The Ramsey Show - Stop Being Sick And Tired—Decide to Change!

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

🤔 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Think you’re good with money? Take our Money in America quiz!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "How intense should I be with paying off $156,000 of debt?" "We're $180,000 in debt. How can we start the Baby Steps?" "How do we teach our 15-year-old how to manage money?" "Should I give up on my trade and switch careers?" "My father-in-law stated in his will that we cannot sell his home. Should we still sell it?" "Should I leave my partner of 4 years because he doesn’t want to marry me?" "I make $3,000 a month in cash back on my credit cards. Would you still advise me to cut them up?" 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 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today by downloading the EveryDollar app⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💻 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Find out where you stand with your money and get a free plan⁠⁠⁠ 📘 ⁠⁠⁠Preorder What No One Tells You About Money today now and get $100+ in bonus items ⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠. Amazon is making it easier than ever to find top gifts at amazing prices this season in the ⁠⁠⁠Holiday Shop⁠⁠⁠. 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! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at ⁠⁠⁠Guardian Litigation Group⁠⁠⁠ 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 common sense is weird so we're here to help you transform your life from the ramsie network in the fair winds credit union studio this is the ramsie show i'm ken coleman jade warshaw is alongside Triple-8-8-25-5-2-2-5-2-5-2-5. Your money questions, Jade, is ready to go. She stretched beforehand, I'm told. I did. Got a little energy drink, so she'll help you on those. I'll assist.

And then Ramsey just did a new study, Jade, and in my area, things on work. And we're finding that the two biggest areas of problems for folks in the workspace is burnout and a lack of life balance. around work. So are we going to talk about that today? If that is you, folks, you can call in and I'll dive in on that. So there you go. Money, the burnout, the life balance issues as relates to your professional life. They all tie in, by the way. I think you need to dive in regardless of anybody calls in. So we'll take those questions. And let's start with Lars in Eugene Oregon. Lars, how are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you, Ken? Good. How can we help today? I'm wondering what gazelle intensity looks like for me when I have massive debt and okay income and a pretty full family life where I feel very busy.

Why don't you lay out the debt and then we'll get into the family schedule? Yeah, so I'm in 156,000 of debt, vast majority student loans plus about 4,400 left on a silly van payment. Okay. So other than the 4,400 is everything else student loans? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that feels scary. $152,000. Is that right? $156, yeah. Oh, 52 the loans. For the student loans, yeah. What kind of degree did you get? I have a master's in math. In math? Okay. What's that allow you to do? Teach at a university level? I'm a data analyst. Okay. Okay. And how long have you been in your current company? One month. Oh, good. I was a attempt for a while before that.

Okay, so this is a new job, and I'm guessing a raise with that? Yes, yes. Good. I feel rich making $75,000 a year now. Okay, and what's your wife do? She's a stay-at-home mom. Okay. All right, now let's talk about the, because your question is,

what does gazelle intensity look like for me, given all the family stuff? So we've got a picture of the debt. What is the family stuff you're talking about? What's the schedule? What is the sense or the reality of what is expected of you from a relational standpoint in the family? Sure. Yeah. So I have two kids, ages three and one and another on the way in March.

And the oldest has cerebral palsy. So he's always in different physical therapies and everything. We tried my wife working and doing daycare, but that just wasn't working with all of his needs. So I go work full time and come home and try to be. to help her and keep everything going. Describe how your wife is feeling or how she presents to you after you've been at work all day and she's at home. What's that like when you come in? You know, she is incredible. I admire her so much, but she's juggling a lot with just the normal routine and taking care of kids and all the doctor and insurance nonsense she deals with. She's pretty

scattered by the end of the day. That's right. All right. That's where I'm going with this. So tell us what a good routine is. In other words, you know that she feels seen, loved, supported. Give me what it looks like of the rest of the night. So you're coming home doesn't matter what time, but you come in

after normal workday and describe very quickly, because I'm going somewhere with this, what's happening when you step in or what is a healthy activity for you? Yeah. So it's usually either wrapping up enough time and kind of working into dinner time when I get home.

So it's usually okay for me to take maybe five or ten minutes to myself to go change and take care of business. And then I, and then I jump in and start trying to help with dinner and the work of the evening. Right. And bedtime for everybody is what? 7.30. I mean, okay, got you for the kiddos. And what about then what happens after 7.30? then we go decompress for an hour or two before we go to bed okay so watching tv or whatever well that's

important to know because the reality is is that uh your income going up will through a side hustle right or contract work given your technical skills uh certainly could help you get out of debt faster but realistically you know i'm not going to to spend more time on walking through your weekend schedule but jade where i'm going with this is is where I'm trying to take him is there's a certain amount of time that you may or may not have. All right? So instead of the details, because we want to walk through, I want to get Jade back in here on realistically what the baby steps and the timeline looks like. But before I hand it to her, Lars, here's what you need to hear from me.

The reason I walked you through that scenario, that was really for you, not the larger audience. But I want you to realize, okay, what do I really have? because your wife is in a tough that's that's a that's an exhausting situation yeah and you're doing sounds like you're doing a great job so what my recommendation would be is what is the block of time in a normal week we're not talking about you know when craziness happens and life throws curveballs at us all but in a normal week is there a five-hour block is there a 10-hour block outside of what you just described to me right so that would have to be after decompressing with the wife You know, two or three hours, it's going to bed later, maybe getting up earlier, trying to carve some time out on the weekends.

I don't know if that's possible, and you don't have to respond to that. But your exercise is how many hours a week could I give to making additional money for the purposes of doing what Jay is going to walk me through? So that's your homework assignment. But, Jade, let's walk him through realistic. I'd love for him to walk out here with a timeline when we think he can get out of debt. That'll help him, I think, have a finish line. Yeah. I think for me, when I'm listening to you talk, I'm going to give you the tactical tools and money part of this. But I think I need you to know going in that much of what you're going to struggle with is not going to be the math. The math is going to be tough. And I'm just telling you that ahead of time. But because of what you're up against with the special needs of the children, your wife being stay at home, you having this new job for the first time and feeling the stress and demands of that, navigating that new schedule. There's so much going on that's new and you have the new baby coming in in March. it's going there are going to be so many opportunities for your emotions to take over when that new baby comes you're going to be tired and you're going to be overwhelmed and when you start crunching the numbers the frustration is going to set in when you look at the timeline and so i just want you to be ahead of the game just kind of knowing because half the battle can is kind of knowing uh you know what we're going to be up against and what we're going to be facing and so for you what i would do is simple i would on the math side i would jump into every

every dollar and I would just complete the roadmap just so you can see okay with the money I have in my hand how long is this going to take and then I would jump on to the digital coaching side of every dollar because it's literally going to allow you to plug everything about your situation in and it's going to show you here's how much margin you're going to have every single month to throw at this debt and when you have those real numbers that is going to help you get a clear picture not only of the timeline but what it's going to take to accomplish that then we're when you add side hustles to it, of course, it's going to go faster. But understand, this is going to be an emotional fight for you. So knowing ahead of time, hey, you're going to

need to do those daily habits of jumping into every dollar. You and your wife need to set up regular rewards because this is a long journey ahead of you. So sit ahead of time and say, when we pay off this debt, every time we pay off X amount of dollars, here's what we're going to do to celebrate because the celebration is what's going to keep you going. I wish we had longer to talk. But here's what we're going to do. We're going to get you. Stay on the line. is going to get you into every dollar our gift and I'm going to give you Jade's brand new book which addresses what you're going to go through but no one tells you about money hang on

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Rhonda, how can we help today? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I am a mom of three, and I'm 13. 36 weeks pregnant with our fourth baby. Wow. My husband makes about $70,000. I left my job earlier this year.

That was full-time to homeschool our daughter, our oldest daughter. And I still work part-time making about $30,000. We are just with the consistent medical expenses, our kids are all under five. So it's been pretty hefty the past five years. Yeah, bless you. So, we're having a hard time, first of all, keeping up to months, but let alone getting an emergency fund in place. It seems like it keeps getting wiped out with medical expenses or mostly medical expenses. Is this the $1,000 you're trying to save or three to six months you're trying to save?

The thousand. So we're on step one. We'll get out of some debt and then ultimately the kid's health comes first. So if the credit cards available, we'll have to go back to that. We really avoid that. We'll usually use the emergency fund. Obviously, that's what it's for. Have you ever been able to get it to $1,000?

Or is it like, we get to $300 and it's just gone? Yeah, we'll get it to $1,000. We sometimes will have more, especially like after a tax refund or something. Because emergencies don't cost usually $1,000. Right. So the good news is what you're saying. You're right. Usually, they're not $1,000 emergencies.

They're smaller than that, which means a lot of this, actually, Rhonda, could be how you're budgeting. And I think that that's the good news. I think that we're going to be able to fix this. Let me jump in for a second because I thought I heard something. Rhonda, did you say most of your emergencies are more than 1,000? Yes, considering that we, they've been births mostly and or medical expenses. Okay, I misheard that. the birth. Okay. But I still think where you were going is the same issue.

Well, yeah. It is. We know those births are coming. It is the same issue. And I'm glad that you said that. So let's talk about not just to you, Rhonda, but for anybody listening who's in your shoes. When we think about an emergency, it has to be, it has to meet criteria to be an emergency. Number one, it's going to be something that's completely unexpected. Like, I had no idea this is coming. It's a flat tire on the side of the road. Right. And then it needs to be something that's urgent. like if I don't get this done immediately like today then we're not eating like that sort of thing and then it has to be necessary I must do this it's not an option it's not something that I could not do right and so those three boxes must all be checked it can't just check one Ken great

all three of them must be checked hit those again really quick big audience it's got to be unexpected it's got to be urgent and it's got to be necessary all of those things really good okay So for you, let's talk about birth. Obviously, we know, I mean, we got nine months to plan for it. So that's kind of how that works. Obviously, it's spilled milk and I'm not making fun of you. But going forward, we know that. And just for anybody listening, when if you're walking the baby steps, if you're doing any sort of plan for your money, if you know that you're getting pregnant, you need to stop everything and stack up money. And ideally, yeah, you want to get to your deductible can because you never know what's going to happen in that delivery room. And usually insurance will pay for, everything up to the deductible. It's up to you and then they'll pay for anything beyond that. So going forward, you have this baby coming up. What is your deductible? Because we can start to plan for that now. Yeah. So that's kind of, this is the first time we're budgeting within our birth. So they've all been kind of like, oops, okay, now let's recover. So this is the first time I think we've been intentional about it. We are actually uninsured. We do have like emergency insurance and

we do have like a medical program that we subscribe to to ensure that we have like acute care. But all of our births are out of pocket and up front. So we do home birth. So everything is cash pay. And what does it cost? It's five grand per birth. And then all labs and stuff like that are additional. So there is no deductible.

