arrangements, the family help. All these knobs can be turned just a little bit. Then all of a sudden we start to get something that's sustainable until we can get our income up long-term. And that's where you've got to get to. It's not going to be a singular answer. and being paralyzed and giving up is definitely not going to be a good answer. Hey, you guys, more than a hundred million Americans carry medical debts, and that is so scary.

And it shows that traditional coverage often leaves people to face big, bills alone. Families need more than just coverage. They need community. So what if your health care costs less and you are actually supported by other believers in the process? That's why I love Christian health care ministries. CHM is a budget-friendly, faith-based alternative to health insurance that's been serving believers since 1981. And they've paid over $12 billion in medical bills. Y'all, that is faith in action. So let me say it again. CHM is not insurance. It's a nationwide health cost sharing ministry. It's Christians helping other Christians with their medical bills. With CHM, you get to choose your providers. There are no networks, no surprise bills, and no insurance

headaches. Whether you're just starting out as a family or you're looking for something that fits your budget better, CHM is where your faith and and finances agree. Programs start at just $98 a month. So go to chministries.org slash budget to learn more and take the leap of faith today. That's chministries.org slash budget. Deanna's in Pennsylvania. Hi, Deanna. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So my question for you, my boyfriend and I graduated college last. I graduated last August. He graduated last December. Combined, we had a little bit over $100,000 in student debt. Okay, you're not combined. not married. So how much do you have? I had 60 and he had about 55, 60 right around there. Oh, okay. Cool. All right. Yes. Yes. And then we, I'm set to pay mine off in December and he's set to pay his off in December. Wow. Wow. We're going to be student loan free. Good for you. In just about a year. Good for you. So, yeah, so planning long term wise, we're looking to probably get engaged in the next year and a half.

So one thing that we are talking about is combining finances after we are married, and we are looking at what to invest in once we get to that point. The next year is going to be saving up. We're planning on having around $50,000 to put as a down payment on a house. We don't want to really buy anything over like $150,000, and then, you know, double up our mortgage payments and pay off. our house as quickly as we can. But the one big question I had with all of this is I own my own marketing firm. So I cannot invest in a 401k where a company would match it. So my question to you

is, would it be smart to open something like a Roth IRA to start investing in now so that, you know, we can be millionaires when we retire? Good for you. Well, it sounds like you're doing a lot of planning. Congratulations. And of course, let me clarify one thing before I go back to that question. The house we're going to buy is after you're married to, right? Yes, correct. Yep, we would not be combining finances or purchasing. Or buying a house together. It's very, very dangerous to buy a home with someone you're not married to. Okay. All right. So now, so it's pretty simple just at that point you would have a, let's say you're married, you're out of debt, you have an emergency fund, you have and you buy a home with with 50,000 down you're at what we would call baby step four at

that point and that means you start putting 15% of your household income away towards retirement and then you work your budget and you have a life and any money you can squeeze out of it you throw at the house and pay the house off early which was your plan and that's how you outlined it okay so then that brings us to how do we do 15% of our income yes I would start with two Roth IRAs one of you each have one you can could start that now, for that matter. I was going to say, yeah, absolutely. Well, after the debt's paid off.

Okay. Yeah, once your debt's clear. Yeah. Yeah. And you can just sit down with a smart vester pro, which is the people that do, help our listeners do investing. And they've been vetted by us, and they have the heart of a teacher, and they'll teach you. You have available to you a couple of things with your marketing firm that you can also do as Roth. Okay.

You can do a, it's a SEP, IRA. a Roth SEP IRA, simplified pension plan, it's called. Now, do you have any employees in your marketing firm? No, nope, just me. Okay, then that's very easy. So you can put up to 16% of your income with a formula. It ends up actually being about 13 when the formulas applied. But you can put a bunch of your income aside in a SEPP, SEPP, simplified pension plan, okay,

and simplified employee pension plan. Now, warning, if you do hire people later and there will. you more than two of five years, whatever you put in that year that they've reached that point, you would have to put in the same percentage of their income. So it works really well for a solopreneur like you, but it doesn't work well for a small business that has five employees. Okay. Okay. You also, in addition to that, can do a simple IRA, which is a 401K for small businesses. Okay. And you can set it up. It's $15 to set the account up. They're very inexpensive set up. To set up a 401k in a big company like ours is tens of thousands of dollars a year in

administrative fees. But for a simple is designed for small businesses. Now, again, warning, if you have that and you hire someone, you're required to match the first 3% of what they put into their IRA if you have that simple program going. But point being, There's two types of ways you can get money in, and you actually can do both of them technically. And three, if you include the Roth, I do the Roth. So you'll be able to get to your 15% very easily. Make sure they're all in going in good growth stock mutual funds, and they're all Roth, which is tax-free growth. Yeah. And then your husband, once you guys get married, can be investing as well in a 401k if he's at work too. So you guys will be tackling it from multiple different areas, which is great.

But yeah, I appreciate the plan. And maybe you guys fast forward up the engagement, you know? I'm a fan if you know you're going to be engaged in a year and a half. Go ahead and shorten it. Like Rachel did. Start the process. Get the ball moving. Rachel and Winston came and said, we want to get married right now.

I know. We were young. Okay. All right. No, we waited. Ten months. No, 10 months. 10 whole months.

But I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Let's do this. Good job, Deanna, though. But honestly, very impressive. You guys just fresh out of college just in the last year. I have a plan to pay off the debt. Knocking it out.

Looking forward to the down payments, thinking about investing all of it. I mean, you are in a perfect position and time in your life to start all of this. So congratulations. Bobby's in Texas. Hey, Bobby, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you doing, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I had a question. Is it okay to pause building the emergency fund? You set up a revocable trust and a special needs trust? No. you don't need to you can fund those with the beneficiary of your life insurance and the kid doesn't need a trust unless you die well the thing is is uh my uh life insurance is really what I was worried about like if something was that happened to me and my wife like we have a beneficiary but we'll make the

beneficiary a portion of the beneficiary go to the special needs trust and then the child is funded for life out of your death. But you don't need to fund it while you're alive. You need to go build wealth while you're alive, and that will take care of the child later, and you won't even need life insurance to do it. Okay. So just finished the baby step three,

and then you said don't set up a revocable trust at all? No, I would just set it up only upon death. Special needs trust has no value while you're alive. It's for taking care of a special needs child if you're not there to do it, and you have to fund it with some money. And if you don't have money, you fund it with life insurance upon your death. But if you stay alive and you fund it with money and you say, I got a half million dollars in mutual funds 20 years from now,

and you say that is earmarked for this special needs child to be cared for throughout their life. That goes into a special needs trust upon my death. But until I die, I'm going to take care of them. You see what I'm saying? Yes, sir. So you're taking on a bunch of paperwork and paying lawyers crap you don't need to be doing right now. You just need to go get out of debt and make some money and name your, go ahead and do the life insurance today where it's named into the special needs trust and your will says the special needs trust is formed upon your death. And so upon your death.

Do you have to do paperwork though in order for that to be? Your will does it. Your will dictates that the trust is formed upon your death. And so poof, there's a trust now. You die? Poof, there's a trust. But who who who who where does it come out of thin air? of the estate is. They have to go form it then. Yeah, but it's not, it's not hard. I mean,

it's like, it's two pieces of paper. Okay. Okay. And you just, and but you've got to put money in the thing for the kid to be okay, which is your real motivation, Bobby, which makes you a great dad. What kind of life insurance do you have, Bobby? Between me and my life, we're looking at like 1.7. Good. It's great. And so what I would do is sit down, if you're working with a smart investor pro on your investing, I'd sit down and say, How much would I need to put in an account, you know, invested in mutual funds to take care of this child? With $50,000 a year, take care of this child, probably. So half a million dollars.

So you could say of the $1.7,500,000 goes into the special needs trust on the beneficiary statement. So you redo your beneficiary clause on your life insurance immediately, and you do your will immediately to say special needs trust is formed. The Bobby Special Needs Trust, and the Bobby Special Needs Trust is, funded with $500,000 from the beneficiary of this life insurance policy upon my death. And then the child is taken care of, which is your goal because you're a good dad. But you don't have to do all that crap right now. It can all be formed and done upon your death. What you do have to do now is do your will and change the beneficiary.

Listen up, people. If your phone bill is more than $25 a month, you're basically donating to keep your mobile carriers, private jets, stocked with caviar. But Boost Mobile isn't playing that game. Unlimited talk, text, and data for just $25 a month. No contracts. No, we're raising your rate because we feel like it emails.

Just a simple low bill every month. And because they actually believe in what they're selling, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. So if you don't love it, get your money back for zero risk. Go to boostmobile.com slash Ramsey to make the switch today. That's boostmobile.com slash Ramsey. Restrictions apply. See boostmobile.com slash Ramsey for details.

Rachel is in North Dakota. Hi, Rachel. How are you? I'm fine. How are you guys doing today? Better than we deserve. What's up? So we just started the baby steps. We're on step number two, and this is literally our second month. In our first month, we ended the month with a surplus of almost $3,000. Wow. Oh, good. But my question is, I have a variable income, and my husband does not.

and we have just over $9,000 in our savings. And so I was wondering, we have four children. So I wasn't sure if we should just keep that and then use whatever extra money we're finding every month to pay down the debt or if we should use the savings that we have already. 90% of the time we're going to tell you to use the savings down to $1,000. How variable is your income? Um, it's pretty extreme. I'm a wedding photographer. So in the summer months, I can make, you know, 12, 13,000 a month and then come December, almost nothing. So I also own a studio that brings in some small income as well. Um, we rent out to other photographers. So I can make anywhere from 1 to 3,000 a month off of that.

