The Ramsey Show - Teach Yourself To Say “No” Today so You Can Say “Yes” Tomorrow

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "I got us into a $120k hole of debt and now my marriage is falling apart," Rebuilding life after a messy divorce, "Should I keep paying off debt if I'm going to lose my job?" "Use a HELOC for home renovations?" "How much can I spend on a car?" "Is it okay to be wealthy as a Christian?" Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp Yrefy Zander Insurance Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! ☂️ Protect yourself with the right coverage—take our coverage quiz! ✂️ Share hope by leading an FPU class at your church! 📄 Need help with your taxes? See who we trust. Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality. Best-selling author is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Jack starts this hour in Cincinnati. Hey, Jack, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how are you this afternoon? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've dug myself a hole, and I don't know what the right answer is.

Actually, I probably do know what the right answer is, but I don't know how to get out of it. Okay. What happened? Well, to make a long story short, my wife and I got married two years ago after dating for about six years. We waited until all the kids were out of high school, and we could combine households a little more easily. After a big wedding, we started trying to pay stuff off, but the minute we got home from the honeymoon and when it became the business of a relationship, the relationship changed, and that's where the problem lies. So in the process of paying stuff

off, last July, we decided because we weren't making any progress on the credit cards, we made a really wise decision to take a 401k loan for $50,000 payable in two years to pay it off. But now the credit cards are coming back. So I've got a list if you want a list, but just not sure what to do with it. What's the, uh, so your core question is what? How do I fix this and fix my, and much debt? $120,000. Okay. And $50,000 is a 401k now. So $35,000 left.

That's correct. Oh, $35,000 of the $120,000. Okay. $35,000 of that 401k is left. Okay. Yeah. So $35,000 of your $120,000 is a 401k loan. What is the other $85,000?

Okay. So we've got a credit card with $ 8 credit card with 7200 credit card with 19 2 credit card with 2900 uh two cars at 31 8 and 22 4 uh my daughter's car at 2900 which will be paid off very shortly, and a trailer for my losing business at $4,300. Okay. And what's your household income? About $200. Okay. What's the losing business? What's that mean? So to fund an early retirement, I have a woodworking business that I do on the side. It's taking up six to eight hours a night and every weekend. And in the last two years, we've lost about $10,000 a year.

Okay. So that sounds like an expensive hobby that's taking up a bunch of money and a bunch of time, both. That's kind of an easy decision, isn't it? I need the eight hours to spend on my marriage i need the ten thousand dollars to spend on something else rather than a losing business close it and sell off the stuff why wouldn't you do that um i could yeah you could

you'd have eight hours to spend on your marriage you said you're spending eight hours a night on I could. Yeah, you could. You'd have eight hours to spend on your marriage. You said you're spending eight hours a night on this? Yeah, I'm normally in my shop until between 9 and 10 o'clock every night. Yeah, that's good for marriage. Okay. And especially since you're not making any money. I mean, if you were making $10,000 a night or something, she'd probably be tolerant.

But, okay, so you have a $200,000 income. You have cars coming out your ears, credit cards coming out your ears. Now the credit cards are growing back. So that tells us that you guys continue to spend more than you make. If the credit cards are growing back, right? Yeah, you took the HELOC out for the credit cards. Tell me what you're spending this money on is this just putting food on the table is this funding your business what's what's going on these credit cards um so three three of those cards are funding the business um one of them goes away in a week because i made a big sale

did you cut them up yet they're they're put away they're not cut up okay there's the problem okay no there's a different problem i disagree the two of you have not sat down and said with a written budget that we're going to live on less than two hundred thousand dollars a year why a year. Why? To be honest, we have, but then something always comes in. So you just didn't stick to it? Pretty much. So an example of something that comes in is what? A $4,000 collection item from Verizon from four years ago that we didn't know was coming, or a foreclosure for her and her ex-husband on a timeshare of all things that paid immediately because his credit doesn't need to be affected.

I'm sorry. I know timeshare shares your favorite word. No, I don't understand why his credit matters to you. Well, to his ex-wife. She was obligated to pay it in a divorce. Oh, okay. So she knew she had that, and the Verizon bill was hers too? Yes.

So she knew she had that. She just didn't know when they were going to drop. But she knew these were unpaid bills if she's an adult. I'm missing something here, Jack. Okay, I don't understand why this is ending your marriage. Because the two of you can't get on the same page? Or what's the problem? So the stress of the bills weighs heavy.

And we go out and we go to like a craft show on the weekend and we make a little bit of money. And all of a sudden we're all in and we're ready to go take this business into early retirement. But by Tuesday when it rolls around and we're back out in the shop, it's, oh, holy cow to make we got to work to work again. So you just have a short term. That's your side hustle. Right. You have a $200,000 income and the two of you can't decide to live on that. That's what's confusing to me.

I think that your mindset is there's some place in your brain where you think you can kind of windfall yourself out of this whether it's hey we'll just take out the HELOC and that'll be our windfall to get out of this even though it's not or hey we can go to these craft shows and maybe we can make enough money to get a windfall and get out of this and I think what Dave is getting at is you guys haven't truly looked at your behavior together as a team if you set a course and say we're going to do this no one else can make you follow that course of action other than the people in the mirror and that that's what we're getting at is so jack if you wanted to like be like drum have some dramatic moves forward okay i can give you four things right now that if you go do them, by the end of the time you do those, which should be within two weeks,

you're going to have a completely different scenario in your life. Sell both cars. Sell the trailer. Get out of the woodworking business. Sit down with your spouse and do a written detailed budget where the two of you live on less than your day income. And you guys can clean this mess up in no time. But you're screwing around with craft shows, losing $10,000 a year and eight hours a night, and losing your butt, and you can't sit down and manage to make it through a $4,000 bill making $200K.

So you can do this, but you've got two stinking expensive cars, you've got a stinking expensive hobby that you wish was a business. And the two of you aren't working together. That's the answer, right? Those four things. Hang on. We're going to put you through Financial Peace University and see if we can help you too. This is the Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks. If you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest. A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life, and it's the worst.

If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn, and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic life. Masks and costumes should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. And if you're considering therapy, try calling my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100%

online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for you and your schedule. Just fill out a short online survey, and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

Thank you for joining us, Jade, along with me and all the Ramsey personalities, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruz, George Camel. We're all going to be doing the Total money makeover weekend here on the Ramsey campus at the Ramsey Event Center. I'm jacked about this. We've got three big events coming up. This is the first one. It's May 10th and 11th. Gosh, just a little over 45 days away. It's going to be here. Tickets are selling like crazy. You're not going to be here unless you get your tickets soon. So we're going to be talking about not only all the money habits and the baby steps and walking you out of debt but how to deal with the relational parts of this how to work on your income side of

the equation and you're going to leave this weekend with a full experience we're going to have a ton of q a a ton of interaction with all the ramsey personalities pictures the whole bit but most importantly we're going to talk to you about how to take over control of every area of your life and cause this to happen. I'm excited about this, Jade. It's going to be fun. Me too. I'm excited. It's right here on our campus, which is really cool. Yeah. May 10 and 11, you can get your tickets at RamseySolutions.com. It's the Total Money Makeover Weekend. You're going to get fired up and wired up, baby. Oh, and you can bring that friend or that spouse that thinks you're crazy, and by the time they leave, they will be as crazy as you.

So there you go. Show them to the Kool-Aid. That's it. That's it. We're going to serve Kool-Aid that weekend, for sure. Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials, an event I've never done before. I'm looking forward to this. I'm going to be doing this with George Camel, a two-night virtual event, May 21 and 22.

I'm going to get my personal playbook out, how I buy real estate. Not some TikTok version. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate. How do I do that? What do I do? What's the process I've used since the beginning? And how much of that has changed in this current real estate world? Certainly how we look at basic investing.

We're going to lay that in place. But also some of the detail stuff that, frankly, when I'm running around with friends of mine that have a 50 or 100 million dollar net worth, what are they doing? Spoiler alert, it's not Bitcoin. are they doing um spoiler alert it's not bitcoin okay uh spoiler alert it's not gold uh spoiler alert real investors have a different mindset and i'm going to talk to you about how to build that mindset and uh so you want to learn how to do the real stuff not some get rich quick crap off of social media we're going to walk you through it the 21st and the

22nd i'm excited for that that's going to be fun i've never done this material before i'm excited about it money and marriage getaway is october 24th and 26th that's rachel cruz by the way i left her out she'll be at the total money makeover weekend i guess we'll bring my daughter yeah anyway so her and deloney are doing this money marriage marriage getaway 24 through the 26th of October. And they get into everything. I mean, everything on the marriage stuff. Real questions from the floor that, well, there won't be children there. I'm still thinking about the dancing that I saw at the prom this last year at the event.

It was pretty cool. Pretty cool. So all of these tickets for these events at the Ramsey Event Center are at RamseySolutions.com slash events. We'd love to have you come visit with us. You can come in a little bit early. We do the show here every day, Monday through Friday from 1 to 4 on the glass. The cookies homemade are free the coffee's homemade is free the show well it's free there you go but it might be worth

what you paid for it so be careful on that stacy is in riverside california hi stacy how are you hi thank you guys how are you guys better than we deserve what's up okay so i'm going to try to word this in the best way that I can um I guess I'm trying to figure out what I should be doing obviously like so many others today for um my best future I am currently I've been a single mom for the last five years I was married for 24 always a stay-at-home mom as well as a homeschooler so over the last five years I um was kind of given in my lap. I was trying to figure out how I could still homeschool my kids.