And so if something comes up where we have to ensure that the baby is, you know like checked for something that might be 250 here 250 there and it kind of just ends up stacking pretty quickly when you've done this before what's the most amount of money you've gone in with gone into the birth uh-huh like how what's the most you've ever had stacked up to pay for a birth um 6500 600 and then how much over did you go over the 6500 in reality we probably just met that once you take on like into consideration if we didn't need to spend on medical expenses that that could be forwarded into a maternity leave cushion because I don't get paid a maternity leave what I'm trying to understand let me tell you where I'm going with this what I'm trying to understand is what have you needed in the past that you didn't have that caused you to either a go into debt or pulled money that you weren't supposed to be pulling from just the essentials and I think it's been poor planning previously now it's obviously not that as much but a safer home we were

not living in a safe area and then it became like you know food when food got more expensive that became a little bit harder and so I don't have an extraordinary expense that ends up dropping on us it's just the key I think it's a rat we're on defense instead of on offense yes in the process okay so I'm hearing that is a good self-analysis I'm hearing a couple of things So A, we're going to continue to save for the baby, save $7,000. Are you on track to be able to save that? We've paid everything out that needs to be paid. We do not have any cushion right now.

I'm selling a bunch of stuff around the house for that cushion. Good. And what is it? What's it take to operate your normal monthly budget? Aside from the birth, just keep everything running, keep lights on, keep rent, all of that stuff. What's that cost? 7K

7K Does that include the debt payments That does include debt It does? It does include debt Great, okay So there's your minimum payments on the debt So 7K

If you came into The month of delivery And you had the money you need For operating cost And then you had the 7K that you need for the birth Or you've already shelled it out Or however it works

Tell me then what the issue would be Are you telling me, hey Jade What we really need is In the past, we've done 7K, but probably what we really need is closer to 9K. Is that what you're telling me? No, I think our birth is covered. I know our bills are covered for this month. I think where we're at and where we're nervous is we've been so back and forth in the hole, back out of the hole, in the hole out the hole.

Right. That moving into this process, we have four weeks left until the baby comes, and then we're going to have a few weeks where I can't make income. And we don't want to be back in that hole. So we're trying to not be on the defense. I mean, it's kind of late, right? So we are still. But we're trying to be more ahead of it so that we end up. That's where I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. Tell me how you're late if you told me that you've paid for all the costs of the birth. That's what I'm getting at. Because this has got to be a simple equation. It's we either feel like we have enough money or we don't have enough money. So if you're telling me, hey, we paid for the birth, but you also in a previous sentence said, but other little things pop up. My first thing, Ken, is, well, if we've usually saved six or seven, let's try to get that number higher.

Yeah. So let me dive in, Rhonda. Jay, it's right. But very simply and practically, do you have enough income that if you were budgeting properly, you guys would be okay? Yes or no? I think we probably need to reevaluate our budget. Somehow I don't see where the margin can come from, but we don't have margin. And that's a problem.

All right. So that's good. So second question, and we're going to give you one session with the financial coach is our baby gift to you because we're not going to be able to go into the nitty-gritty. But I think they will help you get the answer to that question, all right? But secondly, we don't have time to run through all of your debts. But if you can move a car, is there a car in this $180,000 worth of debt? Right, yes.

My car is a newer car that we purchased because all of our car seats. can't fit in my previous car. And we do need some way to transport the kids. Would you spend on that car? What did you spend on that new car? We have it looped into a subsidized loan. The subsidized loan is $33,000. I would say $20,000 of that is a personal loan. Okay. So my previous car was a subsidized personal loan kind of put together with our car. And so then when we bought the new car, the new car cost absorbed that subsidized loan. Okay, tell you what we're going to do. We're actually going to do a little deeper dive on this. So we're going to hold you over, got to do a little radio commercial, but we're

going to hang on to you. So hold on. We're going to dive in this, and we're going to show you how you guys dig out of this. This is not as difficult as you think. have dropped, and you know what that means? People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window, but you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way. You need to contact Churchill Mortgage. Their home buyer edge program gives you peace of mind in a wild market. You can cap your rate for 90 days, so if rates go up, you're protected. If rates go down, Churchill will drop yours automatically. And get this, Churchill will even back your offer with a $10,000 seller guarantee.

So if your loan falls through due to financing, the seller still gets paid. That's how confident Churchill is. Plus, when you shop as a Churchill certified home buyer, it's stronger than pre-approval. It makes you look like a cash buyer, which makes your offer rise to the top. So don't let this moment pass you by. Get ready now. Go to Churchill Mortgage.com to get started today. That's Churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. Homebuyer edge and seller guarantee are available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only, and not available in all states or locations. NMLSID 1591, NMLSconsumerexist.org, Eagle Housing Lender. All right, so we're talking to Rhonda in Phoenix, and Ron, I want to bring you back in here.

Okay, so we've got to get tactical really quick. Yes. Jade, take over here, but all we're looking for, Rhonda, is numbers in your debt, all right? We want to go smallest or the largest, lay those out for Jade. So I need two things. Rhonda, you told me your husband's making $70,000 a year, so are you taking home about $4,800 somewhere around there from him? Yes. And then what's your part-time pay right now?

What do you take on? I'm about 22 to 25. I'm independent contractor, so it just changes. So as it is, yeah, you guys, you said it takes $7,000 to make your budget. As it is, you're like squeaking by. So when you stop working, I'm seeing that you're going to have, yeah, a deficit of around $2,100, $2,123 somewhere there. Feel right?

Right. Okay, so that's what we're concerned about. So the debt, we can talk about the debt, and we're going to give you a plan for that. but I want you to, I just want to front-load that by saying that's not your concern until after the baby is born. Right now, the concern is saying, okay, we're going to have a $2,100 deficit come March, and we think that that's going to last for X amount of number of months, right? Yes. So how many months do you think that that deficit is going to go on that you won't be working?

I only plan to take, like, max four weeks off because of this. like we can't have the debt for that long. Okay. So I want to err on the side of caution and say if you plan on four, let's plan on eight, right? Let's double it because you never know. So that means we've got to find an extra $4,300 somewhere to kind of bridge that gap. Does that feel right? Yeah.

Okay. So now we have a clear goal. We need to find $4,300. That money is to bridge the gap. Now, how do we find the money? for you, you're very, very pregnant. But for your husband, this is a lot of extra time working. This is, I'm picking up whatever side hustle I can.

I heard you say earlier that you were selling things. Keep doing that. Now let's turn over and look at the debt because there might be some quick wins there that will help us find the money, Ken, the car. Yeah, so the car, the car that you had to have because of the car seats, how much did you pay for it? On the lot, it was a used, so we got. got it for 10. It's an SUV. But with the loan, it came out to 33.

How did that happen? How did you go from 10 to 33 on in one car if the sticker price was 10? Right. Our previous car, we still owed on. So I think I owed about four grand. And then we took out a $15,000 loan. So we owed with interest. When it rolled over to be on top of the other car, it just added that. Oh, Lord. Have that amount of money. I'm missing one. The car. was 10, you had 4,000 in negative equity, still, that's 14. How did you get to, where did the other 15 come from? Sorry, my first car, we owed four grand. Yeah. We needed money, so we got a subsidized loan and the item that we used was that car that was not paid off. They absorbed that first car is $4,000 remaining. It actually doesn't matter. You have a $33,000 loan on a $10,000 car, which kills my entire coaching because it was like, we thought we were going to get you out of that car. I was like,

He'll get you a $10,000 van, and you did. Yeah. All right. What else do you have? Anything? My stomach hurts. My husband is a teacher, so he'll have about two or three weeks off during the holiday break, and he's already agreed to pick up, like, a temporary position delivering packages

to try and offset some stuff. Okay, great. Okay. So what's, do you know what that's going to earn? We're hoping somewhere between two and three. Okay, so you're partially to your goal, because he's going to continue to get his salary through the break, correct? Right, correct. Okay, so that's great. You're partially to your goal. Now, that's just the making the budget work extra money. Do you need, do we need to add that

extra money to that for the birth? And be realistic here. Yeah, I don't believe so. We don't, we haven't in the past, by the grace of God, had anything that comes up after birth. Okay. I'm healthy. The baby's healthy. So I'm anticipating that happens. If it does not happen, then that will be a different conversation. That's what I would do, Rhonda. It's like, it's not always sunny and 70, right? So let's plan for the what if scenario. So we're ready. Let's start looking and saying, well, what would it cost if I ended up having to go from my home into the emergency room? What would it cost if I ended up having the baby needed to, you know, be in a NICU for a little? Like, let's do a little bit of research and dial down. It's not, we're not trying to do a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're just getting information so we can prep. I think doing that is going to. give you a lot of peace. And those are your two main focuses. Your husband to clear that gap by working and you to provide insight on the numbers for him. And I would just say this. And by the way, hang on on. We're going to take care of. We're going to give you a baby gift of a coaching

session with a financial coach. And also, I want to give away Jade's book, what no one tells you about money. Yeah, do that. But last thing I'm going to say is your husband isn't just doing this during Christmas break. In order to get out of this hole, he's going to have to work 60, 70 hours a week for a while. And I hate that. But I'm just going to tell you, you guys need more income, especially on this car problem, because we can't get rid of the car. Yeah. So we're going to have to just dig, dig, and it's going to take a while, but you can't do it. So. And what I like about this conversation is, you hear the habit talk about hot, mind, cold mind. Yes. You're doing this in a cold mind right now, which is you're not deep in the emotions.

you're on the outside of it and you're making clear decisions. Let me tell you can when that baby hits, all of a sudden that what you've said about side hustling and paying off the dead, da-da-da-da-da. That's going to want to fly out the window. So please remember this call, write it down, put it in a frame, put it on the refrigerator because when that baby hits,

you're going to want to go the opposite direction, but you made a decision today in the right frame of mind to do the right thing. And that's what's going to keep you solid when these baby emotions. tee you up on this emotional issue. What is the key to getting out of this emotionally? I think what we just talked about, which is knowing it's coming and trying to make those decisions ahead of time, but also understanding, okay, what season am I entering into?

Yeah, a whole lot of just awfulness. Yeah, because, you know, this stuff, it runs in the background of our lives without us being, having the time to really get into it. And so knowing it's there is a big help. All right. So that is just one of the reasons those of you who are just stuck in an emotional place and it's tough. It's why you got to order Jade's new book. Comes out first of the year, what no one tells you about money. You can pre-order it right now for $24.99, get over $100 and free bonus items. Ramsey Solutions.com slash store. Ramsey Solutions.com slash store. What is somebody going to get out of this book? It's the check engine light for your money. When you get in your car and you see the check engine like Ken, what do you do? You take it to the, the mechanic. I call it Greg.

They run that diagnostic. Yeah. And they give you the little code and tell you what's wrong. Oh, yeah. This is what that book does. It is going to run a diagnostic on you emotionally and it's going to find out what's going wrong. What's been making things not run right for you. And then it's going to give you the code to fix it. And it's going to take you step by step to what you need to do. So it's a diagnostic. And you need that because you've been stuck and you haven't known why. And Let me help you discover why so we can fix it. What do you think are top two or three? Yeah, I love a top five list.

Okay. We don't have time for top five. So I'm going to put you on the spot. Top three emotions, negative emotions that our audience is facing and trying to get out of debt. I'm going to say frustration because with the baby steps, there's a lot of nuance and it's a lot to remember. It's a lot to think through. Even though it sounds simple. I like that.