And that, and that's 12 months a year. Correct. Okay. So I mean, so your bottom is one to 3,000. thousand your worst month correct and what's your husband make my husband makes um each paycheck is four thousand seven hundred so about not just over nine thousand a month okay all right very good very good and how much of the um when you guys do your monthly budget rachel what how much does it take to run your household would you say um so my fixed expenses and with our like additional variable expenses like pets and miscellaneous home stuff is just about 9,000 so it just clears his checks okay so if you make zero you guys run the house okay you just don't have extra correct then why would you need savings to pad that um just because you're a nervous mom yeah my kids are

small and you know we get broken bones and fingers all the time so it's just you just never know but you have like health insurance we do yeah through my husband yeah and if you go the emergency room and they send you a bill the next month you have some wedding income to pay a bill correct and he has an hSA count two with just under a thousand and that yeah that's good so yeah i i think you are um it's wise to be a good mom and say i got four kids and it worked me it adds to my fear for us to be down to a thousand i don't have any problem with the wisdom of that but the actual math is telling us that that you're probably don't have a problem because in how much debt do you guys have left rachel oh yeah we we have um 40 000 in consumer debt and then

on top of that just our home but in baby step two is the only plan we're going to have one thousand dollars in the account and so yeah i was going to say i mean with your stuff rachel in like eight or 10 months. Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah. Yeah. My husband actually gets a really big bonus in March every year. It's usually 18 or 19,000. That'll finish it for sure. Perfect. Yeah. So according to your plan, we should be done like April or May the latest. No, but no, you'll be done in March because you're taking $8,000 according to our plan of your nine and putting it on your debt today. Okay. Oh, God, oh, God. Spend it off a few months.

I heard her take a breath. I'm just going into the, I'm just going into, like, my slow season. Yeah, I understand, but you guys can eat on your husband's income. You may not reduce debt, and if you had a horrible month, the worst thing that could happen is, is that a child breaks a bone, the HSA is used, and the $9,000 supports your family, and you brought in zero, and you're still okay. You didn't even touch the $1,000 emergency. small starter emergency fund that's your worst case scenario so and you're you're just not that's all

that's not going to happen and Rachel yeah that and it's so fast like if you guys had 140 of consumer debt um I think you know and it's and it's a longer period there's going to be more time for something to happen a bigger emergency but this is such a short period of time you know what I mean I almost would just knock it out because you just think about all the debt all the payments all the interest everything that's happening and if you can start chopping off a bunch of that stuff really quickly, which is what the Jet Snowball does. And if you're just a little bit scared, it motivates you to do it even faster. Oh, yeah.

My last month, I brought in almost $8,000 last month just because I was, I've been binging you every single day. And you're fired up. You're fired up. And if you're a little bit, and if you add that fired up just a little bit scared, it'll push you. And I don't think you're in danger. I would not tell you to put your children in danger, okay?

I love your kids. I don't want that to happen to them. and I'm not asking a mom to be irresponsible. Yeah. And we're not asking to live on a $1,000 emergency for him for 10 years either. We're asking for five or 10 months. And the truth is, from a percentage standpoint, the amount of emergencies that come up that you can't pause the debt snowball and wait two or three months to be able to save up to pay off that emergency and then go back to the debt snow. Well, that happens sometimes, but people have the ability to pause it if something happens.

Almost never. But most of the little things that come up that people use their store. starter emergency fund for is smaller than $1,000. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely like takes the breath out of you for a little bit, but you can do it. You guys can do it. It's a good thing. Yeah, Rachel, you've, I will tell you this. You've done a great job of analyzing your situation. You know your numbers. You have a plan. You're running it in your head. And the detail of the question you asked indicates how leaning into this you are. So I really think you'll be done by March. just my experience is the people that the people that are paying attention and focused and they're going on every little thing they're doing every little we're binge watching meaning i'm gathering this information i'm going to do this

and we're going to put you in the brand new every dollar which is going to hold your hand and make sure you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing it's going to give you step by step through the baby steps while you're doing the budget it's incredible the what we've done with this financial applicant app it's it's off the chain so hang on and we're going to give that to you as a gift. You guys make plenty of money. You're going to be just fine, and you're going to be so stinking wealthy at the end of this story. It's unbelievable. This is so fun. Great job, Rachel. Good for you. David is in Minnesota. Hi, David. How are you? Oh, I'm doing fabulous. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I got an interesting one for you. After a couple years after I lost my job in my friend's house while I get on my feet, I just got back into truck driving. Well, now he's going to sell the house, and I came up with three plans on what I'm going to do next. Either I buy a house, and I don't really have any money for down payment.

I just finished paying off my last credit card today, or I rent a place, but I'd rather prefer to own. Or the third option, and this is something I'm leaning towards as living out of my semi-truck. And how old are you? It's a company. I just turned 30. And I take it your single. Correct. How long would you do that? Since I'm not going to have a credit history starting today, since I don't have any other debt or credit cards or anything else, I don't know how much of a down payment I'm going to need for a house. Sorry, the bank doesn't care what my credit looks like.

So I'm thinking probably at least one or two. Oh, okay. So if you drove truck and lived in the truck for two years and stacked cash as a single guy and made that your home, I think that's amazing. Yes, I would do that. Okay, because a friend or two of mine, or I should say, oh, my sister thinks that it's a little crazy, so I live out of my semi-truck. Well, your sister's married and has two kids. How did you know? Wow.

No wonder why you're so good at this. That was a guess, but yeah, that's funny. But, I mean, she's got, she has a different life than you have. If you told me you were married and had two kids, I wouldn't tell you to do this. How often are you on the road, David? 24-7. He's driving over the road. I know, but how often, though?

Every day? Almost. So my schedule is I can be home every weekend, but every now and then I will drive through a weekend just to make some extra money. Yeah, you're doing long haul runs. Yeah. And you've got a sleeper cab, right? You got a sleeper cab?

Correct. Yeah. Have at it, man. Go see America. Maybe for the year. Maybe for the year. You say two. A year, maybe.

I'll say one. Then go rents. Go rent and apartments. No. No, I wouldn't do it for two decades. You need to come, you know, build a life at some point. But for a couple years and get some money stacked up and get some distance between you and whatever's been chasing you. Yeah, do it, man. Do it. 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially, the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance. And I'm like, I can't even imagine, or even if it's opposite, right? If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I going to afford child care. How do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing?

And it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level. Like when you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of next week. Yeah. In the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is. It's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance, and we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there. Like, there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies.

It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You've got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. There really is. So that is one thing, oh, to do to say, I love you. to your family. So we've used Xander for all of our family's needs for insurance for many years, including, of course, term life insurance. To get a free quote, go to 800, 356, 4282. That's 800, 356, 4282, or go to Xander.com.

Everybody needs insurance, but it can be hard trying to find pros who aren't just looking to make a buck. With a Ramsey trusted insurance pro, you don't have to deal with slimy businesses or slimy salespeople because they're all interviewed, vetted, and coached by us to make us to make. make sure they're not only market experts, but they have your best interest at heart. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash coverage to find the type of insurance you're looking for, and then you'll connect you with a Ramsey trusted agent in that area. Or click the link in the description and we'll help you out. Carly is in Arkansas. Hi, Carly.

How are you? Hi, guys. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Thank you guys for taking my call. I'll let you know.

I'm pretty nervous. I really look up to you guys and appreciate what y'all do. Well, thank you. How can we help? So, for some context, I'll be 20 this month and I'm getting married in January. Congratulations. Thank you. So my soon-to-be husband and I are trying to plan our future and just make sure that we follow the Ramsey way.

I've kind of hopped on the bandwagon that my mom has put me on last couple months. My biggest question is that I have an $85,000 inheritance in a brokerage account. but I haven't touched since I've gotten it but I when we think about putting a down payment on a house that kind of I just don't want to I'd rather pay cash so I'm thinking you know we put that brokerage account down on the

house but we want to save for the next four to five years to add to that house fund and I'm just not sure what kind of account to put that in do I put it on top of the brokerage or an HYSA Are you wanting to use the 85 Carly for a down payment and then pay the house off quickly or you're wanting to save that 85 plus a lot over the next couple of years to pay cash for a house?

The 85 plus the rest to pay cash. Okay. So you guys won't buy a house for a few years, and where do you keep saving that money until you buy is what you're asking? So who has the brokerage account? Well, I do, but we will. No, I mean, is it with a company that is doing all of your investing, or you just parked it there because your grandmother had it there, or what?

it's with my finance guy um so with the company i believe okay all right so if you were with one of our smart vestor pros or with your financial advisor if it's someone you trust it should be in a good growth stock mutual fund and uh that's what it's in yeah and you should add to that not a not a high yield savings account pays a fourth of what the mutual funds are producing these days so no you want to get you want to get a full ride because it's going to be a couple years carly if you guys we're going to put a down payment or something and you were saving for, you know, six months, you know, that would be fine to just to do like a high yield savings. If you were starting over, starting new. But something long term like that, then yes. Yeah. You got a three to a five-year

window. You got plenty of time to ride the market up and down and watch what it's doing and do, you know, be perfectly safe doing that. So, yeah, I would sit down with that guy and make sure that you feel good. Both of you and your fiancé, soon-to-be husband, feel good about the account that it's in what's the brokerage account invested in and i want to understand that and once i understand that say okay the purpose of this is i'm thinking about pulling this money out in three to five years and i'm going to be adding some to it for a down payment is this okay is this safe and they're going to talk you through it and walk you through it and then you'll you know then you make the decision if you want to leave it exactly there or not but i think you probably do it sounds sounds pretty good

and i really like that you're showing a lot of maturity because a lot of 20 year olds to get married and then we'll buy a house five minutes later. And I love that you're willing to take a, take a breath, and we want to save up even more. We're talking about buying, you know, completely debt-free. That's pretty incredible to think about that. How about that for a cool goal if you're 20? Yeah. That's a pretty cool goal.