They're two teens and work from home and, you know, make ends meet. So I homeschool my two teens still. I babysit three babies for the last five years. So I do in-home childcare as part of income. And I also have an LLC at the homeschool learning center that I run on Fridays. And then I also teach homeschool classes. So I've got, you know, kind of several different pots going, but I'm wondering, okay, so along with that, I also get alimony child support as part of my income. And of course that will end in a year,

one of my kids, you know, will drop off for receiving child support. And then in two years, another child. So I'm trying to figure out today, what would be the best scenario for me going forward, knowing that I am going to take a huge hit in income and have to obviously ramp up the self-employment side. I don't plan on doing childcare long-term once these two families that i have kind of age out um i plan on being done and then try to do something a little more with the self-employed side or would it be better for me to start either taking classes now um for a career or get a job now uh to have the benefits the medical and all that you're amazing my You're amazing. You have pulled, you have stitched together a quilt to make the life that you wanted to make

in the middle of a divorce situation where you have these two kids and you have this heavy desire to homeschool them and you made it work. You pulled together from the left, the right, from the top, from the bottom. You scratched, you claweded you made it work um and so what i would point out maybe and it might be true it might not be true you can correct me is that all of these businesses had to do with homeschool because you had to make homeschool work yes not because it was your dream in life it was because you're a freaking warrior and you were making stuff work you know that made me cry but yes i think as mama bear you do it yeah you

did you did i'm proud of you i i and i and you got to play through on that you're not done you got a couple of years of that left but but your question is what happens at the end of that and my opinion looking in from the outside just for five minutes at how impressive you are, is I think when the last kid leaves, it's Stacy time. What's Stacy want to be? What's Stacy want to do? Because you've just you've given up. You're an incredibly noble woman. You've given up your life the last few years for the

sake of these kids and i'm not sure the homeschool is what stacy set out to do as a career if she didn't if she wasn't kind of forced into it by the circumstances exactly in fact i've told my kids i'm like the friday classes is for you guys and by the way i love the community i'm not saying you're mean i wasn't saying any of that it's not selfish for you to have some stacy time now it's the rhythm of life and by the way what would that be stacy if you could start out on a path what would that path be if you get money and if money and time were no object what would stacy be you know that's a great question I I know this is going to sound you know interesting but I love finance I have part of my homeschool teaching I've taught teenagers the you know personal finance way the Ramsey way and I love nutrition and health those

are just my passions and I'm not sure but I look at that like what should I be doing now should I be taking classes to pursue both of those should I be preparing myself for when it is me time and what do I want to do? And what is my next best step? And it is honestly, in all honesty, it's kind of fearful. I don't really know. I've always just, you know, been that, you know, with that label of homeschool mama and stay-at-home wife and then to be thrown into, and honestly, it's all God that has placed these other wonderful families in my life to allow me to watch their kids while I could still be home with my own and even, you know, provide homeschool classes and all those things.

Well, no one accused you of whining. You're anything but a whiner. It's okay. You don't need to put any caveats in here. Listen, we'll set you up with Ken Coleman's career assessment because I feel like that's a great place for you to start, to really see what your skill sets are and what you love to do, and then just take it from there, throw in paycheck to purpose, Christian.

I think that's a great place for you to start. Yeah, going through his materials and try to assess. Okay, it's almost like you're 18 or you're 22 years old. You just came out of college, and you can do anything you want to do. It's a whiteboard. What are we going to do? Ready, set, go. You get to choose.

I do think you're an entrepreneur at heart, though. I think whatever you do, it's going to be your version, your self-employed version of it. Let me just say that. Could be wrong, but I think I'm right. And if the financial thing is tickling you, one way to kind of put your feet in the water might be just lead a financial peace class at your church.

You'll end up doing coaching as a coordinator. You can keep from doing it and then you may want to evolve into one of our coaches i'm not sure but that you can look at that but it doesn't cost anything to lead a class and you can get on there and get your feet wet and go okay this is adult to adult dealing with money finances it's not really scratching my itch okay or it is and i want to go further you can look at it either way so hang on we'll send you out that assessment. I think you're going to really be helped by it. You're amazing. You know, it doesn't take a degree in statistics to realize this one stinks. 93% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed. So when you're delinquent and drowning, mom or papa or uncle Joe is stuck in

that financial stress along with you. But there is a way out. Y-Refi. Y-Refi offers a custom refinancing option with a fixed rate loan based on your ability to pay. And the average interest rate Y-Refi offers is 3.9%, which can significantly reduce your monthly payment and decrease your total cost. Contact YRefi at 844-2-RAMSI or go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's 844-2-RAMSI or the letter Y, then R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. YRefi is not licensed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. WhyRefi is not authorized by the New York State Department of Financial Services to service any New York loans. Funding may not be available in all states.

Jade Warshall, Ramsey Personality, bestselling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Monica is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hey, Monica, what's up in your world? Hello. Hi. I'm super happy to get to talk to you guys. You too?

I am 28 years old. I'm on baby step five, and I feel like I'm relatively on track with my retirement investing goals. Good. Right now, again, I'm at baby step five, so I'm trying to save up for prepaid expenses. No kids, but my prepaid future expenses, a goal I have for myself, I'm trying to save up for a gas grant. I'm sorry, baby step five is kids college.

You don't have kids. Yeah, yeah. So you don't have a Baby Step 5. You're on Baby Step 6. Yeah, I'm just trying to save up for a future expense. Okay, what are you saving up for? I would love to start a guest lodge in the future. So I'm trying to save up for, obviously, a huge amount of money to be able to buy um like a land um i'd love to have like some guest cabins

and um like it would be like a fishing lodge with um horses that i would do guided horseback trails um so it is obviously a very expensive target and i guess my question there is what's your home i can try to um probably around 350 to 380 what do you do for a living uh senior demand planner you're say again uh i'm a senior demand planner so i um work with like financial targets and then i buy product to hit that amount of revenue plans for the year. I see. Okay. Um, can I ask a question? What's that business that you want? The, the, the lodge, what is that at its smallest scale? Cause I feel like what you laid out was the big picture.

What's the smallest achievable piece of that to start with? Um, like I, I feel like right now just like um trying to look at land prices and the cost for like very very inexpensive guest cabins probably at a minimum i would be looking at like 750k plus and that's like really just looking at like land um okay let me let me ask you because i don't i need to there must be something in your background that leads to this that i haven't heard because everything in your life is very buttoned up and very tight and very careful including even what you do for a living and then there's this idea that's way out there so where did the idea i mean did you did you work at a place like this and when you were a teenager yep yep i grew up riding horses

and then um in college i moved out west just for like the summer and like um my junior year i was a wrangler so you're just you're a guide on horseback yeah you're working a dude ranch yeah yep exactly okay so your experience has been as a as an adolescent working in these romantic situations you do you have any experience on the business side of this equation no i don't i don't have any experience i yeah no just well what you do for a living i would think you would have laid out a pro forma that says, I can rent these cabins and this horseback, and the ROI on the $700,000 or million-dollar investment, where's the ROI on that? I think, like, the ROI is just, like, I would probably have my husband do the fishing he would run like

the fishing um part of it so he would take clients out um okay what's your household income um like 160 okay so in what world does a fishing guide and a lady riding horseback make 160 no no i'm a senior demand planner right now i don't do anything with horses so right now like the i'm making about 90k and he makes no honey misunderstood you both quit your jobs and you're now running this thing that you're in your that's in your dream he's now a fishing guide and you're the lady running the lodge and leading the horsebacks because this is what the dream you've laid out i don't understand how you're making 160 doing that as a return on uh even wages equal to your current wages much less a return on investment

of a 750 000 investment or 800 000750,000 investment or $800,000 investment so that's what I want you to get to okay because all I'm hearing right now is an adolescent dream and that doesn't mean it's a bad dream but it could become a real big nightmare if you don't put numbers to it like a grown-up sure yep that's what I want you to do but rather than just go I'm going to save up and buy this no no you're not that's what i want you to do but rather than just go i'm gonna save up and buy this no no you're not that's why i asked what the smallest form of that is because you're gonna yeah if there's a way to test when you get to the point to where you could buy some land i'm gonna study best practices of other lodge and dude ranch situations and go okay if a couple lives there and runs it what can they expect to

net on a 10 cabin arrangement a horseback riding and fishing arrangement and uh you know the food uh the food services and what can we you know what's our cost of goods sold and what can we expect to net can we make 160 plus a return on the 750 or million dollar investment and you should be able to make both of those or this is not a grown-up dream it's just a memory from your 16 year old self that's not that's going to turn into a nightmare so i want you to think that through and put some numbers to it and go study some other lodges for best practices and try to learn their numbers um and um you need to know a lot more about this space from a business perspective before you talk about saving up $750 or a million dollars and putting it into it.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I've never run one. I don't know. But I'm having trouble visualizing a fishing guide and a lady running horseback making $200K. Might be. There might be a high-end arrangement you know some kind of luxury situation where you know you're bringing in people from dubai or something i don't know but um you you've got to figure that part out to continue down this track uh much further otherwise you need to be

doing straight up investing and thinking through how this dream is going to happen. It could simply be we want a wonderful weekend retreat place as a part of our family portfolio. It might be that that scratches the same itch. I don't know. I'm not saying either one's wrong, but I am saying you need more detail. And it's worth noting, whatever you decide, I still think it's way far in the future because whatever you decide, you're going to have to pay cash for it. There that there's that i feel like we crushed her dreams a little bit no no no no no we encouraged her dream we crushed her nightmare yes there you go dave crushing that i'm a nightmare killer i will keep you from calling something a dream that's going to be a nightmare in a heartbeat and i will kill it because i love you and i don't want

that to happen to you yeah that's right i'm a nightmare i'm death on nightmares take it out back and shoot it luke is in detroit hi luke how are you how are y'all doing i'm doing pretty well good how can we help so i currently make a net a net of every month about six grand. I put two grand towards a mutual fund and a maxed out Roth IRA. And then one grand to do a high yield savings account of 4.6%. And my question is, am I going too aggressive with this? Investing 50% of my income because I don't live off of much and i'm currently debt free so it depends on what baby step you're on what baby step are you on so i i haven't really done

the baby steps yet um i do have an emergency fund of currently about 10 grand okay um what do you and you make you make 72 000 a year right net yes Net, yes. Net, okay. What do you do? So I got out of the Marine Corps about two months ago, and I had some things happen to me in there. So I get $44,000 a year from the VA, and then I'm also a server, so I make about $24,000 to $25,000 a year from that as well. So you're 25 years old? No, $25,000 a year from the server job. I'm 23. I'm going to ask you if you're 25 years old? No, 25,000 a year from the server drive.