I'm going to go with anger because of so many out. side forces that are affecting our money, whether it be inflation, the housing market, administrations, the cost of insurance, all of those things that we didn't do, they're not our fault, but yet they're sitting here affecting our money. And then after that, I would say fear. When people choose to walk the baby steps, there is a fear of the unknown. They're not sure if I really sacrifice all of this. Is it going to be worth it on the other side? They don't know. And so there's that first initial step of faith, that kind of leap that you have to take. And a lot of people are afraid to take it.

Yeah, I agree. I think there's so many types of fear. Oh, and I talk about so many of them. You nailed the fear of the unknown. I think it's the biggest in any of our life. But, you know, sometimes it's just as simple as if you've heard Dave, if you hear one of us, but it's Dave the one that just gets, he just gets fierce. And he starts going, you don't see the inside of a restaurant.

Rice and beans, beans and rice. Some people are like, I'm just afraid to die on my life back like that. There's a real fear to that. Like, what are my kids going to say? What is my spouse going to say? You know, and the idea of change, radical change, is fearful. So, hey, we hear you. We've done it.

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It's not available in all states. All righty then. Today's question comes from Kate in Utah. She says, my 15-year-old daughter recently started babysitting, which has been a great first job for her. If she wants to buy something like concert tickets, she has to pay for it. This has really helped her with budgeting and being responsible. In addition to what she earns, we provide her with spending money. Should we be putting that money into her bank account as an allowance, or should this be something she earns once a task is completed?

Also, should we have her keep a set amount? a minimum balance in her savings. Okay, so there's a couple of questions in here. We're talking about do we want allowance versus like paid wages, basically, like paid, you know, you get a wage for a service kind of thing. And do we kind of regulate how much she needs to have in her account at all times? So I really am, I love the idea of people working for money because that's the way it works in the real world can. And part of this is experience for me, too. I never grew up on allowance,

and so I don't even know what that is, but I do know what it means to do a job and get paid for it. And I think there's a certain level of not only reality to that, but dignity to that. And I mimic that at home with my kids. They unload the dishwasher. With my kids, there are certain chores that they do

that is just you being a citizen in this household. You don't get paid for it. It's just you being a good citizen. those are things like making up your bed keeping your room clean that kind of thing then there are chores that you do that you get paid for and so that's how they earn their money or maybe some people would call it allowance so i would implement something like that there needs to be chores that she does in the house that are just shoe in but then there's other things that she can get paid for and when it comes to what you are telling her she needs to keep in her savings i would do i would just teach give save spend so whatever you have you have you can give some of it, you can save a portion of it, and you can spend a portion of it. And you guys can decide what that portion is. Yeah, the only thing I would add to this, and I don't know if this is going to be controversial, but I don't. Do it. Ken, come on, Dad. I really don't care. I think you teach all of that, and I have. But I got one kid, and Jade knows all three of my kids well,

I got one kid who is... He's saving, boy. He ain't letting go of that cash. Dude's got thousands, okay, from every, every financial gift, little odd job he's ever had. I got two other kids that don't have any money. Yeah. And I've taught them. I've taught them till I'm blue in the face. And guess who doesn't have a blue face today? Me.

Well, you don't, you can't make them to do it. That's what I would say. So teach them. And then I think that life is the best teacher. And so I've got one kid that just at some point is going to get tired of being broke. and then the old man's a genius. So I think as parents go, I think sometimes we do a little too much. Teach, more importantly, model.

Yeah. So this is what mom and I do, or this is what your father and I do. This is what I think you should do. And here's why. And then let it go. Let it go. And just because I'm telling you something, you've got to learn it. And it's not like teaching them to ride a bike per se.

It has some parallels. You can hold, you can keep your hands on the outside of the seat, but you got to let it, yeah. And then when they fall down and skin their knees, they start to learn to ride the bike. And so they need to be broke. I mean, so broke, it hurts. Can I tell you. So there you go. And you've got older kids.

Yeah, I do. They run the gamete. 2018 and 17. Yeah. So they're in it. They're in it right now. And they need spending money. Yeah, because they got gas and games and dates.

and they got all the things can I tell you about my 7 year old all right so I told you the kids they get some money for doing things like unloading the dishwasher and we were trying to teach my son if you want something you have to save up your money for and that takes time

so we finally we were finally able to get him to save up his money he wanted a fish tank to buy a goldfish and so he finally saved up the $22 we went this weekend that's awesome got him he got the tank the little pineapple that goes in it to goldfish Don't you know the next morning one of them was dead?

Of course. And I was like, I felt so bad because he saved up his money. I mean, the gold fish itself is 32 cents. Can we not have a cheaper fish that has a longer life expectancy for all of the kids of the world were breaking their hearts? I know. Is there not a fish that's a little more durable? The goldfish.

It's a 50-50 proposition. Every morning you wake up, you're stressed out. I hope the second one hangs on. That's all I hope. Don't hold your breath. Promise you he's not. Oh, man. We'll be here all day with the, we'll be here all day with the parent jokes.

Matthew's up in Gainesville, Florida. Matthew, how can we help? Hi, I was wondering, should I stick with the trade I'm in doing HVAC or should I switch to another trade like welding or building automation to make more money and do something more fulfilling? Oh, I think you might have just answered your question. Am I to understand that you're in HVAC and if you were going to welding, you perceive that to be more enjoyable, more fulfilling, and it's certainly, you know for a fact you can get paid more?

Yes and no. I can make about the film. It's mainly the company I'm at, but I have a difficulty trying to go to another company due to experience. Okay, so two things. One, I want you to adjust your phone. You sound like you're inside of a sock. You know, okay, so talk to me, talk back to me. do you want me to say it again it's only slightly better i'm having a hard time understanding you but we'll keep going okay so i asked you so you presented a question okay i want to hit you with the facts you said do i leave my trade of hvac and go into welding in order to make more money be more fulfilled i repeated it back to you and your reply was well uh it'll be about the same amount of money, and really it's just the company I'm at. So it sounds like you're presenting

something different. Do you hear what I'm hearing? Yes, sir. So I wonder if I were to wave my pencil in the air as if it were magical what I'm doing right here on camera, Matthew, you can't see it, and I were to remove all of the bad stuff at this current company. Would you be on the phone with me right now asking this question? Yes or no. No, sir. Huh? No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. So it's not to trade. True or false? Correct. It's the place.

True or false? Correct. All right. Give me something specific. What is really bothering you? I do about two hours at work, and then I sit on my phone the rest of the day just to get my hours so I can have money and pay bills. Okay. Now, Matthew, I am so glad you called today because I think there are literally millions.

of people that are going to hear this. And folks, I want to make sure you hear what Matthew just said. Matthew is feeling burned out, true or false, Matthew? True. And Matthew is feeling burned out, not because he's working too hard. He's not working enough, Jay. He's bored. So I want to call this out real quick and we'll move on.

But I want this massive audience to hear what very few people will tell you that boredom is one of the biggest causes of burnout. human beings are wired. We are created by our creator to work, to progress, to overcome challenges. It is in our soul. So I just want to put that out there. And many of you are looking for a solve that you don't need to look for and you need to look inward and go, I'm bored out of my skull. And as a result, my soul is slowly see, from my body. So just a real quick sermon there. We won't take an offering. But I just want to make sure that you're paying attention to what Matthew's paying attention. So Matthew, here's the fix. I'm not against you, nor would I tell you not to move into welding. Because to me, as long as welding is creating a unique challenge, in other words, you've got the skill to do it, but it also is

interesting. And it's enough of a challenge that you have to apply yourself and you're actually working all day, then yes, move into welding. However, if you can find another HVAC company that actually works you during the day, doesn't overwork you, then that's the simple fix. So we don't want to run away from something. I want to run to something. And in this case, I don't think the something is another trade. I think it's a different company. And I'm going to stick with that. So, hey, thanks for being honest. And you can fix this real easy. Go somewhere where you can work, my man. Hey, y'all, you know I'm all about keeping your budget and check, especially during the holidays. And that's why I always start my grocery shopping during the holidays at Aldi.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. I'm excited to be with you. Let's go to Christopher in Denver, Colorado. Colorado, Christopher, how can we help? Yeah, Merry Christmas to both of you. Thank you for taking the call. Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you.

Yeah. So my wife and I, we have a daughter that's three years old and a son that's nine months old. And the day my son was born, my father-in-law tragically passed away, unfortunately. Oh, my gosh. And, you know, the grief and trauma that's come along with that has led to many challenges from my immediate family. And, you know, in his will, he had essentially said, you know, real estate's the best investment, and I would really prefer you to hold on to my home and use it as a rental property. Well, due to the grief that's been caused by this, you know, my wife consequently lost her job.

And, you know, that $90,000 deficit is, you know, pretty substantial. So I have a financial and moral dilemma on my hands. And on one hand, I'd really like to, you know, obey his wishes. And on the other hand, you know, I have a family to look after. Okay, let me jump in for a second because I think we've got to dig into some stuff. Your father-in-law died three years ago. Is that right? No, this year in March.

Oh, nine months. months. I wrote nine years old. Sorry, so nine months ago, your father-in-law died. And the grief from that led to your wife losing her job. Can I ask? Yeah, she was let go from her job. Can I ask, is there some type of unique circumstance on that? Yeah, yeah. It was, you know, without getting into too much detail, self-inflicted, you know. Okay, gotcha. All right. And so very, very traumatic to the point where she's not able to function at work. Um, certainly. Yeah. Okay. And how much was she making? She was making $90,000.

And how much do you make? Before taxes and bonuses, I make $120. Okay. And now let's move into, so what are the financial challenges? I'm assuming it's debt. Unfortunately, no. We've worked very hard to get out of debt. And that's kind of the reason why I'm...

So you have no debt? Correct. All right, I'm going to walk you through this. So you have no debt. Do you have an emergency fund? I have had to drain it to one. take care of my welcoming our new son, two, taking care of the property that's in Texas, I should add. We're in Denver, and this is in Texas.

Okay, good to know. And then do you have siblings that are also in the will on this property, or is it just you? It is just my wife. So the- Oh, that's right, you're your wife. So what's the property worth if you were to sell it? Yeah, you know, I've gotten my real estate agent says about 325 if we were to put, you know, X, Y, and Z into. the home. Without putting in the upgrades into the home, we're probably looking at just south of 300. And how much, okay, so what would you, what would your wife walk away with if we sold it as

is? Let me get that number for you. We're looking at about, you know, at 325, 303,000. Without, we're looking at about 278,000. So you, so you guys would walk away. with 278K. Okay, what happened with the birth of your child to where it drained your entire emergency fund? That was not the part that drained it. Fortunately, it was hiring movers, getting us physically down there to go through the home. You know, it's not, it's not my home. Oh, I understand. So, you know, I have to be very sensitive to my wife and allow her to, you know, take the time to go through his belongings. You know, all of his home is basically in my home. How much was in your emergency fund?

