The Ramsey Show - Why Your Money Isn't A Math Problem, It's A YOU Problem

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

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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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. The phone number is 888-825-5225. My co-host today is best-selling author Ramsey Personality and host of the George Camel Show,

the one and only George Camel. And George, we're celebrating a little bit today. One year ago, we started the George Camel with a K show on YouTube and it has blown up. Uh, we've now in one year, you've had over 30 million total views on that channel. Uh, one and a half million unique viewers a month. Wow. And, uh, 200,000 subscribers in the first year. That is wild.

Pretty incredible. A one year old channel. Thank you. I think we need a little smash cake. Isn't that what the one year olds is wild pretty incredible a one-year-old channel thank you i think we need a little smash cake isn't that what the one-year-olds get at the birthday parties yeah okay but we'll work on that no yeah anyway yeah the it has been fun we've i mean three videos a week for a year is is no small task for the type of content we've been making very entertaining highly informative we're trying to just kind of, as you've called it, displacing all the filth that's out there on the Internet

when it comes to financial advice. And I put that in quotes loosely. And so it's been a lot of fun riling the Internet up, sometimes for good reason, sometimes with a lot of hate. And I feel like I'm walking in your footsteps now. I get it. This is what it feels like. The riling up part.

That's how you know it's working. If you're not pissing some people off. You know, obviously the team and you are putting out a great product on YouTube. The George Campbell Show, you guys check it out. Again, 30 million views in one year. That's a lot of people. I can't count that many people. That's more than I got fingers.

I know that. So there you go. And 200,000 subscribers and a million and a half a week joining us. people that's um it's more than i got fingers i know that so there you go and 200 000 subscribers and a million and a half a week joining us so thank you guys for supporting george but also george and the team congratulations i'm really really thrilled for you very very cool stuff jesse starts this hour in baltimore jesse what's up hi um i'm thank you so much for taking my call. I'm just surprised that I got through, so I'm not completely prepared. And I have to warn you, if my husband comes home, I'm going to have to hang up real quick. Why? home mom. I was a doctor before that, but ever since having my kids a few years ago, I've just been staying home. And, um, the deal was that I don't have to worry about money and my husband will take care of everything and he'll manage the big house and the cars and all that. And I just

buy what I want, what I want. Uh, I started to notice that my credit card bill was not getting paid off in full. I would say around September, October. This was the second time that it happened. And then the first time he paid it all off. And then this time it was not paid off. So I finally started asking him more questions. And I found out he has a lot more than I have of credit card debt. And he has car loans.

And I just wasn't paying attention at all. And now we're basically in trouble with debt. And we're going to have to move to a smaller house. I don't know how we're going to pay for the kids. So this whole thing of you buy whatever you want didn't work. No. Yeah. And I'm looking at our pool right now and it's it's a joke it's all a joke

how can we help sorry my question for you is like i'm still kind of discovering what's going on so how do i talk to him in a way that doesn't offend him or emasculate him or make him feel, because he, I think, feels like that's why I'm like, I'll have to hang out with him at work, because he would like, it would kill him that I'm even asking you this, because he wants to be the man in charge, taking care of everyone. Well, the proper man in charge shares the burden of running the household with his wife. And he's such a wonderful father's nothing manly about secretly going into debt yeah there's nothing that's not that's not the man in charge he's dealing with a lot of shame and a lot of guilt he thought he was supposed to

handle this all by himself and he doesn't and that's why he didn't want to talk about it but i think the two of you got to work this is a relationship issue the two of you got to work. This is a relationship issue. The two of you have got to sit down together and you just say, hey, look, I screwed up by dumping this whole thing on you because you did. Because you did. Okay. Yeah. So you can apologize for that and say, and so whatever the mess is, we're going to face it together.

And whatever the mess is, as two adults, we're going to work together to get it fixed. So let me sit down and let's walk together because I love you. You're my husband. We're going to walk together as two adults in full disclosure. You probably made some mistakes. I made a huge mistake by asking you. It wasn't right for me to ask you to carry the whole thing by yourself. And so I'm going to sit down.

Now let's go forward, not backward. Let's go forward and say how can we work together and the first step of working together and it is for us to get everything out and put it on the table put the kids to bed and let's just look at it and let's figure out a game plan of how we how we clean up the mess and and I'm wherever that is uh if we need to stay in a tent I'm going with you okay um and so and if i need to pick up some shifts or something i will do that i mean but we'll sit down together and let's look at it together and it's just not it's not condemning his stupid decisions he made some stupid decisions but

but he was but he also had it's all clouded in this shame. And that's why he doesn't want to talk about it. He feels inept. He feels, it's hurt his self-esteem. Uh-huh. Confidence. And rightly so. That's how I felt. I felt like an idiot when I went broke.

Mm-hmm. Kind of cause I was. Hello? I wasn't an idiot. But I had done some idiot butt stuff that caused us to go broke. And it really wasn't Sharon's fault. But I felt, you know, and she was scared to death like you are. That's why the tears are so close to the top.

Because not knowing is more scary than knowing something hard. Exactly. Yeah. And tell him that. Okay. Not knowing is more scary to me than knowing something hard. And I'm worried about you, and I'm worried about us, and I want us to get on the same page and lock arms.

I'm not here to beat you up. I made a mistake. You probably made some mistakes, but we can put all that in the rearview mirror, and let's just go how we can go forward. Okay. Does that sound clean? You have no idea how helpful that is. I mean, or maybe you do.

I feel like I don't even, oh, my God. Well, let me tell you, my wife is a tough hillbilly woman, and she was so scared she couldn't breathe when we went through that. That's what I feel like. Yeah. She said she felt like she was driving a car and hit an ice thing, and the car's spinning, and she's going to hit something. She just doesn't know what.

That's what I feel like. Out of control. Yep. Well, we want to help you take the next step, Jessie. We're what I feel like. Out of control. Yep. Well, we want to help you take the next step, Jessie. We're going to gift you one year of every dollar premium, and you and your husband are going to sit down, lay out all the debts, and if you're not even sure, go pull credit reports on both of you, find out everything on paper, then make that detailed budget with every dollar,

list your income, list all of the expenses, all of the debts, and it's going to be scary at first, but then you're going to be able to make a plan together the debts, and it's going to be scary at first. But then you're going to be able to make a plan together and go, how are we going to tackle this debt? Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's a little bit like, you know, one of my buddies got diagnosed with cancer the other day. And that just completely puts you, you know, it knocks you out emotionally.

And then you know what's worse than that? It's like three weeks before they tell you anything else. Because they can't seem to get into what three weeks of not knowing. The unknown is so much harder. You know, it's not knowing is harder. Just sign me up for the chemo. Sign me up for the plan. You know, let's just get what's the plan.

That's not as hard as not knowing. This is the Ramsey Show. These days, it's not if hard as not knowing. This is the Ramsey Show. These days, it's not if your identity gets stolen, it's when. And the only ID theft protection plan I have ever recommended is from Zander Insurance. It helps real people with real-life situations. Like the call we got on the show recently where a woman's abusive ex opened a credit card in her name and racked up over $8,000 in debt. Then the bank sued her, even though the charges weren't hers. What a mess.

With Xander's help, she was able to get the entire nightmare cleared up, and now her family is officially debt-free. Listen, Xander's Identity Theft Protection is the best option out there. They have all the cyber tools and monitoring services you need. They cover all types of ID theft, and they even include up to $2 million in stolen funds protection. In the end, though, you need an ally, someone on your side to take over the work and fix the problem. That's what Zander is all about. Go to zander.com to learn more. Call 800-356-4282. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is our co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. George, I'm so excited about this Total Money Makeover weekend.

It's a month away. Yeah. It's right here on campus at our Ramsey Events Center, and we're going to walk you on Friday night and all day Saturday, George and Rachel Cruz and Jade Warshaw and me, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman. We're going to walk you through everything you need to do to completely change your whole household. Not only how to get out of debt, not only how to create a proper budget on every dollar, not only how to get along with your spouse or those of you that are single, how to deal with

those issues, and when it comes to money and how to make more money for Mr. Ken Coleman is a good idea because more money helps us go faster, right? We're going to go through every bit of it, and you're going to leave here. So bring your reluctant spouse. Bring your friend that and you're going to leave here so bring your reluctant spouse bring your friend that thinks you're crazy because by the time they leave i promise you they will be crazy we will convert them there's something about a live event dave you've been doing these for 30 years but it's so different than just listening to the show or reading a book it's an experience and we're gonna do a bunch of q a we're gonna get to hang out with you guys there's it's a whole weekend and we do this show on the glass from 1 to 4 Central Time.

So you can roll in here a little bit early on Friday, watch that, and then come on up to the event center, and we're going to do – I'm going to be speaking that night. You guys are going to do a live taping of Smart Money Happy Hour up there that night. And we'll do some other stuff. And then Saturday is buckle in because here we go, baby. That's the game on day. I love it.

Prepare your hearts. This is a great event. And if you're already doing the stuff, it's your pep rally. If you need to get somebody on board, it's your method of converting them to this thing called common sense. And there's all the people who are ish. They were kind of doing the plan. Maybe they fell off the wagon. This is their moment to get back on and actually do this stuff as you said i've been doing it a long time and we've uh filled theaters and arenas across the

nation doing this this material in different versions i mean this obviously is all updated we're going to deal with current modern stuff on this but but the number of times i run into somebody saying you know 10 years ago went to your event not only we get out of debt it saved our marriage not only save our marriage but now we're millionaires wow and you know i run into that just like the catalyst was that event yeah but that experience turned the corner it was it was the pivot point there you go the hinge the hinge pin yeah there you go man so check it out get your tickets platinum plus tickets are sold out but there are platinums a a couple, and a couple of VIPs and general admissions are still available.

RamseySolutions.com slash events. It is May 10th and 11th on campus here. Come to Nashville. You're going to have a great time in Nashville, and we are going to, you know, we're going to pour out everything we got to help you change your life. We leave it all on the dance floor. There we go. That's what we say.

Nothing left except on the floor. That's it. Leave it all on the field. All right. Anthony is in Los Angeles. Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Hi, George. Call me because I'm looking for some hope. I got told, well, actually, we have $29,000 of debt on a vehicle, and we made $196,000 this past year. Right now, our current year to date is $57,000 gross, a little bit over $57,000 gross. We have this $29,000 debt and $52,000 and $57,000 gross. We have this $29,000 debt and 52 and 51 and you know we just we're looking for hope. We want to know if we can ever buy a home and be millionaires. You know I did my budget for this month and it's a little higher than normal because we had some things

come in that weren't planned. Normally on average our budget is about $8,300 a month right now to $11,000. A little bit over $11,000. But yeah, I'm just really frustrated and we're looking for hope. We want to own a home. We're not old, but we're not as young as we used to be.

