The Ramsey Show - Money Stress Is Real, But So Is The Solution

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan 📱 Watch the full episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. Dave Ramsey & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: "My grandparents put their 4 homes in an LLC to keep us from moving away or selling to strangers," "Should I defer to my husband with our finances?" "Should I start a side hustle or get a job?" "Are there any good 'short term' investments?" "Do we adjust my husband’s life insurance as he makes more money?" "We're under threat of foreclosure," "I owe the IRS $45k in back taxes," "How do I build wealth in this economy?" Support 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! 🏥 Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries 🏡 Get started today with Churchill Mortgage 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe 🏦 Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! 🥗 Save 15% on your first Field of Greens order with code RAMSEY ⛨ Find top Health Insurance Plans at Health Trust Financial 💸 To find out more about student loan refinancing, check out Laurel Road 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more 🗂️ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at The Nokbox 🎥 Get your tickets for The Chosen Season 5! 💵 Learn more about Timothy Plan 🏛 Get started with YRefy or call 844-2-RAMSEY 🔐 Visit Zander Insurance for your free instant quote today! Next Steps ✅ Help us make the show better by taking this short survey! 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 💵 Sign up for a free training with our EveryDollar team! 🎟️ See Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Delony LIVE in a city near you 🛒 Preorder Build a Business You Love Now at Ramsey Solutions 🤓 File your taxes with 100% accurate software that’s 20% of the price. Listen to 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 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Me and Dr. John Delaney are coming to a city near you on the Money and Relationships Tour. It's happening soon, so don't wait. Get your tickets at ramsysolutions.com slash tour. Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us America. Lucy is in New York.

Hi Lucy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up in your world? Hi Dave, hi George. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? So this is a crazy question but I'm going to try and keep it brief. My childhood home where my dad still lives is an LLC with three other family

member homes. Um, there's five shares on each home, him, his parents, and his two siblings. And my dad's in poor house right now, and it will get passed down to me and my sisters after, and we just don't know how to even go about dealing with this. Due to the situation and other things, we just won't have peaceful use of this home, so we would like to sell it,

but we have to sell it to one of the other owners, and we just don't know what to do. Yeah. Well, you have no control. They've structured this to where they have the control. Yeah. And so, it sounds like you're probably at their mercy. Is there anything in the documentation that dictates the price at which one of the other people buy you out at? So I believe it's fair market value, but since my sisters and I will only have one fifth of the house, does that mean

if we can sell it to them that we would only get one fifth of that? So your dad owns one fifth? Yeah, so like right now six people actually own his house because... But he also owns one-fifth of all of theirs, right? Correct, yes. So your one-fifth is one-fifth of the total package of four houses. Okay. The total value of four houses you own one-fifth of. Okay, so that's kind of what we would sell it for then is the one-fifth value of four houses you own one-fifth of. Okay so that's kind of what we would sell

it for then is the one-fifth value of the four. Yeah that's probably equal to more than one house. Yeah. Okay. Then you and your siblings would split that? You said you have sisters? Yes so our plan is actually to give it to our mom, the profits of it. Her and my dad built this house with their own hands when they were teenagers and so we would like to see the money just go to her. But we want to make sure we're treated fairly in the cell of it and the family has not been fair with anything else. But they can afford, they're very wealthy, they can afford to buy us out. Well, you know, I don't know what the documentation says. That's the question is, does the LLC say that you have the right to call them, to

cause them to purchase, to buy you out? Do you have the right to demand that? And I'm a little shocked as controlling as they've been on everything else that they would have that in the documentation. But if it's simply, if it's that simple, it says you can say you send a certified letter do you have copies of the LLC yes my parents do have them and then there's a couple other in the family yeah you need to take you need to take a copy of the LLC to an attorney and they can tell you what your rights are but if it if it is if it states and I don't know because I haven't read it out and you haven't. But if it is, if it states, and I don't know because I

haven't read it out and you haven't either, but if it does state that you can just send them a certified letter and in so many days, 30 days, 60 days or whatever, they have to buy you out of your one-fifth of the whole thing, then that's what it, you know, the evaluation will have to be placed on all four of the houses and you know, one-fifth of that on all four of the houses and, you know, one fifth of that, 20% of that comes to you and your sister, they buy you out. And then you've got to decide, you know, your mother and father are divorced? Separated, not divorced yet.

But she was never put on the deed. None of the... No, that's not the question. I'm just wondering why she's not already in the deed. None of the houses that were there. No, that's not the question. I'm just wondering why she's not already in the mix. But okay. All right. So she doesn't live there and you want to give her all of this money?

Yeah. Okay. All right. So what do you think the four houses are worth? It's Lake Sawnage property on Lake Ontario. There's a few million to be honest. Wow. Okay. So if it's a huge compound. If it's two million, it's 400 grand coming to you. Okay. Okay. And is this Canadian or US law? We're in New York. I

know, but I know you're in New York, but I use, okay, I'm just making sure. So if that's, so you also need to get tax advice because you can't just write somebody a $400,000 check without creating a gift tax problem. Okay. So you give this, if they, if they buy you out and you are the lawful owner, then that money is yours and you just give it to your mom, you're going to create a big tax problem. So you need to, there's a way to do that called the unified estate tax credit, but you need

to seek good estate planning tax advice in this whole thing as well. So two things, one is get the LLC to an attorney. If your dad's in ill health, go ahead and do it right now. These just give me heart palpitations. The complexity of this where you go, all right, 17 people will eventually own these nine properties. That's not a blessing.

No. Left to deal with that mess. Not given that they also live there. I mean, if you had, like I've got 17 properties that will be left to the three Ramsey's, the next generation, and then there's eight following them that it would be left to. The grandkids. Okay. Called grandkids.

So eight of them could be easily managing or owning a whole portfolio of real estate, but they're not living in any of it. Their individual homes are their homes. So that's different than a family compound situation which is a sweet idea until it's not. It's a problem. So, wow. You have to hope that there is a clause in the LLC that says you can actually force your share to be sold to the remaining parties. And if it's not, she may be out of luck. I don't know.

I mean, you've got to ask an attorney what your options are. But it doesn't sound like you've got a lot of power here. And that sounds like that was the intent. They like it that way. So they like it where they have the power and not you. So be careful what you sign up for. And see, this is one of those things that when all of these people sat down together, her dad and mom were together, they sat

with his mom and dad, they sat with his brother and whoever else, right? There's three other houses. So two siblings and mom and dad, they all sat down and said, hey, let's go buy this lake property and we'll just do a compound and mom and dad will pay for it and get it going and then they'll give us the land and we'll all be in the LLC and we all love each other. And that's how it started, but it really wasn't very well thought out because the long term unintended consequences of here and now we sit and there's no exit strategy for people not getting along.

So you have to think through all of the what ifs. Yeah, and if you do, it'll lead you to not do this, is what it'd be. So the only one that this worked for was the grandparents. No one else has had fun in this deal. And the grandkids now resent their grandparents. That didn't work out. Not the intended goal here. Leaving a legacy. Why? Because we screwed around with stuff and it got all mixed

up in relationships instead of just keeping stuff real clean, basic boundaries. Love you. You have a nice life over there. Come over here and eat dinner with us. You got your life over there. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, it's, um, when it's your personal residence, very, very, very sticky. This is the Ramsey show. Hey, what's up guys. It's Jade Warsha. And look, if there's anybody who knows student loan debt is a problem, it's me.