$25,000. You drained it. Holy smokes. Well, we have about $4,000 remaining, but the repairs on the home would cost us upwards of $23,000. All right. Let me cut through for a second. So it sounded like, it sounds like, and I think I'm right, obviously you're thinking, hey, we're feeling a $90,000 deficit year over year. If I can get my hands on some of this money, I can invest.

and kind of make up that loss that way she can take the time that she needs and it's not going to continue to have such a drain on us. Right? Almost. But what I would like to do is we purchased our home in 2022. Our interest rate is 7.125%. 7.125%. Excuse me. And, you know, it's my opinion that by refinancing, you know, we can substantially lower our mortgage about $2,100. Okay. On the on the flip side that, you know, after speaking to property managers in the area, it's expected that we could get roughly $2,200 in rent for the property. And that's before fees, taxes, et cetera. Okay. For your father-in-law's property? Correct.

So here, let me just, let me tell you what I'm thinking. I'm going to be 100% honest with you. I don't think this is your decision to make a loan in a vacuum, number one. And if this loss has been what has been my guess is that she might not be down to ride on this just yet. Is she? Where is she at? Well, let me finish the loop here. And then the final thing is if you do sell this property, because I want to say this on the front end, the only reason that I would say to do this right now is simply because of the location. I'm not, for me, it's not a financial thing of like we have to recoup this money doing a bunch of math. For me, it's more like, hey, you can't really manage this from where you are in Denver, and we've seen that. You've already

shelled out far more money than you need to going back and forth and whatnot. And we would tell nobody to be a long-term landlord in that way. So that, if you sell it, that would be my reason why. And I would say, how can we sell this? Is the mother-in-law alive? Who do we need to talk to to to make this feel right? But it would not be for the reasons that you're saying. So I just want to put that out there. Because it feels... I appreciate your opinion. I do. And fortunately, you know, I completely agree with you. This is my wife's decision. You know, the reality is, you know, I'm a finance guy of the home, right? Yeah, I don't hear that. I can hear it in your numbers.

Yeah. And, you know, she is, we're doing everything that we can to keep this property because I do want to honor those wishes. Okay, so that's what we need to be focusing on. It feels like you called in and said, should we sell it? But your wife is saying, I don't want to sell it. Is that true? No. She wants to do what's best for us. Well, what do you think is best?

I would sell it. I would sell it, too. I would sell it because of what Jay just said is that it's a burden for you guys. You've already blown a bunch of money. I'd sell it as is and invest that money, build your emergency. fund back up and invest it and let's do something good with it. Let's walk the baby steps out with whatever money comes in. Or if you really did feel like, I think the way you framed it earlier was why he wanted you to keep it was because real estate for him was the best investment. So in my mind,

and this is just, I'm spitballing. I'm not saying you must do this. But if I sold it, what feels like would be keeping with his spirit or with something that he wanted the money to be used on would be maybe, okay, maybe you do buy an investment property. Maybe you pay off your mortgage because that's a property and now that's another asset. You see what I'm saying? So roll it back into real estate, whether it be yours or, you know, whatever that is. And that way you're keeping the memory alive. You're keeping his values alive, but you're also doing the right thing for your family. The holidays are supposed to be joyful, but they can also be expensive,

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Restrictions apply. See boostmobile.com slash Ramsey for details. Lily is up next in Kansas City. Lily, how can we help? Hi, I have been with my partner for four years. Wow. Lily, you just broke up really bad, so we didn't hear that part. We just heard you were with your partner and then it went into like some ghost sound. It was haunted. Sorry about that. Can you hear me now? Really clear. Okay, so start that whole thing over. Okay. I've been with my partner for four years. I moved out here. We live in a rural area outside of Kansas City, and I found out this year that he does not want to get married.

Okay. Which is a problem for me because I've been investing into his household and into this property for the last four years. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So, tell us what that means specifically. How much have you invested? So he owns his own home, and he has, he bought the house in 2012 at an interest rate of like three. percent crazy low and he should have this paid off in about seven years and when I say investing I mean I have been I pay for things living here I know I'm asking for how much and like what

a kitchen a bathroom what give us specifics I apologize it's not that not that deep um I pay for things in this household the only way he will let me pay for things is if I've buy groceries, pay for, like, our betting household items. Well, that's not investing in, okay, I'm tracking now, but that's not investing in the house. It's not investing in the house, but here's my problem. Here's a dilemma. When he told me he wouldn't marry me, he set up a revocable trust. Okay.

Leaving everything to me, you know, when he passes away. my problem is is that I'm living paycheck to paycheck buying the things that I'm pying for the house and he pays the mortgage pays the bills and won't let me be a true partner in that. Well, hold on, Lily, I feel like we're focusing on the wrong thing. Jade, I'll get out of your way because your brain's about to explore the revocable trust. But Lily, I'm just going to speak to the relationship side. Okay, here's what I just heard. I moved out here four years ago to be with this guy.

he doesn't want to marry me and he made it very clear but as a consolation prize he created an irrevocable trust jade'll get to that in a second i don't that to me is just weird it's so weird but then you kept then you went and but he won't let me pay for things and he won't let me why are you still trying why are you even in the house this this is this relationship is over right right i mean yeah in my mind it the trust is revocable by the way not Not irreversible. It doesn't matter. The whole thing is weird.

And tell him, never mind because if you don't want to marry me, why would you leave all your stuff to me? What does that mean? To me, that's just a weird thing. It proves this guy's a weirdo. And I'm not trying to be unkind. And I'm not trying to be insensitive. But you called us, so we're automatically on Team Lily.

Let me just tell you, that for me is, it's very manipulative too, because it's this way of keeping you on the hook forever. Exactly. That without marrying you, why would you say, I won't marry you, but I'm going to leave you after I die all of my major assets? I'm going to tell you what this is. I'm going to tell you what it is. This is friends with benefits and the benefit is he wants you, but he don't want to marry you.

This is sleeping with the enemy. But now he's going to give you his whatever just so that you. No, that's weird. This guy does not want to be married to you in a union with you. No, but he wants all the benefits that come with this and it would make me feel gross. I feel gross for you. It does. And even being part of the revocable trust, it feels like I mean, they hated. Say no and break up with them and leave.

When did this start, Lily? When did you find out? He doesn't want to marry you. And when do he tell you about this weird trust thing? Oh, boy. This year, early this year, and he set up the trust about two months later. Because I told him that I didn't, he says he feels like he doesn't want to get married because the government, it gives the government too much power over his assets. I need him to stop. Bull crap, this guy's such a bad liar.

So let me tell you, when you told, when you said, why aren't we getting married and he said, I don't want to marry you, did you give him some, what I want to know is, did you give him some sort of ultimatum? Did you tell him he was, you were leaving? And then this was the response to that. That is correct. You did? Yes.

Well, why are you still with him? Because he created the revocable trucks in that moment. In that moment, you let it work. You didn't give him an ultimatum and do anything about it. you threatened and then he went I see your threat and I'm going to raise you some manipulation and you said that I know I'm right I've been right for about three or four minutes into this call and I needed to hear it from someone that was unobjective does that make sense yes it does break up with him if you were my sister I would be like you have no respect for yourself if you stay in this relationship

and and I agree with Ken and now let me just hit on just a personal note you as a human being there is a sunk cost here, right? You're like, man, I love this guy. I spent four years. Four years is a long time. And you got up and you moved to be with this person. There is a lot there. And I understand that you're probably like, can I salvage some of this?

Because if I can't salvage this, then you have to come to terms with whatever that means to you about you. Like, I can't believe I fell for this guy or I can't believe, right? And that's very, very difficult to do. And my guess is that's probably why, even though he said he wouldn't marry you, you continued on up until the point of this call, is there was some part of you that probably was like maybe there's something here I can salvage. Maybe there's still a chance that this could turn around. And I totally get that. And Ken and I are not making fun of you or knocking you. We are 100% trying to validate you. Good. It's hard to walk away from a household that I've put so much time and energy into because now I walk away with nothing. Well, you had an expectation of what that was going to meet. Well, she had an expectation of what that would bring.

I know, but I'm going to tell you why I disagree. And this is Team Lily. Lily, that's the wrong thing to say. You've been telling yourself, I'm walking away with nothing. I'm going to tell you you're walking away with something and it's your dignity. That's facts. Come on. That's facts.

You got to know. You got to rewire this message. The narrative is, I'm not going to let this guy manipulate me and rob me of my dignity. I'm walking away with my dignity. intact and it's a big deal and I'm going to make my life better and I'm going to focus on getting myself to a place where I'm not living paycheck to paycheck and I'm going to get myself healthy and deal with what Jade is saying and she's real here I mean this hurts I'm not minimizing this this really stinks but there is healing on the other side of this and I think there's love

real love yes on the other side of this because here's the thing and I I'm not poo-pooing any anybody's journey can sometimes we have to poo pooh some things i'm just saying when the when the real man comes lily he's going to know and it ain't going to take him four years to figure it out i'm going to tell you that right now that's true and you'll know and lily since we're playing armchair quarterback here it's the nature of our job all right we're not going to focus on the past we're going to set our mind on the things of the future and we're going to heal and we're going to move forward okay however for lily and all of the other people listening and watching please don't uproot your life and move to some place for somebody who's not willing to change their life for

you. Thank you, Ken. Let me say it again. Do not uproot your life for somebody who's not willing to change their life. If they change their life in that they say, we are all in and getting married, then I will uproot. But I got to tell you, a lot of manipulative dudes out there. I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. So, Lily, get out of there. What do you, let's just say we got about a minutes. A real quick answer. Would you have moved to Kansas City for any other reason than this guy? No. No. Okay. So here's it. Okay. So here's a deal. Here's what and I know there's a lot. So I'm not going to ask you anything else because I think you got to grieve this. But I would tell you that the reason I asked you that is I want that to be the resounding thing you take

away from this call. You only move there for this guy. You know this guy is not your guy. So now let's begin the mindset of where do I want to restart my life. And this can be exciting. It can be healthy. Dare I say, it can be full of fun adventure. But it starts with going, nope, I don't want the trust. I don't want you. I'm out. Jade, final work. Yes, men and women, let's stop putting ourselves in these positions where there is this power indifference, especially when it's not a marriage, this business of moving in with somebody and it's their place and they hold all the cards and you're kind of at their mercy for them to let you in, this business needs to stop. Live at your own house. There's nothing wrong with living at your own house and dating

someone. And at the end of the date, you go home to your house that you own by yourself until you're married. Hey guys, you know those too good to pass up holiday promos? Well, they can be great. But with every spin to the digital wheel, the newsletter sign up, the coupon code. You're giving away your data. You think that info just stays with the store? I doubt it. It goes into the corners of cybers where data brokers grab it, repackage it, and sell it to spammers, scammers, and generally bad people. The FTC just reported, consumers lost over $12.5 billion to fraud last year. And that's not just a number. That's your money, your time, and your privacy. And that's why I

recommend Delete Me, your digital cleanup crew. The Delete Me privacy pros dig through hundreds of these data broker sites, they scrub your info, and they keep it gone, which means fewer weird robocalls, fewer spam texts, and it's the gift that keeps on giving because it's an annual subscription. And Ramsey listeners can get 20% off those annual plans at joindeletme.com slash Ramsey with Code Ramsey at checkout. Do it today. That's join deleteme.com slash Ramsey, Code Ramsey. All right, if you're listening to the show and you want to be better with your money, but you haven't started, the question is, why haven't you started doing something about it? You know there's a problem, but why haven't you started doing it? It's a big question, right?