We just want to be out of debt and own a home and have peace. So I'm just looking for some hope. Well, what is your car payment right now? It is, I think it's $1,016 a month, if I'm not mistaken. For one car? For one car, yeah. The other two cars are paid off.

Okay. Well, that's a problem. It's not the reason that you don't have hope, because that alone is not the factor. You also live in California, high cost of living out there. Homes are going to be wildly expensive. So it might look different for you guys, but there is hope for you yet when you make $200,000. That's a good start. Yeah. So how quickly can we knock out this car? I'm sorry? How quickly can we knock out this car loan making $200,000? Well, I know that I'm going to make more this year because I'm in sales, so the more I hustle, the more I can make.

The issue is that I did the math, and our average monthly budget is about $8,300. Now, this year after I've net, I netted $9,300. But this month's budget is $3,333. Are you guys investing right now? No, we stopped. We have a 401k. We have $17,000 net. And then we have $5,000 in an emergency fund.

Okay, so you have $5,000 in the emergency fund. You've paused investing. You have $29,000 left on the car loan uh anthony yeah uh yeah nine thousand dollars is 9 300 let's just round it up to 10 000 that's 120 000 a year if you make yeah that's my just a minute that's my um no no stop listen if you make a if you're bringing home 120 and you000, something's really wrong because there's not an $80,000 tax bill on a $200,000 income. I forgot to mention that I get SPFs, too.

That's the net from my regular paycheck, but I also get income for selling chassis from the OEM, and also I get money spiffs from the body companies for building bodies. Is that included in the $200,000 but not included in the $9,000? Exactly, exactly. So I have another $1,200 coming in in about a week and a half, two weeks from spiffs. Okay. How big is your tax refund, Ben? The tax refund we're getting for, we're getting $8,800, I believe, for $8,300. Yeah.

So you're having way too much held out of your account. About $700 a month. Out of your check. Yeah. I'm having way much without, okay? Yeah, because a tax refund is the government giving you money back because you overpaid your taxes. That's what a tax refund is.

I understand. So you've been overpaying by about $700 a month out of your checks. Out of my checks on taxes. Yeah, you're overpaying your taxes. So you need to change your withholding by about $700 a month, assuming your income stays the same. So you've got some things you need to do to adjust along those lines, and then that's going to help you get the car knocked out a lot faster. The second thing is that when you say you're doing a budget, you are doing a budget differently than

we teach. So we're going to upgrade your budget experience, because your budget experience is you write down what you hope is going to happen, and then when you look back, it didn't happen. That's not how you do a budget. A budget is you're going to write down exactly before the month begins where every dollar is going to go. It all has a name, and your wife and you are going to look at it. Both of you are going to agree to that number and we're not going to change anything on this budget unless we come back together and have another budget

committee meeting. And you're not doing that now. When you say you're budgeting, you're just kind of like, yeah, I had an idea what I thought it ought to be and it wasn't. That's a different thing. I'm talking about exact, like you were running a business unit for me and I was going to fire your butt if you didn't get your number straightened out. And you would look at every stinking detail and you'd write it all out in detail and you'd have agreement with your wife and nobody gets off the budget train without a ticket. Okay. Period. Hardcore. Once you agree to it, it's a a contract you pinky swear and spit shake that's it baby now once we're doing that you're gonna find a bunch of money because you've got this loosey-goosey idea of how life's supposed to work although it's not working that way

so you're kind of letting all this happen to you and i want you to happen to it this is proactive instead of reactive in other words so we're going to plug you into the every dollar budgeting app for free as my gift our gift from george and i and financial peace university the class you and your wife go through the class together watch every lesson don't miss a single lesson this has helped 10 million people get their crap together and you can do this and you can own a house on 200 000 a year in los angeles california it's possible it's not easy but if it was easy everybody would do it this is the ramsey show 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. Why refi? Why 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 Y-RAMSI or go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey. That's 844-2-RAMSI or the letter Y, then R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. YREFI is not licensed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. YREFI 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. Man, I got to tell you, we are thankful for you folks out there. The ratings and the numbers on this show, on podcast, on YouTube, on talk radio are just mind-blowing. It is the, I mean, we've had a billion and a half downloads on YouTube now. That's just, I can't even get my head around that. And, um, but the reason is you guys are spreading the word and we appreciate you doing that. There's no possible way that we see the results we're seeing in all the rankings and things, unless you guys are telling people about the show. It's not simple search engine stuff. It's, it's good old fashioned word of mouth, even if it is in digital form. So click the share button on your platform or, you know,

cut and paste the link or whatever and send it to your friend. Subscribe to the shows in whatever format you're using it. Follow the show, whatever format you're using it. All of that stuff really helps push the show forward where people that are just coming in for the first time see it. And it pushes it out there into the light, so to speak. You are our marketing plan. So thank you.

That's a good one. Thank you for that. It's word of mouth. It always has been. Always has been. The best marketing is somebody likes your stuff and tells somebody else. Always has been. And we appreciate that.

We don't have anything fancy. It's just that simple. We want to help you, and we'll help your friend if you send them over here too so uh thanks for hanging out with us and again we appreciate that oh and those five star reviews they make a big difference in the algorithm too greg is in boston mass hey greg welcome to the ramsey show hey dave hey george long time How you doing? Hey, better than we deserve, sir. What's up? So, I'm 27 years old and I'm making a lot of money. I make about 220 grand a year. I've got about 160 in my Fidelity account and 70 in the bank and it's a great job. But last year, they sent me international

for about 100 days of the year and I really fell in love with it, made a lot of connections, learned the language. It was amazing. And now I want to kind of further that, but it seems like international is off the table for this year and the forthcoming. And I kind of want to move out there.

I've applied to some university programs and got accepted and it's a big choice if I'm going to quit this job to go follow that dream out there or you know I I take the gift I was given and you know I listen to the show a lot and I almost feel kind of guilty even thinking about this what would you make in the new position that you've applied for? So it's not a new position, right? I'd go over there. Okay, you said you applied at a university. I heard that, right?

Yep. What did you apply to do? To study the language more. It would be studying the local language more. You can do that with Duolingo from the comfort of your home. Why do you need to move there? And I do. Okay, so you didn't apply for a job. You applied to learn the language. Exactly. So what's going to be your job?

So that's the hard part, right? If I can, I want to continue the job of Matt working remotely, of course, but I don't know. That's exactly it. I don't want to waste my young years like all my peers around me tell me I'm going to if I don't follow this dream, right? It's not a dream. It's a nightmare. That's what mom and dad say. I don't care if you run to something, but you're running off into the clouds

and into the mist like there's a unicorn waiting on you. I mean, what the flip man really so play this out years later you told me you had a position doing something over there and you love that culture and you want to go immerse in that culture and learn the language and you told me you had a position even making less than you're making now then yeah let's talk about that but just absolutely nothing i'm just going to move over there and learn the language and i'm for yes so my you're a little old for your gap year i know i guess my thought was you know i'm learning the language and becoming uh more professional in it i could then transfer my business skills with that language to work over there.

Where is over there? Where are you talking about? Tokyo, Japan. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Hmm.

Okay. The only, I mean, you called to ask our opinion, and it's really the only thing I'm an expert on is my opinion. So if you were my son, who's a slight bit older than you and you came in and said, dad, what do you think about this? I'd say, I like the whimsical part of it. It sounds kind of cool, kind of fun. Uh, you know, the Japanese culture is a great culture to learn. The language is difficult, um, but you can learn it. I'm sure you've already had had some some runs at it and you've had

some experience there um uh and um but but it it feels very disjointed and listless because you're not going to something other than tokyo so right you gotta you to put one more piece in this you got to put the career piece in this puzzle somehow and i don't care what that is and if it takes you six months to land something there uh through your connections and what you're already doing and you find something even if you're making 75 of what you're making tokyo is uber expensive it's one of the most expensive cities in the world so you're gonna have to go to go over there. I mean, you're going to burn through $160,000 in savings in about 20 seconds here. So I want you to go to something that's more certain than the vague thing you're describing for you. It doesn't matter to me, Greg.

It's not going to affect me at all. But if I'm in your shoes, you are single. You do have a pile of money. You can go on an adventure. But make your adventure better. This is a low-quality adventure that you're describing. I'm just thinking if I'm Greg, I'm just going to start applying for similar roles that are based in Tokyo. Yeah. That would be a smarter move.

And then you can learn the language here. You'll obviously learn it better when you're entrenched in the culture, but that doesn't seem to be the factor holding you back. It's, I need a job when I get there. Wait a minute. I mean, I just... Greg, are you with us? Hey, Greg, you still with me?

Yep, I'm here. Is there a girl there? No. Are you sure? I mean, hey, it's possible to happen, but not at the moment, no. Okay, because that would explain how illogical all this is. Okay. Dave's always digging for some rom-com.

A swing and a miss. Yeah, that's it. Dave's looking for the hallmark and everything. No, I'm not looking for the hallmark. I'm trying to figure out why this guy who otherwise seems very on to things and is so buttoned up on this one issue just lost his dadgum mind love will make you do that yeah i was trying to figure it out i thought it was a girl okay put a girl in it okay did i was swinging a miss okay anyway but yeah so anyway

greg we we love you we want you to win i want you to go on the adventure but i don't want you coming home regretting that you went on the adventure that's where i'm trying to get to i don't want you coming home regretting that you went on the adventure. That's where I'm trying to get to. I don't want the 30-year-old, 35-year-old version of you going, what the heck? You know, no, you don't want that. And so there's no anchor points in this. There's nothing. It feels sort of untethered, very mushy, you know. So I want you to go do it, but I want you to do a better version of what you're talking about than what you're giving me.

I like that plan. Okay. That's not quite a dream killer, but it's a nightmare killer. I'm big on killing nightmares, and some of you, Dave's a dream killer. Now, I've had a bunch of dreams that turned into nightmares, and I know what they look like because I'm old. So we try to keep you from doing that to yourself because we love you. So that's it. Well, it's kind of like moving to Mexico because I love tacos.