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Again, that's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. Anna is with us in New Delhi, India. Hi, Anna. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my question is, I want to know how much do I need to understand about our investments? You say don't invest if you don't understand. I manage the U.S. investments for me and my husband, and my husband manages our Indian investments as he's an Indian citizen. Do

I actually need to know about it or is it okay for me to just be like that sounds great honey thanks. You need to know about it. Okay. The only caveat is I have no idea what part of Indian culture I just stepped in. You didn't step into any, don't worry. Okay, but I mean, well, I mean, I've not got him on the phone. He's Indian. You're obviously American. Okay. So every month we sit down and he shows me the spreadsheet. It shows me where all of my needs are left. Okay, so he's very open to this idea. You're just trying to figure it out. Okay, so what I found out was I was investing in real estate like crazy. I was really good at it and I've owned... Sharon and I have owned real estate she never saw. So like

you're saying, she said said whatever you want to do honey I trust you. Yeah. Well it turns out I was an idiot. So it would have been better had she actually been helping me by looking at that and saying you know it just doesn't feel right. I got a bad feeling about that and that's how she would have phrased it. And that would have given me pause. Well, it wouldn't have given me pause in those days because I didn't listen to anybody. But now I understand that who can find a virtuous wife, her worth is far above Ruby's, the heart of her husband, safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain.

So it turns out that when you're married, you need to use all of your brain, which is both of you. And it's just you make better decisions. It's just better wisdom. And I'm not saying he's probably a lot smarter than I was. That would be a low bar. But he's probably doing good stuff. And he's open to letting you see it. There's no hiding and there's no arrogance or anything

like that in the way you've described this, which is a really good sign. But I think if something happened to him, I would want you to know what you had and vice versa and that when you work together, you make better decisions. Now, George, you and Whitney have been married how long? Seven years now. Okay. So that's different than an old dog like me, been married almost 43. All right. But you guys have used that same principle because we teach that principle and George is the nerd by far. I mean, he's deep down in the investments. Also the eye candy, but nerd as well.

Oh brother. Yeah, and the humble. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll know that was a joke. But the, but anyway, Whitney would be, she's sweet, and she would be someone that would normally say, I trust you George, whatever you want to do. Exactly. And she also occasionally goes, hey, how are the investment accounts doing? Where are we at with our savings plan?

And I go, here you go, she has the access, she knows the logins. But she understands it. She understands what we're doing, why we're doing it, the principles. Why did you go to that trouble? Because that's what we teach, I guess, but yeah. Yeah, and so part of it is just knowing that

if you ask questions, you should be able to answer them with honesty and show you the accounts, give you access to the accounts and understand the principles. Good job, Anna. Very cool. Interesting question. Shelby is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Shelby.

How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So, my husband and I make about $4,800 to $5,000 a month. Um, you know, give or take over time, things like that. Um, but I, and our mortgage payment is 1750 a month. And I mean, obviously we have other bills.

We end up usually being able to save about $400 a month, which isn't, I'm, I'm, I'd like to save more than that. So I'm trying to figure out how to increase our income. Should I, I have this idea to start a small business or should I just go get a regular like part-time job? Are you guys debt free? No. So, um, we probably, we just had a daughter, she's eight months old, so we're, you know,

obviously getting bills from hospital stays and stuff like that from her. And then I have a $10,000 student loan. So we have about, I don't know, about 20, $25,000 worth of debt. Okay. So you did not have insurance on the delivery? We didn't, but that was after insurance. You didn't have $10,000 over insurance on delivery of medical bills? No, I mean, I'm just kind of honestly, that's like a guesstimate. That's not just delivery. That's like, I had a high risk pregnancy, so I had to go to a lot of different doctors, so I'm getting doctors' bills from that

and stuff like that. It's not just from delivery, it's just medical bills in general, yeah. Okay, so yeah, and it's probably not 10, it's probably more like five when you get into it, but okay. Yeah, I kinda tend to like over budget and things like that.

All right, so I love the idea of a small business. I don't know that now is the time to do it, depending on what type it is and what kind of investment you're talking about. Because a small business might mean, I gotta invest 10 grand and I might not make money for two years. Well, that sucks when you're in debt.

So I'm thinking more so of, and I mean, I don't know, but I'm thinking more so I'm trying to start like a photo booth business. And I've done some research but I'm thinking more. So I'm trying to start like a photo booth business and I've done some research. It's minimal startup. We kind of have a lot of the equipment already. Um, I think I could start making money very soon. Obviously that I'm not naturally like, I'm not like a go getter as far as like

being my own boss or anything like that. So I don't know exactly what I'm doing in that aspect of it. I think right now what you would concentrate on is with a new baby in the house and cleaning up these bills. I think you want the quick money. So that's going to be, that's going to be a traditional something that just hands you money right now. Later on we might try a business idea but right now I mean you're eight months you're not y'all aren't even sleeping great so

well we actually do have a really easy baby so we do sleep really good but yeah I understand yeah. I sleep a lot better there are no babies in my house okay so I'm just saying. Oh yeah. It's a hard time. You're carrying a load right now of other things. It's probably the time just to make it some extra money and your first goal is not saving your first goal is clear these debts. Right. I want you to get a thousand. Do you have any money saved now yeah we have so we we bought this house we had we had a house previously so we have some money we didn't use all of our money into this house so we have like eight grand right

now in our savings account so okay and so you could clean up these student loans today I mean these medical bills today yes yeah I want y'all to make a list of all of them tonight and pay them all tonight yeah cuz that's I mean we've always we've never been able to save like a significant amount of money and I've thought about just using that money to pay your loans yeah but it's like having a security blanket and I'm telling you if you want to build wealth The first step is to clear your debt their second step is to build a fully funded emergency fund and then your third step is to begin investing long term and

You're gonna do that by getting on a detailed budget making every dollar behave and go create some extra income Which you were offering to do and that's why you called so we're gonna add some income We're not gonna have any better medical bills hanging over our head after tonight, we have a smaller savings and then we need to knock a student loan out by Christmas. Okay. Be done with it and then when you've got no payments and you're doing a detailed budget and every dollar is behaving, then you're gonna see some serious ability to stack cash and really start to build a good emergency fund.

Because you guys probably ought to have a 25 or a $30,000 emergency fund when you're done with this. Then you start doing your investing for the kids' college, for your retirement, and you start to build some wealth. But so far, you've kind of just wandered along on the money thing, and what I'm telling you to do is get very serious and very detailed and very sacrificial, and like this matters,

because it does, you have an eight month old. This really matters. So hang on, we'll get you signed up for Every Dollar Premium, which is the world's best budgeting app, and it'll show you how to do everything in there and that'll get you started and get you going. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey when you're gazelle-intense you sell so much stuff the kids think they're next, but when you've gotten rid of all you can save money by switching your cell phone plan to Boost Mobile.

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Get your tickets now. If you're running a business or you know someone is, that is, you know one thing for sure, like I do. It's hard. When you go to work for yourself, you'll find out that your boss is a jerk. He'll work you like a rented mule. I mean, you just work all the time because you got to get stuff done, man. You got to get started. You got to get the thing moving. It's if it's to be, it's up to me.