And I think that, you know, I've said this for years, Jay, that we humans, I being at the top of the list, we would rather be miserable than uncomfortable. Ooh. Right? Just think about that. Because we kind of know the miserable, and we're talking about financial misery here in this particular situation. It's the devil we know. That's right. And so Dave has said this too.

It's like people finally change where they go, oh, I actually. am sick and tired of being sick and tired. In other words, I now would rather be uncomfortable than be miserable. Here's one example from some of our Ramsey Baby Step Facebook community folks. This is Shea. When I got sick and tired of giving my hard-earned money to paying credit card interest, I felt like I was paying twice for all the items I was purchasing. I was fed up with rising interest rates and playing the games of shuffling all my debts to zero percent interest cards and not getting ahead. I love that one. said when I realized how much money we actually take home in a month and are still living

paycheck to paycheck. It was ridiculous. Never again. Wow. All right. And how about this one? Joseph said 1,000 percent the moment was when we had our daughter, our first child, and my buddy who makes half of what we make is able to have his life stay at home with their kid where we can't afford to. Now that's the ouch moment. Like that's where you're like, uh, something's really. really wrong. Wow. So really unbelievable. We've got a link in the show notes at ramsysolutions.com slash start. And this is where you can take. It's free. It takes just a few moments. It's called the get started assessment. And it will allow you to get a real nice snapshot of where you are and a

customized money plan that will allow you to say, oh, I can make a difference. Again, Ramsey Solutions dot com slash start and send us your comment those of you that have had that i've had it moment have you're sick and tired me yeah oh yeah for sure i think it for me it was of course this is so long ago i got to like i got to like dig it up go back into it but the the moment for us was we were two two incomes double income no kids and the debt that we had accumulated trying to get started in our life, we were like absolutely struggling. We had stuff, but we were miserable because we were living paycheck to paycheck and we weren't actually, we were living more than the paycheck. And I think for me, it scared me. Yeah. So my eye had it was, ooh, I don't like

this feeling. Yeah. Yeah. No control over my financial life and the control issue. Actually, that was the issue. But anyway, we'd love to hear of your comments of your sick and tired moments, Ramsey Solutions.com slash start. We've got a link in the show notes for the assessment. And again, It's a wonderful little tool, so go check that out. Boise, Idaho is where we go next, and Evan is joining us there. Evan, how can we help? Hey there. I got a question for you about credit card cash back.

Hit me. I know, of course, you guys' opinions on that, but I have, I think, a unique situation. Here it is. Evan believes, folks, that he's got a scenario that we have not heard before. This is breaking news. Evan, take it away. What is the loophole? All right. So I own a business where I buy and sell used camera equipment. Now, with the volume that I'm doing, I'm making about $3,000 a month in just cash back. It's never, all the money is always backed by cash in a high-yield savings account,

pay it off all immediately as soon as the payments post, and then just reap the rewards. Never heard that. We have never heard that put that way before. How much is in your high yield? I'm kidding. About 60,000. Oh, yeah. So you've got plenty. I mean, there's a couple of schools of thoughts that we could go down the road of. Let me start. And I'm not going to lie. This is not my favorite argument.

And I'll tell you why. But it is an argument. When you really think about how credit card points are derived and what they come from, it is really off the backs of who they're hoping will fail at the system, the people who won't make their payments on time, the people who will default, that's where the ability to do these points are coming from. So from, and I'm just saying it, I'm not saying it has to be your ethics, but from an ethical point of view, a lot of people don't like that. They don't like the fact that one person has to fail for another person to win.

So that's kind of one of the arguments you could say. It's the gross factor that you could say for that. Now, that being said, there are lots of causes in the world can that people can say, well, I don't, you know, I don't use coffee if it's not fair trade. And I don't do this if it's right, right? And you get to pick your causes. If that's not one of them, that's your bag. Let's not forget the sweater you're wrapping right now. Some people because of the values won't go to Disney.

We're not going to go to Disney World. Listen, I'm going. I said some people. You know, so my point is, my point there, Evan, is I'm not trying to, like, saddle you up with guilt, but I'm just trying to present the option for you to think about something. The same way you presented something to say, hey, you guys may not have thought about this scenario, I want you to think about that scenario. And I'll really just leave it at that because I'm never going to, and you know this calling it, I'm never going to tell somebody to go into debt. Like, period. I'm just not. Do I believe you when you say that you are, you know, paying it every month? And you've got the money backed there. Yeah, I do believe that. Do I also believe that if something happened and your business did not make the money you thought it would? Would it cost you maybe a thousand or so bucks? Yeah, probably. Could you absorb that? Yeah, you could. But would it be better if you didn't? Yes, it would. So I think about things like that. I also think about the idea.

that when you use credit and when you use plastic, you are going to spend more. That's what the data tells us, depending on the type of purchase, depends on the percentage more that you will spend. And that, there's also something to that. Like, your operating costs would probably be lower if you were paying cash versus knowing that you were getting points. So these are just things for you to be thinking of. Judging by your demeanor when you called in, I don't think you're going to change it.

I also am not going to lose sleep over it, and neither will you. Yeah, I mean, Evan, what's the total max you could put on that credit card that you're paying off every month? 22,000. Yeah. Could you see a scenario where you would be tempted or you could be tempted to use some of that credit and not pay it off? No, I hate that. I'm scared of it. But yet you have it.

It's just that's what they gave them. Like, for instance, I'm scared, and this is, I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm very scared of snakes. Okay. Because of that, I would never have a snake in my house. You say, well, it would be in the, what do you call those things? What do you put a snake in? Is it like a aquarium?

You are looking at the wrong one. Aquarium. I wouldn't put it in there because to me, if I'm scared of the snake, even though it's in the aquarium and I would never say. Like, to me, it just makes zero sense as to why if I'm scared to death of credit, I would put something in place where you could potentially get and use the credit. He's getting enough of a benefit in his mind from it that for him, it's worth the fear factor. So, Evan, we're not going to change your mind. I'm not going to change your mind. I'm not sure why you called, right? Sure.

I'm more curious to see what your explanation. Okay, here's my real answer. You're not going to stump us. Like, that's our explanation. I just don't think you're going to go for it. The snake one was a new one. I don't like it. And I used it because I used this one last week.

So I'm going to go back to the ice cream. Go back to the other one. I have a real love of ice cream. And ice cream is not good for me because most of the time I eat ice cream is not at 2 o'clock on a Saturday, my ice cream love tends to come out after 7 o'clock. And we shouldn't eat anything after 7 o'clock. Mostly should not eat ice cream for me. Bubble guts. It's terrible. Yeah. And so Evan, if I, but I don't have any ice cream in my house. Because if I did, and I used to keep ice cream in my house, I would always have some type of a pint or a gallon in there.

And guess what happens? I don't want to eat ice cream. I don't want to eat ice cream. Evan, I don't want to eat ice cream. I don't like the way ice cream makes me feel in the morning when I weigh myself. I don't want it. I don't want it. But you love the way it tastes. Gosh, it's right there. It's right there. I just think if you're scared of eating ice cream and what it will do to you after hours, don't have the ice cream in the freezer. It's going to take something happening for him to change his mind. And I hope it never does that. He probably is recording this and he's going to tell his buddies he got us. Well, he didn't get us. No, I know. We just have different values. Different, different beliefs.

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Start every dollar for free in the app store or Google Play. Mitchell joins us in Chicago, Illinois. Mitchell, how can we help? Yeah, hey guys, I could use some help in your opinions on a car purchasing decision. up here. All right. Tell us what's happening. Yeah, I'll set the stage a little bit here.

Household income is about $200,000 a year, and we're debt-free outside of the mortgage. We've got $30,000 in the emergency fund, but the wife's car is going to the company's a new engine and make a long story short on that farm. We're just going to go car shopping this weekend for a used car. The riding was kind of on the wall. I had saved. We've probably got about 15 grand set aside already for a new car. So that's a good starting point.

But as I've been kind of digging in and figuring out what we want, of course, you know, the creep is coming in and we're, you know, starting to look at ones that are closer to 25 or maybe up like 30 grand out the door. I'm not mad at it. So, you know, I'm, you know, I'm a long time listener. and there's just like this under you know I'm the nerd in the relationship and there's just like guilty part of my conscience that's like do we really pull like 15 grand out of our emergency fund to get us up to 30 in cash that will pay out the door I wouldn't do that because it's not an emergency per se it's not an it's an emergency for you to get a car it's not an emergency free to spend 30k what I don't have a problem with I don't have a problem with you guys spending 30k I think you need to save cash to do it and not touch an emergency fund for it. I would say

that. Yeah, but the only wrench that gets thrown into it is that the life's car is burning oil and I just got done going through the dealership and verifying with an independent mechanics that it's going to need a new engine. Understood, Mitchell, but nothing stops you

from getting what you can afford and then upgrading later. Nothing stops you from, do you see what I'm saying? Or, and I have driven cars, I feel like I'm the expert on driving cars at burn oil. How long can, I understand that it's going to eventually need a new engine. Is there some kind of estimate on how much longer this car might last? Well, just kind of talking with people and stuff that's burning about a quart and a half

to two quarts every thousand miles. So, you know, can I keep putting an oil in it and maybe get another couple months out of it? Maybe. Try it. All right, let's press pause. Even if it's winter and, you know, you don't have nothing to be nervous about to Jade's point. You've got 15K. So go with me for a moment, Mitchell.

All right. So let's take what you just said. And by the way, I've done that while I was saving up to buy a car. Jade, I would go to like a big warehouse store and buy a box of oil. And I'd check my oil every two or three days. In fact, Joe Hankin is running the board today. Joe, you remember when I was, we were doing the show in Gainesville, Georgia, WD, U.N. You remember I'm driving, I forget what I was driving, but I was checking my oil almost every two days.

to make sure that, you know, I wasn't going to blow the engine up. And you can keep an engine going. If the only problem is burning oil, you can keep it going. So here's my point, Mitchell. Oil is a lot cheaper than buying a $30,000 car until we have the money for it. So let me change gears here. No pun intended. I can't believe I just said that.

That's horrible. I'm disappointed. That's terrible. That was all, I didn't mean to do that. All right, Mitchell, how many months would it take for you to save up? the additional 15 to get a $30,000 car? Somewhere in the range of three to four. I mean, the 15 is the gap on the emergency.

There you go. Bingo. I would go buy a bunch of oil. Yep. And I would check that oil every three or four days. Make it last forever. Yeah, make it last. Keep it running. Oil's cheap.