I need a bigger dream than that, Dave. Yeah, the tacos are better there, but it's not a great reason to move. And you've eaten a lot of tacos in Mexico, so you're the expert on that. Now you're just getting personal right here. I'm just saying. I'm sorry. Has your Spanish increased as you've traveled? here. I'm just saying. I'm sorry. Has your Spanish increased as you've traveled? George, that was just me.

My Spanglish is excellent. So I can manage myself around, but I still don't know what they're saying about me. So there you go. That's the key. Loco gringo. What's that mean anyway? I would tell you, but I think we'll be taken off the air. So yeah, you need to do some stuff like that.

And the good news for Greg's situation is he is unencumbered. He doesn't have a lot of stuff holding him here. So it is a good time to do this. He would survive it. But I think you're going to have a better quality adventure if it has another element or two to the plan. There's a little more purpose to it. Yeah. More anchor points with your job. just eating money i just want some eating money you know it's i'll be doing something 220 to zero that's a steep decline in income

that's how it sounds this 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. So 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

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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 slash deloney. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Gordon is in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Gordon. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Yeah, thank you for taking my call, and I appreciate all that you teach. Thank you. Just wanted to give you advice on some problems. Well, not problems, but decisions to make. So I'm on the step to getting ready to liquidate my after-tax investment account, clean out my savings besides the $1,000 baby emergency fund to attack some personal loans. My question to you is, would it be worth it to take a loan out of my 401k just to clear out all the personal loans since the interest on the 401k loan is

essentially paid to myself. No. How much debt do you have? Personal loans, about $22,000, and then steering loans, about $30,000. Okay. And how much are all these after-tax investments going to create when you liquidate them? Only about $6,000 and another $6,000 or $7,000 in savings. Okay. So it brings your debt down to $40,000 if you do that. From $52,000, yeah.

So you've got $40,000 in debt. What's your household income? Right around $155,000 before tax. Good. Okay. All right. The problem with a 401k loan is several fold. One is, yes, you do pay yourself back the interest,

but you unplug that portion of the investment from the mutual funds that would have been earning you $12,000 this year, maybe even more percent. So maybe you would have made $15,000 paid yourself five instead. Uh, bad idea. Number one, number two, when you leave the company and you will leave the company, uh, when you die, when you get a better job or when they fire you, you will leave the company. Okay. Uh, and if that loan is still in place at that time, it's becomes due in full. If you do not pay it off in 60 days, it's considered an early withdrawal with all the taxes and penalties. So that is leaves you very, very vulnerable. It's a really bad loan. Um, and so, and you've still still got forty thousand dollars to pay off regardless of

what we do making 155 which you ought to do in what like a year yes if i really yeah if you do if you get on beans and rice rice and beans and you tear into it it sounds like you've studied our stuff and you're doing you know you're cleaning out everything you're leaving a thousand dollars you're going to stop adding to the 401k yes i would do that but we never tell people to borrow on a 401k ever i don't even offer the borrowing option to our team couldn't do it if you wanted to here which is good stop people from doing available just not available just because i'm not going to participate you doing something stupid it's that simple so um the uh but no i I, I,

that's the problems with it is you, you're going to get, you just leave yourself very, very vulnerable as opposed to a regular loan, so to speak. I mean, if you went and got just another loan at the bank for 40,000 and paid off and cleaned them up, but you've got one big loan instead at 5%, you know, that would be okay because you don't have all these other problems you didn't unplug an investment that might have made you 12 or 15 and you didn't leave yourself open to penalties and taxes in the event you leave that particular position so um because other i mean pretend somebody came along offered you double income you got to think about not taking that because you got these stupid handcuffs that you've created.

Yeah, that's what people do. They go, oh, I was going to take that better job, but then I had borrowed on my 401 and I was going to get hammered. So, yeah, that's what you don't want to do, Gordon. This is gone in less than a year. I mean, if you make $155,000 after taxes, let's call it $110,000, you can live off $60,000 and pay off $ and pay off 50 in a year and so it's gone yeah it's a 40 000 and you're probably going to add to your income and you're probably going to find some other stuff so maybe it's 14 months maybe it's 15 months maybe it's nine months i don't know but it's somewhere in that range it's not a but it's not worth doing something five year issue

yeah and i wouldn't put all of this other stuff at risk for that and so no i've never told anybody to do that. And, folks, it's a good idea. Aside from Gordon's question, let's just sidebar a second, George. The thing that we have figured out at Ramsey that a lot of people in the financial world are now acknowledging because we've made such a big footprint in the space, but most of the people when I was growing up in the financial world, we thought all this was a math problem. It's all about the math. Well, hey, the interest is higher here. Why wouldn't I do this with lower interest? All I got to do is fix the math and I'm going to be okay.

And what I've discovered in 35 years of doing this is it's not a math problem. It's a me problem. It's 80% personal finances, 80% behavior, and 20% head knowledge. Now, why does that matter? Well, if you fix the math and you don't fix the behavior, you're going to be right back in the soup. That's why debt consolidation doesn't work. That's why we call it a con. Because you move all your debt from one place over to another into one big loan. In this case, he's using a 401k to do it.

Now, in his case, it doesn't apply because he is actually changing. He has changed what he's doing. He's cleaning out these savings accounts. He's thinking about this. He's doing a budget. You can hear Gordon's really focused, right? So this particular part of the discussion does not apply to Gordon, okay, because I think he's beyond that.

He's willing to make the sacrifices. But a lot of people that have called me over the years that want to do a debt consolidation, I want to move my debt over here. First thing is out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Bible says, and they say, I paid off my debt. With the debt consolidation. No, you didn't. You moved it.

You put it in the junk drawer. You didn't pay it off. But what that tells me is you took the pressure off of yourself, and it's now okay because I paid it off. No, you didn't. You moved it, and you still got the problem in your mirror. This person is still not handling money. This person is still spending money like they're in Congress. They're not on a written plan.

This person in the mirror is still impulsive. This person in the mirror is still not working with their spouse. They're still not thinking long term. They're still doing a bunch of other stupid stuff. And so the debt's going to grow back. And we know from the debt consolidation industry that 88% of you, that's nine out of 10 that take out a debt consolidation loan, your debt grows back after you move it. So you end up with twice as much debt because you don't change the behaviors, habits, character issues that caused it in the first place. Yeah, and these are all shortcuts at the end of the day, and it feels like you did something when you take a shortcut. But the problem is, like you said, you're going to be right back where

you started. When people do these 401k loans or the HELOC or whatever the move is, they actually end up in the same place they were a year from now. Yeah. Because the same person. And you've got to transform if you want to see different results. Yeah. And so, you know, same thing happens with your marriage. OK. How many times, you know, somebody and I know people because, again, you go through enough life, you see this but i know people who um are in a marriage and they have a certain set of behavior problems in their relationship they get divorced and go marry a new person with the exact same set of issues and they didn't fix their own issues so they do they just do it again because they thought that they thought the problem was that person and it wasn't it was the issues that

were not addressed the core things you go with you and so yeah you the problem is you take you with you when you do all this stuff and me too i'm the same thing so the the beautiful thing that happened when sharon and i went broke was we didn't have a choice. We had to change. We didn't have any food. Electricity was cut off. We had to change. We had to address the ridiculousness of our decision-making paradigms, our ridiculous set of assumptions, our stupid intellectualizing, rationalizing ridiculous financial concepts with my intellect that absolutely caused me to lose everything because i'm an idiot you know i had to face all that i didn't have a choice you ran out of shortcuts there was not i was everything

was gone i just left with this mirror you know and i'm stuck with me and i'm like god you you are a problem and that but the beautiful thing about something that dramatic and traumatic is you you come away from it change you don't have a choice when you guys are just kind of everything's okay and nothing's smacking the crap out of you to get your attention you don't have to face it and so our job here is to keep you from having those extreme experiences and instead letting you choose to face it rather than all your choices are taken away yeah be the preventative medicine that's how this whole thing works guys that's why this ramsey stuff works is we have figured out person the guy in your mirror the gal in your mirror is the problem

that's the bad news the good news is they're the solution. 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. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of The George Campbell Show on YouTube, which is, by the way, exploding. He's my co-host. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

James is with us to start this hour in Connecticut. Hi, James, how are you? Hey, Dave, how are you? Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, just blessed, man. I'm doing good.

Good. How can we help? Yeah, so I guess my question is, about seven years ago, I was a heroin addict, and I had $736. And now I'm a top performer in my industry industry and i've done really well in that industry and now i have um you know a lot of liquid money and we're just getting into real estate so my main question is very simple is how do i go from being a multi-millionaire to a deca-millionaire wow wow congratulations thank you you kicked one of the you kicked one of the hardest ones out there heroin's a's a big deal. How old are you? Yeah, well, I am 43 years old. Without Jesus Christ, I wouldn't be here.

Amen. Amen. And so what do you do? I am in the solar industry. Okay. And how much cash have you piled up? I have about, you know, liquid that's like not attached to anything. That's just sitting in like a 5% account. I got about 400,000. Okay, good. So you basically earned a bunch of money and didn't spend any of it. That's an old formula, right? Uh, yeah. I mean, I would say I was like, you know, 70, 80% really, you know, good with my money. I mean, I've enjoyed myself a little bit, but I haven't been irresponsible. I've kept most of my money for me and my family so that we could, you know,

live a life that everybody deserves. Yeah. Okay. The folks that I know, so your net worth is now what? Probably, you know, around a couple million. Okay. With, you know, investments, you know, house money that I have liquid. And then we, you know, right now we're currently, um, in the flips, we're doing flips. So I got, you know, between me and a

business partner, we have about 300 grand into that and we're making, you know, we got a good percentage off of that. Um, but you know, now we're looking into, um, you know, multiple, multiple level, you know, multi-unit buildings, you know, either flipping those or getting them and holding them and that kind of thing. And you're doing all of that with cash? Yeah. No debt? No. I mean, that's what I would be utilizing the $350,000 to $400,000. I would deploy that towards that avenue.

Okay. Just making sure I understand the principles that you're operating on. That's good. All right. Yeah. Well, congratulations. Your story is amazing. Very well done.