You got to, you got to do it. And one of the things we found at Ramsey over the years of building this company from a card table in my living room to where it is today over the last 35 years, and now coaching over 10,000 small businesses, we've discovered that there are five distinct stages that small business goes through and there are six things that drive you through those five stages. This outlines the

clear path, kind of the baby steps for small businesses. It's the Entrez leadership system and we teach it to small businesses all the time. So we decided to put it into a book. It's called Build a Business You Love. The book will come out next week. It's $29.99 but if you buy it before next week in the pre-sale time like right now you'll get over $350 in free bonus items like access to instant access to the Entrez Leadership Hiring Playbook, number one

pain point of small business, hiring and firing. The e-book, the enhanced audiobook, the audiobook for this is different. We really put a bunch of fun stuff in it and it's more like listening to a podcast than an audiobook. So check it all out. Pre-order at ramsysolutions.com slash store or YouTube or podcasters. can click in the link click the link in the description and get Going Carolyn's with us in Cleveland. Hi Carolyn. How are you? Good, how are you doing better than I deserve? What's up? Well, I'm a widow and I'm 81 years old and I am trying to come up with the best way

to take the money I do have and make a short-term investment because being at 81 I don't think I'd qualify for the S&P. So I'm looking for suggestions from you as to where to put my $43,000. Okay. Are you using the forty three thousand for living well no uh... there's eighteen thousand dollars in the checking account seventeen thousand dollars in my savings account

and i have cash on hand of sixteen060. And my yearly income is $66,864. So the money that I have saved. So you can live on the income you have coming in without touching this money? Correct. Okay, good. In fact, I usually take about $2,000 out of it, out of my monthly income,

and I keep it to build up on my cash. Yeah, that's how you got all that money in checking. Okay, good. Right, and I really should take some of the money in checking and switch some of that over to my savings. Yeah, you should. But I'm not getting anything in my savings or anything on my checking, and savings. Yeah, you're saying. But I'm not getting anything on my savings or anything on my checking.

No, you're not. You probably just, but I don't want you taking a bunch of risk with it. Like you said, the S&P, you know, that's probably, I don't want that money to go down in value three weeks after you put it in there. That would scare me for you

because you don't have a big pile of money. If you had 400,000 or something, we'd have a different conversation. But with 40,000, I would just use a high-yield savings. And George, what are you getting on high-yield savings these days? Current rates are about 3.8. Oh, not great.

Is what I've been seeing. They've been ticking down over the last few months, but that's still better than your zero percent. And so I would put anything above your expenses that you need in that checking account, I would just store the rest in that you need in that checking account, I would just store the rest in a high-yield savings account. It's not making a ton, it's not exactly high-yield,

it's kind of a misnomer if it's only 3%. That's kind of like a low-yield savings account. But, it's gonna be, you know, 1500 bucks a year. Yeah, you'll make a little bit on it. 100 bucks a month. But you could lose that much in one week if you had it invested, say, in an S&P or something along those lines, or even a growth in it invested, say, in an S&P or something

along those lines, or even a growth in income, something calmer than an S&P, but still could go down. We've had that experience in the last week with the tariff stuff going on. The stock market's gone bananas. You could have lost $4,000 of your 40 in the last week in value. So the key is if you need it anytime soon, don't invest it. You don't have that margin.

I don't want you losing $4,000 in a week because the president is playing tariff games. You can't do that. And so I can afford to take that hit, so I'll be in there. But that's not that big a huge nest egg and so we don't want to lose 10% of your 40,000 so no I think high yield savings and just hold your nose and you're not making much money on it but keep up with inflation but such is life and that's how it works you know so ouch

Candice is in Cleveland Ohio as well hi Candice how are you Iice, how are you? I'm good, how are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up? So my parents are giving me $60,000. They asked that one thing I do is to put it towards a new car and I don't know what to do with the rest of the money and it makes me very nervous. Okay, a better car I hope, not a brand new car. No, I don't want a new car at all. Oh, okay. Okay. So where are you at financially?

What's your income? I work for myself and with that I make about 60 and then I have a part-time job and I make about 25,000. Way to go. So you're making 85. Are you single? Yes. How old are you? I'll be 35 in two weeks. Good for you. Okay. And, um, and you have a 13 year old. All right. And do you have any debt? No, I actually just finished your book last week and paid off my credit cards two weeks ago and I don't have any student loans.

I love it, Candace. You got some money in savings? I have a thousand in my savings and then my son has about three thousand right now. I do pay him for my company so each year I can get up to the max of paying him. Cool so you put in so you read total money makeover? Yes. Okay so a thousand dollars is baby step one being debt-free other than the houses baby step two that's where you are so you need to move to baby step three and fully fund your emergency fund don't you? Yes I do. Okay so that's what we're going

to use some of the 64 and what kind of car are you driving currently? It's a Nissan Rogue 2015. It has 162,000 miles on it and I did replace the transmission a year ago which were 6,000 so I'm kind of done with this car. Okay so you're gonna trade cars how much are we gonna spend on a car above what this brings? Right now I looked at the value it only would give me about two thousand and I was just gonna hold on to it so that my son can learn how to drive on it and he can kind of tear it up in like the next year. Okay. Okay, so what are you going to spend on a car? I did not want to go over $30,000 at all. Oh no, I wouldn't. I think $20,000 is your max.

Okay. Yeah, I put $20,000 on a car and then I would do the emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and so you probably need $25,000 in there. So we've about used up a big chunk of the money then that leaves you 15 and you can move that some of that towards your son's college fund and some towards your Roth IRAs and start your retirement going right? Yes. Pretty cool. All I did was follow the baby steps you hear it? Yes so it should be about 15 left to put in the savings is what you're saying yeah I mean if you put 25 on a car or 25 in the emergency

fund 20 on a car that's 45 of 60 correct yes and seven grand would max out a Roth IRA for the year yeah then you got eight left over you do it before tax before you file your have you filed your taxes yet? Yes I did already. Okay and then you can do seven grand and you can do seven grand next year and so on but yeah you're right on track. Now your mom and dad just gave you a $60,000 gift. They understand there's gift tax involved? So they're giving me some and giving my sisters some too. So they're giving me some and giving my sisters some too. I know but the max, there is a gift tax. Anything over 19,000 is a gift tax. So your mom could give you 19,000, your dad could give you 19,000, but that's only 38,

which leaves them taxable above that. So they need to get some tax advice because there's a way they can do this with the unified estate tax credit, but if they just write you a check and then they get audited they're gonna get hammered for gift tax so you need folks be aware 19,000 is the max now again you could do four times that if it's couple to couple but this is a couple to an individual so double that mom gives her 19 dad gives her 19 is your max. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps

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1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks. So why is that? Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing. So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. And what's more important than that though is the fact that the customer

is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer centric. Yes. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer. You know, that's why we're partnering with them because they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values.

And they've done a really, really good job with customer service and the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey Tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. And I'm not kidding, it took less than five minutes. It was so user friendly.