I'm 23. I'm 23. 23. Okay. Close. All right. So what I can do is to show you the game plan on how to handle this the best. It's called the Baby Steps. Jade alluded to it. I'm going to give you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover. It's going to walk you straight through that and you keep listening or watching and we'll continue to teach you in this format. You're a good man. Keep it up. I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think

through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of next week, in the middle of all that grief, like it's just it is it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282.

That's 800-356-4282. Or go to zander.com. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Guys, we appreciate you. The ratings and uh rankings and miscellaneous things on this show are the highest they've ever been as a matter of fact last week while i wasn't here they were the highest in 32 years i don't know how to take that exactly but

that is actually what occurred um dr john deloney show added 12 million people last week alone just his show so the ramsey network is blowing up overall our numbers on podcast and YouTube and radio on this show are crazy good thank you guys that just means you're telling people about us thank you and if you want to keep doing that we would love it if you click subscribe or follow or uh share share the show click a link out cut a link out send it to somebody go hey look at this uh whether it's a YouTube clip, a podcast clip, anything. I mean, whatever it is. And leave a nice five-star review.

All that stuff bumps us up in all the different rankings, and you guys are the ones that make that happen. If you want to say thank you for what you're getting here for free, that's how you say thank you. You click follow, share, subscribe, five-star reviews, that kind of stuff. Yeah, we thank you. Daymar is with us. Daymar is in Missouri. Hey, Daymar, what's up in your world? Hi, my name is Daymar. I was calling to ask if I should pause the baby steps temporarily to save an emergency fund because I'm going to be if I should pause the baby steps temporarily to save an emergency fund

because I'm going to be losing my job in the next few months. I'm currently on baby step two. I went a little bit out of order, and I bought a house about a month ago and then found you guys, and so then I started the baby steps. Pretty crummy timing, buying a house and losing your job kind of why we tell you not to do that huh definitely so i should have found you guys a month earlier so when does this all take place a couple months you said yes yep so i bought the i closed on the house about a month ago from last week. And then after that, I paid off my credit card,

or I guess I got put the $1,000 in savings, paid off my credit card, closed that out, and then started paying on, I have a personal loan with about $21,000 left on it. What do you make? And then I make $88,000 a year. What do you make and then i make eighty eight thousand dollars a year what do you do uh i work in nuclear logistics in the air force you're in the air force and you're gonna lose your job how does that happen yep so i'm going through a medical board process. I just found out I have an autoimmune disorder. And so just within the career field I work in, it's a disqualifier. And so it's not for certain I'll lose my job, but they're pretty sure just because there's not really an option to cross-train me into something else with how short a time is left with my

commitment so they discharge yeah they should they would they probably will be in the next couple of months is that a medical discharge it will be and so i think there should be some kind of compensation but from what i understand there's usually like a two- to three-month gap between when you get out of the military and when VA benefits start. Yeah, that's true. I'm not sure. At best, because they're not exactly known for efficiency. Yes, sir. All right.

So what are you going to do with your life, man? So I've had a business on the side that makes them almost $500 a week on not very much time just because I have the day job that I'd like to spend a lot of time doing but in the meantime until I get this debt paid off I'm gonna stick with having a having a real job that has stable income until I get the step paid off. Doing what? And so I was thinking temporarily get a job locally, trying to do something in logistics. I have one friend who works for a company back home in Wichita, Kansas, and so I was

going to reach out and try to get in touch with them. And what would that pay? So starting pay for that is $75,000 a year. What's your side business? It's a consultation newsletter. So it goes with you then? it does so i can do that from absolutely anywhere and so that's why i'm not well to answer your initial question should you pause baby step two obviously the answer is yes you're going to pause and save up as much cash as

you can and i would continue to doing to what you are doing, which is look for opportunities because it sounds like there's a 95% chance that you are going to be discharged. And even if you do receive some compensation, we know that there's a gap there. So I would keep doing what you are doing and land something and be prepared for whatever that is, whether it takes you to Wichita

or whether it's something in your area to replace the income that's going to be lost. Exactly. That's all you can do. If you do what she said and you pause it for two months and then you lose your job, or three months, how much money would be in the account? I think I'd have like four or five months of expenses. I think I could save about $3,000 a month.

Okay, so you'd have like $10,000. Good. Yep. Okay, so let's kind of work this through, all right? You got $10,000 in the bank. You paused your baby step two. You move to Wichita, take a job making $75,000. Two months later, your military disability kicks in for another $2,000 or $3,000 a month.

Oh, and we have $500 a month maybe going maybe going to a thousand on the newsletter on the side uh you're suddenly making now over a hundred thousand dollars a year yeah this is a pretty good deal i do have a question though um should i in that case if i, should I just sell the house? Yes. Yeah. Okay. You don't need a house in Missouri if you live in Wichita. Definitely. Yeah, and just get you something to rent, and then you take all the money.

If all that works and you don't use any of the $10,000 because you land the new job straight out of the old job, then the $10,000 acts like a signing bonus, and you throw it at the 21 debt as soon as you get settled in Wichita. Awesome. Yeah, and this time you don't turn around and buy a house in Wichita until all your debt's clear, and then you've saved up an additional

three to six months of expenses, and then you can start thinking about a down payment when you're settled and all that's in place. Exactly. And so here's the deal. What people do is they save up the $ grand and then they kind of coast along until the 10 grand no you line up the other job boom as soon as you step out of the air force you step straight into logistics boom and then two months later or three months later the va kicks in boom and and these dominoes start falling and you're making some dadgum money and this whole situation turns into a blessing hey are you going to get your

money back on the sale of this house um i should get about exactly what i have into it um i i made a few extra payments on on the already. Don't do that anymore. Right now you need a big old pile of cash, and I really want you to commit to lining these dominoes up so they don't miss each other. You know, if you push a domino and it misses the next one, it just lays there by itself, dude. So when you step out of the Air Force,

I want you the next day to be in Wichita working because you've already done the Air Force, I want you the next day to be in Wichita working, because you've already done the interview process and been hired, because they're not going to do this suddenly in the Air Force, they don't do anything suddenly, well, they don't do anything having to do with you guys suddenly, they do concerning the enemy suddenly, but yeah, you know, you guys, you're going to know, you're going to see this coming a mile away, it's not going to be a shock to you, so you already are seeing it coming a mile away. It's not going to be a shock to you. So you already are seeing it coming a mile away. So just go ahead and start working the Wichita thing.

And if the whole thing with the Air Force doesn't happen, then you can stay there and you want to stay in, fine. You know, it's just all you've lost a little effort, and you really haven't lost any ground on your get out of debt because the money's all in the account. You're just going to turn and throw it at the debt when the smoke clears on the storm and so you're okay you're in good shape but where people screw up is they don't deal with the obvious thing that's in front of them and then this stuff becomes a crisis when it shouldn't have that's true yeah i think he's done well to think ahead and plan ahead for this

because if he hadn't done that, this could look very different. Exactly. And if he doesn't continue to do that, it's going to be a mess. That's right. So, yeah, you're going to be calling me back going, I'm further in debt because I didn't work for four months because I didn't do what you told me to do. No, don't get it.

Get it. Get after it. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, best best-selling author is my co-host today open phones here at 888-825-5225 george is with us in newark new jersey hey george welcome

to the ramsey show hi george hi i'm hi dave i'm sorry it's's Georgette. Oh, Georgette. Okay. I thought they had misspelled it because it didn't have the et on there. Okay. Anyway, I'm sorry. How can I help? That's great. Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. I'm very excited to talk to you guys today. I have a question in regards to my daughter and her survivor's benefit and 401k. Unfortunately, my ex-husband passed away from COVID in 2022, leaving a $32,000 in 401k.

And she also gets a $1,200 per month survivor's benefit, which I religiously deposit into a custodial bank account for her every month. And since last January, I have invested $32,000 of that into a two-year CD with an annual interest rate of about 4.3%. Of all the money she has in the bank up to today, it's about $80,000. And I estimate that by the time she's 18, it will be about $140,000. I have three simple questions for you guys today. If you have the time as a fellow parent seeking guidance, how can I leverage this money considering that, you know, she will go to college and she will also probably receive scholarship. She's a pretty smart girl. Next question is, how do I steer her towards choosing an in-state college

and avoid any form of the student loan pitfalls? And my third question is, how do I introduce her to the Gramsley Financial Education and at what age? As I would love for her to have this she's 13 and uh you know i want to have her have this resource available for her so she can have financial knowledge you know before it's too late most 13 year olds don't listen to their parents does yours she she's done she's a smart kid i didn't ask that i asked if she was respectful and believed what her mom said uh i would hope so i think so she's you think you have a good relationship

with her and she trusts she trusts your wisdom i think so okay that's different than being crazy wild true okay just trying to find out what we're dealing with jade so i have a question so this That's different than being crazy wild. True. Okay. Just trying to find out what we're dealing with. Jade? So I have a question. So this $80,000 that you think is going to be up to $120,000 or more, when she's 18, does she have full control of it, or is she able to disperse that in any way? I actually... Are you hearing me?

It's hers. It's going to be fully hers. It's a custodial account it's her no yes yes yes yes and when she turns 18 honey it's hers it's in her name and she gets control when she's 18 that's how it works so then right but i'm i am thinking that before she is 18 i could somehow transfer it into my name where I can be the moderator of it instead of her since at 18 she'll probably make dumb decisions, you know? That's why I was asking about what kind of kid she is. Okay.