Well, my experience of working with folks that go from, you know, a $4 million or $5 million net worth to a $10 million, $20 million, $30 million net worth, it generally has to do with two main things. One is it's an entrepreneurial endeavor. You can't 401k yourself into $ 20 million. It doesn't work. The math doesn't get there. Okay. You can 401k yourself and pay your house off and get you to 5 million, but you can't get the 20 million doing that. Um, so the folks that I know that have again, 10, 20, even up to a hundred million, uh, they almost all have some kind of entrepreneurial endeavor,

which you described. You're doing flips. That's an entrepreneurial endeavor. You can do it with that. So you're doing something where the money's working a lot harder and the ROI on the actual deployed cash is a lot higher than a simple mutual fund or a piece of rental real estate, okay? Right.

Because most of those are going to be 10 to 20% rate of return, depending on how you're playing it. But an entrepreneurial endeavor gives you, you know, margin, not return and margins where the things go serious. So, and that sounds like you're onto that. The second thing they do, the thing that allows them to get there is they um they never uh the ones that i know that have made it and kept it okay i'm not talking about people

that are high rollers and they they lose everything again after they made it all that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about the ones that it's sustainable it's a sustainable set of principles they don't ever do what i call james bond investing in every james bond movie somewhere towards the end of the movie sometimes at the beginning of the movie he is at a card table with the evil person who's trying to destroy the world and this hand of cards that he's playing if he loses the hand of cards then you know somebody's going to die and all the all the rest of the human race is going to collapse right you know the scene it's in every movie it is so uh and what happens inevitably is it comes down to not just a card game it comes down to

one hand in the card game and the sweat is breaking out on everyone's forehead and he slides all the chips to the middle of the table on one hand and we all hold our breath right that's a movie it's not how life works so don't do james bond that's what these guys do they avoid the james bond move you don't slot no matter how good the flips are going you always hold a foundational three or four million dollar net worth that is not involved in all this crap yep it's over there and the stuff the chips that are on the table are not your only chips and so you're you know in other words you don't lose your home if this goes sideways you don't lose your last dime and you're back to 756 dollars if this all goes sideways that's a james bond move and people think that that's all romantic but it's not it's just

stupid you know what i'm saying yeah well i do so i have it diversified like you so i got about a million on the market yeah and you know we got and don't touch that and we got and no no no deal no deal that comes to your plate on these flips is good enough to get you to risk that foundational piece yep because i gotta tell you it'll it'll show up i've had deals at ramsey come in front of me that if we did the deal it was going to be the biggest thing we'd ever done and if it went sideways it would have closed the down, and I've walked away from them on the James Bond principle. And I look back and I go, it caused me to have to grow a little bit slower, but I also didn't have to start over.

And that's what I don't – You have no intention in starting over. So you're looking for margin, not just investing. You're looking for entrepreneurial endeavors of some kind, whether you're starting a company, whether you're doing flips, whatever it is where you're making spread, not just return, there's a difference. And, um, you know, when I sell a book for, uh, $20 that I paid $2 for that spread, that's not return. You don't get that kind of return on a mutual fund. Okay. And that's one of the, one of the businesses that Ramsey is in, is the publishing business, right?

And so that's, you know, part of where my wealth has come from, is growing this business. And so, but if you look through the Forbes 400, by the way, folks, this is interesting to look at. All of the Forbes 400 now, George, are billionaires. Wow. A billion is a thousand million and um the vast majority of them i think it's 80 or 71 percent last time i looked or something like that are first generation rich they're not trust fund babies and you can name the companies that they did even oprah oprah isn't one of them and she's a company okay the companies that they did. Even Oprah. Oprah is one of them, and she's a company. Okay?

The companies that they did. You can name them. A lot of that is shares, valuation. Exactly. Go Zoom, Zoom. They cash out or they don't, and that's part of their net worth. It's Dell. It's Walmart.

It's Gates. And you go through it. It's companies. And so that's where that level comes from. But you can have a great life, folks, and never do that and still get to the five to 10 million range. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey, personality number one, bestselling author of Breaking Free from Broke is my co-host today. Every dollar is our world-class budgeting app.

It helps you manage money the Ramsey way. It works wherever you are, iOS, Android, or online on your desktop. You can start every dollar for free and immediately see where you stand with your money. Get organized. Personalize your budget. Stop overspending. Save more money. Be in control and if you're new to

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We're taking a few phone calls, taking questions from the live chat on YouTube, and it's totally free. All you have to do is just from the live chat on YouTube, and it's totally free. All you have to do is just hit Ramsey Show on YouTube. You can hit the reminder button, and we'll let you know when we're live, and we're going to go live for about an hour. Yeah, about 9 a.m. Central Time tomorrow, for those of you that are catching this in time, be sure you jump out there and do that. And if you have a question, you can jump in and, again, make it part of the chat. How do I get started? How do I combine finances? How do I budget and still have a life? I've got changes coming up.

How do I deal with that? George and Jade are going to walk you through every bit of it. And we'll show you every dollar live on the screen. So we'll actually tactically show you. You can see how it works. And it's just, again, the whole experience is free. Doesn't cost a thing. So jump in and check us out.

Tom is in Vancouver. Hi, Tom. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Honestly, I get this question a lot.

I'm married, been married about a year, been with the same girl for about five years before that. We didn't combine finances before we were married. Now we've been married and I'm having trouble bridging that conversation with how to use our income together instead of separately to try to battle against our joint debts that we have. So you've been married for how long now? One year. One year. How much, that's a total debt? A year, yeah.

So we have, our mortgage is about $375,000, and then outside of the mortgage, it's about $150,000. $75,000 is a combination of like my student loans or other student financing, like for my CFP, and then $75,000 is a family debt that we owe my parents. Certified financial planner? I am, yes. Okay. I do private wealth management. What does your wife do? She does coordination for a health care company.

Okay. And what does the conversation sound like when you say, hey, I think we ought to a house account that we use for things like that. But she is not really interested in having everything flow through the one account. Why? Both of our incomes, both of our expenses out. I can't say I'd be really delving into a big reason why. I would be the first thing I would ask when she said that. You don't want to combine your life with me?

That's a little disturbing. And where's the other money going that she's not, quote, contributing to the joint account? She keeps it in her own account or into her, like, tax-free savings account. Yeah. So basically you guys are typical, by the way. You're right.

We get this question all the time. But my rebuttal to her and people that believe like her is that all the data we have on wealth building indicates that what you're doing is not going to work. Yeah. When we study 10,000 millionaires, the vast majority of them in the 80, 90 percentile said that one of the reasons they were able to get there was they had a spouse that they had joined arms with and were fighting all fighting against all odds together to get there it was a unified approach it wasn't i've got a roommate

marriage is not a joint venture yep and so um that that's my rebuttal to her on that but and i think you got you need to get under that because she's still acting like y'all live together yep basically and it's time to move on to the next stage once you're married and it's the old-fashioned preacher said and now you are one now yeah one thing that might be happening and, and the reason I was asking about your careers, one thing that might be happening is you might be math and she might be art and healing. Yeah, pretty much so. Meaning that the last thing she wants to do is turn over her last little bit of autonomy to a control freak math nerd

he's nodding in agreement on the other side of the phone there so you gotta so here's the way you combat that i i i know that because that's what happened at my house okay i am a control freak math nerd, and I'm good with math, and you don't get a CFP unless you're good with math, okay? So you and me are the same dude. So at my house, it took me a while, because I'm hard-driving, overbearing, and control freak, all that, it took me a while to heal that part of our relationship to where sharon actually believed that she that her vote counted in the discussion now george however is a nice guy so whitney already believed that her vote counted with george

but sharon's like you're gonna do whatever you want to do anyway why do you want me to talk about it you know that's a pretty good impression that's about right it's about what it sounds like so but Sharon's like, you're going to do whatever you want to do anyway. Why do you want me to talk about it? You know, that was a pretty good impression. That's about right. That's about what it sounds like. So, but, but it's like, it took me. So we do not make decisions and have not for 30 years since bankruptcy without making them together.

And I, sometimes I have to force her to place her vote just to remind her that she has an equal vote because she sometimes will go oh do whatever you want to do but i know how that ends up that that story doesn't end well so i don't want to do whatever i want to do i want her input number one but number two i want her agreement so it doesn't come back on me later and so part of what you're battling is she's not convinced she gets a vote okay and you might just talk about it out loud like that and go my personality my makeup that allows me to be an excellent wealth manager an excellent cfp even pass the freaking exam for cfp which for those of you out in the world don't know that's like passing a cpa it's a real serious test that tom has passed um and so that tells me a lot of things about tom right and so but tom you just say hey the things

that allow me to be good at this uh could be uh working against our relationship and and so i i want to reset the table on our finances to where even though I'm an expert in finances, we have to have equal footing in deciding about our money. And you have to vote half, and I have to vote half, and we have to combine them. And we've got to learn to work together because the benefit is going to be, and our relationship is going to be a bazillion times better. And the other benefit is we're going to end up with more money. Okay. And all of that, as you going to end up with more money. Okay.

And all of that, as you can tell, had a lot of humility and empathy. It was not attacking and aggressive and combative. That's not going to get you far. Yeah, he's not. You're not aggressive. You're just a math nerd. Yeah. And it's just the way it manifests itself.

It's like your excitement comes across as aggression yeah you just enjoy the whole thing and it's like you know and and she's like who i'm afraid if i get over there i'll get that on me you know it's like you know and so cooties yeah it's cooties math cooties so um but that that's that's what goes on in a lot of the stuff out there the spender feels like the saver is not going to let them have a vote yes the math nerd doesn't let the artist have a vote and it could be man or woman it's not necessarily you know it happens to be the man as a math nerd happens to be at my house i'm the math nerd but you know um uh it's not unusual at all for the lady to be that person and they can be intimidating well then you show hey, what are your fears behind this? Because you're still going to get to enjoy life. Here's

a line item that says Whitney's fund money in the budget, but we have transparency and accountability, which by the way, is kind of what a relationship is built on. Trust. There we go. Lots of increased communication. When you handle your money together, you're handling your life together, boys and girls. It changes everything. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Today's question comes from Ben in Nevada. Ben asks, when you give to charitable organizations, how do you ensure the gifts are being used appropriately? Are there ways to vet organizations, or can you track what they do with donations? Great question.

Very good. uh the way we vet it uh with the ramsey family foundation which my daughter runs is that we do due diligence on the whole organization because we're going to be giving um you know a reasonably large gift and so it warrants the time to look into it. And one of the things we look for is, you know, to see operational excellence and efficiency. And one of the gauges of that is they'll usually give you a copy of their budget, and you can see what percentage of their budget goes to administration and what percent actually goes to feeding hungry kids. If hungry kids is the ministry or taking care of the homeless, if the homeless is the minute, whatever it is, you can see what percentage of the budget.