But, I mean, she's starting with 85, which will be 100 soon. You know what I mean? Like, it'll start snowballing for sure with the interest and then adding to it. So, well done, Carly. Ashley's in Washington. Hi, Ashley. Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. How are you guys? Great. How are you? I'm so good. Thank you so much for taking my call

today. Sure. What's up? Well, so my husband is looking to switch jobs. I know he's feeling a lot of pressure and stress about this because it would be a pay cut for our family. And in the past, I've proven that I'm not able to stick to our proposed budget. My husband's current job is really stressful, and I would love for him to be back in a role where he loves the work he's doing and with a company that's morally in line with who he is as a person. I want to be able to sit down with him tonight and give him the reassurance that he can make this switch and it will be better for our family, that I'm on the same team as him when it comes to budgeting and our future, and I'm just really looking for some guidance on this. Okay, to start with, you guys

have a wrong assumption. The only way my husband can do something he loves with people that have a value system that's aligned is if he makes less money. Why the flip? Why don't he go make more money with people that I like doing something I love? Well, I mean, this job came up. I know, and it sucks. Yeah. It's not a dream job. It's a nightmare job. I'm going to take a pay cut because I'm stressed instead of going and looking for a pay increase in a better setting. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. So just a little bit of background. We're completely debt-free.

We have our house paid for. Our current net worth is about $1.7 million. His growth annual income right now is $160,000. He would, it would be $121,000, but here's the deal. We would get to see him more. So right now with the job that he's in... Why not take a job making $180 where you get to see him more? well just okay so with his job he's a paramedic okay paramedic okay he's a paramedic yep he's a paramedic

and right now he works for a flight company and he's a manager um so he's an administration he really wants to go back to doing medicine and i really want to be able to support him in that i do too but i don't this natural human tendency to assume that in order to go do the thing I love doing, it has to mean I get paid less, is not, it's a, it's faulty logic. I do what I love doing. I get paid more every day. Right. Yeah.

So, I mean, you know, is there a different way to skin this cat? Yes, there is. And so, let's take that off the table. But I really want to challenge you all on this thought train because it's, you know, I want to support my husband and he takes a 60% pay cut so he's happy. I'm bull. No. No, no, I'm not going to support that.

Now, I set that aside. Now, let's answer your question, though, Hon, about what the, you want to be able to talk about sticking to a budget, right? Yes, yes. How can she do that, Rachel? Well, what's his take on all of this, Ashley? I want to know from, like, the job perspective, the budget, all of it. What's his level of involvement in conversation and effort and everything? Yeah, so he is the one that found you.

Like, he found Dave Ramsey a few. Well, probably 10 or 15 years ago. And when Josh and I got married, he was like, I really want to do this. So from the start, we've been working our tail off to save, to pay off our house, to get rid of all of our debt. Yeah. And to be where we've done a great job. I was going to say, you probably have $1.7 million or not worth. So the budget, Ashley, at this point, because you guys are in Baby Step 7, and we still say to budget, regardless of your baby,

be step. But you guys, you're going to have a little bit more flexibility to move within the budget versus someone who's trying to find $1,000 and they're cutting stuff and they're going, right? So you're going to, it's going to be a little bit of a, it will be some discipline to make sure that you guys are tracking transactions, that you know where your money's going. But even the detail of the budget can kind of expand a little bit. Does that make sense? You don't have to be as rigid. So what I, I mean, so yeah, Winston and I, like, we have a category for home where like all of our bills for the house go subscriptions um anything we buy for the home we have a line item for that like throughout you know if it's random stuff that we need for the house uh food's a big category

lifestyle's a big category so we have big categories in our every dollar budget and then within those you guys can go as specific or as broad as you want but the the point is is that within every dollar especially when it's connected to your bank you're able to track those transactions and just stay on top of hey here's the amount of money we said we spend in these big categories and we're to stay within those limits. And so it just takes some time and discipline to get that as a new habit, but totally possible, Ashley, totally possible. y'all do you want to know a game changer for your grocery budget start your weekly shopping at aldi seriously by making aldi your first stop you can easily check off your family favorites from fresh organic produce to grass fed ground beef marinated ready to cook chicken breasts and high quality dairy products you'll be able to make incredible meals while keeping your budget on track so no overpriced gimmicks or membership fees here now real families like you yours are saving up to $4,000 a year just by making Aldi their go-to grocery store every week.

Find a store near you at aldi.us. That's a L-D-I-U-S. Savings based on regional analysis of Aldi versus Select Competitors. Prices may vary by location, product availability, and the market. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, number one bestselling author. Ramsey personality, my daughter is my co-host today. Nicole is in Mississippi. Hi, Nicole.

How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm having a bit of a dilemma. Excuse me. I'm a little nervous.

It's okay. Um, my fiance and I, we get married next week on Friday. Oh, congratulations. Coming up. Yes, very soon. Um, we are excited about that, but I am still in the mindset of my debt, his debt sort of thing. Um, my, my dilemma is, um, I'm having a dilemma with using my $800. I'm on baby step one to throw at my credit card that I am behind on.

And my minimum is half of my take-home pay. So it's half of what I make in the month. That's what my minimum is. And that is the only card. So what is your minimum? That's 2734. What do you owe on this credit card? $13,000.

And you have a $2,700 payment on $13,000? Yes. I fell behind for a few months. And then there's just interest added on, and it's becoming unbearable. Oh, that's not the normal minimum payment. It's all the back payments. Yes. It's normally around $300 or $400.

Oh, that sounds more like it. Okay. Yeah. All right. And you bring home, what, $5,000, $6,000 a month? About $5,000. Yeah. And you're getting married.

and he has how much debt? He has about 40. And you only have 13, or you have a car and everything else or what? So together we have about $79,000 worth of debt. Okay, which means you have another 20-something other than this 13? Yes. On what? It's personal loans.

I owe a family member. It's various of other things. Okay. And so your household income is about 80, right? Your income, and what's his? So my income is about, like I said, that's $5,000, and his is about the same a month as well. That's your take-home pay, yeah. Okay. Yes. All right. So that's a $120,000 take-home pay, and so you're probably making $150, or so. Okay. All right. And we need to pay off 80 overall. So, really, you don't really have a minimum payment of $2,700. You have a single payment of $2,700 to get current.

Okay. Right? Because the next month it won't be $2,700, it'll be $300. Well, if I don't pay on it, if I don't get caught up on it. I know, if you pay $2,700, the next month, your payment would be $300. Yes, that's correct. That's what I'm saying. Okay.

So what I would do is just call a credit card company and ask them to roll that in and reset your payment. Well, I called them. I don't have a problem saying their names, Capital One. I called them and they said that there's nothing that they can do. Okay. And then there's nothing I can do. You're not going to get paid. How's that?

You get nothing, honey, if you don't work with me because I got no money. I can't pay you $2,700. I can pay you $300. If you want to reset the payment, that's fine. And probably I need to talk to your supervisor because apparently your two brain cells aren't rubbing together. This is how you talk to Capital One. What's in your wallet? Stupid.

You know, I mean, come on. Of course they can roll that in. They do it every day all day long. But you got some junior birdman on the phone up there in a cubicle, right? And so you got to nail them. That's what you have to do. And then catch them up anyway, because you've got to get the whole stupid thing paid off. And remember how they treated you the next time you get ready to whip out that card or do any business with this company.

Oh, no, I'm done. Yeah, cut the stupid thing up and let them know that we're done. We're breaking up here. You aren't all you were cut out to be. I don't care which particular movie star says it gives me financial advice on your stupid commercials. Oh, God. So it would hurt me to close it. And it doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter where you close or not. You still got exactly the same problem. Yes, that's true. So, you know, here's what you can. I just call and mess with them and just, you know, be, be, start out. You're nice, Nicole. You got to kind of, you kind of.

Start out pleasant. You know, hype up yourself before you go. Like, I mean. I mean person. Yeah. Get ready to dial the nasty up pretty quick as you're on the phone if their brains aren't working because sometimes apparently they aren't. And so, you know, now, then the trick.

is it doesn't matter because in the end of just a few months you're going to have a zero balance on this because you're going to get paid off because you make $120,000 after you get married and you all need to clean this $80,000 up fast and one of the first orders of businesses this credit card because it's probably one of the smallest debts you all have right yes so we're going to list that in the debt snowball smallest to largest and I'm going to pound their face in and it's going to sound like $2,000 a month or $3,000 a month regardless of what their minimum payment is your minimum payment is i want you morons out of my life forever okay and that i'm i'm teaching you to be a little bit angry about this because that's a good thing that'll

that'll push you through this and cause you to just pound their face in with the math as you're doing your budget you're going to take that capital one take that capital one take that capital one 30 years ago 35 years ago american express called sharon and ask her why she would stay with a man that wouldn't pay his bills. And I'm still pissed. 35 years later, I'm still pissed. I would still find that guy if I could find him, you know? Because she called me crying at work, like, I think in the same thing.

Right. And so, oh, my God, these guys, they're just, they're just, it's a ridiculous company. And Nicole, for you and your husband, I mean, make this a year, the first year of marriage. It's a crusade. And you guys are working extra at night. Like, I mean, you're just, you're high five. in the middle of the night because you don't see each other. I mean, like, make it really be done with it. Like, get really, really aggressive with this. And then it's done forever. And then for

the rest of your marriage, you guys have no debt. You have your whole income. No stress. It's a beautiful thing. And so the more intense you guys can be in this first year. And if you guys want kids later, even before the kids, like this is the time to do it. So if you don't pay them $2,700 and you pay them $2,100 because they're first thing on your debt snowball and that's all you squeeze out of the first month's budget. Or $1,000. or you pay them a thousand whatever you pay them i don't care then the next month you pay them a bunch more and the next month you pay them a bunch more i don't really care what they think it's irrelevant just just pound well it sucks is the is the interest right you get 26% on this amount you know but it's it's on the whole thing

i know it's on the whole 13 000 yeah it doesn't matter the interest is the interest until you get it paid off with that credit card and get get it knocked out what's in your wallet oh god money now because i don't have you people in my life yeah Yeah. Oh, man, I tell you what, I spent the first part of my career doing a dumb thing. I would bring in people we were coaching, and I would call and negotiate with the credit card companies and set payment plans for the people we were coaching. And it taught me to hate credit card companies because they're so moronic. And I'm still, it still rings in my brain. And just the, because I just know the conversation she had. It just pisses me off still. by BetterHelp. All right, here's the truth. I have great friends, a strong faith, an amazing wife and family, and I've even got two PhDs worth of information about how to be well. And yet, the times that I've spent with a great therapist across my life have made all the difference for me.