So, and whether she's listening to you or not, because the only way you transfer it to your name is called stealing. Because it's not your money. And if you just move it to your name and uh she decides to get a jack leg lawyer she can sue you so i mean yeah i might do that if she's doing heroin rather than let her kill herself with it i'll take that chance good luck find it and i'll just disappear with your money kiddo but uh, before I let you kill yourself with it. But I would do that. But in general, just to make her behave, no.

Does she know about the money? Does she know how much it is? Have you guys had that conversation? I mean, she knows that I am trying to save for her so she can have a better future, but she doesn't know exactly how much it is. She just has basic knowledge of mommy putting away some money for her i'm going to pose this question to dave because out of all

of us you're the one that has the most experience with telling a child about a sum of money that will one day be theirs so what's the best way to i mean i can think about how i might frame that up and i think your questions are good. Yeah, early and often. You've got five years to train her. Okay. And part of that's exposure, and part of that is the reality. Because if you're 18, you think $80,000 is a lot of money if you've never seen $80,000. But if you've been having mom tell you for the last five years that it's not that much,

and you can screw this up really easily, so we have to be very careful, and you've got to go to a state school so you don't burn through this money and you know and you're and you can't go running off to you know decide i'm going to take a gap here because because i'm rich i'm rich i'm so rich you're not rich it's 80 freaking grand to be gone in 20 minutes three restaurant stops and it's over right i mean it's it's crazy how fast that'll be gone so start training her that this is what rich people do they talk about money at the den at the dinner table not because they're obsessed with it but because it's part of the rhythm of their life and so you sit down you'd say hey you know here's how money works here's what's going on you've got some money coming to you i'm handling it for you now it's going to be a responsibility it's not going to be a lottery

moment where party's on it's not we're going to have we're going to talk about how we use this because this little bit of money and it's not much but this little bit of money that your daddy left you if we can use that right if you and i can learn to do that together honey over the next five years we can turn this into your having a really bright future with you or you have are going to have the legal option of being a complete freaking fool because it's going to be in your name and you can destroy this and all you're going to have to show for its regret which is a really nasty tasting fruit and you just talk to her like that all the time i taught my kids that all their lives

and uh then when they came home from college we actually had the uh discussion when the last one came home from college and the other two were married we sat down and said okay here's what the whole ramsey estate looks like they had no idea what our net worth was um and no idea what my income was because we didn't use it in any way in front of them I mean when they had a decent life but you know they still had that moment I said look this is a responsibility it is not a a windfall you need to feel the weight of managing this it's god's money it was passed to you through your dad and god has given you a blessing and you have a responsibility to handle his money in a way that is a continued blessing to you not an immature child and that's why we're starting to talk about it when you're 13 and when you're 14 and when you're 15 and if you're gonna if you're doing something

really severe by the time you're 18 like out of control and you're gonna hurt yourself with this money you'll never find it i'll hide it from you and good luck fighting me because i'm a mean mama you know and that these are the discussions we're gonna have that's what we had at the ramsey house and this is what responsibility looks like. Money is a blessing, but it's also a weight. It has a responsibility to it. You need to feel that weight early and often

and build that muscle over the next five years. Don't surprise her at 18 and have a party and go, woohoo, look at here. That's horrible. That'll be a bad plan. This is the Ramsey Show. Jade Warshall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

So, Jade, you know, we were talking with the last lady about the situation with her child having money coming in from a father who had passed away. But in general, the idea that Rachel and I wrote about in the book Smart Money, Smart Kids, which was a number one bestseller because you guys bought it. Thank you out there. um the in general what we have figured out is the people who have high functioning adult children especially in the area of money uh that occurs because of parents age appropriately engaging from three years old on on the subjects that matter to that family what are the things that family values one of the things the Ramsey family valued was learning to handle money properly which is so at every age you need to be learning the age appropriate lessons of giving saving, investing, spending, and work. You need to learn to work, age appropriately. We don't send three-year-olds to the salt mines.

We might send a 13-year-old there. No, I'm kidding. But we don't, you know, so age appropriately. And then that gives you all of these natural rhythms, not single, not like Tuesday night's mutual fund night or something like that. Instead, it's like the part of the rhythm of our life is we get to talk about this today in the mail, the, your mutual fund statement for your college came in and our kids had a college fund and here's what your college fund is. And here's how you calculate share price times

number of shares equals the amount that's in the mutual fund so find out the balance on your mutual fund without looking at the statement even and so they learned to do these basic things and they were told over and over and over and over they have a college fund college fund college fund so i was brainwashing them you're going to college right and you were suggesting even on that last caller at the break that you know brainwasher tell her this is what this money's for this is how we're doing it this is how we're doing it. This is what we're doing the money. This is what we're doing the money. And just for five years, have a weekly constant discussion at dinner that this is what we're doing. You know, I think there's an inclination for parents sometimes to keep details,

even if they're age appropriate, details about money and amounts and to keep that hidden for some reason. And I'm not really sure what that is, if they feel like it's, it may be, it's just an old school thing or, but I just remember even growing up in my household and a lot of my friends, it's like, we don't talk about exact numbers. We talk about, oh, there's some money for college or, oh, there's some money for your wedding, but it's like, I don't want to tell you how much it is. And why is that? Well, I think people are afraid that they're going, that the there's some money for your wedding, but it's like, I don't want to tell you how much it is, and why is that? Well, I think people are afraid that the kid's going to go off.

Right. And the kid is more likely to go off if they discover suddenly that they're rich. Yeah. Like, you're 18 years old, you didn't think you had anything, and you find out you got 500 grand. Yeah, it's playtime, party time. They cannot handle, their brain can't process that.

But if the weight of that has been increasing from three to 18, then they are ready to go with it. And that that changes everything. It's a big deal. And so it's kind of like, you know, rich people have money as a part of the rhythm of their discussion, not because they're obsessed with money or greedy people. It's because they see the importance of children understanding, not feeling weight, but understanding, feeling the appropriate amount of weight,

understanding the cost of their decisions. So when you buy Celebration Barbie and all your money's gone, you realize at seven you might have bought, should have sort of kind of had a party barbie instead of celebration, right? And so we're going to buy the cheaper version or whatever it is, right? You're going to learn these purchase decisions have consequences and let them experience some negative consequences under your wing as they go along. And that's the kind of stuff we talk about in Smart Money, Smart Kids. So in other words, it's like if you grow up on a farm,

farm parents don't really have to talk to their children about where babies come from. Yeah, they see it happen in real life. They know exactly the whole process, start to finish, of where babies come from and how babies are fed and so on. You don't have to discuss that with a farm kid they it's just part of their life and a rich kid you don't have to discuss where how money works that comes from work yeah and that you need to save some you need to give some you need to spend some rich kids just they grow up it's just kind of like being on the

farm you don't have this one single we we're going to have the sex talk. No, instead it's like life right there in front of you, darling. This is how it works. That's a good point. I would definitely not diminish the impact of what you see and hear on a regular basis as a kid. I mean, I think about something as small as, you know, when you finally get to college

and you've got a little bit of your own money and you go to the grocery store for the first time, first thing you do is buy what your mom always bought you buy the same brands you buy the same thing until one day you realize i guess i don't have to do that but by that time you're already in a rhythm yeah yeah because you're you know rachel says all the time more is caught than taught that's right so they're watching what you're doing and that's how that this is how you train up kids because i'm often asked by people when they become baby steps millionaires how do i how you know i did all this i got my house paid off now i don't

want to screw up my grown kids i don't by leaving them a bunch of money i think i'm going to make them suffer well you know you could do that or you could just leave them a bunch of money if they're capable of handling it because you train them to be capable of handling it. There's no, money is not evil. It's the love of money is the root of all evil. The Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil. And so you're not damning your kids to hell by leaving them money. But you will screw up their lives if they have no character and the ability to handle money. You will magnify that by leaving them money.

So you've got to build out over a period of time a gradual process this is where babies come from this is where money comes from this is how this works as part of our life and you brush your teeth and you do your homework and you're on time and you say yes sir and no sir and thank you and thank you and please which means you know how to be grateful because grateful people are highly attractive and you teach you just this is raising kids yeah listen i have to tell my my five-year-old almost going to be six every time i go to the store you know he likes to scan the thing before i pay for it and i tell him when i pay for something i was like do you know how i have this money it's because every day when i go to work i go to work to earn this money papa goes

to work to earn this money even things as simple as that teaching them it's not just an endless supply that comes out of the of the plastic right yeah there's there's effort that's put forth to get that and uh it's not unlimited so very you can start that very very young yeah it's even fun with the grandkids because the grandkids call our house mimi's house oh dave has nothing to do with it and i've had to explain to him papa dave's house mimi gets to live here they don't like that well my favorite story is uh the one you tell about daniel we're doing pretty good yeah we were in a car we bought a decent car and daniel's like five or six years old he leans back we're doing pretty good and i'm like we aren't doing anything you are a broke child i have money you have nothing we aren't doing anything you are a broke child i have money you have nothing

we aren't doing anything yeah that was a that was one of those daily money lessons you know don't be confused don't feel entitled right all right akim is with us in st louis hi akim welcome to the ramsey show hey how you guys doing great how can we help? I'm going to be on the show, but get straight to it. Okay, this Saturday I'm scheduled to meet with a person from Bank of America to talk about investing with their, I guess, their Merrill Lynch side. Long story short, I'm already investing with my 401k. I'm a mailman, so I got a TSP. I'm doing a place i'm already investing with my 401k i'm a mailman so i got a tsp i'm doing a five percent match there i know you say do 15 so i'm looking to start a rough ira and from my

research from social media youtube all of that do i need a financial advisor you don't need someone to do money for you you need someone to teach you and guide you so that you do money for you better and bank of america is not on the list they suck okay cancel that appointment yeah if you want to get somebody to sit down in your corner with the heart of a teacher just click on a smartestor at Ramsey Solutions, and it'll be a real investment advisor, not a Bank of America person gag. And they'll sit down with you with the heart of a teacher. Because what your job is, Akeem, is to learn what they teach you. So I still have a SmartVestor Pro that's in my life and Sharon's life. Obviously, I teach this stuff for a living,

but he occasionally brings me an idea that I haven't heard of before. I learn something from him, and I go, oh, I could do that. But he doesn't go and do stuff without me knowing it because he's smart and I'm dumb. That's right. We never do that one.