So they, you know, they take in a million dollars and they, they spend 900,000 on salaries. We got a problem, you know, uh, but they take in a million dollars and they spend a hundred thousand dollars on admin and another x number of dollars on salaries now you know we've still got the vast majority of the money going to the actual cause which is um which is what stops people from giving a lot of the time is the skepticism that any of this money will actually go to the cause i'm passionate about right and you can look at it and most most Most ministries or charities of size will have those ratios readily available and even their budget readily available. You can look at it.

I mean, tax forms are public. You can see. They're not, you know, they're, what is it, nine, what are they called, nine-something forms? Yeah, Form 990. 990. And that'll show you. You can tell what's going on with that.

They have a high ratio of overhead expenses. That could be a red flag. But again, you're investing some time now, so you're not going to do that for a $50 gift. This is a gift of some substance because you're going certainly some things just out of my left pocket that are just random acts of kindness, random acts of generosity. And there's absolutely zero investigation or expectation or anything else. It's just like God said, help the lady at the gas pump and so we did something you know that we're not doing background checks here yeah we're not we're not checking that out we're you know we're gonna leave a but there are a 500 tip and a at a cool

little restaurant that's um that a right waitress or waiter has never gotten a tip that size and just and that's just a god thing but that's that's random that's not um the planned diligent careful wise giving that you're that you're asking about ben um and and here's the other thing the last piece of it is and you can depend on this too much so don't depend on too much you need to do the wise investigation on large sums and you need to think you need to do the wise investigation on large sums, and you need to be wise about investing God's money into his kingdom because some of his people are sweet, but they're dumb. And so you just don't want to put money in there. It's a mess.

And so they've got good hearts, but it's a mess. And all you're doing is if you give them a bunch of money, you're making a bigger mess. It doesn't fix the mess. And so but at the end of the day, the other thing you need to remember, I remember about giving her two principles. One is it's not mine anyway. I'm managing it for God.

And so what I'm doing is I'm giving away God's money. And, okay, that kind of means I have to be even more careful, right? I got to report to the boss about what happened with his money, right? And that kind of thing. And then the second thing is the biggest benefit of generosity is not the receiver. The biggest benefit is to the giver. And it changes your psychological well-being. It changes your spiritual walk.

It changes your relational. Lowers your blood pressure. Helps you live longer. It changes, you know, generosity affects the giver. And Jesus even said that. He says, better to give than to receive. And sometimes people hear that from Jesus' words, and they think, oh, well, that's very noble.

And he wasn't noble. It was instructional. It wasn't like oh you're you know you're better if you're a giver than if you're a receiver no that's not what he was saying he was saying it's better for you you change you when you give your generosity muscle is built it makes you into a better human so you know like for instance i talked to an old baptist preacher one time i was speaking at this baptist church in kentucky it's a great church it's wonderful this is a long time ago and um several thousand people there that morning and he's i was talking about the tithe in the christian

world and that was my talk that morning at his church and he said you know the interesting thing he said i've been pastor in 45 years i've never had a couple that tithe get divorced. Whoa. And I said, why do you think that is? Is it some kind of like mystical, spiritual protection over tithers that they don't lose their marriages? And he said, no, tithing represents giving and giving represents generosity. And generosity means you're thinking about other people, not yourself. And people who think about other people are really easy to live with. Wow. It's kind of common Kentucky sense there

you know I mean that was just good that's powerful good you know he didn't know he didn't like woo woo spiritual on me he's just like hey if you're generous you're easier to freaking live with I mean you know you're you're not a self-centered twerp you know it's what he didn't say that I did but I mean but the day version that guy would never say that but yeah but um and there are sites to Dave's point you're saying do the research, like Charity Navigator. You can utilize sites that help you do the research as well. And in the evangelical world, the ECPA or whatever it's called, there's an organization that will – Vet those.

Well, they vet the accounting systems and the finances, make sure the finances are run correctly. And you'll see their little emblem on there, or they'll put it forward. If it's a ministry in the evangelical world, you can possibly see that. It's like, I forget what it stands for. But anyway, it's a good organization, and they do check it. But even if it's got that stamp on it, we still look at it. We still want to do that. But we're giving, we have, you know, there's three things you can do with money.

Enjoy it, invest it, and give it. You hear that from Ramseys all the time ramsey people all the time and uh there but you always want generosity in your plan again because it changes your life your life not theirs so i mean you give a thousand dollar a two thousand dollar car to a single mom it changes her life but if you do that it changes your life it changes if you do that, it changes your life. It changes who you are. You walk around smiling all day. You can't stop it.

And it's the best thing you can learn to do with money is generosity. So it's a really good question, Ben. And no, we don't track what they do with the donations afterwards unless we're buying them a particular item. Like we bought a truck one time for a delivery for a food bank thing, and they were delivering food. So the foundation bought a truck, a big truck for them, a refrigeration thing and all that.

And so, yeah, we wanted to see that the truck happened because we didn't buy it. We gave them the money to buy it. And so we followed up on that. But in terms of just do I put a fishing line on every dollar and try to follow it all the way through every trend no that'd be exhausting oh god you know it's cool you know charity water we've been friends with scott harrison founder of charity water and what they do is he's been on the he's been on the show yeah he's and they've been very transparent what's cool is that with theirs now

they go you can actually track the water project your dollar went to and so they have different ways now and innovating. And Scott got on to something when he started Charity Water. He spoke at Church Sunday, and he's got a wonderful story. And I've been emailing this weekend, again, just because I was telling him he did a great job. But he was brilliant in that he came up with a different model. Charity Water gives clean water to people all over the world who don't have clean water. It's what they do. It's a wonderful ministry charity. A hundred percent of your dollars

go to get clean water if you give charity water. He has a separate non-profit called The Well that pays all the overhead. So overhead is privately funded with a specific set of donors, and me, the consumer, when I give, 100% goes to the water project. You can give to the well and support their overhead, or you can give to Charity Water and 100% goes to clean water. Drilling a well, putting in a filter system, whatever it is, they've got various methods. And then he does a wonderful job of reporting back with webcams and everything else, showing you what happened because you were able to, you know, give this number of dollars to charity. I hope that catches on with more charities.

It's really cool. It's a good model. It's brilliant. He's a brilliant guy. But he's impacted the world, literally. But that's just one of them. There's lots of good people out there doing good work. But that's what you're looking for is some accountability.

This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. He is the author of the best-selling book Breaking Free from Broke. It has been a huge seller, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress. Ken Coleman, our fellow Ramsey personality, developed with our team a Get Clear Career Assessment. A couple of years ago, it is a huge bestseller. You take the assessment and you get clear about what you're doing with your career, what you're doing with your work. We've had almost 100,000 people take that now.

It's a hugely popular assessment because it's excellent. And so we're really excited to announce Ken's latest book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do, which will show you how to use the results from the assessment to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy. The assessment comes with the book. The assessment and book combination will answer four of life's biggest questions. Who you are, why you are wired that way, what you want to do professionally, and how to

get there. So you can pre-order the Get Clear Assessment, Find the Work You're're wired to do book. You're going to get the audio book and the e-book free, and each of them come with a code for an assessment. So you're going to get three of the assessments. If you pre-order, it comes out the first week of May, so you're going to be ready to get that then. Now, the other exciting news, next week on the 16th,

Rachel's brand-new kids' book, I'm Glad for Where I Am, All About Gratitude, is coming out. It's her second kids' book. The first one, I'm Glad for What I Have, which was about contentment. Great storytelling, amazing lights-out illustrations in this book. Fabulous kids kids book. And we know that kids that are read to have a higher IQ, have a higher likelihood of exceeding academically in all areas.

Kids that are read to, it is magical what happens when you read to little children. And so I read to the grandbabies all the time, even though I still have trouble getting through Dr. Seuss with my tongue twisters, but I can still do it. I don't like green eggs and ham sam-i-am, I'm just saying. You've memorized it by now. Yes, and they learn pretty quick which ones are the long ones so they can stick. They love that.

This one is not a long one. It doesn't take long to get through this, so that's good news. Parents love that. The other thing we know is that kids that are grateful and kids that are content grow to become excellent adults and as my friend andy andrews says we're not trying to raise great kids we're trying to raise kids that become great adults and that's the whole process there all of this is at ramsey solutions.com check it out at our store you can get any of these books pre-order order, order, whatever we're doing here. It's all good.

I did the math. If you pre-order both of those books, you get free shipping right now on the site. So there's a little bonus because I love a good deal. Wow. So there you go. Get Rachel's book. Pick up Ken's new book. Pre-order both.

There we go. Crystal's with us in New York. Hi, Crystal. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Why, thank you. Thank you so much for taking my call how are you better than i deserve how can we help i really need your advice um to give you a little background i have a full-time job and i take care of a sibling that has mental disabilities now last year i started started my LLC because I wanted to supplement my income while working at home. Now, so far, I've spent close to $10,000 on my LLC, and I haven't made any money yet.

I put off creating my website because I had to save $4,000 to have it created because I'm not tech savvy. You don't need $4,000 to create a website. You can use Wix and do it for free. I mean, there's no need to go spend all this money on this business that has no revenue so far. But continue. Okay. Now, because I am very bad with budgeting money, as you probably already know, but now the icing on the cake is I have a medical condition that's going to need long-term

care so when I reached out to different insurance companies the underwriters they don't want to touch it so my question is should I continue to pursue my small business or take that money and put it in a banking account for my long-term care that I know I'm going to eventually need. Okay. How long from now do you think you're going to be needing long-term care? The doctors are unsure because they don't know why I have my condition. 25 years or 25 months?

Oh, I'm sorry, what happened? 25 years or 25 months oh i'm sorry what happened 25 years or 25 months um it could be five years okay all right so you got a little some time this is not imminent then okay um well i think the answer is if the llc is making money it's going to make you more money than bank account will make but so far it's going to make you more money than a bank account will make. But so far it's not done anything but take money. So we've got to get it making money or we can't depend on it, right? Right. What is it?

What is your side gig? What are you trying to build here? Voiceover. Voiceover? Yes. Okay. All right. And you've done that kind of work before?