The right therapist can change everything. In this month, my friends at BetterHelp are shining the spotlight on therapists. These are people who truly make the world a better place. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world. And BetterHelp works. Their average rating of 4.9 out of 5 proves it. Plus, BetterHelp is totally online so it's easy to fit into your schedule. To get started, you just answer a few simple questions and they'll connect you with a licensed therapist that helps fit your needs. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch at any time for no extra cost. This month, we celebrate the therapist who've helped millions of people take the next right step forward.

If you're ready to find the therapist that's right for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey. The all-new every dollar is here, and it is a game changer. Watch the premiere on our YouTube channel, and you can see the app in action. Here are how folks are finding thousands of dollars in margin in just 15 minutes

using every dollar's new features, which, spoiler alert, basically we're going to guide you through the entire Ramsey plan as you do your budget. You're going to have prompts and encouragement and lessons, and it's all tied into this. A whole thing was working together like never before. It's budgeting with the Ramsey plan showing you holding your hand. You cannot beat this. Imagine how much you could find in this thing, thousands of dollars in just 15 minutes to put towards your money goals. Check it out on our YouTube channel. You don't want to miss this.

Jamie's in Fort Worth, Texas. Hey, Jamie, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay. So I have been religiously listening to you and your team every single morning on my drive to work, which is about an hour and 15 minutes. And I have had gazelle intensity by myself. So I've tried introducing it to my husband.

And the problem is that we've sat down and we have looked at a budget. I have the every dollar. I am still working on assigning every dollar, but I've got the app for him where he's doing it. We have about $95,000 in consumer debt together. We're a blended family. He has three. I have three. And the problem I'm having is that I am wanting so badly to get out of debt.

But I am the primary, like, breadwinner because he's a roofing business, and, well, we've had some issues with getting Ruth approved and it's just been really slow. So there's a lot of inconsistency, like, with his paychecks coming in, and it's causing a lot of resentment, like, on my part and probably toward him to where, like, we went to counseling and, we had to have an agreement to where I could only talk about the budget for an hour on Tuesdays and an hour on Friday. So that's kind of where we are. And I just need to know what to do to move forward. So one weekend, be a team together and how am I supposed to do this? Jamie, can I ask, is the resentment from you coming from that he's not fully on board with the plan and you guys together are like, hey, regardless of whose brain the income, this is what we're doing, we're paying. off debt as fast as possible. Is that the resentment or is it that his, he can't seem to keep

an income because the work is so wacky and you don't really know what's going on there? Yes. Yes, that's what it is. Like, because he still has, he's got a child that's in, in college, and then the other one has already graduated, but I'm like, that's your relevant to his income. Well, it is when he can't afford to pay all the bills that he came in with. then now I'm responsible for those. And so I... You mean he's paying his kids' college tuition and not paying his own bills? Oh, he...

Well, right. I paid everything last month. I paid... He's got about $4,000 that go out to his kids in their college and car payments and insurance and child support and all of that and isn't able to contribute to our house. So in the month of September, we had no money coming from. Well, actually, we will be married one year on November the 4th, and I wanted to go on our anniversary trip to the money and marriage in Nashville.

And I was like, I know that we're in debt. I was like, but I feel like this is an investment, like in our marriage because we need it. And he disagrees with me. I was like, well, I can pay for that, but he said he'd rather go on a cruise, but I'm not doing it. I think you need a new marriage counselor, because the marriage counselor said that you can only talk about a budget two hours a week, and a budget isn't even the problem. Yes, I agree. And so that was you getting smacked into the corner by a marriage counselor as being unreasonable trying to ask him to be reasonable with his contribution. the household. That's not a budgeting problem. That's a values and income problem. That's a priority

problem. I'm choosing to put $4,000 in a college student's car payment instead of taking care of my new wife. That's a problem. That's not a budget. That's not you talking about Ramsey or you talking about a budget issue. That's a problem of respect and who's, you know, you guys, he didn't ask you about that. He just declared you get nothing and you have to feed me this month. That's not a budget problem. And so I think your marriage counselor is a weenie. I think you need to get a good, strong marriage counselor that will sit down and talk to both of you clearly about your priorities and your communication over those priorities. And you guys did a lousy job of setting this up prior to marriage because this is a barrel of fish hooks you both walked into and you did no

planning about it that is correct yeah and that's and so you're reaping that right now and it's just harsh i'm so sorry but yeah i i i'm you can have two free tickets to come to marriage and money we'll give it to you we'll give them to you but i don't also don't want you to think that that's the answer to your problem you need more than a marriage and money weekend at ramsie will give you. You need in-depth, crisis, marriage counseling. You have not even been married a year, and this thing is unraveling rapidly and before my eyes as you talk about it. It's really scaring me for you guys. I feel that also. He's so checked out in what his new wife's needs are that he's not even dealing with it. And that it's, again, Jamie, you're not being unreasonable,

right? I'm like, do you know what I'm saying? Like, you're not crazy like the fact that that you're like this feels off this doesn't feel right i don't feel like i can't believe he's paying all of this money that he's barely making all the way over there like where he can't even contribute to our own household like i mean it'd be different if you guys were making a crazy amount of money and you were debt free and you guys both chose to still support the kids while they were in college right like that if that was agreed upon idea as your new marriage but it's so splintered right now yeah and then you're kind of getting the the short end of the stick.

I agree. So what is it, what kind of a business is he in? He's in a roofing business. And he doesn't make money in roofing. Why? He doesn't want to go and knock doors anymore. He's 54. And he has some people that work underneath him.

He basically works off of referrals. and because he's been doing it for so long. But he's not got enough business. And now he is correct. I have told him he needs to find something else. So we just had a conversation yesterday. And I don't care what you do. Either if you're not going to be working, then I need you to help more around the house.

I need you to pick up kids. I need you to drop kids off. No, that's not really. That's not really an option. that's just I mean you really didn't mean that I think she's just I think she's craving something something well that's not work some kind of initiative I want him to make some money well I do and I I do too yeah I think that's what he needs to do and take care of his

obligations which includes his kids and his wife and you take care of your obligation which includes him and you know you're all's life going forward your kids and so yeah You guys really need to get back to another marriage counselor and get in touch with your church and ask them who a good, strong marriage counselor that can guide you guys through this. And you're going to have to have a reset, a solid reset on the expectations of this going forward and then live into those. And two hours of budgeting a week doesn't fix this. And again, I'll give you two tickets.

I don't even think you'll come. Yeah, general pickup. We'll give them. guys some. Yeah, I'm just a will call. I hope you come. And I will make arrangements right now on the phone. You hang on. I'll make arrangements for you. We can email them to you or something. Yeah. Samantha's in San Diego. I'm doing well this morning.

How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So, forgive me, I'm a little bit nervous, and I feel all over the place. But I am trying to make some future decisions without making bad decisions for a future wedding and we had a lot of big changes this year I got married and I bought a house so I would love some Dave wisdom okay a future wedding but you got married I got lost yeah I was hoping you

catch that so my husband and I we've been together for five years we lived with some family on property for a little while to save for a house We found a house a little bit sooner than expected, so we decided that the best thing to do would be to get married, get this house, and we would save for an official wedding later on. I had heard you say that would be a good decision to someone on the show at one point, so it felt right for us. It's better than some of the other stuff you could have done in that situation, so I'm with you, yeah. Good. Thank you. I got Dave's good old match.

Check. survive that one okay we are 25 debt free we bought our house and we are having this wedding on a cruise ship in March with family and we have about $3,500 that we need to just save and pay off for that cool well you can do that by March yes we can we also are I just got the every dollar app, and I'm looking at, like, margin, and it's stressing me out, like, crazy. My husband is, like, a turtle and a hurricane, and it's like, we got this. And... Well, at least you married a stable guy.

And I'm like, is this guy real? Because he sounds like I... Dave Ramsey. He's never read your book. Are you the hurricane? Oh, my gosh. She is going to love. of that. That's so fun. I never heard a turtle in a hurricane. I've heard a turtle on a fence

post, but I never heard a turtle on a hurricane. That is a great one. I'll use that. All right. So he's not worried. What is your household income? So we bring in 8,000 a month. Okay. And he's not worried because he thinks you can have 3,500 out of 8,000 between now and March. Yeah. Okay. And why are you worried? I have been a hurricane. prior to meeting him and this whole talking about money and having an app where we see every time we go to the store and Starbucks has been new and it's revealing budgeting it is and it's so scary yeah and no it's just uncomfortable and awkward it's not really scary it's very certain yeah yeah it's revealing it's what it outches it touches places i didn't want people to see

yeah oh but out yeah i got you i'm with you that makes sense we be came, we became, I never, I had debt prior to the relationship. He never did. So I worked really, really hard and he helped me and so did you guys. Oh my gosh. So we're here now and I want to make sure I don't put myself back in that boat. I know I won't. But. How about we? How about we won't? Yes, I know we won't. Yeah, you and the turtle work together. With a big picture, I'm like the worry work on the turtle. Like, how do we save? How do we save? How do we? invest, how do we, how is family, how do we do all that? Number one, just like you did before, how do you eat an elephant, a bite at a time?

Okay, so you lay out a game plan, and you look at every dollar together, and you say, if we only spend X and Y on those two things, we will have the money to go on the cruise and do the wedding. If we blow the budget, we will not have the money to go on the cruise and do the wedding. So let's lay out the plan and stick to the plan so that our best life, offends us on a cruise in March doing a wedding. And then all of a sudden, everything calms way down, but what ends up coming is a lot of nose because you have to look at yourself and go, no, I can't do that because I'm going

on a cruise in March to do a wedding. Oh, no, we can't go over there because we're going on a cruise in March and doing a wedding. Oh, we're not able to join you tonight. I'm sorry, because we're going on a cruise in March to do a wedding. And all of a sudden, all those nose start popping up, and that's what you're not used to. And that's okay. That's a new thing. It's a new thing for you.