And then how would you, so Mitch, let's play this out. Let's assume you do what I tell you to do and you nurse this thing. And you, three months from now, you've got the additional 15. and you go buy a $30,000 car that you guys have really got your eye on right now, how would that feel? That would feel really good, assuming that's how it plays out.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, can I jump in here? I hear what is in my book, which is the difference between rational and irrational fears. Oh, there it is. You have a fear, Mitchell, and your fear is very, very vague.

the fear in it but it's stopping you from doing something that we're telling you hey there really is no there's nothing bad can happen from you playing this out further no because if it blows up he's got a car he's got plenty of money to go get a car but instead you're letting this very vague fear of well something could happen with the car the car could blow up it could end up on the side of the road it could but you're not telling us something very very real and specific that you're specifically scared of are you scared that your wife's going to be in the car with the kids she's going to be pulled over on the side of the road you're going to be stuck at the office you won't be able to come get her tell us specifically what you're afraid of because then we can solve for it but if you're going to keep it floating in the air as this big

vague monster that nobody can fix then we can't help you so tell us specifically what you think's going to happen what you just kind of outline there jane you know that's the real fear is like you know we're in the dead of winter in chicago right now and you know if she's dropping them off in the morning or something and that engine blows, then, you know, we're finding ourselves in a bit of a pickle and down to one vehicle. Hold on. Let's play it out. Let's play it out. What would you do? Okay, your wife calls you in exactly this scenario happens. Oh, Mitchell, I'm on the side of the road. The kids are in the car. They're going to be late for school. I'm in my pajamas. I don't want anybody to see me. What did you, what would you do immediately? I mean, we'd be going new car

shopping. No, that's not what you would do. In the moment. You'd call AAA. What would you say to your wife? We're role-playing. What would you say to her? Yes, I'm on the way in the truck. And how long would it take you? Play out the worst possible scenario. If you were...

Yeah, love this. How long does it take you to get to her? Half hour at the most. Okay, is she and the kids going to freeze to death in that time? Nope. Okay, would you get fired from your job for having to take off and go rescue her? Nope.

Okay. And in Chicago, in Chicago, aren't you kind of... you know you keep blankets in the trunk, you wear a coat when you go out no matter what, right? Great point. We could have a contingency for said problem. Yeah. Oh. So I think, you know, the real crux of what I wanted to call you guys is like more on the front of just the emergency front of you things.

It's not an emergency. It's not a warrant you taking from the emergency fund because it's not an emergency. This is not urgent. We know that you can get, even if it's not three or four months to Ken's point, you know you have a little bit of time. So it's not urgent. Well, you've known, number one, and you got a $15,000 sinking fund. Yeah, it's not unexpected. You just now want a $30,000 car.

So you've actually done everything that we would teach you to do. You knew this was coming. You actually are the nerd, Mitchell. I could walk out of the studio, put you in the chair, and you could have answered your own question. Yeah. It's not an emergency. And your fear, while being now it's validated, we just solved it for you. So it doesn't have to stop you from moving forward with Kin's plan.

hand warmers, wool blankets. And a charged cell phone will go a long way. Maybe AAA membership or for some reason you couldn't get there. I mean, you know, there's a lot of things here. I'm just telling you, I want you to get the $30,000 car. And so does Jane. So we think it's three to four months of, and I promise you, I'm not the only person that has nursed a engine. By the way, the engine won't blow if it has oil in it.

I inherited. We know that. I inherited a 1988 Nissan Pulsar from my sister. It was her first car, and then when she stopped driving it, I got it. A pulsar. The transmission was so messed up that you had to let it sit before it could go in reverse. You had to let it warm up for like 10 minutes, and I had to pour oil in it almost every day. Yeah.

And you can do it. Is it obnoxious? Yes. But is it better than taking 15K out of your emergency phone? I hate touching my emergency phone. Never. Never. I love it, never.

Mitchell, you're a good man. You've got two options. Go buy the $15,000 car and then upgrade later, like Jade said, or wait three or four months and go get you a case of oil. Everywhere you turn this time of year, someone's telling you to swipe a card now and pay later, but that mindset always leads straight to debt and post-holiday stress. Fairwind's credit union takes a different approach. They're here to help you win with money. Fair wins doesn't push credit cards. They help you build savings

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To avoid that January budget hangover and to be free from debt trapped. Go to fairwins.org slash Ramsey to open your smart bundle and get your Ramsey be weird debit card today. That's fairwins.org slash Ramsey insured by the NCUA. Welcome back to the Ramsey show and the Fairwinds show and the Fairwinds. credit union studio alongside the fabulous jade warshaugh i'm ken coleman and we're so happy that you're with us jade's going to take lead on your money questions and if you are feeling burned out or you just stressed out no life balance as relates to your work uh i help people win in those areas as well we did a survey recently jade where we heard from the tribe they said we are feeling that way and

that affects your money by the way so uh here to help on those specific questions as well laura's joining us now in Hartford, Connecticut. Laura, how can we help today? All righty. I've got a residential real estate property that my mother owns in Brooklyn, New York. It's currently in a trust, and when she passes, it will be inherited by myself and my three siblings. Hey, Laura. Laura, can we see if we can have you adjust your phone so we can understand you a little bit better? Sure, sure. Is that better? Oh, so much. Thank you. Great. Great. So, um, the property is worth about $2 million. It's a, um, residential property. It's got two rental units now and it's being rented. Uh, I am debt free and ready to retire in 2026. My husband's already retired. I've got two siblings that when we inherit this property would like to, uh, knock it down and develop it into a four apartment building, which I'm guessing would run about $4 million, which, means each of us would be about a million dollars in debt.

Oh, boy. And I've got two other siblings that just want to sell it and divide the profits by four. How do I convince the two that want to sell it, I mean, sorry, that want to address it, that that's a terrible idea. If I heard you correctly, I'm just asking, is it three to two, you plus two against the other two? it's myself and another who want to settle and two others that want to so we're split down the middle right and they either want to develop it or just keep it and divide the rental income amongst the four of us which is nothing and the assumption is that everybody should just be willing to go into a million dollars of debt to do this

exactly well that's absurd or become landlords right because they've given you two options, develop it, or we just rent it? Right. And the rental income, it's probably be $1,000 each a month, which in my mind is worthless. Well, if the two siblings were so willy-nilly to say, hey, just fork over a million dollars, then why don't you tell them to fork over the money to buy you out? They don't have it and I don't have it. There you go. No, but, but, no, I think, Jade, you're actually honest up that. So, So Laura, if it were me, I would say two things, maybe three. We'll count them in a second.

Here's what I would do. Number one, I would make the case that what you're asking me to do is to go into debt and I don't do debt. So it's off the table. You've got to make it super clear to them where they're like, oh, she's like, doesn't appear to be movable on this. It's just I'm not doing it at this stage of my life. Hubs is retired.

I'm just not going to go into debt for a scenario one. Secondly, I'm going to get out of your way quick. Second, I would say I'm not interested in getting $1,000 a month. That's like peanuts for me at the stage of my life. Right. Okay. And then three, I'll tell you what I would do. If you want to take out a loan, which their option number one is to take out debt to knock this down and they can take out money and pay you your share of the,

$2 million. Right, which is less than the debt that they would take to develop it. So that's what I, because if they want to take out debt, they're going to do it anyway. Yeah. And that's not, you're not on the hook. So you go, give me my money. Let me get out the way. Here's what I don't want to do. I don't want my value system. That's right. To create conflict. So I've told you what I'm not going to do. Let me tell you what I will do. Here's my cut of the $2 million. Yes. And so you, a part of your whole debt structure, you give me my cut and guess what I'm going to do. I'm going to walk into the sunset with my husband, and we're going to be in Cancun, and we'll talk to you at Thanksgiving.

Yeah. That's what I would do. Make the math make sense for them because, and it's the end of the day. It won't. It's the end of the day, so correct me if I'm wrong, Ken, but I see $2 million and I see four people. So each of you has got $500,000 in this. That's right.

So are you telling me that they would rather fork over $1 million a piece instead of $500,000 a piece? Or do nothing and divide the rent and be landlords for the rest of our money. lives, which is a terrible idea. It's horrible. But now, let me ask you this. They can't do any of this without you, correct? Does it take a majority rule? Or, I mean, excuse me, is it a unanimous decision, or how's this going to go down? I believe it has to be all four. I need to agree. It does. So, Laura, my, did you ever see the movie Braveheart? No, but I think I need to.

You got to go watch Braveheart tonight. There's the penultimate scene, okay? And in this history, I'm not going to tell you the whole story, but there's a scene where the English army is, they're on horseback, and they have a huge army, and they're coming after the Scots. And the Scots have got axes, and, you know, it's just, it's just a little rabble-rouser group led by Mel Gibson. And Mel's got a plan, okay? And he knows that the British are going to be overconfident, and they're coming at him, okay? Long story short, he's got these long poles. They've cut trees in there waiting for these horses to get close enough to they can lift up these sharp,

things and here's what he says to the guys the horses are thundering down on them and they're freaking out and he goes hold and they get closer and he goes hold and so my message to you is laura it's a unanimous decision hold the line i gave you what i would say option one nope option two nope option three is give me my 500 grand and you all go bananas i'm not going to hold up your vision at all. I think it's the only thing they're going to want to hear, and I think that's the only thing they should hear from you. So no to the debt and developing it, no to being a rental and yes to, give me my 500K. Hold, hold, hold. Don't have to be ugly. Just, guys, you can do this. I'm not stopping you. But give me my money. It takes 500K. You're willing to go into a million.

Give me 500K. Thank you. I'm super passionate about that. I think, Laura, that's the play. Jade? I agree. I agree. Yeah. You got all the cards.

They can't do it without you. So make it super simple. And by the way, here's the messaging. I want you guys to be able to do this. I would start with, hey, you know the plan? I thought through it. I want you all to be able to do it. Knock it down.

Rebuild it. It's going to be fabulous. But do it without me. One caveat. I don't have the stomach for it. My husband and I got a different plan for our life. Want you to be able to do it. And so here's the easy thing.

Buy me out. And I'm cheering you on. I would frame it that way. And again, I don't know how they're going to react, but I think it's a good deal. Listen, I've already said it. And I agree with you. So, Lord, don't let any family pressure or any of that change your mind because you're going to end up resenting them. Yeah, I agree.

I already do. I was going to say, somebody's the ringleader in all this. and it's not you. Who's the ringleader? My older brother who thinks this was a family. It's a home that our great grand parents are born in and it needs to stay in the family. Got it, got it, got it.

Oh, by the way, it is. It's staying in the family. You're not holding any of that up. Hey, hey, brother, it's staying in the family. It's just going to take $500,000 over here in my bank account and it's going to be super simple. Many of you listen to the Ramsey show. because you're sick and tired of getting nowhere with your money.

You work too hard to live paycheck to paycheck with no money in the bank. But here's the deal. Just listening to the show won't change that. If you want different results, you have to do something different. We've helped millions of people save money, ditch debt, and build wealth. And you can too. But you've got to have a game plan, and that begins with our get started assessment. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash start now, take the free quiz,

and get your free step-by-step action plan. If you've had it with money stress and are ready to take control of your money for good, go to ramsysolutions.com slash start now. Buying or selling your home is a very big deal. a lot of misinformation out there, you know, the clickbait stuff on social media, you know, articles, things that are designed to kind of pull you in to make it a bad decision. And we are always going to be here at the Ramsey Show to help you make sense of the latest trends and make good decisions. So just to give you a snapshot, the median home prices have been holding steady

around $424,000 in October, about one in five saw a price cut, which means buyers might have more room this winter to negotiate. Mortgage rates obviously dipped slightly in October, but rates are unpredictable and they move up and they move down. So we're not making decisions based on the rate. It's when are we ready to buy based on our cash position to be able to have a good down payment and to be able to afford where you are. So this might be a great time for you. Don't get stuck in the headlines to learn more about housing market trends and get free tools to help you buy or sell with confidence, you can go to ramsysolutions.com slash market. That's ramsysolutions.com slash market. Let's go to May, who joins us in Raleigh, North Carolina. May, how can we help?