Oh, no. I've always wanted to do something with my voice, but never knew how to go about doing it. Mm-hmm. So I actually took a class in the summertime and really enjoyed it, loved it. What did you spend the $10,000 on? Oh, the actual course, which was like $6,000, where they train you. And then creating my actual LLC.

I had a company do it for me because they walked me through it step by step. And then turning my bedroom into the actual studio. I had to soundproof it. And do you have the equipment to do the work now? Yes, yes I do. And why do you not have customers? Did they teach you how to get customers? Well I have to do the website first. You have to have a website to get customers? Yes because I have to put the demos on the website to send it to clients so they can hear me on the website. Well, you could send that over email if you knew the people to contact.

Just send them an MP3, yeah. Oh, okay. Right now you need to know the right people. I don't think the website is the thing holding you back. Yeah. Okay. I need you to go get a whole bunch of customers. And George is right.

You can put up a real basic website for almost nothing or nothing and you're after talking to you for a few minutes you're smart enough to do it what's the name of the site you would recommend george again wix wix is a popular one i've used one called square space again all of these you know you're talking zero to a hundred dollars not four grand and truly you can do it yourself yes i could teach my mom or wix wix and we're not endorsing either one of those it's giving you some ideas that this is it's a lot of cut and paste because you're not really trying to create a complicated piece of programming here you're making a business card you just need a an electronic business card where you've got some of your demos up there

or somebody can push play and play an audio file um that's all we're looking for and then of course you're gonna you're gonna deliver most of your stuff by email yes yes okay so you can deliver um demos by email have you got demos laid down in your computer yes okay yes all right so what what i need you to do is i need you to go find like a whole bunch of customers in the next 30 days ready, set, go. Okay. I want you to be overwhelmed because you have so much work you can't breathe. And you're a little bit frazzled because there's too much coming at you. I want you to get that many customers.

Gotcha. Because that's the weak spot in what you're talking about. So far, all you've done is pay other people for this dream yeah now it's time for you to get paid for this dream and go find people who are doing it and maybe they pass off the ones they don't have time for and you get your start that way okay but what do you do full-time i'm a correction officer okay how much do you make doing that um my take-home is 4 300 a month okay good well the the voice world has dramatically changed like everything else with a microphone um in the last 20 years because of the digital space that we're in. And so, I mean, it used to be that you had to be a proven product

to be able to sit in front of a microphone. And now, if you want to be a podcaster, you can be by the end of the day, you know. Now AI can do voiceover. Yeah. You got to compete with that. And it used to be that we would mail the sounders for the radio station to the voice guy, and he would send the tape through the mail, and we would load the tape. We're a long way from that. This is a very easy business to get into now.

And I want you to go get into it big time in the next 30 days. Ready, set, go. That puts this hour of Thesey solutions it's the ram Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of the George Camel Show, celebrating one year of excellence on YouTube. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Celeste is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Celeste. How are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

Okay. So my husband and I are property managers at a self-storage facility. We make $4,000 per year together, and we don't have any housing expenses because one of the benefits of the job is having an apartment with utilities included. My husband has a side hustle that makes an extra $500 a month. We're projected to be debt-free at the end of May, and with this income, can uh what will be done with baby steps three by the end of december of 2024 and then we're wondering how do we meet the manual underwriting requirements if we stay in this job for the next two years while saving up for down payment well i mean part of your compensation is housing and that counts as well as as part of your compensation is housing, and that counts as part of your, when someone's looking at it, because you're making this net of housing.

So, you know, a pastor, for instance, that has a parsonage furnished, that housing cost is included. If you're looking at someone that's in the military, has been in the military for the last two years, and they've been living on base, so you look at their income, but they've got housing. And so that's part of the calculation when someone's looking as to whether you're financially able to take out a mortgage. Now, you know, the trick is this. What are you going to be doing when you don't live there anymore that creates income? That's what they're going to want to know. Right, and that's a great question because honestly we love what we're doing right now because it has so much flexibility and i personally am trying to build an online business right now

that helps people optimize like nutrition and to reach like their goals. So that's what I'm working on now in the hopes of hard work for two years of that. It'll supplement the income that we have now. And then for my husband... If you bought a house and moved out into a house, you'd have to have a job, right? Right, exactly. And so that's where I'm kind of stuck, too, because I would love this business already to be running to the point where that is my job, my full-time job. That may have to happen or something else is going to have to happen because, again, you're just asking what the mortgage company is looking at. So pretend like you're the mortgage company for a minute.

Do you want to loan someone money that doesn't have a job? No, I don't have a job no i don't yeah yeah they're going to look at tax returns for the last year or two and make sure you have consistent income um they're going to look at your savings your bank statements all of that seeing what kind of money's coming in and out and then one or more regular monthly expenses as an alternative trade line so something like a phone bill or utility bill could count yeah but part of you buying a home is you don't live on the warehouse site anymore so you don't get to be the warehouse manager anymore and so that you are changing careers and by as a part of this purchase and so that's what you've got to solve for more than really uh looking at the income because that income that you're making

now doesn't even really apply but um but you know if they wanted to look back two years and say are you have you made an income yeah i did and i had this plus i got free housing they can make that part of the equation but they're they're also going to want to know uh since you're not working there anymore because you're moving out uh what are you what are you going to be doing consistent income in the future that's part of our process here all right up next is going to be eric in green bay wisconsin hi eric how are you going to be doing? Get consistent income in the future. Yeah, that's part of our process here. All right, up next is going to be Eric in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Eric. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Hey, George. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, I wanted to get some feedback from each of you on my situation. My wife and I are 47, and I just started listening to the show quite a bit in the last, like, four or five months.

And ironically, I just sort of backwards had some of the baby steps covered, but I had some debt. So I aggressively cleared that. And so other than the mortgages, I don't have any debt presently. My wife and I have a cottage and a house, though. And our goal is to retire at 55. And we're looking at right now, in four years, the plan is to move up to our cottage and sell the house and then take the equity in the house, pay off the remainder of the cottage. However, in terms of where I'm at and, you know, following the baby steps,

I would be, I guess, at the state where I would be at step six. And I'm, I'm wondering if in my situation, you know, we're trying to build up as much, uh, uh, wealth right now so that we have enough, obviously to live between when we start drawing off of, uh, her pension, uh, our, our 401k and Roth and things like that. Um, the opportunity I have though, is the organization I work for is an S corporation. And I recently would, was given the opportunity to start buying in on that. Would it make sense for me to, to invest, you know, the extra, I guess, in terms of the debt snowball, would it make best to invest in, in that right now? Which typically I, historically it's about a 14% to 18% return. My mortgage on each of those two mortgages I have is only 3%.

But I could certainly start paying that off more aggressively, but I just can't understand if it would make sense to do that, given my goal of trying to retire at 55. So why are you investing in a sub-S if you want to retire? That's who you work for. Because the dividends by investing in it are, like I said, it's the best investment that I can make. I have a 401K and everything that I'm investing in.

No, I'm saying when you quit, are you not going to divest? I will, but that will be at 55. Yeah, five years from now, right? Eight years from now. Oh, okay. All right. And it's just kind of the feeling of should I, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of different subjects going on at one time here, so let's kind of break them apart and address them for a lot of different reasons.

Let's just call it a single stock investment, okay, for a second. If you said, I want to invest in single stocks or I want to invest in mutual funds instead of paying off the cottage so that I've got a big nest egg when I get ready to retire, I would say, no, go ahead and pay off the cottage because that sets you up to move into a debt-free situation that you don't have that payment anymore. You can use that increased cash flow to invest and then when you do sell your house instead of selling your current residence instead of using that to pay off the cottage you use that to create the nest egg it's just flip-flopping it okay yeah that's what i would do in lieu of the now the other subject is this sub S, okay? And so what I think I'm hearing is this is a privately held small business of some kind, and they're letting you buy into it, and you will be a minority shareholder.

That's absolutely correct. Okay. That's what I thought I was hearing. All right. So a lot of problems there. You've got no liquidity. They set the stock price somewhat by an accounting system, but somewhat arbitrarily. And you don't get to decide what the expenses are that drive profits.

You don't get to decide on dividend distributions. You're a minority shareholder. Your vote doesn't even count. You're not in control. Let me tell you how much money I put in stuff like that. Zero. Zero. I can't get out of it.

I can't control it. Someone else arbitrarily controls it. And no way I want in that deal. No way. I'm going to go with traditional investments where I can control them and where I can get liquidity. This is the Ramsey Show. Well, the beautiful thing about Nashville is that sometimes some of our famous friends drop by. And that's the case right now with Andy Irwin dropping by.

Andy's a famous filmmaker, for those of you that don't know, and has become a good friend. And has done a whole bunch of things over the years. Anything from music videos starting out with artists like Skillet and Switchfoot and Michael W. and Amy Grant and all that. Nowadays, he's been making big-time movies. The latest one that just went zoom-zoom was the Jesus Revolution movie. It went fabulous, and it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. And the I Can Only Imagine film, of of course with a friend bart millard from

mercy me that one did y'all made good money on that that was a good movie my investors are happy yeah i know a couple of the investors they were very happy that uh bart was smiling he was everybody was we're giving high fives yeah it was a good good thing so uh a new film coming out by this uh fabulous film producer um uh it's called unsung hero it'll be in theaters april the 26th um and he was nice enough to send sharon and i a link and we were able to watch it in the comfort of our home a pre uh whatever you call that a pre-screener pre-screener pre-screener there my own private version just me and me and and Sharon. And it was absolutely fabulous. This movie is, it's got one of the more powerful story arcs for the protagonist. The screenplay is excellent.

It's well done. Yeah, they did a great job. And I'm happy to fill in until one of your famous friends show up. So I'll just be a stand-in for whoever that is. But yeah, Dave, the reason why i sent it to you is i felt like this story would really click just knowing your story and and knowing what you know y'all story came out of uh it's very similar in in that regards where this guy david smallbone uh uh who his kids are the kids from the band for King Country, so Joel and Luke Smallbone.

Joel plays his father in this film, and he directed it. And it's their story that they came over from Australia as this young immigrant family chasing the American dream, got over here with six kids, a seventh on the way, and lost. After having gone broke. And lost everything. Yeah. Lost everything. They were this close to being homeless and didn't have any furniture, didn't have a car.