That's okay. Samantha, when you guys did the every dollar budget for the household, how much do you guys spend on essentials? Do you know off the top of your head? How much it would cost to keep everything running? Like food, electricity, you know, mortgage, all of it. $5,000? Yeah.

And that's with like, because we have animals and they need to do. So like $3,000 a month margin. Yeah, you could do that in like two months, Samantha. So I fear that maybe the wedding wasn't the, like, fear it's after that and the next big goal he's confident that there's going to be an add-on to our house and save up and pay for it just like you're doing the wedding and he wants to do some real estate at some point and I just I don't have any of that wisdom so it's okay let's let's just do one thing at a time let's build a little bit of confidence by doing the actual saving

and the wedding and we've combined our finances and we're working together and we have a plan that we are going to stick to to hit our goals these are new words used to be me me now and i yeah and now it's we and us and um and you know and then first we'll get the um first we'll get the cruise wedding out of the way and then we'll start talking about okay how much is the add on and what's that going to cost and then let's build some wealth because someday we'd like to do some it yeah it's just it's just it's just you just chip away at it one little thing at a time one little thing at a time and and you keep laying out the numbers and the numbers will guide you right through it it's too samantha remember like none of this is urgent i mean the wedding to a degree in six

months right so we want to save for that but the house renovations they invest all of that like you're okay you guys are good right so nothing has to happen tomorrow so give yourself some of that like kind of grace and patience and it because i'm an urgent person too samantha i'm i'm i'm more like you, so I totally get it. I'm so glad I got you today. Yes, no, I get it. I really do. And the good thing about our turtles, because Winston, I feel like Winston's a turtle, too,

is that they love Excel and spreadsheets and stuff, and they'll map out every year of like, hey, here's how much we could save per month to get this goal of this rental house or whatever the thing is, and you really lean in on their strengths, and then you're the fun. My turtle, yeah. Yeah, you totally have to do T-shirts for the cruise, the Hurricane and the Turtle T-shirts. maybe maybe you know and with a little broad bouquet and the whole bit on the I hope y'all don't get a hurricane on that though no I told I said t-shirts no I know I just saying it out loud though we don't want a hurricane on that cruise done to dun and now I present you

hurricane and tortoise oh my gosh yeah this is so great that's so fun it's good Samantha you're fun thank you and you're going to do great you're going to do better than your feelings are telling you because you've never done this successfully long enough to build confidence yet and Rachel is on the other side of that in that she's got a decade plus of successfully working with Winston and she's right Winston is more of the tortoise than the hair and he's very steady very predictable doesn't do drama and and so they've had a decade of working together and that has now you've got great confidence in that yeah maybe the first day you didn't yeah and sure and the and the beauty too of all of this that you guys will learn in marriage but it reflects

and your money, is you do. You get to be yourself. You still get to be fun, Samantha. You get to lean and have the blessing of having a spouse who is different than you and has strengths that you don't have. And then you're going to be a gift to him because you're going to have strengths that he doesn't have. So it really is this yin and yang. And I think that's the beautiful part of it is that when we say working together as one, I think some people freak out because they think, oh my gosh, I'm going to lose who I am and all of this stuff. And no, you be who you are. And the beautiful thing is your values are aligned. You guys know where you want to go in general together. And how you get there may look a little bit different, right? But those are the conversations you get to have as a couple. And so leaning

on each other in that, I think is beautiful. Turns out turtles have fun too. They do have fun. We help them have fun, though. We create a little chaos to create the fun. I've never heard of questions like, Rachel's job is she's the fun. girl. That's Rachel's job. And our pre-marital counselor, I'll never forget, looked at him and was like, wow, she's pretty urgent. And I was like, I am. I'm an urgent person. So I get it, Samantha. I totally get it. You're going to do great. You're going to do great. The Hurricane and the Turtle. This is great. The great radio.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Thank you. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Dale. Dale in Missouri. Dale, what's up in your world?

Oh, not much. How are you guys? doing. Better than I deserve. How can we help? So, you know, the holidays are right around the corner, and my wife and her family have quite a few traditions for Christmas time, and they are starting to get rather expensive. For example, we each get a book from Santa, like a children's Christmas book from Santa, and there's about 12 of us. And we have stock. which average is about $1,000 to $1,200 total, and then we have gifts for everyone.

There's about, again, 12 of us for that. So my question is, how do you have... I'm sorry, 12 children's books for 12 adults? Adults, yes. Her family. Is this her brothers and sisters? So it's her sister, her father, and her sister. and her sister's children.

And now one of her children, her sister's children, has their own child. So now there's a baby. Okay, so this isn't your all's children or your grandchildren? No. Okay. This is, and so my wife was really big on her grandparents. She has fond memories of Christmas at her grandparents' house. They did the same traditions.

She just wants to continue those traditions. How long have you all been married? It'll be 15 years. So you've done this for 15 years? Yes. Okay. And are you buying books? Is everyone buying 12 books or is it one book per person?

So it's one book per person. But it's usually my wife and I and her sister that are kind of responsible for all the books. what i mean it's 12 children's books it's not a lot of money i don't what's a big deal well there's about $30 a piece so i mean yes it's not a lot like it's $360 but the books are not a very big traditional so they're kind of i don't want to say a waste but i am they're kind of a waste because we just we look at them for like 20 seconds and then they just go away and um and then we we go on to the next thing. Okay, so the purpose of the books,

I'm just curious because I don't understand while these adults are getting children's books for 20 seconds. What is the purpose of the book? It's just the tradition they've had. I know, but I mean, when they were children maybe, but I don't know. Once you're 40, you don't really need a children's book.

What's the... Right. That's my question is... Well, I wonder, I mean, if she was on the phone, why would she tell me that they're still doing this? It's just what they've always done. I know, but I know, but it's just that's the tradition is everyone gets a new book for Christmas. It's a Christmas book tradition. Okay.

All right. And it has like a little note from Santa in it. Well, those are hard to get, but okay. And so that's one thing. And then we have stockings where people can spend $2 to $300. And it's most, again, my wife and I and sister for all the stockings. So they put like $2 or $300 in each stock. So what is your all's net worth?

Not enough for $200. No, what's your net worth? No, really, what's your net worth? You mean like total? Yeah, like how much do you have in your retirement accounts? Your house paid for, all that kind of stuff? So the house that I paid for has got about $100,000 left. And what's it worth?

It's worth $200. Okay, and what's in your retirement accounts? So retirement, we work with a, a pension, so... So you don't have any retirement savings? Well, I do. I have 100,000 saved up. And what's your household income?

Roughly about 210,000 a year. Okay, and this whole thing is like three grand we're talking about, right? Well, yeah. Well, three grand for, like, the stockings. Well, the books are 300. So, I mean, it's like three grand for the whole thing, give or take. Yeah. And then there's gifts also that we all.

also do, which could also be another three or four thousand. Do y'all have children? No. Okay. So this is the whole Christmas then? Right. The problem is that we don't really put aside for this, even though we know it's coming. You'll make $200,000.

It's $3,000. It's 1.5% of your income. Yes, I know that, but my wife and I'm not going to throw it all on her. My wife and I like to, we're not good budgeters, I would say. And so my question is. Well, I guess the thing is this. I do think just from a marriage communication standpoint that, you know, this thing has continued to go on. And some of it's, frankly, doesn't even make sense.

but at least you need to understand from her why this is $3,000 worth of important. Yes. Because it's no longer $3,000 worth of important to you. Probably never has been, actually, in the whole 15 years. But now you've just been going along with it. The stockings is crazy, though. The amount of money you are spent on stockings. You can get some great stocking stuffers and some reasonable small things,

and it doesn't have to add up to $1,000. Honey, you know, I understand this is important to you, and I'm willing to do it simply. because it's important to you, but you also need to hear it's important to me that we use a little touch of common sense on this. Well, I think the biggest problem, Dale, is you guys aren't do, you have no planning with your income. You guys aren't good budgeters. You already said. So it feels like you're flapping in the wind and it's like this here. And it's kind of freaking you out because y'all don't have control in general. And I really think if you guys lived on a written plan,

if you guys, we'll get you the every dollar app, but you both, if you both lived on a budget and you knew exactly where your income was going and you both stuck to it. This is not that big a deal. I don't think it would feel as out of control. I think it feels out of control as a picture of your entire financial picture. So genuinely I would get that. You're choosing to pick on the one thing that you can pick on while the whole thing's out of control.