The step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings and it says, fair wins on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer. And so again, they just really care about your experience and I so, so appreciate that. So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks

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so easy to join Fair Winds no matter where you live. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by WyeRefi. WyeRefi offers a different approach to paying off your defaulted private student loans with a low fixed rate, less stress. It's a deal. You can get the loan back moving again and you can get it paid off. Go to yrefy.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter y-r-e-f-y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Brooklyn in Maryland. She asks, my husband's pay has increased to $115,000 this year with a possibility of increasing to $200,000 in the next two years. He's 35 and we hope to have children soon. We have a $750,000 and or term life policy for him. Should we increase the life insurance amount based on his income increasing

or are we okay to stay with the $750,000 policy? We're on baby step two with about $100,000 of debt. We rent and don't plan to purchase a home until we have a fully funded emergency fund and at least a 20% down payment. Good, a lot of good things happening here. So the question is, income increases. We recommend 10 to 12 times your income

in a term life policy. And so he's making more than 75 now. It's time to get probably keep the policy you have and add a new one onto there to supplement it. Yeah, that's what I would look at. What you can do is price that and say, all right, you don't have kids yet. So if he passed away today and you got 750,

you probably are fine. Your expenses haven't doubled. Yeah, you're probably fine. Now, if you wanted to replace the income and the lifestyle associated with his income for you and a couple of kids, then you're not fine. And so you're going to kick it up to about two million.

But price another million if you wanted to, and look at how expensive it is. It's not very expensive. If you're, it sounds like I'm going to guess and say- Healthy 35 year olds? I'm going to guess and say they're in their 20s. He's saying- Oh no, he's 35. He's 35.

Okay. Yeah. And you know, if you're not overweight and you don't smoke and you're 35 years old, it just doesn't cost that much. But those are the two, those are the, obesity and smoking are the two biggest factors. They'll blow your life insurance through the roof. But the- Likely less than a hundred bucks a month based on what I've seen from these.

And you got a hundred thousand you're trying to pay off. So you might say, I'm gonna price it. And then based on what the price is if it's really cheap I'll go ahead and do it if it feels an ouchy while I'm trying to get out of debt I might wait a year to do it. It's not the end of the world. You're gonna be fine Either way, but yeah You're you're really wise to be staying up on it and asking the question. And George is right, the ideal amount is about 12 times your income. So somewhere around $2 million in this situation, which would be adding $1.25 if we said if we want to be real ticky tacky about it. And if you were

out of debt and in your emergency fund, I'd say do it right now. But you don't want to pick up that extra $100, maybe not right now. You want to use that towards the debt. So price it out with Xander Insurance to see where you land and that will kind of tell you if you kind of flinch a little then just wait a little bit. But if it doesn't feel like the cost of a pizza then go ahead and do it. You know that kind of thing. And that's really term insurance is so inexpensive that it's mind blowing that it really doesn't become a huge budget buster. Trevor is in Baton Rouge. Hi Trevor, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm just calling for some advice. I got a my wife had gotten pregnant and due to her

job she couldn't work while pregnant so So due to that, we ended up getting behind our house note and we have about $20,000 in debt. And I was just wondering, where should I go from here? How much is your house payment? It's 21 a month, 2100 a month. What do you make? I made, last year I made about 75K. Okay, so you're taking home about four grand

Yeah, how many payments are you behind I'm behind 18,000 dollars. So I don't I don't know the month. I think around nine nine months. Yeah When's your baby coming honey? We've had her already. My wife went back to work Thursday. Oh good. Yeah, she's three months old, yeah. Okay, so what's your wife make? She brings home, she's working less hours now so she's going to be bringing home about

45 this year. Okay, she's working less hours because she has a three month old? Correct, yeah, she's going to be working-time. Who's the baby staying with? us Oh, so at her work. They have a playhouse that she pays 180 all the week for Can she work more since there's a playhouse there? No, the playoffs is open on Fridays. That's the issue

So she's working all she can. Four days a week instead of five? Correct. Okay. What's the mortgage company told you? I actually just got off the phone with them. They were telling me, you know, that we're not in active foreclosure, but it's going to be coming soon if we do something about it. Is it an FHA, a VA, or a conventional. You know is an FHA a VA or a conventional? FHA okay Yeah, they're you're you're due. You're due for them to start coming now

What's the house worth About 250 and what do you owe on it? 225 What other debt do you have? I have a car debt that's 8,000. Some credit cards, the total's about 3,000. You behind on everything else? I'm not behind on anything else, no sir.

What's that car worth? You owe eight on it, what could you sell it for? Like five. You're underwater on that? Yeah, I got it. It's been an accident so... You got anything else? You got anything you can sell to help with this 18k? I don't, but I am. So I'm going... My job recently, actually, I wanted to go to Florida for two months, which is gonna... I should be making around $30,000 for the next two months.

It's with per diem and stuff, so that'll definitely help out a lot. You can make an extra 30 or you make $30,000 in two months. Yeah. And she can be at home working and keep bills covered at home. Correct. Then you can be current before you get foreclosed on. Okay. Right? Yes sir. If you make 30 and it takes 18, now it takes 20 because we got another month

involved right? It takes 20 to get you current and you make 30 I think we got it covered because it takes 30 days to foreclose minimum and they hadn't even started. Yeah I didn't even receive the breach letter they were saying after the breach letter it's 65 days before it goes into active foreclosure or something. Okay so you've got 90 days. You got three months and in two months you can make 30 grand to catch it up. Right well I'm not leaving till the end of this month so it'll be right at three months that I can make the money. So May and June you're bringing in this money. Okay so here's what you can do then, all right?

There's a process with a mortgage company called a forbearance. A forbearance is where you pay payments, double, triple payments, that kind of thing, until you're current and that stops the foreclosure. HUD, FHA, requires that they attempt a forbearance before foreclosure if you request it. Okay. So, you're going to request it.

Okay. And I want you to set up a payment, a system where you pay double payments until you're current. But you're going to get current in 90 days anyway. You're gonna pay it faster than that deal. Okay? So if you want to call them back and say I want to do a forbearance of two payments a month beginning at the first of the month. Okay. Then I want you to pay it current as soon as you can even though you made that deal. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. I want you to pay it faster than that because you're gonna have the money. Yeah. Is that all making sense to you?

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, you remember the word forbearance? Forbearance. You tell them your financial coach told you to do a forbearance. Because I'm your financial coach and I just told you to. Okay. Now, if that does not work, I'm going to put you on hold and Christian is going to pick up and we're going to set you up with one of the Ramsey coaches in your area and they can call on your behalf if you're unable to get the mortgage company to do this because they can get the mortgage company to do it I promise you okay we stop foreclosures all the time it's one of things we do around here okay but it requires making substantial payments

and what we just learned is is that you're not afraid of hard work and you got a way to clean this up. Thank God. I was worried there for a minute and you brought me that last bit of news there at the end and that was perfect. So hang on, Christian will pick up. We'll hook you up with one of our coaches and you can either call or you can have the coach call or both and get you a forbearance done. If you go to Florida, you can catch this house up before they get it foreclosed.

Good job, man. Good job man, good job. Hey guys, I'm super excited to announce that two of the goats of sticking to a budget have finally teamed up. That's right, Ramsey and Aldi are partnering together because, well, groceries cost a lot of money. And besides that, most stores are designed to trap you in a maze, a sad, expensive maze. But Aldi is different. Aldi gives you simpler, better food choices that save you money and get you in and out so you can focus on what really matters. From affordable, high quality must haves to grass-fed meat, organic produce, and yes,

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personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today. Tanner is in Little Rock Arkansas. Hi Tanner how are you? George, Dave, man pleasure guys. In a little bit of a pickle here. So just real real briefly I just realized that I haven't been taking responsibility for my taxes and so I've reached out to a CPA prior to me realizing this excuse me how emotional so back three years of taxes turned out to be about 45 grand. Um, I'm in sales. I make about two 20 a year.