And the local church rallied around them and tried to help get them on their feet. And they did everything from cleaning houses to, you know, to doing yard work as a family. And this whole thing, David thought that his family was in the way of his dreams until he finally understood that his family was the dream. They were the way. And it's a beautiful, beautiful story. Yeah. Unsung hero is really referring to mom. Yep. in the way of his dreams until he finally understood that his family was the dream. They were the way. And, uh, it's a beautiful, beautiful story.

Yeah. Unsung hero is really referring to mom. Yep. The glue of the family was Helen, the mother. And she was this one where, you know, while her husband was off chasing kind of grandeur,

she was the one that held this family together. She was the glue. And then at the end, he realized the treasure that he had in his wife fighting for the family. And that became the dream. Yeah. And the kids for that matter, because the oldest was Rebecca St. James, Rebecca St. James. A lot of people don't know that. Like, so, uh, Rebecca St. James was just, I mean, I remember when I was in college, she was a force of nature. Oh yeah. It was just amazing. Christian artists that was on fire. Yes. Going. Yeah. And she just redefined what Christian music sounded like.

So she was that round. And the whole time, her little brothers were helping out behind the scenes. And that became Joel and Luca for King & Country that are setting the world on fire now. So it's their whole family story. And Joel telling it and playing his father, when he came to me, he said, I want to do this movie. I was like, okay. He's like, I want to do it in the next three months. I was like, all right he said i want to i want to do this movie i was like okay he's like i want to do it in the next three months it's like all right he's like i want to direct it it's all right and he said i want to play my father i was like you're crazy but you're crazy enough i'll go with you yeah that's counseling therapy stuff right there exactly

yeah oh my goodness wow so i know what sharon and walked away. We not only were entertained, we were inspired and reminded the, I guess, the power of the human spirit and the power of God showing up in the middle of a family and showing that he had a plan for him. Yeah. That's what we came away from the movie with. What are you guys hoping that the audience gets? I mean, I think, you know, right now the most rebellious thing we can do is tell stories of hope that lift up the family. I mean,

I think the family has been so kind of pushed down by a lot of societal messages for so long that the idea of telling a story where the family gets to be the hero and keeping the family together, I think it's a rebellious story. And so I want to lift up the power of the family, the power of parents, the mother's influence on this family and ultimately understanding that it's not about chasing the American dream. It's about chasing your family being the dream. And that's where you find the bigger purpose. And so it's, uh, it's one that I think really registers reminding people the importance of their family. Yeah. It was interesting to me to be watching it and having been around Nashville all this time.

And I knew who David Smallbone was. I certainly knew who Rebecca St. James was. I didn't know the boys' story. I found that out a little bit later just because I'm the old guy. But I'm watching this thing and I'm going, I know these people. Wait a minute. Because I didn't know who it was at the beginning of the movie. I had to get down into it before it clicked who the story was about. You didn't set it up well, apparently. No, you didn't know who it was at the beginning of the movie uh-huh i had to get down into it for i before it clicked who i was actually what the story was i didn't set it up

well apparently because no you didn't need to set up you just sent me an email it was fine i wasn't complaining about it but it was from somebody who's kind of these guys are all they all live within 10 miles of here you know i mean they're all right here in their neighborhoods so and yet it's a they're all world-class talents yeah at what they do and uh fabulous people and you didn't even know that it was Joel playing his father. No, I didn't until you and I had breakfast. Yeah, we were having breakfast. You're like, who was it that played?

The dad. That was Joel from the band. It's like Daniel Ramsey playing Dave. Exactly. That's pretty wild. That's just creepy. I'm here to pitch you that story. That's next.

A boy can dream. Nope. That'd be a short film. You don't do short films. No, I don't do it. films well you're doing something really cool and for a limited time our ramsey listeners can go to this link unsung hero dot movie slash ramsey and they can get free tickets yeah so out in the world yeah so the exciting thing about it this is really a grassroots story and uh you know it's so important opening weekend to have

just a strong presence because that's where you know hollywood doesn't ever see us coming so what they predicted with i can only imagine was it was just going to do a fraction of what it did and they're like what in the world happened jesus revolution yeah same same thing they're like hollywood didn't know what to do with those numbers those numbers were amazing it's just it was amazing to kind of watch and so for this one we had a group of businessmen donors come along and say, we'll sponsor some tickets. So there's a donor that sponsored tickets specifically for your audience. I was saying today, while it lasts.

I mean, as soon as the tickets are gone, they're gone. But for a limited time, if you go to that unsunghero.movie.com, it'll have information on how to reclaim your ticket codes for opening weekend. Take your family on us. And just for being a listener of the Ramsey show. You can get up to two tickets, and the show times are between 424 and 428, and the code is HEROFREE at checkout. So that's really generous of you. Thank you for doing that.

Our listeners are going to be excited. I think they're a great target audience for this kind of movie. We're all about hope around here. I don't know if you've listened to the show for three seconds but great crossover there so talk about the cast that was interesting obviously joel playing his dad but there were some other issues yeah it was you know as we did it you know joel really wanted to uh to make sure the casting was authentic and so he was really picky about who played his mom i would be too that's a tremendous responsibility and he found this one actress in Australia

that we knew through some friends and he loved her body of work named Daisy Betts. And she had taken four years off from acting to be a mom and had gone into retirement. And he called her and talked her out of retirement. She absolutely steals the show. So she's amazing. And then we have some familiar faces

like Candace Cameron Bure. And then Lucas Black, who's an amazing, he's the only guy that has a thicker Southern accent amazing and then we have some familiar faces like candace cameron beret uh and then lucas black who's an amazing he's the only guy that has a thicker southern accent than me and you and uh he's amazing and play these play they play this couple that really from the church that kind of he played in one of the other films yeah he's been in a lot of stuff so he's been on the fast furious movie he started with sling blade he was a little kid in sling blade yeah but i saw him in something was it the golfing movie yeah he was in the golfing movie it was uh the one with uh robert duvall yeah yeah he did that one so he's amazing so it's a great cast uh and then uh hillary scott

from uh you know from lady a the band she plays a part but it was it was a lot of fun we had a we had a good time what part was she so she played the the choir the choir director we snuck her in there if you look she's the choir director i'll snuck her in there. If you look, she's the choir director. I'll have to go back now. Okay, I drove by that one. A little Easter egg for you. That's a reason to see it a second time. I know Hillary, but I drove by.

Makeup and hair. Exactly. There we go. The movie's called Unsung Hero. It is about a family that overcomes, and you will leave smiling with hope. You'll be stressed before you get there. That's a good story arc. Check it out, unsunghero.movie.com.

A donor has provided you guys a free ticket. Go get it. Go watch this movie and support and raise this thing up. We need to raise up hope and family in this country. It's a good thing to do. And, Andy Irwin, you're a rock star, man. We appreciate you. God bless you.

Appreciate you. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Keaton and Kennedy are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Doing great. Doing great.

How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you all live? Austin, Texas. All right. Welcome to Nashville. Yes guys, how are you? Doing great. Better than I deserve. Where do y'all live? Austin, Texas. All right, welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $181,000. All right, how long did that take? Right around 51 months. Good job. And your range of income during that four years? Started at $105,000 and ended at $195,000. Excellent. What do you two do for a living? I'm a full-time firefighter with a lawn care business on the side.

And I was in retail operations at a bank for about 10 years and now a stay-at-home mom. Excellent. Well done. What kind of debt's the $181,000? Oh, it was auto loans, student loans,

personal line of credit. And our house. Paid off your house? Yes, sir. Couple of weirdos yes sir way to go weird people i like it yes sir so what's this house worth uh about 300 maybe a little shy of 300 very cool and how much in your nest egg uh we've got about 20 and then another 80 to 100 in retirement in retirement okay excellent very good all right so you're almost halfway to being millionaires already with a paid four house how old are you uh i just turned 30 oh wow and i'm 28 and you have a paid four house yes sir y'all are really weird a little bit i love it i love it so tell us the story what happened how'd you get connected all this ramsey

stuff well in 2019 we were engaged about to get married and a guy from the fire department I work with invited us to do financial peace university so we signed up for it and we paid off our consumer debt and then bought the house that we have now and then we saved up down payment for some land that we thought we were going to build on. And we prayed about it. And God had other plans. And, you know, real estate got expensive. Building got expensive back in 21. So we sold our land and put some of that money towards our house and helped pay it down.

But we still owed almost $80,000 on the house. And after that, we really just kicked it into gear,000 on the house and after that we really just kicked it into gear and got on the budget and prayed about it and paid it off I love it how long you guys been married uh four four years four years so was this as soon as you got married you were like all right let's clean some debt up um uh so my the bank that I worked for, we actually taught your principles. So I was familiar with the Ramsey plan for a while before. And then, yeah, I guess we've just always been in sync on finances. It's never been an issue.

We've always been on the same page. So, yeah. It just became, well, this is the plan. We both agree on the plan. Let's do the plan. Well, you get married and then you go through the whole thing again with the fire department, right? The Financial Peace University again, right? Yes. We went through there. We both went through the same class with other firefighters and their spouses. And so that really helped us stay focused.

Yeah. So it was just a reaffirmation of what you already learned at the bank, but now I'm doing it with my husband. Yeah. Very good. Very good. And it's cool to have a crew doing this all together. Was it cheering each other on, ribbing each other? Like, what was the support like? Both, yes. Yes, both. Yeah, it was cheering each other on,

and still we have guys that are interested in doing it and still trying to cheer them on and, you know, also ribbing each other as well. That's part of it. Yeah, you beat them. You got your house paid off first. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

What a cool testimony. I mean, I'm sure they're inspired by you guys as well, being so young with a paid-for house in this economy. I mean, how do you even do that? Are people just thinking you're weird around you that don't understand? Yeah, weird or wrong, one of the two. Yeah, both. It's not right.

Yeah. So 28 and 30 in a paid- for house worth over $300,000. Someone watching this wants to know, how do you do that? What do you think is the key to getting out of debt is? For me, it's contentment. Just, you know, we have, we had awesome incomes, both of us. I wouldn't say like we talked about sacrifices. I didn't really feel like we had to sacrifice that much we just had to live within our means and it was really i mean just paying

attention to what you had and discipline we already had way more than we needed um and so it was just you know cutting out the little things the restaurants and not eating out as much and the new vehicles we always buy used vehicles uh with you know 20 to 40,000 miles we drove here in a four or five year old vehicle uh six year old vehicle actually was 60,000 miles that we paid for in cash um so just discipline yeah way to go you guys yeah it's interesting the word contentment and sacrifice, you don't, the more content you are, the more other people would say you're sacrificing, but it doesn't feel like sacrifice. No, not at all.