This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. John's with us in Dallas. Hey, John, how are you? I'm doing wonderful. How are you guys? Better than we deserve.

What's up? Thanks for taking my call. So I guess a little bit of background. My wife and I are in our early 30s. We have a young growing family and in the last year we purchased her family home for my mother-in-law. Some things kind of changed in our lives recently and decided we needed to move home and spend some more time with her. We are currently, I'm going to say in between steps six and seven. So home is paid off. Um, we've been basically banking everything else. We're in a position where the home is paid off. You're in seven. Yes. Well, so the reason I say it that way,

we know we're going to have to do some pretty serious renovations to the house to make it work for us long term. It's on a decent amount of land. It's in a good school district. We see our family growing there. But there's going to be significant changes that need to be made to support our family long term. And I'm wondering, is a HELOC the right way to do that? I kind of went into the renovation process with the mindset of

we do a little bit at a time and and just kind of pick away you know room by room and and talking to the um general contractor the changes that we're going to have to make that's not really possible to do it that way so it's kind of an all-encompassing kind of thing i think in their minds and it's yeah they're not paying the bill that's true yep if they won't pay the bill they get an opinion on that um i mean i understand that they have a structural concern or the approach to the construction but but you know they're not taking into consideration your family so what is your household income uh last year low 200s okay and so what's this uh project if we looked at it looked at it in total going to cost the the current budget is right now 150 to 250 and some of that they're not going to determine until

well they need to get inside the walls and inside the attic and the structural things. Oh, crap. We're not going to start a project when we don't know within $100,000 what it's going to cost. Okay. You don't have a contractor. You've got a guy who wants some money.

No, I mean, we're going to have this dialed in, in detail, as to what we're going to get into here. This range, let me tell you what that'll turn into, 350 is what that'll turn into, because this guy's making this crap up as he goes. No, thank you. No, so anyway, all right, let's just pretend it's a $200,000 tight, detailed budget that we know is accurate as opposed to what you're dealing with now. Now, let's use that.

You make 200 okay then what i'm going to do is i'm going to break the project down into chunks as small as i possibly can which is what you were trying to do room by room you may not be able to approach it room by room you may have to have another angle on it you may have to say, okay, the first chunk is 75,000 bucks because we got to do this whole whatever, right? And then the next chunk is 10 and the next chunk is 30 and the next chunk is whatever. And just break it out in chunks and then you save up into a chunk at a time. And, you know, if the first one is a big one, you hold off until you save that much money

making 200K. Yep. Yep. Okay. I'm not going in debt to do it. Why would you need to? You make plenty of money, and you're going to be there anyway, so you can do this over time. What are they telling me? Is there a danger?

Like, is there a... I think convenience. I think it's a convenience thing. I think there's some load-bearing walls that you know really to do it i think it's going to be the first big chunk they're going to do all that together um and then i think there are some separate smaller chunks they can break it into i mean i tell i tell the guy you're either getting paid or you're not little or nothing at all what's this house worth not counting the land uh so that's that's a harder question probably 250 maybe the house is worth

250 and you're going to pay 250 to repair it that's the yep wow and that goes back to the the emotional element of it being a child at home. It's on a decent amount of land and would be hard to replicate for that price elsewhere, too. I'm hearing it's a bad idea. If you don't have a good architect and you guys don't really spend a bunch of time thinking this through, you're going to build. Overbuild? No, you're going to build a horrible property because you're trying to take something that was not designed to be a $400,000 property and turn it into that and so it's um it's going to feel like what we call a country house where you just add rooms and move walls around and and every time some other kids born we add another room to it or something and that's country built what we used to call it anyway uh

it doesn't mean that if you build a house in the country, you're doing it wrong. That's not the point. If you're doing it this way, it's wrong. I'm afraid this is such a massive renovation ratio-wise that what you're trying to pull off is very hard to do. Let me say it that way. It's very hard to end up with a great end product that is a reasonable thing when you spend as much on it as it's worth. It's almost easy. From a tactical standpoint, not a financial standpoint, it's easier to push it down and build something else. A lot easier than try to take this clay pot that's already been through the kill and reshape it. Right?

That's what we're, it's very difficult to do what you're doing. Minor, you know, if you're, you've told me you're going to spend $50,000 or $60,000 on a $250,000 house, you can do that. You can do a lot of stuff for that. That's a different thing. But you're talking about basically rebuilding this whole house and you could really end up with a piece of crap i feel like there's a way that he could do that and still salvage parts of it and it is you really need to think you need an architect to lay this out so that when you're

done you don't build something that looks like a pretzel you know it doesn't look like old man old lady in the shoe or something yeah and um because that's what that's what this kind of stuff it evolves into a grotesque thing that that uh all because of the emotion of it being a childhood home and then you made a bad decision so what's your it can be done and i'm not telling you not to do it, John. I'm saying you got to really back back up from this. You got to have a good, solid, detailed, accurate budget that you're going to hold everybody accountable to. We've got to break it into parts that we can cash flow and we really need a good floor plan, engineering plan, wiring and plumbing plan that we end up with that looks like somebody

thought it through instead of like well we need an extra bedroom you know yeah that's the she's man that it's it's a mess so you you really what you're trying to do is very hard to do for somebody's never done it before and and not end up with a mess yeah it's very hard to do is very hard to do for somebody who's never done it before and not end up with a mess. Yeah, it's very hard to do. Be very careful, sir. Get every T crossed, every I dotted, everything thought through before you raise a hammer toward a wall. And everything dialed in.

Because if you don't, you're going to end up in a financial mess with a bad product and something that takes years and years and years to accomplish and shouldn't and then when you're done you don't have a good thing yeah it's very scary very scary i mean it honestly is a lot easier to build a house yeah from the dirt a whole lot easier and end up with a great product than it is to do even a 40% or 20% rehab, much less 100% rehab. Yeah, that's just got to feel tough because he's already paid it off. He's paid it off, and then he's like demolishing the thing.

Yeah, but I mean a lot of people do tear downs just to get the lot. That's true. That's true. And obviously we're not going to get to tear this one down because it's childhood home. Yeah. And all the emotion he brought that up three times. So obviously, we're not bulldozing it.

But wow, tough, tough, tough, tough. You can do it, but you really need to lean in on the details. You need to be project manager extraordinaire. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today thanks for joining us so george and you are doing a budgeting live stream on youtube on the 11th that's right you're right i'm excited about this we do these um as an extension kind of as the ramsey show where we can have callers and people call in and ask questions about it. But this one's going to be on the 11th of April. And we're really just answering those

top questions that people have about budgeting, which is, Jade, how do I even get started doing a budget for the first time? How can I budget and still enjoy my life? And also people want to know with how they deal with changes that come up throughout the month, because obviously a budget is a living, breathing organism. And also how couples can budget together, married couples specifically. And those are kind of four pain points that we want to talk about, because those are the things that you've told us that are issues for you. So stay tuned for more details on that live stream. But just know we want to hear from you.

If you have budgeting questions that you want us to answer, you can always email us your questions at ask at RamseySolutions.com. So again, join that live stream. It's going to be on YouTube 4-11 and you can kind of set your reminder so that you don't forget about it. Today's question of the day comes from Jacqueline in Ohio. Yes. She says, how do I tell myself that saying no does not mean that I'm failing as a mom? I just started reading my new,

Jade's new book and it's really unpacking some deep ingrained thought patterns from my childhood. I grew up the oldest of, the oldest child of four raised by a single mom.

We had financial, housing, and food instability. I was constantly aware that we were not okay despite my mom doing everything she could to protect us from knowing that now as a divorced mom i've got a decent job own a home and provide for my daughter but it is a struggle to make ends meet i often find myself telling my daughter i'm sorry but we don't have money for that this makes me feel like i'm failing as a parent because I can't provide for what I want for a want in the moment. How can I retain? How can I restrain, retrain my brain to see that that saying the word no does not

mean admitting failure? And that's really, really good. I think she's talking about in the book, Money's Not a Math Problem. I talk about how, you know, sometimes what we experience as a kid feels very different, obviously, as a child than as an adult. And, you know, the thing that I've had to learn, Jacqueline, is a couple of things. Number one, your child is not you, right? Like you experienced something and you filtered it through the lens of whatever your reality was in that moment. And sometimes we can project that onto our kids, but your child is in a much more stable position than you were.

And so you have to remember that. But also, there's nothing wrong with saying no, and there's certainly nothing wrong with saying no for children. But I do think that, and I talk about this in the book, there is a way, especially if it's things that they feel they need in a moment or something that's important, I do think that, and I talk about this in the book, there is a way, especially if it's things that they feel they need in a moment or something that's important. I do think there's a way to say no that doesn't steal hope and doesn't steal the feeling that there could be a future, right? I talk about in the book all the time.

I grew up hearing the phrase, we ain't got no money. We can't do that. I ain't going to buy that. We can't afford that. I heard that all the time and it just made everything feel impossible. But I talk about in the book, if you can kind of do a vocab rehab on that and say things like, that's not a priority for us to spend money on right now, then there's the idea that, okay, maybe in the future it could. Or if we say something like, hey, I don't have the money to spend on that right now, but we can find a way for you to save for it in the future and kind of giving them a plan.

You know, I think about Jeremiah 29, 11, you know, people want plans for hope in the future. So if you can gear your responses towards that, I think that's something that's really powerful, not only for you, but for the children, especially as they get older in your household if the parent is not freaked out when they say no the kid is not going to be freaked out when they hear no except that they didn't get what they wanted but you don't have to instill fear with no in other words let's just change this to something else, okay? Papa Dave will not allow you to eat a huge bowl of candy and then throw up in my bed. Yep. Okay? Right? No.