Rachel's right. So let's get the whole thing in control. And then make some adjustments. We can use this as a jumping off point for the discussion for that. But I think it's also individually on the budget. It's okay to talk it through. I mean, we've done this. that inside of our family and even with our extended family because I have three kids who are

married and have eight grandkids. And so there's 16 of us and eight adults. And every adult buying every adult something got out of hand. And it just was dumb. Yeah. We all have the money. Just draw names. But everybody, we just said, we're going to draw money. It's just more fun for us to not have to go through all that. It's exhausting. And let's, you know, let's trying to figure out what Bill wants, you know or what Winston wants it's just a lot and how do you buy something for me because anything I want I just go get it so how do you buy something for me now it's always hard it's impossible so hard it's impossible so you know it's just you know that that whole thing is just we need to just so we just dumbed it way down and we're going to concentrate on the kiddos and the adults we draw

names as adults but it's one thing I mean it's not yeah that's right that's right eight things right so that's okay and just calm the thing down and I and I'll throw this out there there Dale like they don't have kids. So this is their family. It is her family Christmas. And it's her family Christmas. So there is a level of, um, he's over it. It's her family Christmas. It's, he's, he's done with, I want to know, he's done with children's books for adults. That's my question is how you get, no, how you don't run out of books. I guess they don't have to be Christmas themed. Well, Rachel, we could help them, you know, there can't be like, we could probably make them a discount if they want to buy a batch of Rachel Cruz children's. Yeah, but I don't, I don't know if they're Christmas themed children's

Children's books is what I'm saying. I'm just curious how they get so many. I could probably add a note from Santa to them. I don't know. I know Santa. I probably get them if they bought a whole box or a whole case of your books. Pull some strings. I could probably do that. I bet we could get the old guy to help us out. Maybe we'll save Dale's Christmas this year with that. Oh man. That is hard though. Hey, it's the holidays. It's a good time to talk about it. Now is the time to talk about it. Not December 2nd. Yeah, we're in October. It's great. Yeah. This is the time. By the way, all of you need to speak. of Santa. He says to make a list and check it twice. So you need a Christmas budget. You need to make a list of who you're going to buy for and put a dollar amount beside each name and total that number and set that dollar amount aside. We used to do that in cash in an envelope and on the outside of the envelope was the list of people and what we were going to spend on each person. And then that cash runs out of that envelope. Christmas be over, baby. That's it. This is what we're spending on Christmas. That's it. Ding, ding, we're done, because it's a never-ending merry-go-round otherwise, and you just keep hitting the submit

button on your cart. I have to stop that. How many times do you end up with too much month at the end of the end of the end of the money. Even if you can cover the bills, there's nothing left over. You work your butt off and you still feel broke. That's normal for most people, but you do not have to live that way. You can completely transform your money and your life with every dollar. Our world-class budgeting app is better than ever. Now every dollar coaches you to find extra margin every month so you can make real progress and change your family tree. The average person,

finds $3,015 in just the first 15 minutes. That's extra money. You could use to beat debt, to build wealth, to finally breathe again. Don't settle for living normal with money. Start every dollar for free by downloading the app today. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, host of the Rachel Cruz Show, is my co-host today. She's also my daughter. Open phones at AAA-825-5-2-25.

Jenna is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Jenna. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? All right.

So I just recently found out that I am inheriting about $50,000. Wow. Yes, definitely a blessing. Who passed away? My grandmother. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. I am just, I'm 25, and I do have a lot of student loans, as well as a car loan.

I have about $95,000 in total debt. $65,000 of that is my student loans. And I am just a little bit confused on where to put it all because I don't want to throw everything at my federal loans. So I'm just kind of confused about where to go with all this. I'm curious, why would you not throw it at your federal loans? Because I was approved for the public service loan forgiveness. That's a scam. And so I don't.

One percent of the people that apply for that. end up getting it. Okay. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't set my life up on that. Well, and you get stuck in a situation that you may want out of and you feel like you have to stay in it. Ten years, everything has to go exactly perfect, including the federal government doing their job. And those things never go to heaven. That doesn't work. So, um, poof. All right, aside from that, so what do you make a year? Um, about 60,000 give or take. What do you do? I'm a nurse. Oh, good for you. And that's a wonderful career for building wealth and getting out of debt, by the way. You're a tremendous control of your destiny in that career.

So you can add hours. You can add an ER shift on the weekend, make a pile of money. You've got all kinds of options at your disposal. So good for you. Good choice. Jenna, what was left? You said the 65 of student loans. What was the other 30?

A car loan. A car and credit card. Yeah. My car, I have a car loan for 28, and then just a credit card. Okay. That has $1,400 on it. Okay, perfect. All right.

So, and what are you making as a nurse? About $60,000 a year, depending on if I pick up or not. It's about $4,000 a month. You must have just started. Yeah, I've been a nurse for two years. Okay, all right, because you probably could be making 80 if you just blink. Okay. Well, and I'm in Indiana, so it's a little bit.

I mean, if you're in Indianapolis, you're in a major metro market that you're being on paid. All right. But what we teach and what we have lived in our family for the last several decades is the fastest way to build wealth and stability is to become debt-free because when you don't have any payments, you have control of your wonderful income opportunities to build wealth with. And that's how the math ends up working. And so we've taught people to get out of debt so that they can be generous and so that they can bill. wealth. The first step, however, of getting out of debt is not borrowing anymore. And so if you got a $95,000 inheritance and paid everything off but continued to go into debt, you'd be right back. Yeah. We can't do that, okay? Just like you can't have a patient that's doing something

that's causing a health problem. You guys fix it in the hospital, but then they go back to doing the exact same thing, ended up in exactly the same health problem again, okay? Same thing, right? So you have to change your habits that got you here like i don't borrow money for cars anymore i'm cutting up this credit card and i'm going to get the every dollar app and i'm going to live on a decent written plan where my wonderful income will cause me to finish off the rest of my student loan debt and get me and get me completely clear because if i don't have any payments i can build serious wealth and that would be my goal for you if i was doing that now if i'm in your shoes that means i'm going to pay off the credit card in the car and I'm going to put the rest of it towards the

federal student loans and I'm not even going to have any fun with it and I got to ask you then if you did that and you are committed to never borrowing again and living on a plan would that make your grandmother smile yes definitely which is one test I always use about inheritance the person that left it I need to honor them by handling it in such a way that they're in heaven smiling. Okay? And so, in other words, if you did something irresponsible and frivolous with it, she would not be smiling.

Correct. Yeah. And that's how I tested out against my, am I doing the right thing with my grandmother's money that she left to her prized nurse, grandchild that she's so proud of? And what's wild, Jenna? Have you done a written budget? Do you know how much money it takes? takes to run just your household, whether it's like rent, lights, food. How much do you live on, do you

think? I do a written budget. However, I've had some recent changes. I've been living at home for a while, but now moving back. So monthly, I think it probably would cost me, or yeah, monthly it'd probably cost me about $2,000. Okay. And how much is your car payment a month? It's $560. Okay, perfect. So that's what's crazy is you just got a raise of $560. a month. And with that, so, I mean, you're, you could be banking $2,500 a month just in what you're doing right now. That's not even overtime and all of it to get the rest of that $45 paid off, you know? So it's, it is. You start to really see this. So if you jumped in and picked up some ER weekends, which you can make double triple time on if you watch what you're doing, you can,

uh, in addition to whatever you're doing in your other 40 hours, you could get this all paid off in a year. Yeah. That would be pretty cool. The only thing that I was considering it versus that my private loan has a higher interest rate than any of my federal. And I pay almost $300 a month on that. Okay. How much is the private loan? It's $23,000. Oh, perfect.

And isn't that the next smallest one anyway? The highest one is $31. The car is $28, and then the private loan is third. Yeah, but you have enough to pay the private loan and your car? Yes. So do you think I shouldn't? And the credit card. I think you can pay all three.

of those. Okay. I didn't have them broken apart. I just heard student loan. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So then what would be left would be the federal. So you, I mean, you don't quite have enough to do all of it, but you might have two grand left on the private and you'll knock it out in a month or so and pay off your, no, your car is the one to be left. I'm sorry. You're going to knock out smallest to largest is how we list them. So the credit card, the $23,000 and the $28,000, right? Yes. Okay. And then Jenna, how, how, how, how, much is your private student loan payment every month? 300. It's, yeah. The federal, I have set to the lowest, which I need to change because I'm not even covered in. But that's what's crazy,

is what this money can do? It's going to be $800. $860, yeah. Yeah. Which is great. And that gets thrown at the federal debt and then working extra and you get this snowball going really quick. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think you can be out in a year. You're really going to change your cash flow position, you're going to please your grandmother, honor the inheritance that she left you. And because all of us that have children and grandchildren love them and want to see them prosper and live a sustainable, mature, smart, wise life. And all of those things is what we're talking about. You're doing good. I'm real proud of you. Well done. You know,

I'm going to be able to Hey guys, I'm so excited to tell you that our new 2026 Ramsey goal planner is available right now. This isn't just your average planner. It's your personal guide to setting clear goals and building habits that stick. So get ready for all new monthly content from your favorite Ramsey personalities, tactical goal setting trackers, and upgrades that make this our most durable planner yet. Last year, we sold out, so don't miss out. Order your 2026 Ramsey goal planner for 4997 today at Ramsey Solutions.com,

Store. I really appreciate your time. Sure. What's up? Everything. Okay. So I'm wondering if, like, my situation is one of the kind of rare cases where you would suggest that I should sell my house to pay down debt.

And if not, then what should I do? Okay. How much debt do you have, not counting your house? Around five or $600,000. Whoa. On what? My husband's school loans are $80,000. My school loans, $40,000.

We have a debt consolidation loan for 45 and, you know, two cars that are ridiculously like the worst thing you've ever heard. I'll tell you if you want to hear it, but I don't think you want to hear it. Just give me the total. Okay. The total owed $67,000 on mine, $62,000 on my husband. Yeah, you're right. Okay. And the big thing, I think the main reason I'm calling today is we owe the IRS $56,000.

And they want to put a lien on our house because we owe over $50,000. thousand. Yeah. What's your household income? I'm about to go back full time making 111,000. And my husband usually would be making around 120, but he was just laid off at the beginning of the month. And that's another part of the story is we have. No emergency funds. So we're rocking it over here. Oh, gosh. I'm so sorry. So normally you would be at like, I mean, if you get everything going again, you'd be at like 230. Yeah. And the house is worth what? um it's probably worth between 770 and 800 okay and what's it what do you owe on it 628 okay well my worry there is like after agent fees and closing costs yeah you don't have you're not going to get enough to clean up the

mess so the miss yeah i think it would help us with the IRS and maybe to pay out the cars you know what i mean the negative equity in the car how do you end up owning the IRS 56,000 oh man um So me and my husband, we've been married 22 years. We had three kids very young, super broke back then. So we were on like Medicaid, food stamps, everything like that. We just never had money, right? Then kind of like out of nowhere, when he graduated college, and then I kind of landed in my career, we started making money out of nowhere,

and we didn't realize that we weren't getting enough taken out of our checks, yada, yada. So one year after another year after another year, it was like we owed $12,000. We're like, I guess it's just tax bracket. I don't understand this. next year, like we owe 20,000. We're like, why is this happening? I don't get it. So, genius me, this year I finally met with an accountant who told me that I wasn't getting

enough taken out of my checks. Also, I have, like, a side business where I designed to develop websites and stuff. So I haven't been doing good at prepaying those taxes either. So it's like, it's just a big hot mess of garbage that, you know, it's like a teenager in an adult body. I think this year, and it was like 30. Mm-hmm. Okay.