Not at all. You're not striving to live outside your means. Yeah. But the less content you are, everything's a sacrifice. You know, it's like, so, but that changes the whole equation. That's a very good point. Very good point. So, good job, you guys.

Yes, sir. Thank you. How's it feel to be completely free amazing i get to be a stay-at-home mom hey yeah the same day we paid our house off it was our last day at the bank was that coincidental or did that happen that way she gave him a good two months notice yeah you hit to submit button submit my resignation and submit the that last payment. There we go.

That's cool. I like it. Very, very good. Good for you guys. These kids don't know how good they have it, how incredible their parents are. Yeah, you guys are heroes. Well done. What's the first big thing you do now that you have no debt?

Well, she's staying home, and then we want to get back on a house on a few acres outside of town. Back in the area we were. Make that move that you planned back there. Yes, sir. Lord willing. Yes, sir. That's a good move. That's a good move.

I think he's willing. Yeah, that's good, because you are. And it's going to be easier now with no payments. You guys are going to do that so quick. Yes, sir. Very cool. All right, you brought the kiddos with you. Let's bring them up.

What are their names and ages? This is Crawford. He's eight months. And this is Sutton. She's two and a half. All right. We're ready. You guys, you got a good job there, Mom.

Well done. Well done. Good stuff. All right, it's Keaton and Kennedy, Sutton and Crawford from Austin, Texas. $181,000 paid off. House and everything at 28 and 30, making 105 to 195. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're debt-free! We're debt-free! Wow! You know, it's strange for me, George, because this is the world I live in. And, you know, occasionally you or Rachel will bring me something from the other world, the world that's not real the virtual world um where there are people in the virtual world uh who say that

it's impossible for a gen z or a millennial to prosper in today's economy and the world I live in I meet them like there they are I meet them every week that are paying off their home. They're going to be multimillionaires. They've got a beautiful family. They were able financially to make a choice for her to quit the bank and go home. How can that be? He's a firefighter. He's not a rocket surgeon.

I mean, what do y'all want? I mean, it's like this guy these you know what they have they have a superpower common sense i have a superpower and it's just you know i mean you heard the secret sauce you know i didn't i didn't hear a single line of victim language or entitlement language or oh the world is so rough out there there was no whining no cheese needed with the whine and it was just but in in that virtual world where you guys run around over there it's like that's just like a thing now oh yeah i mean it's exhausting and they're all excuses and they're they spend more time editing tiktok videos about how bad they have it than they do

going to work and paying off debt and this is a couple i mean 28 and 30 and they're not saying well the boomers ruined it for me dave or put a shower cap on their head and do a dave ramsey impersonation now that one i saw that one went viral it was a good one yeah there's some pretty funny ones making fun of me i'm just saying y'all brought me one of those it was that guy's hilarious trey kennedy yes is that who's name don't give him a name. Don't promote him. Well, that's fine.

No one go look at the video. No one. You won't like it. It's hilarious. There's a lot of stuff making fun of me out there, and I'm okay with that part. But I tell you what, I'm okay with people like Keaton and Kennedy. Oh, yeah. They give me hope.

This is why I come to work every day. If you watch the headlines, you got the world's falling. If you watch this debt-free scream, you go, it's going to be okay. If you're Keaton and Kennedy, I'm here for you. If you're a whiner, I'm going to be a problem for you. Stick to the TikToks. It's just my job. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 34, 19, the righteous person may have troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all. Don't dodge difficulties. Meet them. Greet them.

Beat them. All great men have been through the ringer. A.A. Milne, however that is. I like that. I'm with you. I get it. I get it. Just go at it, baby.

Go at it. Lisa is in green bay wisconsin hi lisa welcome to the ramsey show hi dave thank you for taking my call i can't believe i'm speaking with you i really admire you and what you teach well thank you we're honored to have you how can we help well my husband and i are in baby step six and one of the things we knew we had to do is replace the vehicle that i had been driving for over 16 years because it was becoming unreliable that's reasonable we found a vehicle and we purchased it we paid cash and now i'm feeling very guilty i'm having a hard time getting over feelings of guilt from making such a large purchase. Is there anything I can do to just get over the guilt?

Why do you feel guilty? Because it took so long to get out of debt and making such a large purchase. I think it's hard for me. My husband is fine with it. It's just I'm feeling guilty over it. What is a large purchase? What did it's hard for me. My husband is fine with it. It's just I'm feeling guilty over it. What is a large purchase? What'd you pay for the car? Just under $23,000. And you saved up in paid cash. Did you all steal the money or did you earn the money?

No, we earned the money and we saved up in paid cash. And this purchase didn't violate any of your personal values? It didn't hurt anyone? No, it did not. You're driving the car. Yes. And you were driving the hoopty that was worn out before. Yes, and in fact, it left me stranded a couple of times in the last few weeks.

So we knew we really needed to get on replacing it. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to call this live like no one else syndrome. Is that fair? Okay. You've sacrificed so hard, and now you're on the other side, and now it feels strange to let go and enjoy. It does because I never paid cash for a vehicle before.

Yeah. You wouldn't have felt guilty if you got it on payments at $400 a month. Because that would have punished you. That would have counterbalanced it, yeah. So, but the, yeah, I think that you are a classic noble mom. And anytime someone spends money, you feel like they're spending money on you that bothers you yeah it's not about the car it's not about the car you feel it's not about the car it's like that you feel like the family spent twenty three thousand dollars on you yeah that is how i feel because i'm the one driving it and it was specifically purchased

for me my husband his truck is paid for and how many kids you got we don't have any children okay so you're just driving a car yep and after 16 years you finally got a decent one yeah i i i think that's all it is i think you're just a a person that doesn't want to look like or feel like that it's about you you you're you don't want to be out front you want to be in the background and it feels like that this is ostentatious or flashy or something like that to you even though it's not by the way it's really it's nothing uh no nobody really noticed i promise you're the only is this a very flashy car no lisa doesn't buy flashy cars people aren't turning at the stoplight wow what kind of car is it i'm curious what'd you buy the one we just

replaced in 2008 i bought a jeep wrangler brand new, and this one is another Jeep Wrangler used. So I had 155,000 miles on my black Jeep, and I found this one. It's white. Let me tell you, the only people that see a Jeep Wrangler at a stoplight are other people driving a Jeep Wrangler. Yes, that's true. It's a cool car, but it's not flashy. No, you're not pulling up and you're not pulling up in a Lamborghini or Corvette or something,

right? So, hey, I'm kidding around a little bit. But the truth is, if you just need us to tell you, George and I can both tell you what you've done is very reasonable. It is not selfish. It is not irresponsible. You're not out of control you know what you did here was a wise thing uh and you know making such an extreme jump because you waited an extreme period of time and we're driving an extreme piece of crap and you moved up out of that that the the the distance of the move is what gave you a little bit of whiplash yeah and i truthfully i experienced the same thing as Lisa. When I upgraded to my little beater Honda Civic that Dave was making fun of me for,

and I got my little old Tesla. That now I make fun of you for. He still makes fun of me for. We have a theme here. Yeah. It still took my breath away to write that check and pay cash a little bit. And then the next car that my wife got was even more expensive than that, and it took my breath away again.

And over time, you sort of get used to that flexing that muscle and going okay it's stuff it it it should cause a little gasp you wouldn't be normal if it was the first time you've ever done something that size and if you do it without thoughtless if you're thoughtless about it that would be irresponsible you need to you need to feel it yeah a physical reaction to the emotion you save up for months for this purchase you should feel it the first time you do that whether it's a giving an act of giving and you give an amount you've never given before that should catch in your throat a bit or when you're purchasing something you go just what you know and you have that moment that's different than a lingering guilt sense of i did something wrong yeah know, and you have that moment. That's different than a lingering guilt. Sense of

I did something wrong. Yeah. And you didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do anything wrong. Except you bought a Tesla. You didn't do anything wrong. I knew that was coming. I knew it. Bozeman, Montana. Liz is with us. Hi, Liz. How are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks

for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I wanted a little bit of advice. My husband and I, we got together when we were really young. We're relatively young parents. When we first got together, we kind of didn't have any really big goals except that we wanted to start a family together. And that first kid definitely set us in motion. We were like, okay, we need to have some professional goals.

We were just working at like grocery stores and stuff just enough to get us enough money to for our next road trip type thing but now my husband is working in construction he does hvac um and i'm stay at home just because we found that it wasn't quite uh worth the money to put them there's two babies into daycare got. How can we help you today? So I'm kind of, I'm curious as to whether or not I should go to college this upcoming fall. My thought is that we're out here in Montana all alone. It's just my husband and I, and I don't, I'm not trained in anything. I'm not qualified in anything to make as much as he does. So if anything were to happen to him or if he wasn't able to work his job,

I just, I don't know how I would provide for the girls. So I don't know whether or not I should go back to college this upcoming fall and try to get, you know, a degree to make me as much money as he makes. Or if I should have faith in him and continue to be a stay-at-home mom and just write that out. I don't know if faith has anything to do with it, but I would get term life insurance on him if you don't have that already and on you do you guys have that in place we have it on him we do yeah mine is not a lot as a spouse but his is his is good okay if you want to develop a career and you have a passion about moving into a career and you have a very specific thing that requires a college education to move into that and you want to do that that's fine but generally i want to get an education because generally i want to be more valuable no i would not do that okay if it's a part of a very specific plan

to execute that says okay when the kiddos hit kindergarten i'm i'm on go and i want to be a xyz okay i want to be an er nurse i want to be a whatever i don't care what it is you you know then you start asking okay what education what certificates do i need to be one of those things and um i would go do that but just generally i'm fearful because i feel underprepared for life. No, that's how you go spend the wrong money on the wrong degree. I would not do that. Yeah, because I'm going to be honest. I want to be a stay-at-home mom. I love being with my girls.

Okay. But when they're in school, do you want to do something? I don't know. I kind of want to support them. Okay. And my husband was homeschooled, and he sort of wants me to homeschool. I just feel really bad with where I am. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

You're not doing anything wrong. Don't go get an education just to say you got one as a fallback, because it won't work. It won't accomplish what you're trying to do. Hang on. I'll send you Ken Coleman's materials just in case you want to read through them. Sounds like you don't, but we'll help you get the career assessment going and get you a copy of the Paycheck to Purpose book.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. 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.