I do have some consumer debt. Um, I'm at the point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Um, I just wanted to see what you guys thought on my situation and how I could get out of this as soon as possible with as much aggression as I can. Are you single? No sir, I'm married of six years with two kiddos, two and three. Your wife work outside the home? No sir, she stays at home. Okay, she have a 225,000 dollar income, so you're making about 20 grand a month. Well, I'm in the roofing sale, so it fluctuates. I can make a good month of 40 grand and a month of 2,000. Gotcha, okay.

Really just fluctuates. And you have any money? Very, very involved. We got about $8,000 split between our savings account, our emergency fund, and a little bit in the crypto market about a grand in there. Okay. All right, cash that out today and take 7,000 of your 8,000 with it and throw it at the 45 debt. Have the returns been filed? They just got filed as of last week.

Okay. Now of course the 45 is not taking into consideration the penalties. Right. And the late fees, not too sure what to expect on that. Probably another 10. Okay. I owe about 38 on my truck, another 36 on a dang vacuum, and about 31 on a dirt bike thinking I was trying to build credit 3100

3100 just sell it Okay, and Yeah, we got to get this mess cleaned up. Why are you on 1099 if you're doing roofing sales I Was 1099 up until last November. We then switched to a W2 which helped me in a small portion as far as this year's return. Had about 11,000 come back off the holdings which of course that rolls over. Okay. Yeah, because you should not have, you know, you shouldn't have been on 1099. but that but you're there now okay so we've solved the problem I mean we solved the you stopped up the hole so

it's not leaking anymore we don't we're not ever recurring tax problem you're gonna stay you're gonna file taxes on time for the rest of your life because it's too stinking expensive and scary and scary yes sir okay so now if you sell the dirt bike you owe $3,600 on a vacuum and you owe 38,000 on your car and you owe 45,000 right correct yes okay so about 90 grand 85 grand gets you out of debt correct yes and you make 225 what's your? Well, and so that's another thing. We're right now renting to own from my mother-in-law. How much is that? $800. Okay, cool. So just keep paying $800

and you need to pay off $85,000 in debt making $225. That sounds like you're doing that in a year. Well, and my question is with the $45,000 in taxes now that I'm W-2 and not changing anything as far as my withholdings, would it be smart to focus on the other debts before the... That IRS debt goes to the very top of your debt snowball. Make minimum payments on all of your other debts except the IRS debt. Throw as much as you can every single month towards it. Yeah, it's very expensive penalties and interest, ongoing.

Sure. So you want to get rid of it. Plus they have virtually unlimited power to come and screw up your life if you don't do this. Yes, sir. Yeah, you want to get them out of your life forever and ever amen and who you the CPA that did your taxes have him verify that you have the proper amount being withheld Well, and so this is where I'm getting my my knowledge from or at least my plan mayor. He said if you Keep holding out the way it's holding out because they're holding out more than they should No, no, no, no, I want them to hold out the correct amount and the rest of it comes home and I want you to pay this off as soon as you possibly can. Sure. I want him to calculate what the correct amount of withholding is and you bring everything else home and you give it to the stupid IRS. Okay. As fast as you can because I think you're going to have them out of your life by September well that would be the hope yes sir no it's a mathematical fact not a hope

sure yes but you're not going out to eat and you're not going on vacation these big commissions have been disappearing into toys absolutely yes sir anything out and just blowing money yeah no, no more. You're on beans and rice, rice and beans. Yes sir. What's that truck worth? If I was a private seller, I would probably get maybe right at what it's worth, maybe 40.

If you like it, you can pay it off in a year, but if you're not willing to sacrifice and cut your budget and your wife's not, and you all get down and start being grownups and clean clean up this freaking mess then you need to sell the truck But if you're willing to do what I'm telling you to do and be done in a year with a whole stinking thing debt-free Everything in one year And you you know get your withholding to be the proper amount throw everything at the IRS then throw everything at the vacuum Which is one month and then throw everything at the IRS, then throw everything at the vacuum, which is one month, and then throw everything at the truck.

Then you keep the truck if you're going to do it that way. But if you're going to drag this out for the next three or four years, then we really can't help you, number one, but number two, you should sell the truck in that case. But Tanner, you know, two and a quarter minus 85 is still over $100,000 for y'all to live on. And your rent to own is only 800 bucks. 800 bucks, and so you can live on $100,000 and still be debt free in a year.

Oh, you're killing me. Wham, you know, so let's do this and let's roll up our sleeves and punch this in the nose. But y'all are gonna have to get on tight budget. You know, hold on, we'll set you up with the Every Dollar Premium budgeting app and the whole thing and help you build all this out, but that's the math. It's two and a quarter minus 85 and you're living on 100.

Wah! I think you can do this. That budget will show you real quick. This is not like we cut you to 30 and you got debt free in a year. So you really ought to be done faster than a year. So you really ought to be done faster than a year. And when you don't have this IRS shame hanging over you and you don't have a stupid vacuum payment, which is really shaming, that's like stupid on steroids. This is going to be a nice vacuum.

Who gets a vacuum payment? Is this industrial? Yeah. I mean, when you get that stuff out of your life, you're going to feel so much better about you. You're going to feel like clean you know because this is you just look at that stuff and you go I don't like me right now I didn't pay my taxes and I bought a vacuum on payments you know and when you get rid of that man I'm telling you it's you're gonna love it it's you're gonna feel so much better and but you're gonna have to bust your butt for a whole year here like going crazy you can do this man I've looked

at stuff I've done I go Dave you are an idiot and I want that stuff that reminds me and I'm an idiot I want it out of my life because I don't like being you don't want to do it twice that's I don't like it it's not fun this is the Ramsey show are you sick and tired of being sick and tired you can take control of your money and your relationships and it starts with just one night join me and dr. John Delaney Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? You can take control of your money and your relationships. And it starts with just one night. Join me and Dr. John Deloney, live in a city near you, on the Money and Relationships Tour. We're covering the real life stuff that matters,

so you can break the cycles that have left you stuck. It's coming up fast, so get your tickets for Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth or Kansas City at ramsysolutions.com slash tour today. Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not gonna die or something? Well I used to be one of those guys I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, Hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids.

And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch for decades. Dave. I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. They don't know what to do next. Terrifying. You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's gonna invest all this money properly and not mess this up or she's concerned how she's gonna eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. It's saying I love you to your family. Term life insurance. Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years they're the only people I trust go to Xander.com or call 800-356-4282

tax day is only a week away don't put yourself through the stress of waiting until the last minute or worse than that wait three years like that guy a minute ago don't do that stuff get your taxes filed on time none of us like taxes but you know this makes your life worse when you don't take care of stuff so you're gonna be fined you're gonna be fined big time and you're gonna see all kinds of late charges and interest like you've never seen so you don't go to jail for not paying your taxes but you can go to jail for not filing your taxes failure to file is criminal go to jail for not filing your taxes. Failure to file is criminal. Failure to pay is not, technically speaking. And 2,578 people did go to jail last year for failure to file. So it's very real. So you know I'm

not trying to scare you. I'm just saying it is the law and you need to file your taxes. Hello. If you want some help doing that go to ramsysolutions.com smart tax. Get everything you need to file your taxes doesn't cost for hardly anything Especially if you got a simple return Our current price offer expires on April 11th So if you'll go ahead and do it like this week before waiting to the last minute and get the best possible deal on the Ramsey Smart tax software and it's very very accurate and it will help you get this done in a quick and easy manner. Do not put this stuff off boys