All right. So, well, what you have is a series of crises. Yes. And you really have to probably work on three of them at least at once. And sadly, the house won't fix them. Right. So, you know, what's your husband do for a living? What's his career?

He's a software quality engineer. Great. Okay. So he's very employable. Yeah. Okay. Why did he leave? He was in like an 18-month contract and they didn't renew it.

Okay. Just doing contract work. Okay. Which is another time you didn't pay the IRS? Well, I mean, it was a W-2. Oh, a contract? W-2. Okay.

All right. Anyway, so the good news is he probably can lean in, put a smile on his face, a pep in his step, brush his teeth, and get a job pretty quick. Yeah. Okay. Because this is a pretty employable situation. All right. So number one crisis, reemployment, okay? Number two crisis, the IRS.

You need to get on Ramsey Solutions.com and talk to one of our tax endorsed local providers, one of the people we endorse in your area, and they will be able to get on the phone and negotiate with the IRS a payment, an installment payment plan with no lien. And even if they put a lien, they won't do anything with it because, they don't want to pay $628,000 for a house. Yeah. They're not going to do anything with your lien. So what you don't want them doing is leaning your checking accounts and cleaning out your bank accounts because that would be disastrous.

So you do need to get them on a payment plan. And of course, part of that is you really do have to source this all the way to the bottom and make sure we sit with your tax person. And if you need a new tax person, you can get them at Ramsey as well. Sounds like you may. and make sure you've got the right amount coming out of your taxes and that you are doing your quarterly estimates on your business. And you file those and you file that money on time. Once a quarter, you're supposed to figure out what your profit is and pay tax on it.

That's the law. And you're getting hammered with penalties and interest in addition to them coming after you for the balance. Okay. So that's a, they get after you on that stuff, on that 30,000. They're wearing you out. So, you know, get on top of that with your systems and your processes, because you're not dumb people. You're just highly chaotic and disorganized.

Yeah. I keep saying we spend money like teenagers, you know, like the way that you've been doing that, too. That's another subject I'm coming to in a minute. But you're just out of control. I mean, there's like no off button here. This frenetic, there's no plan. And so what I'm telling you do is get very simple. systematized and nerdy about this, like I hired you to straighten out these people's finance.

Only these people is you. I actually did a literal PowerPoint presentation and Excel sheet before I called you guys to understand what my picture was here. Good. That's a really good start. It's a first step, actually. You've got to get it, you know, I'm looking at the map and the little red arrow says you are here.

I want to get over there. And now how do I get over there, right? So that's what we're talking about. So job, get the IRS under control first with a payment plan and with proper withholding and proper filings of your quarterly estimates. Then we'll begin to pay them off as quickly as we can. And then we come to the cars. Yeah.

They're both going to be sold. I'm ready to get rid of them. Oh, you have to. You have to. We have negative equity. I don't care. This is absolute freaking insanity. If you look up crazy in the dictionary, you're going to see a picture.

sure of these cars. I was expecting you to say that. I thought you were going to say me, but okay. No, no. I mean, this is just, because it's killing my friend Larissa. Yeah. My friend Larissa, these cars own her. Yeah.

Well, it adds up to what you guys make a year, you know? I mean, y'all don't make nearly enough to have those cars, even if you paid cash for them. Yeah, I think, like, our situation is that, like, we've never been late on a car payment on our mortgage, which is. Are you going to try to justify this to me? Please don't. No, no, no. I'm telling you that's why we.

thought we were okay. Yeah, I know. You could afford the payment. The IRS thing made me look at it. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, that whole dumb thing you realize when you look at these cars that they're a glaring, not just a Dave Ramsey thing or a Rachel Cruz thing. They're just a glaring math thing.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're just pointing to you guys, like you said, we spend money like teenagers, you know, and so you need to get you a couple of, you know, reasonable vehicles, very cheap, like five, six thousand bucks apiece. And you guys use your two. $230,000 income to clean up his freaking mess, so you get your life back because you're not having fun.

Yeah. This is highly anxiety-inducing. And when he gets a job back, you know, you guys are making great money. Like insane. So the quarter million dollars a year will clean this mess up. Yes. Yeah. You guys can do that.

And then if you could imagine making that amount of money and actually keeping it and it not going out in payments, you know, and you guys. Trust me. That's all I imagine these things. What if you didn't have any payments but a house? house payment. And you made a quarter of a million dollars a year. Oh my goodness. You would have money. Yep, I can't imagine it. And then you can move from a $6,000 car to a $20,000 and pay cash. Even though that's an incredible income, you still have to live within that income. Because even with

that great income, you guys were living beyond it, right? You two just need to sit down and look at each other and go, neither one of us are in Congress. We can't spend like this anymore. It's It's been like a drunken congressman. I mean, it's out of control. A drunken congressman. Well, they say drunken sailors, but I like sailors, right? Sailors, bless their hearts, they're probably way fiscally responsible compared. So, even with alcohol involved.

Hey, George Camel here, so you're thinking about buying or selling your home. It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about, and all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's real estate home base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources. for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start to finish guides, a podcast, and even an in-depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love?

So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramsysolutions.com slash real estate. That's ramesysolutions.com slash real estate. Ramsey Show, question of the day, brought to you by Y-R-R-R-E-FI. Defaulted private student loans can drag on for years, but Y-R-R-R-R-E-F-Y helps borrowers explore custom refinancing with a low fixed rate and a payment you can actually manage. Go to Y-R-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states.

Today's question comes from Camilla in Indiana. She said, I'm trying to wrap my head around the commission method of giving money to kids. I have two who are five years apart. My oldest is 16 and the younger one is 11. Should they have individual lists of tasks or should there be one big list that they both work off of on a first come first served basis? Should give, save, spend be mandatory part of this participation regardless of what age? And how do you recommend, I must, I can't, I recommend to age out of it. So for the 16-year-old, I would just expect them to be helping around the house in general.

So there's not necessarily like a chore list. They're just becoming an adult. And so they're going to be doing adult-like things. And so whether that's cleaning the kitchen, picking up, helping with cooking and laundry, like, whatever that is for you, they just are part of helping run the household. And then I, I mean, I plan to do with what you guys did is that. 16 that they should have their own checking account and the amount of money you would normally spend on them, whether that's clothes, friends, gas, whatever it would normally be, you just give them that set amount of money and then they have to manage it. With your oversight. Yes, but they have to be

the ones to say, I'm going to spend X shopping, but then that means I don't have that money to spend for gas in my car. And so if the money runs out, they either get a job or they wait till the next month because they have no more money to spend. And then the 11-year-old, yes, I would do a chore-based payment kind of plan. So they do have chores listed out that they do and you pay them on there. And then in that, yes, the give save spend method, I would definitely have them do because it's a great getting all three of those is great. I like the age out part of her question. So let me reframe exactly what Rachel said and give you the exact same answer. But let's look at it as an evolution. So you teach children how to handle money age appropriately. We don't send the

three-year-old to the salt mines. We might send the 16-year-old. No, I'm kidding. But you expect more and teach more sophistication in detail and brain challenge to 16-year-olds than you do three-year-olds. You know, if you say clean up your room to a two-year-old or a three-year-old, we all know that have had kids that that means I'm going to do about 80% of the work. He's going to put a few toys in the box, and he gets a lot of high fives as being the best room cleaner that God has ever made. Way to go. You're amazing. And here's a dollar for cleaning up your room.

That's one of your chores. But we all know they're not real good at it. They're not competent. That's not the point. The point is to begin to make an emotional connection between work and, money, work creates money. And I know 54-year-olds that don't know that lesson. So it's good to teach children that work creates money, even if it's a tiny little thing like picking up four toys, okay? Then we move on to something a little bit more complicated. You've got to feed the dog. You have to

clean up the toys yourself, and you have to empty the dishwasher. And you're seven or eight. And you can accomplish these horribly complicated, ridiculously straining tasks. And the drama that goes with all of that is unbelievable. And then you get paid a dollar apiece for doing those all week or whatever the agreed amount is. And if you don't feed the dog and I have to, you do not get paid. Commission is work get paid. Don't do the work. Don't get paid. By the way, ultimately, I mean, we'll let that go on for a week or two, but I'm just not going to do anything. It's not an option. You're going to learn to work because my goal raising children was not to raise great kids. It was to raise kids that became great adults.

And so my job is to make sure you brush your teeth so you have some so you're somewhat appealing to the opposite sex and you leave my home later. Okay. That's the idea. Okay. So I'm trying to get you out of here. That's the goal. And what's funny, too, I would say majority of kids, not all, because some kids are not motivated by money. No. But we have found most. Now, I will say, I am a free spirit as mom. So I'm probably not as rigid as I should. should be. I'm a little bit more like unload the dishwasher and I'll give it. It's not my kids literally created their own, they just showed me yesterday, their own chart for letting the dog out in the morning. Amelia is more organized than you are. And then what's so great about it that genuinely, yeah,

she like, she should, gosh, she's going to take care of our estate. She's going to be great. And so, but she's our saver. And so you actually watch them participate in when they earn money, what they do with it. I'm going to show you this picture. I'll text it to the team and they can put it up if they want later. But it's funny. We went to Target. it literally this weekend before I was in Chicago, and they got to bring their money to spend because I don't do it all the time because they just always want to spend the money they make, so I'm always kind of put it off a few weeks. So we went and my oldest, it's like, she looks through, she looks through and she's like, I just think I'm going to think I'm going to keep it.