Hi, sir. How are you doing today? Great. How are you? Good. A reason I'm calling is I wanted to ask, so me and my husband are looking at buying a house next year, and we're looking at buying a house between $350 to $400,000, and we have about a $200,000 nest eggs for the down payment. So my question is, Does it ever make sense to put down more than 20% even if you'd be able to afford the mortgage with that 25% of your take-home rule taking into account? Yes. So I want to make sure I understand.

So you could, you're obviously putting down almost half. Did I understand that correctly? Yes, yes. And you're saying you don't need to put down half. You could put down 20%, and it would still be okay for you. Exactly. My thing, my only, the only thing that I might say no to that would be, if you have consumer debt. And if that money would be better spent paying off your debt

ahead of time. But if you don't have consumer debt, then I'm like, yeah, because the best way to pay for a house is if you could put everything down, right? So I would love if you could get as close to that as possible. And if that means putting down almost 50%, that's amazing. So do you have any other debt to speak of? No, we're totally debt free. No student loans, no car debts, no debt whatsoever. So the only other thing, only other thing would be if it's, if it's a place that really needs a lot of renovation or a lot of work you might want to reserve some of that money to do some some you know renovations on the house is there anything like that to speak of no but that was part of my question was we have an emergency fund outside of that 200,000

that's about five months of expenses but I've heard that you're supposed to have another like bucket of savings once you buy a house for things that could just naturally break so I wasn't sure how you figure out how much of that like how much you should save for a house for just like in case the HVAC system or roof or something like that needs... No, I mean, that's what your emergency fund is for. And this keeps coming up, Ken. We've talked about this every hour of the show today. Our emergency fund is for things that are unexpected, urgent, and necessary.

And so if that happens to be your AC going out in the middle of summer, then yeah, you dip into the emergency fund and paid off. If you've got five months of expenses, if it would make you feel better to have six months, then go ahead and do that. But yeah, I don't... I think that you're good to go. I think that what's happening here, and this is your choice to make with your husband, but I think what's happening is $200,000 is a lot of money. And in your mind, you're just weighing out the opportunity cost of do I want to put all of this on the mortgage, or could there be something else that this money should go towards?

Right? And I think it's smart that you're just weighing out all your options. So if there were something that you were going to do with that money, other than put it on the house, in your mind, what would it be? So really the only other thing I could think of is putting it in the marketing and letting it grow so that way maybe in the future we have the ability to buy like a rental property with putting more than 50% down or trying to buy it fully in cash while only having a mortgage on the house.

So we don't have any hard set plans. It would just be, does it make more sense to let it grow in the market and then maybe buy a real estate property in full later for something like a rental property? Well, the only reason I wouldn't do that is I kind of like, it's almost, And we've used this analogy for other things before. But it's almost like when you're flying on the plane and they tell you to put the oxygen mask on you first before you, you know, put it on the kids or the people who are next to you. There's part of me that says, if it's my primary residence, that's me. And I want to protect me first and put myself in the best possible situation first, like my residence.

Because let's think about this, Ken, when the rubber meets the road, when COVID happens, when somebody loses a job, When somebody has a diagnosis, the number one thing they think about is, am I going to be able to keep my home? That's where the security valve is, right? And so right now we're not thinking about that. But if we put ourselves in a scenario, like I mentioned, that's the first thing we think about is, is my home secure? And so for that reason, I would say I would choose, let me put as much down as possible so I can get this thing as paid for and as as secure of a place as possible. and then I can put, you know, the mask on these other things. Then I can start thinking about real estate.

Then I can start thinking about these other properties that I may or may not pay for in cash. I think that's a really good exercise, May. Have you actually sat down and said, okay, if we put $200,000 in it, what is our payment, what's our mortgage payment versus if we put 20% down? Yeah, I have done that a bit, just kind of online playing with like mortgage calculators and stuff. And really what it seems to be coming down to when I think when I try to figure out It doesn't make sense to put it to the mortgage or to put in the market as mortgage rates and how much you expect the market to return.

But from my understanding, you're not really supposed to put things in the market that are short-term investors because it's so volatile. So I don't know if that's really a smart analysis, too, but I have to try to play around with those. No, it's right. But what is the difference? What is the monthly payment difference on the mortgage? It's only, I mean, I say only, it's a couple hundred dollars. So maybe $300, $400. Yeah.

But you could think of it like, I'm getting the best of both worlds because, if I put the 200,000 down, I'm getting the security on the home front, but I also have $400 freed up that I can still go ahead and invest that. And there is something to be gained from that. So I'm almost doing the best of both worlds in that way. Yeah, I was thinking of that in the scenario that you gave us, Jade. It's smart. You know, if things were to get crazy, you go, what would be like a, like, I just wouldn't have to worry. That's right. On this house, you know, if you have the mortgage. And so, you know, I think it's a good question. Really glad you called. And wow, I must say the fact that you guys have been so disciplined to save up $200,000, we don't talk to many people that have saved up that kind of money. So I say kudos to you. You guys are in great shape. And I would ask on the investment question, what is your retirement situation? What's your nest egg right now?

So a retirement between us, total is at $2.95, and we're both 26 years old, so almost $300,000. Way to go. Oh, see, I'm going to tell you something, you guys are 26. If you did nothing, and I know that's not what you're saying, nor are we recommending, but if you did nothing at this age, that $2.95 is going to be a lot of money. So just your normal baby step four, you were going to be in phenomenal shape. Well, tell us about your income, because income alone is telling, like, the fact that you can do this is telling me you guys are high income earners. What do you earn? Yep. So right now, so I recently switched jobs. So right now, together we were 200. I was at a previous job where my base salary was about 100 where it is now, but I got very large bonuses. And so I've been taking those bonuses and investing them and putting them in retirement and things like that. So that's kind of how we built this nest egg. So I have kind of made that switch now that I have the nest egg, which I was a bit much. So I did kind of say, okay, so like I've made enough to kind of find a little bit more sustainable to the most of the way, but not as quickly as I did. beginning of my 20s. Can I ask what your field is and what your husband's field is? Yeah, we are civil engineers. So I went to kind of be project management of civil engineering, and he went into the design

aspect of civil engineering. Love it. Love it. That matches up, by the way, with our Ramsey Millionaire study. It does. Yeah, you guys are. Engineers were in the top five. Yeah.

And there's two 26-year-olds. Killing it. You know, listen, I know they have great jobs, but they're in phenomenal shape. So this idea that, oh, I can't be done in today's world, and I'm not minimizing how expensive things are. But, man, they're doing it. And what a great place to be in. But yeah, yeah, put it on the house. Put it on the house.

That's an asset. Let's not forget about that. Absolutely. And it's, yeah, it's an investment. There's more than one way to invest. One ways the stock market and other ways in real estate. Yeah. Great question, May.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and for the question. Hey, at money is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. What to do isn't the problem. Doing it is. In her brand new book, What No One Tells You About Money, Jade Warshaw dives deep into the reasons you've been stuck. This book exposes the real emotional fight with money and shows you how to win that battle. Pre-order now for 2499 and you'll get over $100 of free bonus items. Get your copy today at ramsysolutions.com slash store. All right, let's go to John in Kentucky.

John, how are you today? Doing well. All right. Good to have you on here. John is a Baby Steps Millionaire, and we love talking to the Baby Steps Millionaires because they've got great stories, right? And they tell us how they did it. So, John, thank you for that.

Tell people how old you are. 28. My wife, Jenna, is 30. Wow. 28 and 30. That's impressive. Okay, what is your net worth? 1.2 million.

Hey. All right, no messing around there. Nice. I know. Give us the mix of the 1.2. So the largest portion is in real estate. We've got about 550,000 in real estate, 350,000 in retirement. We've got a couple hundred thousand in non-retirement investments, and then about 120 in just liquid cash. Wow. So you're only 28. What's the real estate? Is that your home or is that rental properties? What is this? A little of both. We've got our area here in Kentucky. The market is friendly for real estate investment. So we've got a couple homes within that 550, but our home and two rental homes.

Wow. And what's your income? It varies considering just varying on the number of overtime hours I work, but it averages out to about 300,000 combined between the two of us, 300 to 350,000. Good for a year. Wow, way to go, killing it. What do you guys do? So my wife's a software application specialist, and I'm originally a pipe fitter by trade, but I've been working as a piping superintendent in the last three years.

So I travel around managing industrial construction projects. Okay. Yeah, go ahead, Jay. I mean, I'm listening to this. I'm 40-something. and I'm thinking, okay, if I could have been smart enough to get started when you guys were, that would have been amazing. So how did you get good at money? How did you know these are the things we need to be doing?

We need to be avoiding debt, budgeting, et cetera. What put you on to that early on? Honestly, I think about the age of nine, I was eight or nine. I was in our garage where our dogs spent most of their. time. That's where all their food bowls were. I was feeding our dogs and realized that we were almost out of dog food. And when in the house, I told my mom, mom were almost out of dog food, add that to the grocery list. And she told me, we can't afford dog food this week, maybe next week. And after that, you know, that stuck with me. I remember going to baseball practice

that night. And that just, it didn't leave my mind the rest of the day. And, yeah, it did. So just But my parents taught me to think for spending and to make hay well the sun shines and save what you can. How much have you two been? First of all, how long have you been married? Three years. Okay. So what had you saved prior to becoming married? So I had coming into the marriage, I had about 160,000 saved. and she had about 30,000 saved. And no debt.

The majority of our, no, no debt. I had a small auto loan several years ago, but we've never had student loans or really any kind of debt of any kind. When did you start working? How old were you? 18. Okay. So I'm talking to a 28-year-old who's been working for 10 years, and you've been able to say, a lot of money and I love that you're a pipe fitter. I love that, you know? Because

it's like for too long in America we've looked down on the trades and now I'm talking to a dude who's rolling, got properties, no debt in your life, 28 year old pipe fitter. What would you say to parents who are worried maybe about their kids going into trades? I think, well, I'm a lot like you. I think that at 18, I think you're too young to make a decision on what you want to do for the rest of your life and by the college education. So I think that I tell a lot of folks that even if the trade isn't what you want to do for a career, get into it for an apprenticeship, and you get exposed to so many other careers within the construction. industry, the engineering, all the different avenues you can go within construction.

It's just a really good stepping stone into management, just like I've done. It's a great place to start. And just being a construction worker on the tools now, you can make so much money. It's definitely a worthwhile avenue. So here you are a millionaire, and in your social circles, social circles in your world, does anybody ever look down on you? because you don't have a degree? Yeah, my grandma, before she passed, every time I would talk to her on the phone, she would ask me when I was going to go to school and start getting serious about an education.