and girls, do not put this stuff off. Jackie's in Denver. Hi Jackie, how are you? I'm doing well, how about you Dave? Better than I deserve, what's up? Well we have a little situation here that I need some advice with. My husband has a small business that he's been operating for a year and it's currently running at $20,000 in debt. And we have recently found out that we will be receiving an inheritance from one of my family members who passed away last summer. When we set this whole business up, the understanding was that we wouldn't be mixing any of our personal money,

personal finances with the business, and that there would be a hard line drawn there. I'm sorry, what's the, whose understanding? What do you mean? The two of us, my husband and I had that conversation. Well, too late because the $20,000 debt is a personal debt. I agree with you 100%. No, I promise you, that's what the law will tell you. They didn't loan this broke business money, they loaned you money. My fear is, am I going to feel resentful when we use the inheritance to pay off that loan. I guess you should have decided that before you took out the loan. And I know it was a verbal

agreement between the two of us as husband and wife and he totally was on board that the business would have to pay for itself and that we wouldn't be using any retirement money, any of our personal money to pay that off. But that was mythology. You don't have the power to do that. You understand that if you don't pay this bill, that they're going to come take the stuff you're talking about. They're going to sue you.

Oh yeah, I totally understand that. So I mean you already have mixed it. You've already made that commitment when you all took out the loan. I think you're already resentful. You have some kind of mythology that you somehow kept this separate. It's not separate at all, hon. You're on the hook for it. So I understand that. I know 100% we're on the hook for it. I guess maybe it's a relational question, a relationship question. He hasn't... How much is the inheritance?

It will be close to 150. Okay, and you didn't want him to open the business? No, I did. I wanted him to succeed at the business, totally. Is it succeeding? Not one year in. Is it losing money still? Well, let me go back and say that. Last year it was a very small lawn care business and it's only last year he grossed $50,000, netted about $20,000 and put all of that right back into the business. Unfortunately, it wasn't to pay the loan, it was to buy more equipment and that I didn't necessarily agree with, but I went

along with it. And then there was also an agreement he would be working on the offseason to be paying off that loan and that didn't happen either. So that's why maybe perhaps this is more of a relational question. Yeah, I think those two deal, those are the two problems, not the inheritance. It's he didn't follow through on on what he promised as a part of this process Right. I would agree with that statement. I think I think we've got to address that And how do I just Like the moment it happened you should have addressed it. No, we're not putting money back into this We're gonna pay off the debt. Yes, you are gonna get off your butt in the offseason and work

This is what we said we were gonna do Now you could be a little less mean than that, but you still need to have that conversation, right? I Agree, I agree. Okay. I just want to make sure that that what I'm thinking is correct. I think what you're thinking about those two things is absolutely correct. I think you didn't address it when it happened, and so now it's lingering and that's where the resentment's coming from. And I kind of don't blame you, by the way. I think you're right. I'd be a little pissed too about that.

So I think we gotta reset our expectations on the operations of this business and the paying back of this loan. And then let's let that run a little bit and then I'm gonna write a check and pay off the loan. But he's gonna have to, I mean he's gonna, number one, a lawn care business should be making more than that in one year. He's not working much.

Well, part of it was the initial investment into the business that was part of the 50,000. I mean, it was an already established business and he bought it from another gentleman. And so that is how it goes. It doesn't sound like it was very established. Yeah, it wasn't making much money. $20,000 and you run the mower yourself, you own a bad job, you don't even own a good business. Is that the question or was there too much

being spent on the budget? I don't believe the budget was followed very well either. I think we need to learn how to run a business. I you right, so I think there's several things going on there that That he actually does need your help with okay. I'm not sure how he ended up. How old is he? 56 How do you end up in the lawn care business making $20,000 a year at 56 years old? What happened to his career? He had always worked for farmers, which is a pretty low paying job. He just kind of always wanted to be his own business owner.

And we actually live in a very rural area and the options are pretty limited. All right. Do you have some business or accounting acumen it sounds like? Yes, I grew up, my father owned his own business. Okay. And I grew up around it. I tell you, let's reset this whole thing then, okay? Because I think I hear a guy who knows how to work hard but doesn't know anything about business. Oh, you are exactly right. Okay, and he's a sweet guy and he's not afraid of hard work, but he's clueless on

what he's doing here. And so he went and bought a bunch of equipment because he's a gadget boy when he actually thought he made some money, but he wasn't sure he made some money because he doesn't even know how to do accounting. So I think the two of you need to be running this together and you need to run the office and he needs to run the mower. I think you're right. And then the budget will be followed and we make decisions together about when we're working, where we're working, and what we're buying and we're gonna get this stinking thing profitable. And if he's willing to

help you, if you're willing to help him and he's willing to let you, then yeah I'm gonna write check and pay off the loan because all this resentment is going to go away because now we're gonna be both horses in the harness pulling. You're gonna pull the front office stuff because you're good at that. I can hear it talking to you. You already know what is supposed to happen here. And you're just standing back and watching him and he doesn't have that skill and this, but yet this guy is not afraid of hard work. He'll go out there and work himself to death if you point him at the right thing. He ain't afraid of hard work. No, he's not. And that actually was one of the reasons I married him. He was one of the

attractions I had to him. So look at it this way. He liked marrying a smart woman, so that was his attraction to you. So let's use both these things. I think it's a good idea. So you're spending 10% of this inheritance to reset the business and your marriage.

I think that's a worthy investment. That's a good way to put it, George. I haven't thought about that. Once in a while, I get a win. You should do this talk radio thing. I'll leave it to Dave. But I think putting it that way just helps me loosen the resentment and go, all right, I'm going to drop it.

It's a really good discussion. And the way you approached the discussion was very healthy, Jackie. Thank you. I like that. That was a good analysis. And can we send them your new book? Yes. Are we capable of that? Yes Yes we are. Build a business you love. We will ship it to you on April the 15th next week when it goes public. So hang on and Christian will get your name and address and all. We'll send you. Build a business you love. It actually does address some of this. That's a good point. Perfect. Ta-da. Who knew? Two in a row. The treadmill stage.

Yeah, you're two for two and one line zingers. There we go, man. Yeah, man. George is pretty valuable today. This is the Ramsey Show. All right, business owners, last call. The pre-sale for the brand new book, Build a Business You Love, ends April 15. Pre-order now and get over $350 worth

of free bonus items to help you hire smarter, lead stronger, and grow faster. This is not theory, it's the system I use to grow my company from nothing and the same framework we've coached thousands of business owners through. You can only get the bonuses at ramsysolutions.com slash store so don't wait pre-order now in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage Aaron and Jenna are with us hey guys how are you very good welcome where do y'all live apex North Carolina sorry that's okay you're doing it together you're we know you're united anyway that's good so what do you guys do for a living? I'm a

director of music education for a music store and I am an HR manager and catering manager for an ice cream company. Oh that's fun good good for you guys how much debt did you pay off? 75k in exactly three years to the day. Oh I love it. Okay and your range of income during that time? So it went from 79,000 to 109,000. Excellent cool. Good for you guys. What kind of debt was the 75? All student loans. Oh wow okay. All right cool. And how long y'all been married? So three years. Yeah, we paid it off on our third anniversary. So we've been married three and a half years Okay, so you got married and looked up and said are probably in the pre marriage. You're looking at it going

We're gonna attack this tell us the story. What happened? Yeah, so actually in December of 2018 we listened to nine straight hours of the show. We're originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we moved to North Carolina. So on the Christmas journey home, we were looking for a podcast and we came on yours. You just stumbled upon it?

Yeah, I think that Christmas I was on YouTube and saw one of those clips. It was like a young kid from your show, like made 20 grand or something. And I like watched it. You know, it was like a kid who sold Pokemon cards or something. And then when she was looking for a podcast,

you guys were on the top ones. And so that's why she saw it. I was like, oh, let's listen to that. And it was like the first time we've ever heard people talk about that. And then it was just, okay, put it on another one. Put it on another one. And we'd listened to like nine hours from Pittsburgh all the way down to North

Carolina yeah and he said wait we could do this yeah and so we were just dating at the time so we were we had some of our own debt so I actually paid off my car that following September in 2019 and I started paying off some of my loans and then yeah 2020 happened and we were like you know the interest stopped on our loans so we were able to make a lot of progress. We got engaged in October of 2020. When we got engaged we paused because listening to your show there's just so much wisdom that we heard and we wanted to we were dating for a while we wanted to have a good wisdom that we heard and we wanted to we were dating for a while we wanted to have a good wedding and so we cashflowed a wedding for the next year got married in october of 2021 and that's when we said okay now it's us against the world we we have 75k of debt and yeah we were just

chugging away and then in 2024 in january 2024 we found out that we were pregnant with our first kid. Yay! Yeah, she's over here. I think she might be crying off stage somewhere. And then, yeah, so we paused and paying off our debt, stacked up cash, felt really comfortable. I mean, that was just great advice from you guys because we're having a baby. And so it felt great to have more than a thousand dollars. And then she was born in September of... Last year, 2024. Yeah, 2024. And two and a half weeks later was our third anniversary,

and we were looking at the numbers, we were like, wait, we could pay it off on our third anniversary. So we're at home with a two and a half year old, or two and a half week old. And yeah, we made our last payment. We actually have a big chart we wanted to show you guys. I think one time you mentioned, be weird, make a chart.

Yeah, wow. So we bought this chart, there was a thousand squares, and we said, okay, 75K, each square is 75 bucks, and it just made you think about $75 way differently. Wow. Yeah, every little bit adds up. Yeah, you got a fully colored in chart there. Yeah, and we were under marker, we didn't wanna buy another marker, so we would like, as you see. You gotta a fully colored in chart there. Yeah. And we're the marker. We didn't want to buy another marker.

So we would like, as you see in the lines, that's impressive. Some of the best coloring work I've seen on this show. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my goodness. You guys are incredible. So it is worth noting for the casual listener that they followed exactly what we say today. I mean, they didn't deviate even a little bit. Okay they stopped, cash flow to wedding, came back, stopped when the baby saw it and baby mama come home from the hospital everybody's healthy, boom, push

play and the money was in there and it paid off everything on the third anniversary. So everything they did they followed exactly. wasn't an ish It wasn't Ramsey ish. They were listening to way too much YouTube of us and Completely did it exactly the way we teach and because I gotta tell you that matters because it changes the speed at which these things happen And it also lowers your stress level all the way through the whole process. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean we've never Ever thought about money or thought, you know, I mean we've never ever thought about money or thought, you know, there's never been any contention over money.

It's just been like, oh that's the plan, you know this is what we're doing, and it just made us, allowed us to focus on everything else in life. You guys are in your 20s from what I can tell? Oh thank you, Joe. I mean, just a young couple who goes, we can do this plan, because people, here's the thing.

How old are you? I'm 33. I'm 32. Amazing. Because Dave gets a lot of flack, and they say, Dave's plan, it's so out of touch. It doesn't work in today's America. And here you guys are, smiling, relaxed, peaceful, going,

no, we did exactly what they said to do, because they said it would work if we did it. And actually, we even bought a car during that time because he had gotten into a car accident and his car was totaled. Yeah, we cash flowed a car with 240,000 miles on it. So we bought a used car, but yeah, we were able to cash flow it.

And once again, it was just very quick, painless and stress-free. Wow, way to go. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I would say staying motivated and dreaming about the future. We would always talk about what we want our future to look like

and having this baby and what we want her future to look like and just planning and really daydreaming about what life could be. Wow. Congratulations. How's it feel now thathmm, mm-hmm. Wow, congratulations. How's it feel now that you're free? Great. Amazing, yeah.

And what's her name? Eloise. Ellie? She goes by Ellie, yeah. Ellie, okay, all right, perfect, because we can't hear her. I know. Do you want to, I don't care.

It doesn't bother me a bit, I've got grandbabies. She's already doing the debt-free screen, I guess. Do you want to bring her in? Yeah, she's kind of doing it off. Or do you want to let her stay over? It's up to you. What do you want the picture to look like? Because that's the- Bring her over.? Do you wanna bring her in? Yeah, she's kinda doing it off. Or do you wanna let her stay over? It's up to you. What do you want the picture to look like? Cause that's the-

Bring her over. Yeah, we can bring her over. Okay guys, let's bring the crying baby in for the debt free scream. I love it. On YouTube one day. That's fabulous. Hey, she's why you did the whole thing.

I mean, come on. This is changing your family tree. And if she wants to scream about it, we'll let her, I don't care. That's good. There. It's all good. Aw, what a cutie. Aw, yeah.

Aw, really mad. She's mad. I love it. That's so great. So fun. All right, Erin and Jenna and Ellie, you join in too from Raleigh, North Carolina. 75,000 paid off in three years, making 79 to 109.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream You did it Ellie you did it I love it She elevated that debt-free screen she calmed right down Soon I think she just needed some pop on Mama Time. That's all she needed. Oh my goodness, that's fun. Ha ha ha, how fun. Hey guys, that's pretty random that we show up,

because the YouTube numbers are ridiculous for the show. They're wonderful, because so many of you watch and listen there. Thank you, we appreciate that. But that drove it up to pop up on the landing page, right? They went to their podcast page or whatever and went, oh, there's Dave's face. There's the Ramsey Show.

And I remember him laughing about some Pokemon thing or something, which I vaguely remember that. Saw an old clip on YouTube. And I vaguely remember some kid doing a Pokemon thing or something. But, see, social media is not all bad, Dave. Well, that's- If it helps people change their life.

There you go. It's a rare moment. It led people to the full show, which has nothing to do with social media. But yeah, if it's a feeder, I'll take it, right? And so they get somewhat randomly, we'll call God's finger dialing that in there, and we were good enough to engage them for nine hours. Wow. And something we were doing was, that would give me a headache, but yeah, that's a lot. I thought only Joe Rogan could hold you for three hours.

That's a lot. He can. He can. Joe's the king. He does a good job. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess that's true. I guess I have listened to, I haven't binged. Well, we can hold a millennial attention span.

That's something to celebrate today. Well, take the win. Well, and they won. Congratulations. What heroes, man. They're invincible now. They took control, man. And they can do anything.

It's pretty amazing. This is The Ramsey Show. Let's play a game. Raise your hand if you've already filed your tax return. Ready? Go. Okay, I can't actually see any of you, but I can feel it in my bones that not enough of you are raising your hands. Y'all need to get on over to Ramsey Smart Tax and file your dang taxes.

Ramsey Smart Tax is a 100% accurate tax software that won't pilfer your wallet or surprise you with garbage hidden fees. Plus, it's powered by TaxSlayer, who's been trusted in this industry for more than 50 years. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash smart tax and file with tax software you can trust. That's ramsysolutions.com slash smart tax. Hey guys, if you want to help us out, you can subscribe to this show, click the follow button, click the share button or cut out the link and send it to somebody to share, let people know this is happening. When you do that it changes everything and more people learn about

this information and it helps them change their lives. That last couple was pretty impressive, very very well done. Preston's in St. Louis. Hi Preston, how are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Real quick, I just want to say I've grown up listening to you. My mom, every day when she'd pick me up from school, she'd pick me and my brother up and

would be listening to you. So I wanted to give a quick shout out to her and a shout out to you. That's fine. How old are you? I'm 26. Okay. So you're like 10 years old or something listening. Okay. Wow. I know. I know. I was a child. And then you, I grew up listening to you. Wow. How can we help today sure? So my question was was with everything going on within the market and everything like that

How is it that you're supposed to grow wealth? Throughout everything with the stock market supposedly crash and everything like that got my cat jumping on me sorry you remember that part where you were listening to me before yeah and if you've if you you met you might have been too young to hear it okay but this is not the first time the stock market has gone down. Yeah. And there's nothing to indicate that this is a crash, nothing. Okay. Nothing. The U S economy is not imploding and falling in.

Not even close. Got you. Stock market's having a bit of a temper tantrum over tariffs because they're trying that the stock market does not like an unpredictable environment and this is unpredictable as crud right now because people don't know what's gonna happen exactly because I think Trump makes it up every morning so who who knows what he's going to do next. Right. And so, and he kind of likes it that way. He's messing with the stock market and he's messing with these countries beyond belief. No question about it. It's almost entertaining to watch,

but it's not a crash. Preston, would you, you understand that? Right? No, I got you. Okay. So in 2023 you were 24 years old yeah the S&P went up 23 percent or 26 percent in 2024 last year it went up 23 percent So the stock market has gone up 50 plus percent in two years In the last seven days, it's down six or eight percent Not exactly a crisis dude Mathematical I got you. Mathematically. No. So what you can't do is you can't listen

to the news to give you input for investing decisions. Because the news is full of drama queens. Their job is to make your heart rate change, your eyes dilate and sweat to appear in your palms. That's their job. Then you get addicted to the fear porn that they peddle and then they peddle more fear porn. That's why 73 apps go off when a tornado is 60 miles away. That's fear porn. A tornado that's 60 miles away is not going to hit you, but your app is going off and waking you up in the middle of the night, your heart rate spikes, adrenaline is released in your body, and you're in freak out mode. And that's the exact same crap that's happening right now in the stock market. It's false evidence appearing real.

It's not real. And so you're fine. And let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm scratching around for some extra money to throw it in right now because I think the stock market is on sale. I Think it's a great time to buy How's that sound No, I got you I just wondered Here's here's two quotes for you Preston etch these in your brain number one when in doubt zoom out

Preston, etch these in your brain. Number one, when in doubt, zoom out. When you zoom out, go look at the five-year, 10-year all-time track record of the S&P 500 and you'll go, ooh, up and to the right with a few little dips in there. Oh yeah, let's zoom in. Ah, it's a crash. No, just a little dip. We'll be all right. It's a bump in the road. And the other one is this, time in the market beats timing the market. And so what you're saying is, is now the time to sell, I don't know, I don't wanna lose money. You didn't lose money. You have the same exact amount of shares

that you had before. The value is temporarily taking a dip. It will come back. And a month from now, six months from now, a year from now, we'll be back to all time highs and the news will not be covering it because that doesn't get clicks and views. So for those of you listening out there, I've got one particular account that I've got sitting

up waiting to buy some real estate with and I've got about $5 million in an S&P and it's actually about just right at $5 million. And so I clicked on it just to see what this did to it and I think it lost like, it's down like 200 grand, something like that okay so which a lot of money but you've lost $200,000 I haven't lost anything I didn't sell if you sell you take the loss you lock it in I didn't lose anything I'm just sitting here watching with great amusement the roller coaster ride and I'm gonna try to throw some in while it's down and because it's gonna ride up as soon as some of this bizarre

crap clears the air and I don't know whether that's a month or six or six months and I don't really care because I'm don't have to do anything with that money I'm just gonna let it sit there and ride it out ride it out you're not desperate wave up wave down wave down, wave up. And you don't lose anything until you sell. It's just a, it's a, it's a paper loss. I mean, it's just a, it's a chart is all it is right now. And, um, and that same account, by the way, has gone up freaking 23 and 26% in

the last two years. Now that's not normal up either. It shouldn't be that much. Your average on the S&P since it began is 11.8. And so that's about what the stock market has averaged since it began. And so 11, 12, somewhere in there is the average annual rate of return. So 23 and 26 aren't normal. Those are unusually like double of return. So 23 and 26 aren't normal. Those are unusually like double of normal. Like a dot twice as good as normal. So back to back. But did you hear anyone when the you had two consecutive years twice as good as

normal, did you hear a single person on Fox News or CNN go, look how great the market is! Wow! Not one. one not a one but are they all screaming and black there's blood in the streets and there's a crisis and the entire US economy has collapsed in there you know we're we're gonna have an upheaval in a revolution or so good Lord you would think that these people but no no so I'll get to be on there again tonight I'll be on one of them tonight, tell them everybody calm down. Calm your butt down. Calm your butt down.

When, what'd you say that was? Zoom in, zoom out? I might try to use, I'll try to quote George. Quote that. I didn't come up with it, but when in doubt, zoom out. When in doubt, zoom out. So if you got all this fear, you just pan back and go,

oh, it's actually up 80% over the last five years, when you look at it a different way. Instead of zooming into the one little dip that's over a five day period freaking out. So perspective definitely helps. And you have the benefit of that having invested in for 30 plus years. You were sitting here at the same desk,

you and I were when the Fauci pandemic hit and the market went down like 50% or something, 57, dove, right? We had this two month chart that just dove off the cliff for two months and everybody's like, Oh, the pandemics run the economy. The economy will never. Y'all I mean, is the economy ruined? No. Hello? We were back to record highs. Does anybody remember predicting the end of the world during,

I remember people predicting the end of the world. I remember people predicting the end of the world it's the u.s. will never recover from Fauci will never make it he killed it no not even Fauci could kill it so there you go it's too strong can't hold us down sorry I mean it's just it was disappointing for those of you that wanted the end of the world to come and didn't happen well it's important to note the stock market does not actually represent the economy one for one. It's a part of. That's true. 54% of the gross domestic product is small business

as that has nothing to do with stock market. You're not gonna find it on the S&P. Thank God. Yeah. That's how Dave likes it. We're gonna invest and we're gonna invest when it's up and we're gonna invest when it's down. We're gonna invest and we're gonna invest and then we're gonna look up and we're gonna be when it's up we're gonna invest when it's down we're gonna invest and we're gonna invest we're gonna invest and then we're gonna

look up and we're gonna be worth millions of dollars hello this is how you do it boys and girls don't jump off the roller coaster please not in the middle of the ride oh my goodness this is the Ramsey show Music