I don't see anything I want. I like the money more than the stuff. And then my middle, she bought like literally eight things. Do you see that, Caroline? She like couldn't, she couldn't handle everything. She spent every, every sense basically of it. She looks exactly. like you at that age. I know, I know. But it's great because I'm like, yes. And at that age parents, like it is. It's an amazing thing when they do something for themselves and something big. I mean, they unload the dishwasher they do. They take out the dog and all of it. If you have done that along and you've taught them to work, give, save and spend age appropriately, by the time they get to 16, you can talk about we're going to turn this over to you. I'm going to watch over

your shoulder and make sure you do it properly. And I'm not going to control you. And I'm not going to control you, but I'm going to allow you to make mistakes, but I'm also not going to let you be out of control with your checking account, but you're going to learn to manage your work, your fun, your spending, and you're saving, and you're going to do, and you're giving, and you're going to do all of it yourself, and I want you to feel the whole thing more like an adult. So then the age outcomes, okay? If they've been doing that three years or two, I think we did it at 15, up to about 18, under your control and direction, progressively you should need less and less control because you're teaching them to lay out. This is how much you got for the

month. How much of it's going to go to gas? How much of it's going to go to fun? How much of it's going to go to generosity? How much of it's going to go to this? And you know, you need to lay out a budget for this so it doesn't just escape you like everybody else. All right. So if you've done that for three years, then when they left and went to college, did the exact same thing. Only we didn't even look at it. By then they knew what to do. this is how much you get a month for college expenses and we're going to pay tuition and we're going to pay books and we're going to pay housing or if you had housing maybe we put that in the amount either one whatever it was but this is what you had to work with we're going to put that in your account if you want more than that while you're a college get a job because that's how much we're going to give you and then it's enough for you to you're going to have a good time and you can have a good life you're not going to be driving a brand new BMW you're a freaking college student that's broke And so you're going to be going doing this, and you've got, you know, college is paid for, and even your living expenses is paid for up to a reasonable amount. Pass that.

If you want a $175 pair of shoes, you're going to have to get your butt into a job, okay? And that's, you know, because I ain't paying for that. And that's then they all four, all three, I'm sorry, there's three of them, went through school. I don't know about that other one, but that other one took off. But the other three, they went through school in four years. And the number of times I got a call. that said, Dad, I need money, between all three of them going through four years of college was precisely zero.

Now, we did have a time or two. They came home and said, hey, here's the actual reality of this budget. It's pretty getting pretty tight. Can we consider doing a raise on it? And we did do that a time or two. But I've got an emergency. I overspent. I goofed none.

So they aged out. And then when they graduated, got married and started their own lives, they already knew how to do life. So we trained them progressively as they evolved from three years old to 23 years old and, you know, got more detail with it and gave more and more responsibility. So if you got a 16-year-old Camilla that's brand new to this whole thing and you dump this on them without you teaching them and spending some time talking through these concepts, you're going to have a disaster on your hands. Don't do that. Don't put $1,000 in a 16-year-old's account with no boundaries. I think you're just going to piss away $1,000 instantaneously and get no lesson out of it. Because the goal here is not the money.

The goal is to learn how to do generosity, saving, proper spending, and work. If you teach those goals, they learn those principles. They'll find their own money as adults. Our The The The The

The The Our Scripture of the day, Isaiah 29-24, those who are confused will gain understanding and those who grumble will accept instruction. Tommy LaSorda said there are three kinds of people in this world, people who make it happen, people who watch what happened, and people who wonder what happened.

Hey, folks, don't just set goals in 2026, learn how to reach them. The 2026 Ramsey goal planner is here. It's packed with monthly content from Jade, Rachel, and Dr. Deloney. Help you stay on track with your money, your faith, your relationships. and follow-through on your goals. We sell this out every year, and it's almost sold out now, as a matter of fact, but there's still a couple of them available. This is a big, thick, very well done.

We turned the creatives loose and said, have fun in your sandbox, and they killed it. So it's one of the more expensive things for us to create, and yours is 4997 while they last at ramsysolutions.com slash store or click the link in the show notes. Rylan is with us in Utah. Hi, Ryland. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you?

Just the same. How can I help? I was, I'm 22 years old, and I just graduated college shortly after I moved back home. But during my time in college, I was able to save around $60,000. Wow. Dang, how did you do that? I started a clothing business and ran that all through, well, I started in high school and then ran it all through college while I was studying. Dang, that's impressive. Good for you, man. Way to go. Like new clothing, or what were you doing? It was hoodies. So we, yeah, we had a hoodie brand and then marketed it through, you know, all the short form platforms.

You said had. Have you quit it? I haven't quit it yet. Okay. Good. Good. And, like, the income is pretty variable. And I just started a new job. Good. What do you make at your new job? You ended on a 65,000. Good for you, man. 60,000 in the bank, graduated from college, 65,000. thousand dollar income and a hoodie side hustle way to go man you're killing it thank you thank you so my question was i'm i'm at home um and i have the opportunity for the next year to live at home um you don't need to do that you're a man and then i also um i've kind of getting getting the itch to

move away good um and start my own life um scratch it and so i just kind of wanted to get your advice on I should continue to keep investing money or move. Okay. Scratch the itch, man. Fly and be free. Listen, here's the thing. You have done so many things that are mature beyond your age. You've started and run a successful business.

You've saved $60,000. You graduated from school. You got a legitimate, solid first entry job coming out. What's your degree in, by the way? I got it in business analytics. so I'm a consulting analyst. I'm not shocked. Okay, that's just wonderful.

So everything in your story is so solid and so mature, and yet what you're going to find is when you buy your own milk and your clothes don't jump up onto the hangar magically, but without you putting them there, your life's going to even get further along in your maturation and your development. And so the Rylan that I'm talking to now will be a substantially different man one year after he's completely on his own, paying his own bills, top to bottom. And he swings by and tells him his mom he loves her occasionally, but he does not live there and she does not buy his food or his clothes or iron his shirts. Yes, amen. And when you go on dates, you don't have to be like, well, I guess we got to end this because mom and dad are home.

and I can't bring you home right I'm not kidding there's something very like yeah all of it so it's good it's good for you yeah that's that you're man you got so many things going for you well done though riley I bet your parents are so proud I bet they are I'm proud of you and I'm sure they are and it's not my point is it's not just a math thing there's things that are going to happen in the spirit realm and in the psychological realm for you that are that are that far outstrip what little amount of money you could save on rent. So go be the best version of you for the next three years, man. I love it.

I'm proud of you. Jake's in Texas. Hey, Jake, what's up? Hey, what's going on? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Thanks for having me on. Call then to see if it was appropriate or what should I do first before purchasing a higher-end

timepiece. Cool. What's the watch? Looking at various brands, the typical Rolex, Panorai, Omega, I haven't really narrowed it down, but I kind of feel guilty. You're thinking about a budget of what, 10-20, Rand? 10-ish. Yeah, okay. It's my first one.

I'm kind of guilty spending that much money on myself. I don't feel guilty spending on you if you've got it. Do you have any debt? We've got House, A-car, one of the cars. is free and clear and then no other debt besides that. Well, I got a fess up. We owe 700 bucks on a mattress that I could pay off right now. How much you on the car?

No, you don't need to buy a $10,000 watch. You have a car debt. Okay. You're broke. What do you make? This year, I will eclipse 400. Good God. Mission.

What do you do? You know, anywhere. I'm in the mortgage industry. How long have you been? been in the mortgage industry? 19 years. Wow. How old are you, Jake?

I'm 41. Okay. So why, pray, tell, if you made 400 grand, do you have a car debt? I don't know. I could pay it off, too. Good. You have the money in the bank to pay it off? Yeah.

How much money have you got in the bank? We are approaching 1.2 in total cash assets. Okay. You don't, I mean, you're not talking about retirement. Six or $700,000 of that's retirement. The rest is post-tax, $529s, stocks, bonds, cash, just various. Okay. Well, it's ludicrous to borrow money on a mattress.

I can't imagine what you were smoking that caused that. And it's almost as dumb to borrow money on a car when you have the money sitting in the bank to write a check and pay for it. so i mean you did call the ramsie show you know that right i'm aware i'm aware i knew you're going to beat me up a little bit all right so yeah i would go buy the watch as soon as i pay to celebrate paying off the car and the thing and to celebrate my newfound debt freedom that i'm never going to do this again because i make too stinking much money and i have two stinking much money to be buying things with debt but no you if you make 400 grand and you're debt free except your home and you have half a million dollars in non or 700,000 in non-retirement cash assets laying around.

You can do a $10,000 watch. How much is left on the mortgage, Jake? We owe $290, and the house is worth $750. Won't you go ahead and pay it off, too? Get the house paid off. Go ahead and pay it off, too. That scares me. So, hear me out.

Why is that scary? Because he's a mortgage. My income's not $400 every year. It's been a good year. Yeah, unbelievable year. It's up and down, you know, Yeah, but I mean, it would scare me less. I mean, if I had no income, I would rather have no mortgage.

Just the feeling of having the cash. Yeah, it's a feeling, and you're in the mortgage business. I'm trying to take you into paying a mortgage off. I get that, but, you know, but yeah. If I woke up in your shoes, sir, I would be 100% debt-free and wearing a $10,000 watch by the end of the month. Okay. car house mattress and everything that's where i that's exactly where i would be and then i'd be on a

written game plan and then you make a crap ton of money and you just too yeah because here's the other thing if you're just a tiny bit afraid about having less cash assets it'll motivate your butt to do more deals yeah well and with that income which i know you don't get that every year jake but like you can replenish the cash very fast you built it pretty quick so yeah you've done a really really good job um i i will tell you in general you don't need to feel guilty when you can spend the money and it's a small percentage of your world and in general that's the answer to your question yes but i gave you a lot of detail to go around that of all the things i would do but you did ask and you did call this show so that that's exactly what i do you've done very very well don't i i ran into this because

You're a great salesman, and salesmen sometimes run into what I did. I tried to out-earn my stupidity for a while. Just lay it in place the system, work the stinking system, man, and then go pay a pile of money and apply it to the system. You're doing so good. 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. Bryce Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.