Right, right. But for the most part, no. Of course not. Oh, I love that. What has your saving? What has been your saving plan? I'd love to know what your budget looks like because you're definitely, both of you are living on a lesson you make. So give us the real real on what your, you're, you're saving.

spend is versus what you guys make? I would say our savings rate is probably 75%. I knew it. That's what I was doing. You guys are squirrels, man. You're just packing it in. I love that. What types of things do you do? I mean, obviously, you're stacking up cash. I'm not mad at it.

What does your lifestyle look like? What types of things do you do to have fun, to really just enjoy what you've created? I would say, so we're both outdoors men and women. We bought, I guess, what you'd call a vacation home in Idaho, a small cabin in Idaho, so that we can spend time hunting and fishing out there. And that's pretty much what we do with our time. I travel full-time for work. So I'm not home much, so when we do get time together, we like to go out there.

So, you know, what's the plan going for? forward, 28 and 30, you're on this massive track to be multi, multi-millionaires. You've got no debt. You got properties. You got a good job. What's the dream at this stage? That's kind of what I'm trying to figure out right now what we're working on. We're trying to put together somewhat of maybe a three to five-year plan. I love what I'm doing right now. But I I realize that being home three weeks out of the year is not sustainable long term. That's right. So I think using the upfront earnings as such a young age to set ourselves up to create an income off our own investments and then maybe just get further into the real estate thing for myself when I'm ready to come up.

I got to pivot here real quick. This is what I do. I want to help really quickly because I think it's pretty clear for you. you. If you never needed to earn another nickel, what would you do Monday through Friday? You know, honestly, I'd probably just move to that little town of ours in Idaho full time and just be a handyman and help the ranchers out there. Can I tell you? Wow. Whatever odds and ends they got.

Can I tell you something? I think that that's what you ought to. You figure out your calendar, you and your wife. I do think it's crazy for you to be away from her this much for much longer, given the financial situation that you're in. You're crushing it. So you could transition into this trade or maybe not travel as much. I don't care what the bridge looks like, but I'm going to tell you something.

That answer, John, I want you to chew on because you gave me a real answer because you're going to be so financially free that you can go out to that area and maybe build something a little bit bigger, get into some real estate there, but stumble into a business around the stuff that you love, which is outdoors. And I'm telling you, man, that's your future. Talk to your wife about that. Say, hey, Ken put me on the spot, and this is what I said. And let her start, let her start answering that question. What would she do? She's, she's right there with you. All right there with you. We'd go tomorrow if it was solely up to her. Well, so here's the thing. One last thing. That nine-year-old experience was seared on your

conscience, and you shared it with us. And I think that is driving you right now. I think you're working crazy. You're doing a lot of amazing things, but don't let that scarcity mindset hold you back from the future that you've earned right now. That'd be my challenge to you. Many of you. you're sick and tired of getting nowhere with your money. You work too hard to live

paycheck to paycheck with no money in the bank. But here's the deal. Just listening to the show won't change that. If you want different results, you have to do something different. We've helped millions of people save money, ditch debt, and build wealth. And you can too. But you've got to have a game plan, and that begins with our get started assessment. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash start now, take the free quiz, and get your free step-by-step action plan. If you If you've had it with money stress and are ready to take control of your money for good, go to ramsysolutions.com slash start now. 29, verse 25. It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you. But if you trust the Lord, you're safe. You might as well, you might as well, I feel like I hear you say that kind of

stuff all the time. You might as well be preaching right now. And our quote of the day from Theodore Roosevelt, in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. And by the way, this is silly, but I'm going to share it, because I think this is going to be powerful for somebody that's listening or watching today. The worst thing you can do is no thing. We've turned it into nothing, but when I see that, I go, it's no thing. Yeah. To do no thing at all is the worst thing.

Well, people think they're not choosing, but doing nothing is also a choice. It's a really bad choice. And some of you need to hear that because you know you need to make some tough decisions to change your financial life. It's just sitting there waiting for you to just do that thing. And that one thing leads to the next thing, and momentum is very, very real. That's why we teach the baby steps. So don't miss that little truth there. We don't just do that scripture and quote just to, you know, throw it out there.

Let it hit you and receive it. Ethan is up in Kansas City, Missouri. Ethan, how can we help? Doing. Good. How are you, sir? Doing well. Thank you, guys.

So I'm recently engaged. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you so much. So just to propose a couple weeks ago. So now the big question is wedding and what that's going to look like. So I'm more on, we're kind of on two different ends of the spectrum here. I'm more wanting a smaller wedding with some family, maybe close friends. I mean, I honestly would just elope, sign the papers, and let's do this thing.

Classic male response. Right, absolutely. And my fiance, on the other hand, she's more of, let's have a bigger wedding with, you know, all of our family, all of our friends and church members and show that biblical covenant in front of everybody. It's the only wedding we're going to have. So let's go that route. So really just kind of the question of how much should we spend on the wedding and what route we should go. I mean, the money is what's going to do the talking here in my book.

So who's paying for it first off? Is it just you two? So her parents are putting $15,000 towards and then my parents are putting five. Okay. So you've got 20. you guys. That's a lot of the thing. So we don't, we, we'd prefer not to have to go into our own if we, if we don't, if we have the choice, we don't want to have to spend any of our own. Can you do what she wants to do on 20? That, I mean, I'm, we, we definitely could. We definitely

could. Really? So I'm, I, I, I could plan a, I could plan their wedding for $20,000. When he said a big wedding, like, these are vocabulary words that people have different definitions of. So when you said big, I'm thinking like ice sculptures. How many people when she said the whole church? Well, I mean, if it would be like all family, excited family, friends, church, all that, I mean, it'd probably be 400, 450 somewhere around there. That's what I'm saying. I don't think you're doing $450 wedding on $20,000, my guy.

I'm your guy. I've never planned a wedding. I'm going to do it right now. Here's how you do that. Tell me, Ken. The ceremony is for everybody. All right. Oh, we're playing this game.

I'm trying to save him money. You got to have a golden ticket to get to the party. He's got 20 grand. You need to do a wedding on 20 grand, but she wants it to be in front of everybody. So what we do is we do a lovely ceremony and the whole church that wants to come. They all get to come. But there is a- And how do you feel if you're one of the scumbags that doesn't get to go to the party afterwards?

I already know where I stand. Don't tell me these people, 400 people in the church, they all think they're coming to the reception. They know they don't do life with you. I don't get to go to the party. I'm not going. And that solved the problem. Thus, Mike, brilliant. I am a brilliant strategist.

I didn't realize this until now. This is so clear in my mind, Ethan, dead serious. So here's what this is going to do. You've got 20 grand committed, all right? You two have said, we would like to not put any money in. So let's play this out. Let's go run it out. So how would we do all the things we want to do?

So you tell your fiancé, all right. babe, here's the deal. You want the whole church? We tell everybody in the church, we're doing a big ceremony, but we're going to do this thing debt-free. Blame it on Ramsey. I don't care. And you say, so what we're doing is we're going to have a ceremony, and we'd like, we're going to have a little bags of rice, and you can stand around and throw them at us. And then we go to the party spot with 20 of our select, with 100 of our select friends. And the budget will dictate that. Now, if she hears that, and I, by the way, I want this, I'm doing. this so Jade can like push back for holes in my strategy because right now I'm super

impressive by strategy and it might be bad strategy but by bringing this up to your fiancees then she gets to go well that doesn't feel right and she has the Jade opinion which is the female opinion and you're probably right so so then we go well then we can't invite 400 people how many people can we invite yes here's my thing in 2025 do we have to feed everybody well just to come celebrate us you could I I think there's some strategic things you could do there. I don't think so. I think what you need to do is because I...

How much do many corn dogs cost at Costco? Oh, so you need to stop, Ken? I'm just saying, he's got 20 grand. I would, if I were you, and this is going to sound like wild, and your wife is going to do this, I would check the etiquette books on this because weddings... Oh, is that something I can look up? Well, weddings, there's etiquette around it.

Like, when you send, for instance, when you send out the invitation, you know, you have to put the stamp on it for them so that they can just send back their RSVP, right? You wouldn't give them an envelope without a stamp on it. That's considered bad etiquette, right? So I would check the etiquette around Ken's idea. I'm not saying it's wrong. I just don't know. It feels a little interesting to me. It might be fine, though. So I would check on that kind of stuff to see, is there a way that we can include people in the proper, respectful way in one part of the wedding and maybe not in the other wedding? Just make sure you're doing it the right way. Okay, I don't want to take this dark, but I want to ask a real question.

Go. Do, does everybody that comes to a funeral go to the graveside service? No. All right. I don't know what. Go ahead. Ethan, this is your call. I'm trying to save you money, buddy. Jane's trying to cost you money. That got very dark very quickly. That's a truth. So my side of it with is, so we won't be any debt when we get married.

and I just I think future and so knowing that we're on the same page about this and I totally agree when we have kids she's going to be stay at home mom and so we'll be on one income and so I'm an elementary PE teacher and then coach our middle school football and basketball team okay and so for me I just think future I'm when when are we going to ever be offered $20,000 ever again probably not so they're okay they're okay with you taking some of that money and just simply pocketing it for life not it doesn't have to go to the wedding. Well, that's, so I think in some facets, some sort of wedding, and in some way, shape, or form a wedding is going to happen. And so to me, it's like, hey, why don't we, you know, put, like, make a $5,000 wedding, and then we can take the other 15, and then we have that for our future when we're trying to get a house and have kids and whatnot. But let me throw this at you.

If you invite the right people, you will also get cash. Okay, sir. Because that's what most people give. you as a wedding gift. And if they have their etiquette, they're not coming in with a crumpled up 20, right? They're giving you a decent gift. I'm going to speak on behalf of all males. If you were to tell me that for the rest of my life with Stacey, when we get invited to a wedding, all I got to do is the ceremony and then I don't have to go eat and do all that stuff. I get to go all of my life. I would be out of my mind happy. But what's the best part? Is the better part the

ceremony or the party? If you, if you have to choose, I'm choosing the party. But that's what people you actually want to party with. They do not want to party with 400 people, including the deacons. It doesn't matter. Is there going to be an open bar? It's too expensive. No, we both don't drink, so there won't be any alcohol. Okay. Well, we just saved a lot of money there. You just saved a bunch of money. Hey, can I tell you, my wedding didn't have an open bar either, and that's why we were able to do ours. Mine neither. Anyway, trying to help you out, Ethan, I like all these scenarios. Here's what I would tell you. Have you been married 27 years and I love marriage?

Come on, Ken and say it, because I'm right there with you. I get married yesterday if I could. Listen, listen, if it were up to me, I would have just done the little church ceremony and let's go. Yeah. I didn't want to be at that reception. I didn't want to do all that. I wanted to take off on the honeymoon. Well, let me say it from the other perspective.

What are we doing? We had an, Sam and I had an awesome wedding and we paid cash for it and it was just what we wanted. and it was probably bigger than what Ken is saying. Oh, it was bigger than mine. As a person who's been married, you know, less than, you know, 15, 16, 17 years, I don't think about the wedding anymore. No, nobody does. I can't even remember half of it.

The ceremony is what matters to me. Yeah. Very important covenant. All right, folks, remember this. There's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.