But I'm not freaked out about it. Yeah. It's just no. You can have a little bit of candy, no, or you can have some candy if you clean your plate or whatever rule Papa Dave wants to come up with in the moment and so this is talking about grandkids and so you know with kids it's the same thing it's no it's a complete sentence i love you i care about you and you're not doing that right now. And that's actually enough. I think so. As long as it's not like, oh, God, I feel so bad, coming out in the tone.

Yeah. You know, like, but a parent who never says no is not a parent. They're running anarchy. Because of course you say no. No, you can't play in the street. But don't you feel like there's a difference between those? No, you can't jump off the 10-story building. No.

Of course we say no. But don't you feel like there's a difference between no you can't jump off the 10-story building no of course we say no but don't you feel like there's a difference between requests that are like uh yeah there is those sorts of requests like yeah you can't eat a whole bowl of candy tonality yeah you know the there's no sense of entitlement or no sense of i'm a bad parent when i say no because it's not good for you yeah for your own good 100 and by the way, buying everything you ever wanted is not good for you. Yeah, yeah. That's called spoiling a child. If you were raised in the 60s, that's what we call it.

You were spoiled. You're a spoiled kid. They never heard no. They got everything they wanted. We spoiled, ruined. You know, when you have spoiled milk, it smells. Spoiled kid. You don't want a spoiled kid.

That's a kid who never hears no. So, of course, kids need to hear no. It's not, you know, it's good for them. And they get, Deloney would tell us, Dr. Deloney would tell us, they get a sense of safety when there are boundaries and fences. That's true, but I also think. Anarchy doesn't give you any sense of safety that's true but i think in a case where if you're talking about money's tight there might

be things that yeah right you can just say no not now yeah right now it's not our priority just like you said yes but what you're doing when you're changing the vocab rehab is super important with the overlay of I'm also going to change my tone yes my body language right because you make it a big deal because you are saying I feel horrible with your body and with your tone they catch that and with your verbiage and so change your verbiage and everything because it's all just I'm gonna you're gonna have to learn to hear no in your life kiddo unless you're in congress you have to hear no you know and even congressmen have to hear no from each other so um they don't hear no from anything else but oh my gosh you know so but the point is that the the kid needs to learn to accept that now on a money thing no not now yeah i love that you know we maybe we can figure out a way to do it later, but right now we're not doing that.

Yeah, because I think you have an opportunity to teach them that whatever your current, for me, the opportunities, you can teach them something about money, which is your current situation does not have to be the long-term situation. For instance, if you say, okay, that toy is one of the items you're going to buy from your commissions from doing chores and you don't have enough right now right so you're gonna have to wait so you're gonna have to wait until you save up more money exactly that's no not now but that's not i feel like i'm a horrible parent because the kid because they're gonna have a meltdown anyway exactly

because they didn't get what they wanted because they're children meltdown goes with the territory drama goes with the territory but how the parent feels is that that's the part you can control that's right yeah because she says how can i say no with does that mean that i'm admitting failure and i'm like no there's no failure in saying no matter of fact that's my whole soliloquy here is just as a matter of fact you are a failure if you never say no yeah and you have to say no to yourself too yeah it's just part of human existence there's always something you can't buy no matter who you are yeah i mean even bill gates or something he can't buy but even even even in personal self-talk as adults you know when you get on a budget there is something to that where you can't spend money on everything that you want to so you're telling

yourself no not now on a constant basis but like exactly when you can reframe that and you can't spend money on everything that you want to. So you're telling yourself no, not now on a constant basis, but like exactly when you can reframe that and you put the control back in your seat and you say, I'm choosing not to spend money on that, or I'd rather, you know, put my money towards this than that. It, it puts you in a position of power where you're controlling it as opposed to my budget doesn't let me do anything in my, you know, that's not a fun place to be. Mom and daddy, they blame everything on the budget. Don't blame it on the budget. That's right. Don't blame it on what your mother said.

Don't blame it on what your father said. Don't blame it on the budget. How about just no? And with a little explanation. A little something to the side. I mean, no, not now. Or no, we'll figure out a way to do it later. Or no, it's not that important right now.

It's not a big deal. And if you want to make a big deal out of it, you can do that. But the answer is still going to be no, because it's a complete sentence. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. We're going to talk about your life and your money. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Sanjog is in Seattle to start this hour. Hey, what's up? Hey, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. So my wife and I were first-generation Americans, and we did Financial Peace University about 14 years ago when I was still in the military, and we had a very low income. We had about $50,000 in debt back then, which we've since paid off. And we got all the way to baby step seven. We wrapped it all up, had a paid off house, but we needed to move closer

to work. So we ended up getting another house and another mortgage, but turned our old house into a rental property. So we've built our net worth significantly over the last 10, 14, 15 years. But we've lived, obviously, very, very frugally. And I want to buy myself a new car. Well, technically, we've always purchased used cars, and I'm open to getting another used car as well. But I'm trying to figure out a budget for that car. I don't know how much to spend

because we've never spent a lot of money on toys like that. So what's your income? A little over $300,000 take home every year. Okay. And this mortgage that you have, what's the mortgage on it? The mortgage outstanding is about $1.5 million. And what's your net worth?

About $2.5 million. Good for you. Well done. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. And so the car you're going to purchase, you're obviously paying cash for it, right? That is correct.

We have about $140,000 in cash. Obviously, that's also our emergency fund included in there. So I'm just trying to figure out how much of that we can actually spend on the car. How much of thatdo the emergency fund, obviously, because we have a one and a half million dollar outstanding mortgage. Our mortgage payment is reasonably high. So I normally try to keep about $100,000 as an emergency fund for us. So are you thinking of spending more than $40,000 on a car? Yeah. So we also have, you know, we're not buying right away. So we'll have some savings.

We save about $10,000 every month from our income. And that's after the contributing to our 401k. Well, what do you want to spend on the car, ideally? Like, what's the dream car we're talking about? What does it cost? Well, yeah, so I'm trying to spend between, you know, 50 to 80. And I don't know what the number should be in between that and if i should pull the trigger on something that's you know eighty thousand dollars yeah well the yes

you're fine to do that uh because the rule of thumb is and don't own things all added together with wheels and or motors that equal more than half your annual income. So you've got a $150,000 limit there. The other car is not that expensive. So, yeah, you can afford the 80 if you pay cash for it and don't dip into your emergency fund. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we obviously have a bunch of brokerage account investments as well. And so we would save.

How much is in your brokerage account that's not retirement? $100,000. Okay, and how much is your mortgage again, half a million? Yeah, so our mortgage outstanding is about $1.5 million. Oh, $1.5, okay. So the last part of the conversation isn't anything you ask about, but it is you need to develop a game plan to quit building up the brokerage account. Let's get this stinking house paid off.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I have to do it today. It's not an emergency, but, you know, I don't want $100,000 in brokerage while I've got a mortgage. Okay. Yep. I mean, that's baby steps four, five, and six. You start chunking everything.

Fifteen percent of your income aside for retirement, everything else investment and savings-wise, $10,000 a month beyond your emergency fund plus your brokerage. That's all going on this mortgage until we get the mortgage gone. If we're not consuming it or giving it, it should go. We want to systematically clear that, but that's a sidebar. But, yeah, you can afford an $80,000 car if you pay cash for it in your situation, and you've done a great job.

Congratulations. All the way from 14 years ago, broke in the military, $50,000 in the hole, and now has a $2.5 million net worth and making $300,000. So nice move. Well done. First-generation Americans. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, very good.

Well done. It can be done, boys and girls he did it so let me ask you a question right quick in a perfect world in a ramsey world would you that would be a perfect it's dave's world we just live in it so he he had a mortgage that he paid off kept that as a rental and then picked up wouldn't have done that wouldn't have done that no i would i would have sold that house and put it to have a lesser mortgage and get the mortgage just want to clear that up for the listeners thinking that that's a great move but i'm also not gonna just you know he called to ask about a car he's here now pile on right

two and a half million dollar success story that's right you know so you're good you're good but yeah we would have uh sold that Might even sell it now. Yeah, in order to clear the mortgage. That's what I was thinking. I want that mortgage gone. So I'm going to start working towards that. It's going to be my new goal if I'm him. All right, Daniel is on the line in Fort Worth.

Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? So the basic question is is thirty thousand dollars enough for my emergency fund and the background from it is i'm feeling very anxious uh very nervous uh

my wife lost her job back in february and she she been re-employed? She's starting a new job next month, but it's about half of her income, what it was. What was her income? Why is she making half? I'm sorry? Why is she making half? This is out of every interview she's gone to, this is the only one that's accepted her interview so far.

Okay. What was she doing? Administrative. She was the administrative officer at a building. Well, it's not to say that if I were her, I'd continue looking because it's only been a month. You said she lost her job in February, and we're not not out of March yet and she's starting a new job. So it's not to say that she can't find something to replace exactly what she was making or more. This is just her first.

That's what I've been trying to encourage her to do. We just got out of debt last year around October. We've saved up a $ 000 emergency fund can you live on your income for a few months if you tighten up while she gets a job uh that that's kind of my question no can you it's not it's not my question you have every dollar budget that's what you need no we we we do a paper budget. All right. Can you live on your income? Yes or no? Yes, I think so. Okay, then you won't even be touching your emergency fund.

There's no reason for anxiety about it. The only anxiety is when she's going to get a proper job. Yeah, we're going to set you up with every dollar, though, and you're going to plug those numbers in, and you're going to see exactly what it looks like to live on your income alone. And then she's going to keep applying for jobs, and she's going to find one that makes what she was making or more. Yeah, maybe more. Maybe it was time for a raise instead of half. Half sounds like I got scared. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us america folks a

lot of you have questions about taxes we get it taxes are confusing to help you get a better handle on them we get questions all the time from our listeners here's one i'm a new business owner what are the most important things i need to do to make bookkeeping for my business easier treat your business as if you are operating it for someone else. Don't commingle the funds at all. So you need a separate business checking account. 100% of your business income goes into that account. The only thing that comes out of that account are business expenses and when you pay yourself. If you need to buy groceries or buy something for yourself, you take it out of the business account as paying yourself, put it in

your personal account and do so. Then your business checking account is instantaneously a cash basis accounting system and it can be transferred fairly easily at a very primitive beginner level into some simple software and their taxes are instantaneous. It's a schedule C if you're a sole proprietor. It's really not hard to do. So if you have a complicated return, folks, you need to have someone help you with return. If you don't go to Ramsey Smart Tax and get our Smart Tax software, it's very inexpensive. It's very easy to e-file that way. Boom, it's very, very quick. Check it out, ramsaysolutions.com slash smart tax. If you need a tax pro to help you, we've got our endorsed local providers that we've vetted that are excellent to help you with a more complicated return, ramseysolutions.com slash taxpro and tis the season, boys and girls.

All right, Shane is with us in Springfield. Hi, Shane. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, a little bit of a complicated question.

So I got divorced in November. I got the house, my two vehicles, and now working through getting the vehicles out of a joint name and to get that taken care of. Got the mortgage on the house at $177,000. Trying to figure out, A, how do I get her name off of it since it was part of my property and the divorce decree. I've got about $9,000 in consumer debt, and I've got a 13- to 15-year-old I'm trying to take care of with all this. Okay. So what is your household income? About $98,000 a year.

Okay. So you can afford the house? Well, yeah, for right now I can. My job was based off of being based in a different city, so I have a feeling they're going to pull back on my pay at some point because I'm not there. Because after the divorce, get the house, the kids, I now base out of Springfield instead of Kansas City.

So I'm afraid they're going to pull back on some of my pay by probably about $20,000. Okay. Do you leave there and go to Kansas City, or do you look for a new job? Well, that's what I'm leaning towards looking for, a new job. Okay. Because you're probably worth $100,000. Yeah, I mean, in my field, I'm on the very high end in my field. So about $80,000 is probably going to be the peak if I go somewhere else.

Okay. Or do you move to Kansas City? Well, the hard part is, I mean, the investment with the kids here and the family, and, I mean, I'm in that neighborhood, in that area where I can leave my car unlocked by accident and not have to worry about it. That's all well and good if you can afford it. Right.

And the house, do you get it as it is, or is there equity that she has to get out of it how's how was that decided she walked away was basically her clothes in the rice cooker and that was it i mean she said i went out and left wow gracious what a heartbreak i'm so sorry so you got everything including the kids yeah well i mean so we have joint custody on the kids but she doesn't she doesn't really do anything to help so it's just basically me so and there's no child support coming to you no okay so you basically have the same exact lifestyle financially uh as far as the debt and the bills but one income is what you're saying well it's always been one income she was

a stay-at-home mom okay okay okay for 13 years okay so all right so really nothing's changed as far as that so the second car you are now in possession of was her car no so we had we had a truck that was an inherited truck it's paid off i had my car i just paid it off um months ago. Mm-hmm. So most vehicles are frame clear. Okay, so the truck's just sitting there. Well, the truck's for the 15-year-old. He's learning how to drive, so that's going to be his mode of transportation. And it's not an expensive truck.

I was about to say, what's it worth? It's an 02 Silverado. So it's just the mortgage. What else is there? The mortgage and the divorce debt? The lawyer fee? There's a $9,000 of my consumer debt that I took. We divide up our expenses. The only way to get her name off the mortgage is refinance it.

Right. That's the scary part because I'll be gaining 2% probably on the mortgage unless the rates go down. Yeah. What's the timeline requirement and the divorce decree for the refinance? There was no timeline. They didn't set a timeline on it. It wasn't written in.

Okay. Let's just say if you did that refinance sooner than later, what does that put you at as far as monthly? How tight does that make it for you? Well'll probably add a million two hundred dollars a month i've already kind of went i kind of done the numbers a couple different ways and when was the divorce final um november let's see the tuesday before thanksgiving so i remember what date that was but it was november of last year okay how are you and the kids doing emotionally? It's up and down.

You know they're having to go from seeing her every day to seeing her for a couple hours on Saturday. You know just I mean or you know if at all during the week. That's tough. My biggest fear too is she's probably got $45,000 in credit card debt that

she accrued while we were together she took with her it's got her name only on it well right but they've already um she put me as like authorized user on some of them authorized user doesn't make you liable okay well i was i was well of course again i've listened to broke people for most of my life but um i was told that they'd come after me if she defaults no only if you didn't sign the card yeah you didn't co-sign the card okay i can put jade i can put jade as an authorized user and it doesn't make her liable i hope i didn't i hope i didn't co-sign the card well check your credit check your credit report and see what's on it it because anything that you used your credit for is going to show up on there. So check and make sure because if there is something you want to get ahead of it,

close it out, pay it off, be done with it. So your question is how to stabilize the situation, okay? First thing we've got to do is address the pain and the heartache and the emotions. The second thing is address the job and decide what's going to happen there. Are we taking a new job? Are we going to take a pay cut? What are we going to do? And then, and only after those two things are settled,

am I going to worry about refinancing the house. There's no rush. Right. And I don't know what rates are going to do. I don't know if they're going to go up or going to go down. But at the end of two years from today, you should have refinanced this and had, you know, completed the break. You need a clean break. You don't want to drag it out forever.

But, you know, that will give you time to get the rest of the stuff done. You might do it in one year if the rates drop a little. If you see them dip and you've got things stabilized on the job, jump over there and get the refi done now, right? Right. So I guess the question would be, should I throw everything, you know, just kind of, I mean, not new to your system, but just take everything, try to get rid of the consumer debt, maybe throw some money in.

Yep. Build an emergency fund. Yeah. Get rid of the consumer debt, build an emergency in yep to throw it uh build an emergency fund yeah get rid of the consumer debt build an emergency fund baby steps one two three and addressing the job really does come come before the the mortgage situation because if you decide to move then that makes that decision for him he's he's not taking the house with him if you're not if the job situation changes and you're not able to stay there's no point in refinancing that's right so if it changes real negatively in other words go up. You never know. I mean, yeah, but he would have to get her to sign off on the sale if he doesn't refinance. Don't know whether they did a quick

claim deed in this or not. They could have done a quick claim deed. She could be on the mortgage and not on the deed. That's a good point. Okay. So usually based on what he told me, I was assuming she'd done a quick claim deed. But we'll see. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Terry's in Chicago. Hi, Terry. How are you? Hi, Mr. Ramsey.

I'm fine. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I'm a single parent. I have a 16-year-old who is interested in working, so she is new to the working world. She's been on her job for a couple weeks now. She will be receiving her first payroll check this week. And I kind of got stumped because I know that I'm trying to get myself to financial freedom. So I kind of got stumped on trying to give her advice on what to do as far as investing,

like which route should she take as far as investing. I want her to be financially secure in her future. And I thought of you when I thought about that. I'm like, you know what, let me call Mr. Ramsey because maybe, you know, you all could give me some pointers on just guiding her on what to do while she's fresh with everything. That's very kind. Very good. Good mom. Good for you. Yeah. I just don't

want her to fall into the same rabbit hole that I did, you know, listening to everyone. I have student, you know, student debt and, um, well, this is a good time to bring up, this is a good time to bring up obviously the conversation of college if you haven't already. And then, you know, we always teach there's three things you can do, give, save, and spend. And so teaching her the balance of that. And obviously, like you said, you're still trying to get your financial situation together. So now's a good time to teach, obviously, not only what to do, but what you've seen not to do. Don't fall into the trap of debt. And that's a great segue into the college conversation. Because if she's starting to work, this is an opportunity for you guys to start talking about school, her saving up for school, you telling her what you have saved or don't have saved for her school.

So right now at that age, the two thoughts I have are college and car, and that's about it. No investing. There doesn't need to be any investing. She's 16. That's right. She's got some things right in front of her she needs to work on, and she needs to learn to make money and control money and start discussing going to a school that we can afford.

And that may mean community college for a couple years. Definitely in-state. A lot of areas that's free. It would certainly mean in-state unless you've got a big pile of money. And so we start shopping that. We start looking at that and say, okay, we need to start setting some money aside towards that or towards your car if you want a car or towards whatever. But, no, she doesn't need Roth IRAs and doesn't need to be an investing genius

while she's still got cars and college in front of her. Those are the things that are going to take her money right now, and some spending and some generosity. But the good news is you're asking the right questions and you're heading in the right direction. Good job. Dustin is with us in North Dakota. Hi, Dustin.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I got a question. I just became a new, well, just found out I'm going to be a father here in the next year.

Congratulations. Thanks. And I'm kind of freaking out a little bit about money. I shouldn't be. I'm not in a hole that much or anything like that, but I got a $30,000 auto loan, and then my wife has $22,000 in student loans. Well, I'd say that's a bit of a hole. Yeah, a little bit, but I'm not struggling by no means. When she graduates here in May, the job she's got, they're going to reimburse her $16,000 over the next five years for student loans at $3,200 a year.

My question is, I guess, is do we continue to focus on paying those down or let them... Yes, we need to get rid of them don't wait five years don't wait don't let them pay i'll let them pay some of it while you're working on the rest of it i mean pay the car off pay the student loan off last so you may get two years worth of this or something but we're not going to stay in debt just so these goobers can give me three thousand dollars okay what do you what's your household income now what do you make so i do a lot of traveling for work i'm my base salary is only supposed to be about 58 but the last two years i've made six figures a hundred thousand okay and what will she be making at the new gig uh she told me 23 an hour working at a hospital okay all right so she's gonna y'all be making

a hundred and a half a year then okay yeah and plus or minus her overtime right if she picks that up and so yeah we'll take advantage of that but with 150 000 a year you got 57 000 in debt you need to clean it up yes now immediately the faster you clean it up and you don't have any payments the faster you're going to build wealth okay do you have any money saved yes i got 10,000 in for an emergency fund and then i have 4,000 and just a normal savings account okay so in a in a normal non-baby coming life i would have told you to clear that 14 000 down to 1 000 and pour it all onto your debt but technically since you're having a baby this is a time to stack up money and stack up what you can and then once baby's born take all that money including

that 13 000 that you had sitting there plus whatever you have saved and throw it at the debt once the baby gets here. Okay. Yeah, exactly. And I will, you know, your debt snowball is you have two debts that are basically equal or very close to equal and I'll pay the student loan off last so that if you get two years worth of the $3,200 from her job, we'll take that, throw it towards the 27. And, you know, just knock that car out really, really fast after the baby comes, though. Okay? Yeah, because, yeah, we live comfortably just fine on my paycheck alone. No, you're not. Quit saying that. You're $57,000 in debt.

You're freaking broke. You're not. If you're comfortable, you shouldn't be. Well, and that's the problem you're 57 000 in debt you're freaking broke you're not you shouldn't if you're comfortable you shouldn't be well and that's the problem if you feel comfortable with this you're going to pay off this car and when the time comes to get a new car you're going to get a car payment yeah that's not don't be comfortable with this it's bad you know just because you got used to it doesn't mean it's good um and just because you can pay your bills and you know make it through friday but you're not prospering when you got got $57,000 in debt hanging around your neck.

Yeah, that's a dirty diaper. It's warm, but it's mine. Smells bad, but it's mine. Oh, my. Okay, there we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go for sure. All right, open phones at 888-825-5225.

Clint is in Mobile, Alabama. Clint, what you got? Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, great. Well, me and my wife are expecting our first child. Yeah.

We're super excited about it. But we're trying to decide if we should sell one of our cars to help pay down on some debt. How much do you owe on it? So we owe about $39,000 on the car. What's it worth? And it's worth about $32,000. Okay. And what's your household income? $80,000. Okay. And what's your household income? $80,000.

Okay. And how much other debt do you have? We have about $7,500 in student loans, but other than that, that's it. Okay. And the other car is paid for? Yes. And it's worth what? It's worth about $ worth what uh it's worth about 26 okay all right well good rule of thumb

is to not have more than about half your annual income and things that have wheels and motors and you're violating that so you've got a 26 and a 32 right right right so 58 and you make 80 yeah so yeah i'd sell the car you have too much you have too much car okay okay um so in this time that we're i mean we're still pretty early on in the pregnancy uh it's not it's not necessary you sell it before the baby comes but you know over the next year or so i'm going to be out of this thing and being something I can actually afford. You bought a car that's your two cars added together. You have too much tied up and things are going down in value.

And so that's where we come up with that. It's not, it's a formula that, that, you know, you're, you're all Americans. We were, we love our cars, man. And we love them to the point that they end up owning us if we're not real careful. We have so much invested in things that are going backward. We can't figure out why we're not prospering because all the money's tied up and stuff is going down. If you had a mutual fund to what your car did, you'd have a fit. This is The Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day, Galatians 6-9 Let us not grow weary of doing good For in due season we will reap if we do not give up Peter Marshall said most of us know perfectly well what we ought to do Our trouble is that we don't want to do it Elisa is with us in Chicago Hi Elisa, how are you? Good, how are you How are you? Good. How are you, Dave and Jade?

Good. How can we help? So I am a 23-year-old college student majoring in finance and economics. Considered a homeless student. I was raised by a single mother and breaking a lot of family curses and a lot of first-generation college students. And that is all to say, you know, I want to create financial freedom for myself and I believe I have the right mindset of doing so. And this pertains to my question of me being a believer in God and how do I handle the comments people make, not necessarily financially saying that I can never get there,

but why should I in the first place? Like, why would I want to? The mindset of being financially free, and they say, you know, Jesus says it's easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to make it to heaven, which is true, but they pretty much make it seem I'm evil or I'm doomed given I want to be wealthy. And, you know, I know being wealthy requires intent, so I have to stay focused. But it's starting to mess with my mindset of like, oh, like, is this wrong? You know, because I value Jesus. Who are the they that are saying these things to you? Just people I come in contact with, whether it's like, you know, even family or.

Well, honey, you're going to come in contact with ignorant people your like you know even family or well honey you're gonna come in contact with ignorant people your whole life yeah yeah i just i wanted to know like i don't mind answering it for you but we can't fix their biblical illiteracy okay so i can for instance i can take that scripture and let's talk it through okay So that comes from the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and he said, Master, I want to follow you. And Jesus said, go and sell all that you have and serve the poor and then you can follow me. And the story says he went away with his head hung low

because he was very wealthy and he didn't want to sell his stuff to follow Jesus. And Jesus turned to the disciples and said, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven. Okay? And the disciples, if you keep reading, were greatly amazed. They were blown away by that statement because it was believed in those times that wealthy people could buy their way into heaven. And so the disciples said, who then, Master, can be saved? And Jesus said, no one can be saved.

No one comes to the Father except through the Son. Meaning that this is a teaching on grace through the cross of Christ. It is not a teaching about wealthy people not going to heaven. Wealthy people don't go to heaven, nor do poor people go to heaven, except through the Father, through the Son that gave his life on the cross. That's the teaching that Jesus was doing there. So what you have here is someone who's doing Twitter, or worse than that tiktok doctrine meaning they've

abbreviated it and didn't follow through and read the whole thing so they don't know what the flip they're talking about because it's not what the bible is saying nor was it what jesus was saying he wasn't saying you can't get to heaven because you're wealthy he was saying that young man didn't go to heaven because he wouldn't follow christ not because he wouldn't sell his stuff but jesus looked into his heart and said you have an idol in your heart and you have something between me and you and it's your stuff and so if you worship stuff you have a problem that's not a christian act christians aren't supposed to have idols as a matter of

fact, most of us that are believers actually believe that we don't own anything. We're managing all of it for God, and part of our management is to take care of our own household first, or we're worse than an unbeliever, right? So this is someone who didn't finish reading, and because they grew up poor, and they they heard poor stuff and somebody told them in a poor church somewhere that being poor is somehow holy poor is not holy rich is not holy holy is holy and this is somebody that's jealous and small-minded and so forth because they don't deal with scriptures like deuteronomy 18 that says, and you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. Why would it say in the Bible that God gives you the power to get wealth

and then say you can't get to heaven after you did that? That would be inconsistent. But it's not inconsistent because that isn't what Jesus was saying. And he didn't say that money is the root of all evil, did he? You know, Alicia, you know he said that the love of money is the root of all evil. And so this is a form of heresy. It's called Gnosticism that has invaded the poor-mouthed American Christian. And here's the real problem with it.

It's actually so statistically off that it's astronomically bad. So those people, if you were to ask them that made those ridiculous statements, okay, if you were to ask them, so you're saying the people with the top 1% of income in the world would be named wealthy? Yes. And you would be saying those people aren't going to heaven. Yes. Well, here's a startling number for you. If you make $30,000 a year, you're in the top 1% of income earners in the world. So you're going to hell based on that ridiculous doctrine that is so biblically illiterate.

Okay? And so that, you know, but you can't convince those people of that. But this is how, you know, once you understand that, then this gives you permission to go be the winner that you're planning to be without guilt. Now, I don't want you to worship money, and I don't want you to be a greedy jerk. I always want you to be generous.

Those will be Christian activities. I want you to put others first. I want you to be thoughtful. I want you to be managing all of this money in a way that makes God smile and that takes care of your family and takes care of your community. But guess what? Poor people don't feed hungry children. Rich people are the ones that feed them.

You know, who's getting people out of Haiti right now? Rich people. That's who's getting the orphans. I was with a friend this week and they dropped some serious money getting 15 orphans out of a cave to keep those gangs from raping them and turning them into sex traffic. It wasn't poor people did that. These rich guys chartered a freaking helicopter with some ex-Special Forces guys, went in and got 15 kids out. That won't be on the news, but rich guys that are in America did that that are Christians.

Poor people didn't do that crap, I'm just telling you. So this is what you do when you get some money. You serve the poor. You take care of people that are hurting. You lift people up. But you can't do that when you're freaking broke. This is how stupid this doctrine is. This wrong, toxic version makes me angry.

Can you tell? Yeah. I wanted to give you the slow clap, but it's not appropriate. So good. Lisa, I'm going to send you a copy of the book I did on this subject. It's called The Legacy Journey, and it's got a whole bunch of these things in there that I just outlined for you, and it'll help you. Give you permission to win. But what you've got to do is you have to be careful who you let have your ear.

Don't let these people speak into your ear. Like you said, you're breaking generational curses. And, you know, I grew up in a neighborhood where people said stuff like little man can't get ahead. The rich man always holds the little man down. And if you believe that crap, you're always going to be a little man. But I grew up in that neighborhood and I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm so stupid. I had to become a millionaire twice. So I had to do it two times just to prove it could be done, I guess. So you're a rock star, kiddo.

You're amazing. And don't let anyone tell you you shouldn't or couldn't or won't win. Go win. Dave, I'm not going toe-to-toe with that. I'm not going toe-to-toe with you on that. That's great. That's one of the best, I'm going to toe to toe with that I'm not going toe to toe with you on that that's great that's one of the best I'm going to call it a rant that's one of the best rants I've heard in a long time

I think a lot of people need to hear that well I mean it's just it really hurts me because it violates our faith yeah it does it's an inaccurate portrayal of our faith and so then it means everyone who says they're a Christian that's wealthy,

that started from nothing and built wealth, is going to hell. How ridiculous is that? It's absolutely ludicrous. And it's obviously not what Jesus was saying. That's right. So my goodness gracious. Good word. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now.

Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar and download the app today. That's RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar.