The Ramsey Show - You Don’t Have to Retire Broke—Time Changes Everything

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

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So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. George Camel Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at AAA-825-5-225. It's a free call, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. John is in Fresno.

Hey, John, what's up in your world? Hey, I'm a huge fan of both of you guys. So I'm debt-free. I'm self-employed. I've got six figures in the bank. But by contrast, my girlfriend I've been with for four years has really, really bad spending habits. It's almost like she doesn't know the difference between what she needs and what she wants. And I'm trying to get her on board with some goals or some budgeting, but it's just really hard.

You know, she's just overspending on a whole bunch of stuff. and we're trying to move and leave California, and I just don't know how to move forward or what they really do. Wow. How old is she? She is about to be 32. What'd she make?

How much income? Well, she would make about 16 to 1,800 a month, but she gives up a lot of her hours and she doesn't drive. So there's ride share. She's buying a lot of food at work instead of instead of cooking or packing something.

I wasn't asking about her food. I was asking about her work. Does she work full time? Are she doing psychics? What? No, I'm just saying that's where a lot of the money goes. And then she doesn't have enough to pay for housing. But she doesn't work much.

$1,600 a month in California's poverty. Yeah. So how did she exist before you? She, lived with either friends or family, but she used to walk to work, and I guess it's never really been a lot of income for her. You guys live together? Yeah, they're talking about moving away together. So you've been, have you been subsidizing some of this behavior and she can get away with it?

Is that part of the issue? A little bit, and I was going to say, I really don't want to enable further, you know? Yeah. Yeah. This is sticky, dude. It's really sticky. Okay. So how old are you?

33. What do you make? I'm doing pretty good. I make, so I am like a side-year guy, but I make about four to five a month. Mm-hmm. I got a lot of bills. You're talking about moving to where? Nevada.

Why? No state income tax. I guess. can actually put a down payment on a condo, start building some equity. I don't know. Affordable real estate and no income tax. Okay. Those are good reasons.

Yeah. All right. Also, not a big fan of California for other reasons. Okay. So the thing we know is the data tells us the number one cause of divorce in North America today is money fights and money problems. These are people that are on two completely different pages, not different personality styles, but different pages, different values completely. And so they spend their married life driving each other crazy.

You being a tight wad that crosses every T and dots every eye and doesn't come out of the cave except on triple coupon Thursday. And her spending like she's in freaking Congress, never the twain shall meet, right? Yeah. And so, I mean, I don't want her to become a super tightwad nerd like you, although I think you're awesome because I'm kind of that way. But I do want, she's a free spirit. I do want her to maintain a free spirit. But in order to qualify as wife material, she would have to be more emotionally mature. And so far, this lady does just enough to get by.

Thank God, it's Friday. Oh, God. It's Monday. Who can help me out? Yeah. And you've kind of got a little bit further. you're going to go a few places she's not going to get to go unless she goes with you. And as long as she is engaged in this behavior and you are in this relationship, you are not going to be happy.

Am I wrong? Don't think so. Okay. Is there anything you can say or do that you think would actually change her behavior? I don't know. That's ultimately what I've been trying to figure out. I mean, I've been trying to give her some tips, you know, like, you know, stop. It was a trick question.

You can't change her. And here's the hard truth. She's either going to become emotionally mature while you're together or it's going to take the breakup for her to get her act together. And right now it feels like the option is she's going to have to learn it the hard way. If we switched gears and you said you had a daughter and she was dating a guy who spent everything he made didn't work much and was out of control with his impulses. you would look at your daughter and say run away quickly, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah.

And so I'm going to tell you that, except I don't want to be quite that brutal. But I am saying, don't marry this. Don't marry this. You're going to have a long life. It'll be miserable. And don't live together. And don't move to Nevada together. So you guys need to sit down and, you know, like the teenagers used to say, define the relationship.

Okay. If this is going towards marriage, then we are going to have to both be grownups, and that's going to require a reasonable level of spending control on your part, where you still enjoy life, not nerdy like me, but you still enjoy life, but you control your spending, and a reasonable level of work ethic on your part where you actually freaking work and work while you're at work and stuff like that. And, you know, work is not an excuse to eat. Works is an excuse to work. And so, you know, we're going to walk through those kinds of things. I, the lady you've described has a long path to get to where I need her to be before I would want to marry her. And don't move to Nevada with somebody and shack up with them that you're not going to marry. That's just weird sex.

Well, no, that wasn't. The plan was to eventually marry if it could work. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're going to get, if you're going to move to Nevada together, get married. But don't get married until you do this. I wouldn't make the move until you figure this out.

I think you can move and then you continue the relationship. long distance and just watch the behavior and say, honey, this is how I'm going to handle my life. You're going to be miserable with me because this is how I do things. And I'm going to be miserable with you because this is how I do things. And maybe we're not compatible. But let's talk about it. And do you want to work on that part of your life? And if you do, let's talk about it. And we can continue forward. And this is kind of turning a romance into a bit of a formula. But dude, it's a formula. I heard an old man tell me one time, he said, if you marry a woman that loves to spend money, you better enjoy working. That's a good line right there. Of course, the shoe could be on

the other foot, too, by the way. We could flip that over. If dude has an addiction to bass boats, you better enjoy both of you working because you're not going to be a stay-at-home mom because he's buying $90,000 bass boats to catch a bass that keeps out running him because that one has to be faster. You know, I got to upgrade. I got to upgrade. That's a tough one. You know, marriage is hard, but making your life even harder knowingly marrying someone. Yeah.

That's tough. You want to marry someone who's going to make your life easier. So, John, we're not just bearers of tidings of good news today. I'm sorry. But, you know, I would sit out with her. Maybe you guys enter some couples counseling and begin to talk through these things. But the deal is, if this behavior pattern continues, neither one of you are going to enjoy it. If you're waiting for the perfect interest rate before you buy a home or refinance, that moment may never come.

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49, Mallory Lane, Suite 100, Brent went into C, 370272. Mary is in Pittsburgh. There she is. Hey, Mary's in Pittsburgh. What's up, Mary? Hi. Hi, guys. I'm so excited to have you have me today.

I really appreciate your show. You've taught me so much. I've learned so much about finances. I'm 66 years old. We recently paid off all our debt. We paid off two cars in five years. $80,000. And I, we only have $10,000 in our emergency fund, and about $10,000 in my 401k, and he's at $1099, he has nothing.

Wow. Okay. Does either of you have a pension coming in? No. Okay. No, we're renting. We have a low rent of $1,900. And what do you all make?

What's your income? Oh, it's about $125. Okay. What do you all do? I work for a nursing home. It's a recent job, and he is an ISA. Okay. All right.

Well, the good news is you have no debt. Do you have no debt on your house as well? We're renting. You're renting. Okay. Yeah, we've been renting for 10 years. And I wanted to buy a house now that we are free, but I don't know. Mm-hmm.

I have no money. No, you don't. So, wow. Okay, number one, I think the two of you need to look at each other and say, we're going to be working a while. Yeah. We're not going to be like retiring next week. And we're going to be working a lot because we have some catching up to do. We're behind.

And so, you know, I would think about getting a very, very modest house or condo that I put on a 15-year or even a 10-year. fixed rate, mortgage, very modest. And that's after you save up a good down payment. Meanwhile, I would start putting at least 15% of your income away for retirement. That's $15,000 a year. That's not much. In 10 years, that's only 150,000. And that will only become about 350 or 400,000 by the 10-year mark, which makes you 76 years old

with a couple of $100,000 and I've paid for house. house if you pay the house off in 10 years because you buy very modestly. Okay. But that's 10 years of hard work. And, you know, you can end up with a couple of hundred, two, three hundred thousand dollars and a paid four house. And if you just do those two things. But again, the house has to be super modest.

Yes. I mean, like you're not proud of it, but it is yours. Right. I love it. There's hope. Yeah. I'm so happy. Yeah.

He's me and my day. Yeah, so, I mean, putting 15% of your income away, can both of you agree to do that and work 10 years? Oh, yeah, definitely. We're both hard workers. I picked up this part-time job. I'm making like 40,000 here. I work like 29 hours a week, but I get to Social Security. And then August, Dave, I get to make as much as I want for Social Security not to take money out. So I'm excited for August. I'm going full-time, Dave. Thanks for listening to you guys pushing us to do that. Why don't you sit down with your SmartVestor Pro and set up a couple of Roth IRAs and anything else you can come up with to set aside? And let's get that going into some good growth stock mutual funds and then start chunking money aside as fast as you can for a big down payment on a small house. All right. Yeah.

But let's, you know, lay it all out to where in 10 years you're with a paid-for house. and 10 years of 15,000, you're going to be putting in more than that. You're going to be put in about 25,000. So 10 years will be 250,000 plus what would that grow to? Yeah, I crunch it for 10 years. If they invest their 15% with no increase in income, they'll be at about 350K at 76. Yeah. And I paid for a house and Social Security coming in.

You'll be okay. It's modest. Yeah, it's not like lavish, but you'll survive and not be eaten rice and beans forever, hopefully. But here's the trick, Mary. me, whatever you have done for the first 66 years, you can't do any of that. All of that was wrong. It got you to this point. So you have got to spend the next 10 years doing exactly the right things or you're going to be in a real mess.

So, I mean, you've got to really treat this like this is a serious health diagnosis. We've got to get it with it. And you've got to lean into this. because that's a tough 10 years from 76 or 66 to 76. Ouch. Hey, guys, if you're 19 years old or 22 years old, that lady calling was sent as a message to you from God. $100 a month from age 25 to age 65, 100. dollars is 1,176,000 in your mutual fund when you're age 25.

Did you hear that it's tougher to wait till 66 to start? 22-year-old, are you hearing me? 19-year-old, are you hearing me? 24-year-old that loves to go to happy hour, loves fine dining, and wants to lease a freaking Tesla. Are you hearing me? This is she was sent that call, that lady calling, that sweet lady, and she's precious. Sweet lady calling was a message to you if you're in your 20s, Gen Z. She was sent to you today.

Don't you think, George? Yeah. Well, you know, I've actually run the numbers on this and it's fascinating to see what a dollar is worth at 20 invested versus 55 or 60. And the truth is this. If you're 20 years old and you invest a dollar, there's a 73 X return. That dollar turns into $73 at $65. But when you invest that same dollar 55, it's maybe worth 4x instead of 70x. Instead of $73, you got $4.

Exactly. That's the actual compound growth math. Holy Grimoli. To convince the 20-year-old. Put 100,000 of those on it. Yeah. Okay. So 100,000 is 7.3 million, right?

Yeah. Or 100,000 is 400,000. That's the math. There's a difference. That's the wild math behind it. So if you're young. Holy Grimoli. So here's the message.

If you're young, you're thinking, well, I'll save later. Let me enjoy my 20s, and I'll save later when I'm in my 40s, 50s, 60s. Later never comes, unfortunately, because life happens. Life gets in the way. When you're young, man, you got some income coming in. Put it away. You can still enjoy life, but invest some. I graduated from college with a finance degree, and no one ever showed me what you just outlined.

Just compound growth. The power of compound interest. Edison called it there. the eighth wonder of the world, the power of compound interest. And the secret of that is the earlier you start, the more you have. And so it doesn't even require big sacrifice. It just requires intentionality if you start early. It's really not about the income or the amount you put away. It's just the intentionality. It's the intentionality. Because you don't need to put as much away when you're 20. You know, honestly, the ability to delay pleasure is one of the big psychological

insights to someone that is, are indicators to someone who is emotionally mature. Emotionally, but children do what feels good. Adults devise a plan and follow it. And sometimes children are 56 and sometimes they're 16. Sometimes adults are 56 and sometimes they're 16. I mean, we talk to some 19-year-olds on here that are way more mature than some of the 52-year-olds. And way wealthier. Yeah, well on their way.

Because it's only going to take a dollar. goodness, $100,000 to become $7.3 million. It's pretty wild. And that's a one-time dollar or a monthly dollar? I mean, that's, for every dollar you put in, you're going to get 73 out in retirement.

That's the craziest part. So I'm telling you, if you're 20, and you're listening, or 25, or even 30, you've got time on your side, compound growth is going to do the heavy lifting. And as you get older, it can't lift as much

because it needs time. Time is the magic ingredient in wealth building. Yeah. The shorter the time frame, the more of the money that you put in is what's going to be there. Contributions. Yeah, your contribution is going to be equal to or more than the growth. For your 20 or 30, 90% plus is compound growth. Of what you're going to end up with is going to be growth that you did nothing for.

You don't need to save up a million dollars to have a million. Except intentionality. Wow. Powerful. If you've worked hard to keep your car running, the last thing you want is stress when you're running the kids all over to summer activities. or loading up the family for a well-earned vacation. That's why I trust Christian Brothers automotive. Listen, most people don't worry about their car just because it's older. They worry because they don't feel confident about what's happening under the hood or who's working on it. And that

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That's CBAC.com slash Ramsey, 10% off, up to a $250 value. See stores for details. Stephanie is in Omaha, Nebraska. Hi, Stephanie. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve.

What's up? Okay, so I am calling today because I guess I have a little bit of concerns. Me and my husband have been married going on three years. And we're expecting our second child this year. Our finances are completely separate, and we decided once this baby's here, that would be staying home. So I'm just kind of concerned since our finances have always been so separate. Obviously, we have things that we need to figure out. Boy, you are beating around the bush in a Nebraska kind of way.

What the flip is there? What's really going on? So I am eight years younger than my husband. So he has quite a bit of working years old for me. And when we met, I was fairly young. I was on 18 when we first met. You were 18? Yes.

And you're how old now? 26. Okay. Yes. So our financial situations have always been a lot different, obviously, with our age gap. I mean, I've been working a full-time job since I was 14 years old. So being in the working field is nothing new to. me, although because of, I guess, my age and I don't want to use my age as an excuse,

because there's a lot of people who make a lot of money better, my age or younger. So I guess just with my experience and what I do have to offer on the table as far as job-wise, I don't always get like high-salary paying jobs. I start usually low. See, all of that has to do with it. It sounds like you think you have to earn your job. right, to be a wife. Like, you're not equal if you don't make equal money.

Yeah. When you got married, the vows said richer for poorer, sickness and in health. Yeah. Your vote doesn't scale with income. Yeah. You should have had to vote day one regardless of your income level if he decided to do life with you. So what was the real reason you guys never combined? He thinks that I'm financially irresponsible with my money.

There it is. We just got to the real reason. I don't. I don't disagree with him. Yeah. It's like I was always someone, and obviously this is something I'm trying to work on. Okay. Let's stop a second.

Stop a second. Okay. So the marriages that are successful relationally and that are successful financially do not operate like yours. Yeah. That's why you're calling. Okay. Yeah. And so you're not his daughter, even though he thinks because he makes more and he's older that he's going to treat you like that.

And so you're in time out because you didn't behave. That is not a healthy marriage relationship. That's bull crap. Okay. That's from a guy that's been married 43 years. That's bull crap. All right. So you don't earn your vote in the house, as George said, based on the income that you produce or based on your age.

Neither one. You both get a vote the day you say I do. And both votes are equal the day you say I do. Period. Period. And this is the way marriage has functioned that we have studied thousands and thousands of them that become millionaires and that have high quality. high satisfaction marriages. It's not a father-daughter relationship.

No one is punitive. We might argue, but we argue from a level playing field about what our goals are going to be, not what I want to do versus what you want to do. But we argue about where we want to go. And you guys are a long, long way from that, and it brings me great fear. because now that you're having another child at his request, now you're not going to be working at all, which means you don't even not only not have a vote.

Now you have to apply for welfare with him. Yeah. This is the way this character acts. And he has had bad training somewhere. Someone has told him this is the way to do it, and he's wrong. I'm not being unclear, am I? No, you're being perfect with clear. Good.

Okay. And I do agree with you. We've taken this call. So let me show you the future. He's going to give you an allowance, quote unquote, because he's going to treat you like his daughter. And then bitch about how you spend it. And then, yeah, and then he'll shrink it based on your behavior and how he feels about it. Yeah.

While you're trying to take care of the family and the kids. So, no, today this ends. The worm turns today. As Shakespeare said, the worm turned. So that's it. It's over. And we're going to sit down. and honey, we're going to be on an equal playing field.

We're both going to have all of our names on all the accounts. It is now our house, our income, our bed, our kids, our future, or our is going to see a marriage counselor. Yeah. And we're going to get some marriage help, and we probably need to do that anyway, because at a minimum, you guys need some new tools on how to do marriage. Your tool belt is really empty. It is.

Yeah. And so I'm not being mean, but the things that are going through your mind, I don't want you ever coming at this discussion again from a subpar, substandard, I'm not as good as position. Don't you ever use that language again in your house? Because you're not subpar.

You're not substandard. You're younger. You had a different career path. Whoopty-dupty. You're his wife. The old marriage vows in the old days out of the book of common prayer where we get richer for poorer, sickness and health, unto thee. The rest of it used to say, unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. Boy, we ought to add that one back into the marriage vows, shouldn't we?

All of us. My job is now to love you so well that you are cared for and you have a vote. Hello. That's service. real leadership is service that's real leadership so i we're we're on your side i'm not gonna i'm not angry with him but the way he's acting is not going to prosper you it's not going to prosper your children it's not going to prosper him and it's going to create a life of resentment bitterness and anger and you guys are not going to enjoy the next 10 years and your children are not going

to grow up in a good house because this is not the way people are supposed to interact, kiddo. We always say more is caught than taught. And those kids are going to see the way dad treats mom and mom gets an allowance if she's a good girl. And that's a sad way to live. And I think for too long Laura has believed the lies that he has told her. That would be Stephanie. Oh, yes, our Stephanie. I'm sorry. And so part of this is Laura might too, but this one was Stephanie. But you know, I think if she went to a counselor on her own, the counselor would say, I'm seeing a pattern of gaslighting and narcissism and all these sort of trendy words, but I think there's a control mechanism here.

It's just an older guy that's used to being in control, and he's just still in control. That's all it is. I don't know if it's narcissism. That might be overstating it might be overstating. It might, and it's not gaslighting. He didn't tell her she's crazy. He just said she was insufficient, that she was deficient. And so she needs to follow and do what he says.

It's a control mechanism for sure. No question about that. But I don't know if we go so far as to throw trendy overuse. poorly defined words at it, you know, TikTok psychology. But yeah, yeah, that's, geez, yeah, that's the thing right there. Wow. It's one of our most controversial takes is that we believe couples should combine their life, including their finances. I don't know how it became so controversial. That's so, yeah, yeah. You should have a joint checking account. It's kind of like we teach people to live on less than they make. Controversial day. Controversial. Who are you to tell me?

Get out of debt. Controversial. Save money and become a million. millionaire, controversial. Buy a house you can afford and don't buy one until you can. Oh, that's controversy. You're out of touch, Dave. You're out of touch, Dave. You're a boomer. You bought your house with a box of strawberries.

It was bartered for. Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits. You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack. and suddenly everything changes. Yeah, and that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Xander

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I've been following you since 2013, and I am debt-free, and I have a house in the Sacramento area, but I have since moved in the last year to a very rural and remote property, and I cash-floated, and I lived for a year in a travel trailer because I bought it for cash, and also I wanted to make sure if a fire came through, I could evacuate if I had enough time with my house. Since living here for a year, I've found that, you know, I would like something a little more permanent. However, I also don't want to have to pay fire insurance because according to my neighbors, it's between $10,000 and $12,000 a year. Also, I get, so, okay, I'll stop there and say, so I'm thinking about building a mobile home, which I know, Mobile homes are not a good investment.

However, I still own my home in Sacramento as far as an investment. I rent it out to traveling nurses. So every 90 days is a turnover, and I make sure that it's in great condition. So I wanted to get your opinion, is it still a bad idea to cash flow a mobile home to have something a little more permanent, but to save on insurance, basically, to not have to pay the fire insurance knowing I'm taking the risk if a fire comes through. Okay, so what would the mobile home cost? The mobile home is about $100,000. I say about...

Okay, so when it's worth $10,000 later when it goes down in value, how do we put this in the smart column when it goes from $100 to $10,000? I'm wanting to say that instead of being an investment, it is a consumable good. It is something that I live in. Yeah, but if you put the same $100,000 in a house, it would have gone up in value. Yes, but I would feel much worse. worse if a fire came through and burnt it down. And I would feel compelled to get that fire insurance.

Yeah, I would too. I would put more money into the thing is you're losing $90,000. That's a lot of feel good. Yeah, it's true. You're saving $10,000 to lose $10,000 every year in that mobile home. Ooh. Yeah. So it's, I don't think it's as good a deal.

You're going to lose more than $10 the first year on the mobile home. Yeah, yeah. So beyond a cost, or I guess the financial, component, is there anything else about mobile homes? I guess I shouldn't say that. No, that's it. That's the only thing. It goes down in value.

If they went up in value, I'd shut up. Then you'd be okay with it. All right, all right. But, I mean, it's a car you sleep in. Yeah, exactly. It goes down in value. It's a modified, it's an increased, increased, increased in cost, depreciating consumable item.

It's a bigger version of their travel trailer that you don't want to live in anymore. Yeah. In terms of math, that's the math on it. That's my only problem. I mean, one of my good friends owns one of the largest companies in the world that does those things. And he's like, Dave, would you quit treashing it? Well, as soon as they start going up in value, I'll quit trashing it. But they're not going to go up in value.

So would I do that? No, I would not do that. I would pay the fire insurance and I'd build a house. Okay. Yeah, that was my second question. And if I need to sell the house down in the valley to do that, I would do that. It sounds like you do need to because you don't have the money. Oh, I have money.

How much money? So I currently have $130,000 in cash to build a mobile home, but before I build it, I want to make sure. Well, you're not building a mobile home. You're buying a mobile home. Other people build them at a factory and they send it to you. It's on wheels, remember? Exactly. No, exactly.

But it's also putting it on the foundation here, you know, getting the water sewer, all that. So that's why. Yeah, which you're going to do with the house anyway, yeah. Exactly, exactly. It's just the gut of. Yeah, what is the house in the valley worth? It's worth $500,000, and I own it outright. I would sell that and build a house for cash.

Oh, yeah. Let me ask you this. If you owned a house on this wonderful piece of property that you love, and it was 100% paid for it and it was worth $600,000, and you did not own a rental property with nurses in it, would you borrow on your paid-for home to go buy a rental property? Oh, no. It's the same thing.

wouldn't borrow either way it's the same thing when you don't sell the rental property and end up borrowing to build the house it's the same thing yeah if i build a house i would need to save longer before building the house i wouldn't sell you know i would say in a travel trailer longer until i have the money to build the house outright or i would do it i wouldn't i would cash flow it you i wouldn't but i wouldn't have been in the travel trailer in the first place because i'm a snob so yeah i mean i for the weekend maybe, but after that, I'm done. If you're camping, I might see Dave in there. And, you know, if you did see me in there, I would be without Sharon.

That would be the other thing. Sharon's not stepping foot in that. She will not darken the door of that. She's like, good luck with that theory, bub. She's more of a glamper. Especially these days. Okay, so. But yeah, owning a home is a long-term decision, so you want to think long-term.

Ten years from now, was this a good idea? Yeah. And that's the problem with mobile homes. You know, because they're, you know what, almost always, and in her case it is too, but almost always drives the mobile home decision is I don't have the money. And so I'm going to cheap out. And you can cheap out, and for $100,000, you can buy something you can sleep in. And they're fairly nice at $100,000.

I mean, it's a pretty nice one, you know. That's not a bad one. They make them up to $300 or $400 or whatever. But, I mean, $100,000, that's a pretty nice place. But you're right. I mean, it's going to lose more than a $100,000. $10,000 the first year. And then people also get confused and rationalized with, oh, well, the property went up in value.

Yeah, but it was going to go up in value whether it had a house on it or whether it had a mobile home on it. And don't just because it, don't confuse that with a mobile home went down in value. It still went down in value. Like 100% of things with cars, with wheels and or motors. If it has a motor, it has a motor. it has wheels, it's going to go down in value. Period.

Your little John Deere tractor that you paid $8,000 to mow your quarter acre lot with and you financed with John Deere finance is going to go down in value. Your se ado is going to go down in value. Your MasterCraft, I got two of them, they're going to go down in value. The world's best ski boat. Thank you very much. It goes down in value. They're fabulous.

They go down in value. That collectible Corvette I have in my basement is going down in value. And it's a collectible. And George, your battery with wheels, your Tesla is going down in value. I know that the hard way. I'm trying to sell it right now. Nobody wants it, Dave. You can't give that.

Nobody wants a battery. Nobody's in the market for like an iPhone 4. You know, they want the latest and greatest. You're buying technology here. But it's true. It's why we say pay cash. It doesn't age well. If you're going to buy depreciating asset, always pay cash.

And honestly, you feel like right now you're trying to get rid of that car and nobody's, you can't get rid of it. That's one bad feeling. It would be triple bad if you had financed that. If I was underwater on it. And you're sitting there paying payments and you can't give it away. Now you got lots of pissed off. Now you're just moderately aggravated. Yeah.

Just a light, stupid tax on something I enjoyed. Yeah. And, well, the other problem with it is, is you know I'm going to make fun of you. So that's the other problem. I almost thought you might want to buy it just to troll me with it. but I figure you're not going to put money into that. Could we, like, put it in the front yard and plant flowers in it? That's what I was thinking.

I thought you were going to, like, you know, take it to the farm, take it out back. Oh, we could shoot it. And just destroy it. We could take the Barrett 50 Cow and shoot it. It's cheaper than some of these fancy hunting trips that you go on, so I figure. That would be fun. We could make some content out of it. We can make a video out of it.

Let's charge it to the company. You know what, Dave? I like the way you're thinking. You run the thing, so. We'll get the Instagram team out there. Hey, team, clip this out. I want to be able to use this. a court of law when I make Dave

It's not happening, but it's just, it was a good, it was a, you had a moment there. I was close. That's close. Oh man. Whether it's a Tesla or mobile home, it's going down in value. Elon Musk would be so pissed if we took that thing out to the farm and just blew the hell out of it. I think he's got a sense of humor. You might enjoy it.

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studio. Frank is with us in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi, Frank. How are you? I'm doing pretty well, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, throughout the marriage with my wife in the last three and a half years, we have been using our one credit card for covering some of the four walls like groceries and transportation, but we've been covering mortgage and utilities with our checking account. And we also use the credit card for like health insurance, premium, and medical expenses, and even some of the life expenses. So we pay it off every month.

And it feels like we give ourselves some room before we pay off the credit card each month. But then using our savings as quickly. So I guess one of my thoughts or one of my questions is what are your thoughts on using the credit card for some of the four walls, even if it's not the long-term solution. Yeah. You've obviously not listened to the show much, right? We've listened a lot, but I guess one of the reasons that we're holding under the credit

card is, you know, some of the... I mean, you understand that your question is completely perpendicular to everything we teach for the last 30 years, right? Yeah. Okay. So I'm trying to understand me if you understand what you're walking into. It's a warning. I'm asking.

I mean, I'm being, I'm not trying, I'm not trying to beat you up. I'm just saying, so the answer to your question is that's dumber than crud. Okay. Now, why is it dumb? All right. Several reasons. Number one is there's not a singular piece of wealth building research that indicates that what you're doing causes you to build wealth. Not a single instance.

We studied 10,167 millionaires. The number of them that do that what you're doing is, precisely zero. Rich people don't do what you're doing. Broke people do. Okay. So that's a bad sign. Now, is it going to cause you to go bankrupt? Probably not. But the problem is that you actually have somehow used your decision-making framework around money to convince yourself that this is a good idea and that this is somehow going to get you ahead more than simply investing. Inversy. In Investing is where money comes from. Living on less than you make is where money comes from.

Not from trying to trick Citibank. And so the number of millionaires that became millionaires by adding up all their airline miles is precisely zero. None of them. Not one. Broke people chase airline miles. 78% of the airline miles are never redeemed. And yet people spend a lot of brain calories. chasing this bull crap that these rip-off huge banks are screwing America with and then convinced

you that it's a good idea to dance to their tune. I mean, now, are you losing money when you pay a health insurance bill that is a health insurance bill, whether you pay it with cash, it's the exact same amount. You can't possibly change? No, you're not losing money doing that. Are you losing money when you buy, when you pay an electric bill that is going to be the same amount, whether you pay it with a card or whether you pay it with cash? You're not losing a dime. When you go and you're buying your groceries, you're spending more.

The best merchandisers on the planet are grocery stores. When you walk through a grocery store, you are walking through a scientific lab that is very carefully designed what is on what shelf, at what level and what color more than any other type of physical product on the planet. Grocery stores are brilliant merchandisers. The chances that you walk out of there spending more than you meant to, regardless of what methodology you use, are very high because they're very, very good at it. And it started back in the 1950s with a simple thing if they put the necessities at the back of the store, the bread, the milk, and the eggs.

because so you had to walk through the rest of the store and impulse on the candy. And Wrigley's became multi-bazillionaires. The Wrigley family have a fabulous mansion in Phoenix. Fabulous by putting sticks of gum where at the checkout, the impulse proper. So these are just the beginnings of the sophistication that I'm talking about. So a hundred percent chance you spend more in a grocery store than you meant to. And when you put it on a credit card, all the data, all the research says that you are spending somewhere between 12 and 18% more than you would have spent if you spent cash because cash

activates the pain centers of the brain and credit cards don't. When you lay down a $100 bill in the grocery store and Uncle Ben looks at you and says, what are you doing? What are you doing? When you lay down a credit card, Citibank says, thank you. What's in your wallet? Samuel L. Jackson, my money is in your wallet. Not my money, but his money is in your wallet to pay for them stinking commercials that you did.

That's what's in your wallet. We know what's in your wallet. A lot of Citibank's money. Here's the fun math on this. Let's say you put $60,000 of your take-home pay on that credit card to cover these bills, and you got 2% cashback. $1,200 is what you got, right? For the year. I'm exhausted for $1,200.

For the year. So here's what I want to challenge Frank with. Frank, if no one has taken me up on this challenge, for one year, switch to, on a budget using debit card and cash and see if you don't spend less than that $1,200 a year, which then negates all the rewards you got. And my guess is you're going to find that you spent thousands less by using your own money, leaving your bank account now versus using someone else's money that you can pay back later. A hundred percent chance. Take me up on it. Yeah, you're stepping over,

stepping over dollars to pick up nickels, stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Yeah. And so here, And so no, Frank, I would not do what you're doing. That's the reason. The biggest reason, though, is not the $1,200. The biggest reason is, is while you were focusing on the $1,200, you were missing the real way to build wealth because you had your eye on the wrong thing. And you were thinking this method works. It's a distraction. It's the exact same problem I got with Acorn.

With Acorns, that app? Yeah. Yeah, where you put pennies, you know, you round everything up. Your spare change can go into an investment. change in there. And people are screwing around with that with 14 cents while they should have been putting 350 bucks in their 401k. And they use the same brain calories to chase down the 14 cents that they would have done to set their 401k up and retire a multimillionaire. So in their mind, they've checked the box that I am investing. If I ask them, are you investing? You've scratched the

edge. I have the ACORNs app. You're not investing. You're a child with a piggy bank. That's not investing. Children with piggy banks have $14 when they're four years old. And that's what you're going to have in your freaking Acorns app. It's the same thing. There's nothing evil about it. They're not ripping people off, but they took your eye off the ball. And you're focusing your decision-making paradigm and framework around the wrong things. And so that's the problem. And 100% of the time, the Citibank tells you to do something. It's something you should not do. best interest. It's not for you. It's for Samuel L. Jackson. They got to pay him. He's expensive. Jennifer Garner's not cheap. A hundred percent chance that Patrick Mahomes cost State Farm a bunch of money.

Who you think paid for that? Oh, you people that buy from State Farm. Shee. Have you not priced your dadgum homeowners insurance? You can beat it with almost anybody if you got State Farm. Because you I don't have to pay Patrick Mahomes. Hey guys, health care is one of the biggest stress points in your budget. It's confusing and most of the time it feels completely out of your control. But there is a better way to handle it. Christian health care ministries isn't health insurance. It's a health cost-sharing ministry where Christians share each other's medical bills.

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health care ministries. Right now, CHM is offering new members a 50% credit towards their first month of membership. Go to CHministries.org slash budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's CHministries.org slash budget and use promo code Ramsey. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. We're glad you're here. Ashley is in Bend, Oregon. Hi, Ashley. How are you? Hi, I'm good. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? My husband and I have been given kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity. We have a family friend that is fairly well to do. Her and her husband own about five homes throughout the state. One of which is far over in eastern Oregon, and they are getting older and have offered

for us to basically at a zero dollars a month lease this property from them to allow us to essentially build my horse training business and kind of start a ranching dream that we've had. And our hiccup is we both have extremely good jobs where we're at. All of our family is here, so on, so forth. And it's just a big leap. So we're not sure if we should do it or not. What do you guys make at your extremely good jobs?

So we both are in the construction industry. He makes about $110,000 a year. I make $75,000, and then I train horses on the side and make about $50,000 from that. But of course, you would lose all of that clientele because you're moving far away. Not necessarily. So my business is based on developing young horses and then selling them. So I don't necessarily have like a monthly clientele per se. So where you train the horses that you sell doesn't matter?

So you wouldn't lose the 50? Correct. And I mean, the idea would be to substantially grow that. Oh, I understand. But I mean, you would not lose the 50. You know we know at least you can do that. Yes, sir. If everything, well, unless something really bad goes wrong.

Okay. Correct. And so how rule is this area? Why can your husband not work? So he can. And that would be the idea over there. The town is about 140 people, so it's very rural. I guess it just wouldn't be what he sits at now.

From what we've researched, probably about $70 or $80,000 is what he would make a year. How out of 140 people? The county has some like management positions that are opening that I think he would be a very big benefit to them. He's a foreman for a construction company now. So I think he probably has some skills that would definitely be of interest. How old are you? I am 30 and he is 31. How far away is this place from where you are now?

About five hours. How many kids do you have? None. Okay. All right, and so we would be moving from 110 on him down to 70, and we'd be moving. Your income that you're losing is, you're keeping the 50 on the horse. What's the income you're losing? About 70.

So it's a $110, $120,000 shift initially, assuming you don't. That's if he gets a $70,000 job and you can retain your 50 on the horses. without any increase. Yeah, I got you. And I have thought about grabbing something remote while I build the horse thing up more and more, maybe getting something part-time to remote to kind of help that gap be smaller. Yeah, or like full-time. Yeah, or full-time. And these people will let you use this land and house for free, is what you're saying?

Yeah, so they don't get over there very much, and it's obviously hard to maintain a property that's also five hours away from them. They've just held on to it because they like visiting there twice a year, essentially. Do you own a home? Yes, sir, we do. We have right out about $100,000 in equity in that, and I do currently run the horse business out of that. Like, it's not something that I have to move to do that. I run it out of my house now. This is just, I mean, it's 1,500 acres and. But it's not yours. It's not going to be yours. Correct. Correct. Yes, sir. That's my fear.

It's long term. You don't own this, and it could shift hands. So 10 years from now, from now, what does winning look like? You don't own any real estate. He's still working a county job, and you've grown a horse business. Yes. That's what winning looks like 10 years from now. I think the idea would be potentially to grow the business and, I guess, buy a place of our own.

The expenses there would be essentially next to nothing. You know, I guess it would just be utilities. and the money I guess. So what's the mortgage on your house today, the map balance? 410. Okay. And so if you took 100 and went and bought a $500,000 ranch in some area that sounded like this, you could keep about the same mortgage amount and be on a ranch.

And do this deal, and do this deal but own it. Yeah, and that's, I mean, like that's kind of been our plan was to just stay where we all. are and, you know, obviously work to make that dream come true. They have just offered this to us. Yeah. I'm just not sure it's a blessing. I was trying to figure out if it is. It lowers your expenses, but it moves you away from ownership long term.

Yeah, and you're, you know, everything's dependent upon. How long will they, how long a lease will they give you for a dollar a year? She basically has told us infinite. No, bull crap. She went as far as telling me that she will put it in her will, that the kids cannot sell the home until we decide we're done with the property. Do you understand that's weird? It is very weird. Like so strange, I'm now spooked.

Yeah, this is weird. That they wouldn't give it to their kids. Yeah. As long as you guys are alive, essentially. Our friend that raises horses gets priority over our entire family with our family. 1500 acres. Nah. I think where she comes from is that is her kids are very well to do. I know, but my kids are well to do, but I'm not doing that for you. Okay. Dave's not giving me his farm. That's just weird. George can't live there for free.

I don't care, George. Shut up. But I love horses, Dave. I know. Well, you're known for your horse love. I'm just glad I met someone who's in the business of selling horses. Makes me feel better. Oh, wow. Yeah. Her job is to do what you tell people to do. Who knew? Made a career out. Okay. I don't know. I got to admit the romance of it I've kind of caught on to, okay? Because 1,500 acres, you know, are we all Yellowstone junkies? Is that our problem? But yeah, anyway, the... And it's like, it's not... I don't like the business aspect of it. Okay. The only way I would tell you to do this is if you pledge to yourself at the end of five years that you have your own place or you leave, period.

Okay. We're not going to stay here longer than five years. Okay. Would they sell it to you? Yeah, but they can't afford it. I mean, she put it at $2.8 million. Perfect. Okay.

Okay. So number one, I would put a time limit on it. and you can return to construction and you can return to the life you have now fairly easily plus or minus your current job okay yeah and I would if this thing all blows up and isn't fun and you hate living out in the middle of nowhere after all I took a call from a lady yesterday who said we bought our we bought our dream home with a bunch of acreage and we hate it what do we do now and I'm like well you sell it and you move back to the city done done done done And so, you know, the green acres, but the, yeah, wow, anyway, the, the other thing that's bothering me, I'm just going to get it all out, okay?

Because you called and asked, and I really like talking to you. Thank you. Because you really have a level head for somebody doing a whole thing based on romance. And this is a very romantic story. It's a very cool, very cool story. I mean, the people that are infinitely generous, that are infinitely wealthy and their children don't even care. I mean, this is strange. And so that's sweet, but it's weird.

And so, yeah, I'd put a five-year limit on it, number one. Number two, I want you and your husband to do some prayerful soul-searching because this entire adventure is based on your desire to run a horse business. Nothing else. That's 100% the driver of this. And is that really what you want to be the driver of your whole life? because nothing else, we're doing everything else in this story to serve that one thing. And that's bothersome.

You know, when I became a dad, something flipped. Suddenly, it wasn't just about me and my wife anymore. It was, what happens to my family if I'm not here tomorrow? And things like that just hit different when you become a parent. But I'll be honest, making a will feels heavy and complicated, and it's not exactly what I want to be doing with my time off. But here's the deal. Being a parent means doing the hard stuff, especially stuff that protects your family.

And that's why I used Mama Bear Legal Forms. No hassle, no lawyers, just a simple online tool that helped me create a legit will in about 20 minutes. So it was pretty much painless. Plus, I added a notch to my dad belt right there between installing car seats and bedtime stories. Listen, being a dad never stops. And making a will is how you make sure your family's covered even when you're not there. So get your will done today at mama bearlegalforms.com and use the promo code Ramsey to save 20% off when you check out. Again, that's mamabearlegalforms.com promo code Ramsey. Buying or selling a home is a big deal. If you want to learn more about housing trends and see what the weekly mortgage rates are doing, what prices are doing across the U.S.,

well, we're on top of all the market trends and we can help you buy or sell with confidence and even hook you up with a Ramsey trusted agent. go to ramesysolutions.com slash market. We'll give you some help. Emily's in Chicago. Hi, Emily. What's up? Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. How can we help? Well, I'm 55 years old, and I've got four grown children. When my husband, my first husband, passed away nine years ago and left me with some life insurance money, I had a revocable living trust created with my four. children as a beneficiary. My house is fully paid for and it's titled to the trust. So I got remarried four years ago to a wonderful man and he moved into this house with me and he, of course, helps with some living expenses and upkeep here and everything and the house is rising in value.

So my question is, how much equity should I give my second husband And in this house, it was fully paid for before we got married, but I am fair to both him and the kids. The only way you could is if you restructure the trust, right? Right, which I am about to do. Actually, I have an appointment here in about three weeks. So restructure your, have that appointment. Why? Well, I was already going to make some amendments now that my kids are no longer minors.

So while I'm doing that, I thought I would amend the trust in some way so that if something happens to me... What is the size of your estate? My house now is worth about $500,000. I do have... I don't have any debt. I do have some retirement investments and some savings in an accessible investment account. I've always looked on a zero-based budget, and I think grand total, mine would be about $1.2 million, actually. And what have you done with all of that in regards to your current husband?

Nothing yet. All of that has all been in the trust that I had before. So everything you have was put into this trust? Yeah. Why? Why? Why? Why?

I feel like it worked before I met him. Why? Why was it put in a trust? When my first husband died, my financial advisor just said, this is what you would do, and he just did all those things for me. You don't even know why. Not exactly. A folk suffer to, I guess, if something were to happen to me, I was the own parent. A will would take care of it.

A will would take care of it. You don't have to operate everything else. You designated a beneficiary on these accounts, and you don't need to put it in the trust. Yeah. Okay. Well, I already do have the trust. But I'm not sure you need it. Oh, okay.

You might, but I'm not sure you need it. And I don't like that you don't even know why it's there. And yet this trust is running around. We're doing all this stuff. We're serving a trust that we don't know why it exists. Because I don't know why it exists. I'm not sure why you need one. You don't need one for estate tax planning.

You don't have an estate tax problem. I'm sure of that. if you were trying to protect it from something, then you could use a trust for that, but I don't know who we're protecting it from. I want to make sure that, I want to make sure that. Well, if you leave the house, if you're a widowed lady and you have a house and you say in your will, that a house goes to my four kids, 100% of the time it goes to your four kids. You don't need a trust to do that.

Should I, though, give some of that? to my husband since he, my second husband, that's a separate discussion. First thing I'm talking about is the structure of your finances, okay? And the structure of your finances, I don't know why you're doing this. So I want you to get some estate planning advice, and if you're going to keep the trust, I want you to have a real good reason why you have it and why you're keeping it. I don't know why your million three is in a trust.

Mine's not. Okay. And I'm your age, and I've got more. and it's not in a trust, okay? I've got some things in a trust, but that's an estate planning mechanism because my net worth is in excess of the $25 million exemption. So I've got some of those issues. But you don't have those issues.

I'm not picking on you. I'm just saying there's a reason for a trust and there's a reason. Sometimes the only reason people have a trust is what I'm getting at is because some attorney sold them one, not because they needed one. So I want you to get into this and figure that out. Now, having said that, let's go back to your question. Let's say that you kept the trust, and the trust stated that the first 500,000 value of the property upon you being deceased, the current value, the first 500 goes to your children as promised, and half of any increase goes to your children as promised. The other half of any increase would go to your husband.

That is what I was thinking. It was worth $340 when we got married four years ago. I don't know that you have to backdate it, but if you want to, you could. Okay. And then 50% of the increase after that would be... Yeah, I split the increase between your kids and your husband. That's an equitable way to do it. Okay.

Yeah. The reason I wanted to ask is he feels like I should just give him 50% total. No. Well, he wasn't there for the first 50%. The first 50% came for. He showed up. Why does he think he needs that? Right, okay.

Why? Where did he get that logic? You think she's that pretty? No. I think he's listening to a few of your segments where you were speaking to somebody in a different situation who was in property. He was on a house that he had a totally different situation and he kind of, I feel like this kind of misappointed to ours. No, I wouldn't have said that in your situation. I mean, there's not a situation like yours that I would have answered this anyway other than this way.

And I'm not even sure he needs half of that. But if you want to give him half of the increase from the time you got married on or from today on, that seems fair. If he's putting money into the property. And he's going to pay at least half of the, I mean, you all have a combined account now, and your combined account is paying the property taxes and the insurance and the maintenance, then, yeah, he could participate that way. that's okay, that's fair. But I don't know why he would be due anything from before the marriage.

That's not logical to me. But I really do want to go back to the other thing and say, investigate why you ended up with the trust. All right. Now, the reason I'm kind of going off on this, everybody, sidebar, there's a whole segment of people in the insurance world and in the legal world that sell people a $1,500 trust, as if it's some kind of freaking magic wand for an estate planning tool that they don't need. And they're a pain in the butt to operate.

So every time you want to sell the house, every time you want to do an investment, anything you want to do, it's on the name of the stupid trust. And so I've got a couple of things in a trust, but they're not used that way. And people sell it to avoid probate tax, which is local estate tax. And it's usually not that much. And as a matter of fact, it usually doesn't even cost as much as the trust. Because the trust is a couple grand. Yeah, typically two to five grand, depending on who draws it up and what it's for.

Now, if there's a combative adversarial family situation of some kind and you're trying to lock down your intentions for the ownership for a particular thing in perpetuity, a trust is a way to pull that off. Okay. And then in that case. But normally a will will suffice for 98% of situations and you don't just run over and get a trust. And what I've got here is a lady whose husband had passed away. She had a big insurance check, and she went to a lawyer. And what did she end up with a trust. So I'm suspicious that she didn't need one.

Well, I get a lot of these videos sent to me from our fans. And it's always someone who has a vested interest in you getting a trust, which is why they're like, oh, if you have a way, you've got to get a trust as soon as possible. And it's as if it's some magic trick. Scroll down to get my trust.com. Exactly. And it's usually an estate attorney trying to get some clicks and views for their business. Hello. Hello. Here's the advantages of a trust. No one talks about the disadvantages.

Here's an interesting thing. Unless you retitle everything, including your mutual fund state, your mutual fund account, your real estate, everything, you have to go retitle it, your car or whatever. It's not in the trust until you retitle it. And people buy these trusts and then don't retitle the stuff. So the trust is sitting there with nothing in it. James is in Baltimore. Hey, James, what's up? Hey, how's going? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So my wife and I just recently quit our high-paying jobs to have her stay home with the kids and for me to live out an early semi-retirement, I guess, just working part-time.

How dumb are we? I don't know. I mean, what's wrong with it? What did you do that was dumb? It sounds like you think you was dumb if you're asking us. What's the regret here? I mean, I'm having some second thoughts, but I don't know how much. Much of that is outside influence from my parents and my in-laws who are pretty risk-adverse.

Okay. And how much of it is making? In total, we were not in. What were you making? I was making about 300, just shy. Doing what? IT cybersecurity. Okay.

And why were you $300,000 pissed off about it, so where you didn't want to do it anymore? I've just been working for 20 years in the industry. I'm 40 now and just thought that it would be a good time to refocus my energy on the family rather than work. Okay. And so how much have you got in your nest egg? What are you living off of? So we sold our house. And so we've got about a million.

just over a million of cash 785 in 401k, 550 in a brokerage, 176 in a paid for rental, and maybe 40 grand in miscellaneous, so about 2.5 and change. And you guys are renting now? Yeah, we actually moved to Greece. Oh, wow. So we're back home visiting right now, but we moved to Greece. What are you doing in Greece? Working, remote, IT cybersecurity, but for myself, hard time. Oh, okay. And how much do you make doing that?

Just shy of 180, 190, it's looking like. Well, that doesn't sound like you quit. Well, I'm working 20 hours. I know, compared to what you were working, you quit. But, I mean, you know, this is not a guy who's sitting on your Duff 40, your entire, week, you're working a little bit, make $180, you used to make $300, is a $120 cut. What was your wife making before she quit? Right around $300.

Okay. And what was she doing? Marketing, digital marketing. And she took hers all the way to zero? She has one client, but it is basically nothing at this point. No money? Not much. What's not much?

working for her. And I don't remember off the top of my head, but it's... Okay, so let's just round up and say you guys are making over $200,000 a year. You live in Greece, and you sold everything. Everything. Yeah. That's different than I retire. That's not...

Your initial story is not true. I retired. I quit. I do nothing. I play with babies and change diapers. And my wife plays with babies and change diapers. change diapers. We do nothing. We quit everything. We're off the grid. That's how you started, and that's just not the accurate facts. You've got $2.5 million, and you make $200,000 a year.

You took a pay cut to have an adventure in Greece and kind of scale back a little bit. Yeah, I guess that's why I'm thinking of it as summer retirement because I'm working Eastern hours and I'm able to work from Greece. I'm effectively not working during the day. I work evenings. Work whenever you want and however much you need to to get the job done at 180. And you're keeping your skills sharp in probably one of the hottest fields in the world right now, cybersecurity. And as long as you keep your skills sharp, you can jump in and out of that world at random and make money. Agreed?

Yeah. I guess like plug in my income and more importantly my savings and investments into various calculators. Okay. So let me put it this way. It sounds to me like you guys. driving, have you ever driven a car at 150 miles an hour? In excess, yes. Yeah, me too.

The white lines are coming at you pretty fast. You remember what happened when you slowed down to 50? I feel like you could walk it out and walk. Yeah. You felt like you went from, you know, whatever to ride in a turtle. I mean, it was just like because your brain had adjusted to that speed. And when you dropped down to 50, it felt like you stopped. Right.

That's what you did. 100%. You two were $600,000 a year, high potential, high capacity people. You were working 60, 80 hours a week. You were straining your brain. You were straining your emotions. You were straining your physical body with the hours. And you went from 180 or went from 600 miles an hour to 200 miles an hour.

And it feels like you stopped. Right. Exactly. But you really didn't. Yeah. You're now just driving. most people. No, I know.

And it just feels like I worked 20 years to get where I'm at, and I was kind of on the threshold of getting to the next level. What's the next level? SVP, the title. Yeah, do you want that? I mean, be careful about climbing that letter of success. You want to be sure which building it's leaning on. Yeah.

Yeah, you looked up and said the destination ain't worth it. The juice ain't worth the squeeze. I think I'm feeling pretty good and I can have a really good life. I suspect you'll go through about four or five years of what you're doing now. You'll probably open up your own shop in some manner of some kind and get back to making a half million dollars just because it's fairly easy for you. But you'll want to control your own destiny instead of running around in the corporate world, which you really got sick of, and I really don't blame you because they piss on their people.

Yeah, 100%. I think you're good. What's your burn rate right now? How much you guys spend in a year? Right around 6,000. That's living really comfortably there. A month. Six grand a month?

A month. A month. Seventy-two a year? Yeah. Yeah. You're making well in excess of that working 20 hours a week. James, I want the narrative, see, the narrative that you are shiftless, do nothing, retired early, and have no work ethic that is being shamed and delivered to you somewhere is actually not. accurate of who you are. If you were that, I would tell you. Okay. I would say, you know, get off

your butt, you loser. I would tell you, okay? But you're really not. I mean, you're, you're making substantial money because you've honed sharp tools. You have sharp tools in your belt and you're a craftsman and you're able to apply those because of your years of experience and your connections and make an inordinate amount of money for a small amount of hours. And for right now, that's an adventure and a chance to slow down and get your breath. You guys have been running so stinking hard for so long. You just went from 180 to 55. That's all you did. But you're not shiftless or lazy. And I don't think you're going to do this exactly this way for the rest of your life. I don't think you're done. I think this is a sabbatical. Yeah, this adventure could go, yeah, it's getting old. We want to go back to the States four years from now. And you can do that. And you'll go pick up a job if you so choose or do your own thing. You may move to Switzerland. I don't know. The numbers are irrelevant. You guys are doing great financially. It's not dumb financially, but if you're the parents, you're going, I can't believe they went from 600 to 200 on paper.

He quit their jobs. My son-in-law quit his job. So impulsive. But, you know, they don't have a vote. If you guys are enjoying your life, you're making your bills. You know, it's funny. I've told this story a thousand times, but I'll tell it one more time. So my grandfather worked for alcohol aluminum for 38 years every single week.

And when he retired, he was head cost accountant. He's a wonderful man. One of my favorite people on the planet. but steady, stable, secure. Risk averse. Yeah. So my grandmother's a second grade school teacher. So I printed the first book financial piece.

I was selling out of the trunk of my car. Sold it to a publisher. I got an email and it said, congratulations, you just sold your millionth copy. Wow. And the phone rang and it was my grandmother. And she said, I was worried about you. When are you going to get a real job?

Oh, man, that's funny. And she's sweet. I mean, she really was. It's so sweet. She was so worried about me. That's passive aggressive grandma behavior, though. No, no. I mean, she just, the point was it's just not her world.

It's not her paradigm. She didn't understand it. And she didn't have the viewpoint to go a million copies. I think we're okay. I actually do have a job, hon, and we're okay. I'm still doing it today, by the way, all these 30 years later. Well, she'd probably think remote work is just unemployment with a different title.

Oh, it is. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. Sammy is in Chicago. Hi, Sammy. How are you? Hey, good. How are you today? Better than I deserve.

What's up? So me and my wife got on your program about seven months ago. We've shut down all of our credit cards. We have about $50,000 worth of that left. How much of you? paid off in seven months. Right under about $6,000. $1,000 a month, okay?

Yep. What's your household income? 150. So far, you suck at this. You're making progress, but $1,000 a month is kind of weak. Our kids go to private school, which is a big expense. but my question was, is it a bad idea to take out a helac to consolidate it? I'm sitting on about $250,000 with the equity in my house and kind of just get it all in one place

and push it up to $1,200 a month and kind of clear that out in four or five years. Yeah, that's a bad idea. Because you should turn up the heat. You should turn up the heat on your budget, turn down the heat on your lifestyle. you guys have you've begun the process and you've taken the first level of sacrificing which is a great progress i picked on you pretty hard but i mean you really you cut up your credit cards and you paid off six thousand dollars and that's more than you've done in 10 years so you've come along what i mean you're going in the right direction finally congratulations on

that and that's good but what i want you to do instead is pay three four thousand dollars a month and just get rid of this in a year but that means you're going to cut a whole bunch of stuff out of your life for a year. And I don't know exactly what it is. And it's not the kids of private schools because that's not the real problem. The problem is y'all spend a lot of money eating out. And you go on vacation whenever the flip you want. Ding, ding, ding. I hear that. Yep. Vacation, yes. But yeah. Okay. And you, you know, I mean, you're paying. That makes a lot of fun. You add all of that up and you take the budget and you and your wife go, kids in private schools is a non-negotiable. But all this other crap, we can cut it out for one year and hold our breath and be done

with this, or we can keep this stupid thing around as a helock like it's a pet. No, I want to kill it. And here's what happened. Here's what will happen. Here's a cool thing. In the process of doing that, Sammy, you and your wife will permanently change how you handle money. You won't have to stay permanently sacrificed at that, but you will never be inattentive again. You will pay attention for the rest of your life because of this one time, because of the strain it does to your brain when you go on this much sacrifice, George. Yeah, using the house as a piggy bank and moving the unsecured debt to a secure debt, it's not changing any of the behavior that got you guys here.

And that's why we're telling you, don't do this. It's just moving the debt around, and you guys are the solution, this great income you have. We just got to put it to work. I don't want you to be 10 years from now and only still finding $1,000. Because you make too much money to be as broke as you are. I want you to be rich. and be i want you to live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else and so that that involves turning up the heat for a short period of time cleansing the whole thing cleaning

the whole thing off and then going from there pause all investing too if you guys are any investing temporarily stop your 401ks um make sure you're not getting a tax return you and your wife are together we're not going to see the inside of a restaurant until we get this done we're not going on vacation until we get this done we're going to sell so much stuff that's junk around this house that the kids think they're next. We're going to bust it. And we're going to have a tight budget and we're going to have a detailed budget. And the two of us are going to agree on that budget.

And we're going to make a game out of this for the whole family. And we're going to clean up this mess and cut up these credit cards, which you already did. Way to go. And, you know, we're going to finish this change out because personal finance is 80% behavior. And you have to modify behaviors to win. It's only 20% head knowledge. The head knowledge, the intellect, the intellect, the intellect, needed to the intellectual knowledge base needed to become a millionaire you learn by the sixth grade.

It's just not that hard. The hard thing is the guy in my mirror. The guy in my mirror, if I can get that guy to behave, he could be skinny and rich. But he's got issues. You know, and I like donuts. It's a problem. I think this is getting personal, Dave. Oh, I'm sorry.

My name is Dave, and I like donuts, yeah. This is my personal AA meeting. That's it, man. That's how it works, Sammy. We all face this stuff is the point. And the more I can get you to lean into it and burn with it a little bit, the more permanent the change becomes in your household. And then that is the biggest indicator of whether you're going to become wealthy, not whether we save a few interest rate points on a HELOC. So good question.

Thank you for calling in with it. Jonathan is in Miami. Jonathan, what's up in your world? Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me, man. How are you? Sure. Better than I deserve. How are you? Well, I've been following you, and I have a question. This is mortgage-related. And let me give you a little background. I'm 44 years old. I have four beautiful kids. I am the sole earner in my home. Right. I'm the head of household. My wife is a stay-at-home wife. We have no debt.

I bring in approximately 200,000 a year. Way to go. And I have extremely poor financial discipline. when it comes to investing or any of that stuff. No one has ever taught me, and I've always been fearful of losing my money. Therefore, I do the dumbest thing possible, which I keep it all in checking. How much is in checking now? About 1.4.

Million? Correct. Wow. Wait, wait, don't chew me out. Yep, that's just fabulous. You've got a million dollars in checking? I love it. Oh, you're going to be so easy.

to help. Well, I'll tell you what my problem is. Okay. I, um, because I don't have that financial discipline and fear of losing money and I like having it under my pillow per se, you know, you know, you're having it in your checking account. You know where it is. You can get it whenever you want. Yeah, I guess so. I've been stacking. Now, the only debt I have is this house mortgage. So I purchased a home in 2020. I have about $400,000 outstanding on it. And I am, fighting myself whether I should pay it off in full or whether I should, I don't know, do something else perhaps. Everyone is telling me that I've spoken to, invested, invested, invested.

I have no idea what I'm doing. That's fair. Every person I talk to. And you're wise not to invest it until you get comfortable. You should not do it because someone else said do it or because Dave said do it. But let's just start with the basics here, okay? 1.4 in checking, right? How long has that been there?

I've been saving for nine years now, so it's been accruing. Let me just play again. Let's pretend a million dollars has been there for the last four years, okay? Okay. Just for the fun of it. Now, I want you to go learn about investing and get comfortable with it, and I'm going to help you do that, because you've done the right thing. Don't put money in something you don't understand. So so far, you've done the right thing.

But by not understanding investing, had you invested in a basic mutual fund, that only returned exactly what the market has returned, you missed out on three of the best years ever. Your money would have doubled in the last three years. Wow. That's cost you a million dollars, that lack of knowledge. So I want you to go get the knowledge, okay? And I want you to go to a smart vester pro at Ramsey Solutions and go sit down with them and begin the process of learning

and tell them you have a million dollars to invest because yesterday you paid off your house with 400,000 out of that. of checking. And by the way, you don't need discipline to pay off your house. It actually adds to discipline because it's very hard to get the money out of your house. Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade Warshot. Listen, summer spending adds up so fast between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events and all the extra gas and grocery runs. Money can get tight before you know it. To really get your money under control and keep it that way, you're going to need a plan. And that's what you'll get with the every dollar budget app. It helps you track your spending, free up cash,

to put toward debt and savings, and it's the simplest way to make a plan for your money before the month begins. So no more wondering where your money's going. You're telling it where to go. Download every dollar in the app store or Google Play and start for free today. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y ReFi. When people get buried under private student loans, they can't keep up with, they might think there's no way out of that mess. Why Refi helps borrowers explore solutions with fixed rate refinancing and a payment plan tailored to their situation. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Cameron in Wisconsin. What does Ramsey solutions recommend regarding robo investment accounts? There are options where you answer questions based on your tolerance to risk, and they automate the process, and that seems like a simple way for people to invest when they don't know too much about investments or don't have time to manage their account. Is this something you'd recommend? Well, I like to know what I'm investing in, and so I don't want to just delegate it to the robots

and not fully understand what's going on behind the scenes. So the idea is pretty simple. You know, some people, they're not ready to work with an advisor. They don't have a lot of money, so they go the robo investment route. There's a low fee, and they feel good about their decisions. And you're probably, you know, you could do worse than that. But it's still not my favorite option when it comes to invest. investing simply because you're not fully involved.

Yeah. George, one of the most requested things we've gotten over the years is for us to actually list the mutual funds that we personally own. Just tell me what to invest in, Dave. What is the mutual fund that you buy? Or have even company, mutual fund companies have come to us and said, you know, would you endorse our mutual funds? And we made the philosophical decision many, many years ago to do none of that.

So you guys don't know what mutual funds I have, nor will you? Because it's not the point of what I have. The point is what you have. And the point is, you need to learn enough about the mutual fund for you to buy you an investment. You should not put money in something because Dave Ramsey did. You should put money in something because you looked at it, you understand it, and you have taught, sat with a good smart investor pro with the heart of a teacher, and you've learned about the historical, this thing.

is 62 years old. It's got this kind of track record, this kind of risk. It doesn't feel bad to me. I like it. And here's the fees on it. And I'm okay with that. And based on that, I'm going to choose that fund and I'm going to invest. That's how you should invest. A robo shouldn't pick it. This is not an automated car wash. It's your investments. And, you know, you shouldn't pick it based on the person sitting next to you in your cubicle. What's you put in your 401K? That's a bad way to select your 401k options. Just looking over Gary's shoulder. By God, 50% of the people in 401Ks, that's how they picked them.

Or their company had an automated process that automatically puts them in the dumbest, dumbed down, risk-averse possible thing, which is really not a good portfolio of mutual funds, and they picked whatever the company dumped them in automatically and didn't even look at it. So this is not how you make money. It's not a good investing strategy. It's like, I'm going to buy a house and never look at it. first. I have no idea about the neighborhood. Who knew they had cars up on blocks and shot down the street with Uzi's? I had no idea. But I just bought a house there. You know, why? Because I heard it was good on

TikTok. You know what I mean? No. No, you don't do that. You go look at the house. You look at the neighborhood. You understand. You ask questions about the schools. You say, what's the hospitals like in the area? What's the traffic pattern around here like? You get knowledge about the product before you buy it. And that's what you do with a mutual fund. That's what you do with an investment. Do not buy something because a robo said to. And likely it's going to put you in something too risk averse, like target date funds or a bunch of bond funds. Exactly. It almost always dumps it down. 20 years later, you go, why am I not getting these returns they've talked about? Well, you're not investing the way we teach. The number of times I pull up in a 401k with a big company, they've got auto processes or they've got buckets of funds.

okay, here's five funds in the high-risk bucket. Well, guess who does that? No one, based on the bucket name. Yep, you're not in Vegas. But then I pull up the actual funds. They're not high-risk. They're just gross-stock mutual funds. They're higher risk than a stupid bond fund, which is in bucket number one.

Might as well put it in savings. In your grandmother's boring bucket. And then you've got the medium bucket and the Goldilocks bucket. And then, you know, and so no one does that. And basically, most people should be. probably be in the funds that are in that high-risk bucket, but because the way it's named, they're just picking a bucket. They don't want to put any effort into learning about it. Yeah. Get your butt to school. This is millions of dollars of difference, whether you put it in the

right fund or not. I was talking to that. No, don't use a robo. I do these man on the street, you know, interviews from my YouTube channel. We did one yesterday, and I asked people how much they have in retirement. And I asked them, do you know what you're invested in? Only one person out of 10 or 12 could tell me what they're invested in, and it's because they were a Ramsey fan. Her and her husband in their 30s, $900,000 invested in mutual funds, just like we teach. Wow, and they got to be on George's YouTube channel. Say I'm a millionaire. Pretty cool. And all the others just said, I don't know, I have a guy who does it, I think. I've got a guy. I said it in my 401K. The people in HR help me.

Good Lord. I clicked a button on my 401K. People are picking your funds? Ten years ago, I logged, I don't even have the login to the 401K, but 10 years ago, I think I click some funds. That's the most of people's knowledge about their investments. And, and, you know, let me just tell you, winning at anything is a series of intentional acts. You have to be intentional about your investing. You have to be intentional about your marriage, intentional about raising kids, attentional about taking care of your body, intentional about your spiritual walk. You know, no one wins the Super Bowl, and then the reporter runs out on the field and goes, how did you do that? And they go, I don't know, I just got off the boat.

and this just happened. What happened? I don't know. No one says that. They've been studying and playing football since they're a freaking six years old. They don't do anything else except throw a ball, throw a ball, get hit by throwing a ball, hits somebody that throws a ball. That's all they've done. Their whole freaking life. And then they don't know how to do anything else in life because they're so focused on that. And that's how they get to the Super Bowl. It's an intentional act. It's an intentional act. And so, you know, for God's sakes, don't have a robo picket for you. I want an app so I don't have to think. There's not.

There's an app for that. No, there's not an app that keeps you from having to think. Not if you want to be somebody and have something. You got to do the stuff or you got to do the stuff. You got to do the stuff. No robo. No George, no Dave. No Rachel.

We're not even going to tell you what Kelly is invested in. We're not even going to tell you her mutual funds. Because I don't even know. So I can't tell you. So there you go. And although that might get some real serious. But, yeah, anyway, can you imagine Dave Ramsey's producer put that in there? George's producer put that in there.

That would be the big. Well, the good news is they're not like super secret funds that only Dave has access to. No, they're ridiculously boring. And you probably have changed it almost never in that period of time. You've been investing. I don't remember changing it. A fund may have moved and switched around. I don't think I even changed it then.

You probably don't look at it much now that you know what you're invested in. I pull it up enough to know. what's going on with it because I'm intentional, but I'm not like, oh, I'm panicking. Trump bombed Iran. I'm like, no, it went down. Prices went down. Good. I can buy more.

It's on sale. It's on sale today. Yeah, that's the whole thing. So be intentional. You know, I used to get a lot of hate mail for this. And I haven't done it in a while, so I need to get, I hadn't had a hate mail to a minute. I was going to say.

You want some more hate mail? Here we go. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Well, now you've done it, Dave. And you know what? You know where that saying comes from? The Bible? No, it's the truth.

Oh. That's where it comes from. I thought there was a proverb in there somewhere. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And you know why? It's not because rich people are evil. It's not because they're smarter. It's not because they're prettier.

It's not because they stole money. It's not because they did something wrong. They had a series of habits and principles that they operated. their life on, and they continue to do that. And you know what poor people do? They have a series of habits and patterns that they operate their life on, and that will make you poor. And keep you there. You don't break the cycle. Now, there is an exception to that, to be fair, to limit the hate mail just a little bit. Sometimes people are poor because they've been oppressed, and they've been in a situation politically or racially or something else where they've been oppressed. That's not their

fault. But most of the time in America when someone's poor, it's because of stupid but choices. I've been broke, but I've never been poor. Poor is a state of mind. If you're a business owner who's serious about growth, you've got to be at Entree Leadership Summit 2027. Summit is our world-class leadership conference where you will learn from the people who have influenced the way we lead at Ramsey. You'll also connect with like-minded business owners who are facing the same challenges as you. To get your tickets for May 27, go to entreleadership.com slash summit.

I just opened up my daughter's Instagram account, Rachel Cruz, and I seldom get cracked up, and that cracked me up. So her and Winston toasting a glass of wine, couples who enjoy good food and wine have a much higher success rate than couples who don't, according to a study I made up. She's got your DNA. That sounds like something you would say if you were a female. 88% of the statistics are made up on the spot, I'm just saying.

Ironclad research from Rachel Cruz right there. According to a study, I made up. That's great. That's so Ramsey. Callie is in Detroit. Hey, Callie. What's going on? My husband and I just had our second child, and we've been debating for the past few months whether or not my husband should quit his job and be a state-at-home dad and part-time do self-employed.

with our woodworking business, but we wanted your advice. He's part-time self-employed at his woodworking business. No, that's what he would do in addition to being a stay-home dad. Oh, I see. He works for a company. What does he make today? He makes 162. And what are you making?

I make 187 and then like about 20K in stock last the year. Okay. I take it he hates his job. and you don't. Yeah, my job is really flexible. It's fully remote, and I'm really passionate about it. And he does not enjoy his job and he has to drive into work and it's about an hour commute. So it just puts a lot of the parenting strain on me in addition to my job.

And we just think the lifestyle would be much better if I can't like that. I'm talking about that. I'm talking about he hates his job. Yeah, he also hates his job. So he's running from something, not to something. Yeah. If he loved his job, you wouldn't even have made the call. You would have hired a governess or nanny to help you while you're staying while you're working from home as a remote. And I think it's like with our first, I stayed at home with our first.

So it's just part of our values as well that like we don't want to, um, we don't want to pay someone else to parent our kids. Well, you're there. You're going to be in the house because you're remote. Yeah. Yeah. You're not sending them off to boarding school. You know, somebody put him down for a nap while you finish up a Zoom call. That's a good point, yeah, and that's one of the options we're considering is hiring a manny.

I don't think your husband signed up for this because he has sat around for the last 10 years wishing he was a full-time dad sitting at home changing diapers. I think your husband signed up for this because he's trying to get away from his job and because it's what you want him to do. Interesting. Here, I'll just hand him the phone. Oh. The plot thickens. Hey, you hate your job and you're wanting to come home as my supposition to get away from your job. I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate my job.

For what I do, it's actually the best job I've ever had, which makes it difficult to leave. Okay. It is stressful, but still the best job I've had in the field I work in. Okay. I do relate to my wife's comment that, you know, we're struggling with the idea of would we be paying someone else to raise our children? Yeah, I don't, I don't suggest that. I get the value, okay?

My wife was a full-time mom, raised our kids, okay? Both of my daughters do have careers, but both of them have, you know, and both of them have some help, but they're not, they didn't send their kids off to boarding school, and they're not in a daycare, and they're not any of that. It's just a, you know, a part-time nanny situation to supplement the time that they need to be at home because they're very flexible like your wife's situation. So anyway, I can relate to what you guys are after here. And, yeah, I, I'm always the one. I want to push back and always make you think, make sure you're thinking about what your real motive is under the motive because you're walking away from a couple hundred thousand dollars.

So you need to have a really, really, really, really good reason. for doing this. And I don't run into a lot of people that the guy wants to come home. If you want to, I'm not mad about it. It's okay. I'm not saying you're doing something morally wrong. But you're leaving a couple hundred thousand dollars or eight hundred, whatever you make, $160,000 on the table.

Going from 370 to 207 is what would happen. And so you need to have really thought that. out because the part-time woodworking thing is kind of a joke as far as that's a throwaway. That's like acting like you're doing something else. And by the way, who's going to watch the kid while you're doing that? So, you know. It still leaves a gap potentially. Yeah.

But anyway, so I, this feels like, it feels in the air like something else is driving this. other than you just woke up, sir, and said, I really don't want to work anymore. I want to be with the babies all day long. I don't think that's what happened. I don't hear that here. But y'all do whatever you want to do. I'm not mad at you about it. And it's not a, I think it's a value, like you said earlier, you guys both said it,

and I agree with what you said, Sarah. It's a values-based decision. Oh, not for Sarah. I'm sorry. Callie. And so, but it's a values-based decision. And if you guys choose to do that, then you need to think through exactly what that means from an identity perspective, from what the tradeoffs are, and really go deep on a spiritual and emotional, relational discussion on what's really driving this. And it, I don't know, I just got to check on it, but I could be wrong.

I like the idea of a trial run with a nanny, see how that goes. and if it just pains you to not be there with kids, then you know. Yeah. Well, and again, a nanny's not a full-time gig here. It's supplementing mom who's already in the house. And, you know, if she was at work, that's like, you know, in a physical location away from the house, that'd be a completely different discussion then. But because a nanny is then, quote, someone raising your kids, unquote, although that's overstated because it's not really what happens. your children, when they're in school all day long, someone else is not raising your children.

You're still raising your children. Yeah, if this is the case, when they get old enough that they go to school. Home school and continue down that path. Exactly, that whole thing. But, you know, again, my children went to school and someone else did not raise my children. It was not a boarding school. It was a public high school, public elementary school, and someone else did not raise my children. So that's not an accurate statement when you have other people involved in.

some of the hours of their life. They also went to Sunday school on Sunday morning, but someone else didn't raise my children. Spiritually, I did spiritually. They, you know, their spiritual walk is largely my fault. Hello, you know, one way or the other. Yeah, the parents will still have the most influence. That's interesting, yeah. It's a good discussion.

I want you to go deep with the discussion and double, triple check both of your motives, and don't overstate things in hyperbole to justify it. it. And someone else raising my children when a nanny's helping part-time is overstating it. And I'm going to have a part-time woodworking thing, but I'm going to be at home full-time with a kid. No, you're not. I don't know how part-time, but I mean, one hour a day, it's not, you know. And, you know, with a monitor, I don't. It's probably not going to add meaningful income on top of the 207. Exactly. So, yeah. And then, you know, what is it?

And then what's five years look like and what's two years? look like and what's one year look like? And is there an exit possibility from this situation? If we get into it and we don't like it, what are we going to do? How could we return to something that look more like what we had before? I don't know. All of those things are things I want to talk through clearly. But again, I'm really not mad at you about it saying it's a horrible idea. I just, there's just something bothering me. And it's not just that I'm a child of the 60s. Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free. to use. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and try Ask Ramsey

today. That's Ramsey Solutions.com. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 16, 3, commit to the Lord whatever you do and he will establish your plans. George Bernard Shaw said, if all the economists were laid in to end, they'd never reach a conclusion. That's good. That's funny. Hey, guys, in 2023, the stock market was up 26%. In 2024, it was up 20%.

5%. In 2025, it was up 18%. In those three years, if you had put money in, you would have made an 87% rate of return in three years. You would have doubled your money almost. Now, I don't think the stock market's going to do that all the time. But some of you have been sitting with money in a checking account while that happened because you don't have a smart investor pro in your corner to teach you about investing. You need to learn about investing. When it is time for you to invest, you've gotten out of debt, you have your emergency fund, you need to have someone that can help you. And we've been connecting listeners to SmartVestor pros for over 20 years. They'll help you create a plan and they'll teach you. And then they'll help you make informed investing decisions.

You will decide, not them, not me. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash SmartVester and find a pro near you and quit missing out on all of this. See, the news doesn't talk about the stock market when it's good. The only time they talk about it is when it's bad. So you've been missing out because no one was telling you, including us. We didn't tell you. We should have told you. It's been great and you missed out.

It's up 13% this year. Go check your 401K if you don't believe us if you're invested in the right things. Yeah, for real. Sarah's in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Sarah. How are you? I'm well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So my fiance and I are getting married. We've already set a date, and we are getting civilly married. I am the youngest of my parents' children. I'm the only girl, and there are no female cousins, and my fiancé is the youngest boy. We have decided not to do a traditional wedding, and we're not even going to get married by a pastor. We're actually getting married by a judge.

And our families, I think my family already knew how I think. felt about spending that type of money on a day. But we're getting some pressure as if we are being, I don't know, dismissive because we don't want to spend that money. Our plan, and that we've already started on, we are by the home. The money that we're going to spend is your money, not theirs. Am I right? Correct. Okay. So it's not like his mom and dad have offered to give you $50,000 for a wedding? No. No. My parents. are giving us some money. How much?

They also are going to, they're going to give us about $40,000, and they want to spend, they want to throw me a, you know, because they're very traditional, a wedding celebration party. And I said, okay, but the cap I said, I really don't want, I would rather that money go towards the house, but they did say, well, we will still see money towards the house. Okay. So you're having a wedding celebration party to, uh, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, So family and friends can enjoy this celebration with you, and your parents are paying for it, it's costing you nothing.

Yes. And you're getting married by a judge, and that's the plan, and his mom doesn't like it. They doesn't like it. I would say the family, and it's really not, his mom is being respectful. You know, I think the dad and the mom, you just expected us to be more traditional, to be married by a pastor to actually have a wedding. I'm not doing, I did not do a bachelor's party, a bridal party, or an engagement party, because But his dad doesn't care about any of that. You added that.

I doubt it. His dad doesn't care if you had a bachelorette party. I promise his dad doesn't care. Okay, but he is kind of worried about you not having a traditional wedding with a pastor because he's a person of faith. And I guess for me, I just, I don't, we are buying a house. I know, but having a pastor marry you doesn't cost any more than having a judge marry you. Okay. So what is he, what is his, what's his hang up? I'm trying to figure out who's

pressuring you other than in your head. Her hang up is that we are not and really, they are not, my parents are handling a lot of the party and there's really no involvement from that side of the family and because I'm definitely like, I'm, I don't want to have it. Okay, but that's not a, that's not a money thing. That's a relational and communications thing. The question I have definitely how do I communicate why? Like, is there a better way to communicate? We just think that's a waste of money. I don't want to go into it, you know.

No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I would just say, here's what we want to do and why. And is there an issue you have with that? And let them tell you instead of you trying to figure out what it is. Because you don't know. You haven't even been able to tell me. Well, I know that the issue is basically that definitely we are doing this on our own

and there has been no type of allowance. Well, usually the groom's family doesn't write checks except for the rehearsal dinner traditionally. Yes, but we're not doing a rehearsal dinner. I know. And I honestly doubt that the whole family's upset that they're not having to pay for a rehearsal dinner. Or plan it. It's not like that's super fun for most people. So what kind of involvement are they wanting?

I've been in a lot of wedding. I guess I really need to dig into that more. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I want you to do what you want to do. You're the bride. And unless someone is financing their personal wishes, they don't get a vote. Like in the case of your parents.

Your parents desire a party, and they're going to pay for the party and still give you the gift they promised above that. And so your parents have handled that appropriately. Therefore, they get a vote. And you let them have that vote and agreed to that party. You see what I'm saying? That's a good. That was a process that was perfect. handled. I would consider the same thing on the actual service itself and say, you know, it means a lot

to his dad because he's a person of faith to have this done by a pastor in a church, and it's going to cost exactly the same money, and it doesn't offend me. If it does offend you, then you don't have to do it. But if it doesn't offend you, and you're neutral on that, then why not do it there instead of the judge? It doesn't, because you're trying to make this out like it's an economic thing, and it's not an economic thing. Nothing you've described to me is anybody getting hurt economically. no one's wasting any money here except your parents according to your process and your parents are doing it gleefully as I would by the way I like a big party at a wedding I mean the first time we saw Jesus do miracles was at a party at a wedding so I'm in for parties at a wedding the wine was flowing

that's it and so but I mean I'm like all the old people in this story I'm I'm traditional in your story so but your mom and dad have handled this perfectly and somehow there's some kind of a burr in saddle on the other side, and I would just sit down and say, hey, we want to just do something very simple and plain and inexpensive, and what can we do that would be, that would make you guys happy, and then see if you want to do what they're talking about. And it could be something as simple as, you know, you run down to the local church and the family that the pastor's gone to that church, everybody's gone to that church, everybody's gone to that church, and that pastor knows everybody baptized your fiancee, and, you know, for

50 bucks, he'll do the wedding instead of the 50 bucks you give the job. judge. And if that's, if that's all it is and it doesn't bother you, Sarah, then it's, it's, it's revenue neutral, meaning it's the same cost, then why not do it? That's what I would get. Yeah, I like that plan. And then everybody's a little bit happy. I'm if I couldn't find the problem. Yeah, I think it is a lot like you mentioned. It's more feelings because we just don't have the information. Well, I read into what I think people are thinking way too often when I don't ask them. Without communicating.

What they're really thinking. Sometimes I do it with a caller. There's just so much. Yeah, that's true. There's so much emotion around a wedding and there's different families and different values and backgrounds. And I think most people just don't have the conversation early on to say, hey, here's our plan. We all on the same page.

Yeah, I wrote all the checks and I'm still happy that none of my kids eloped. You don't regret that money. I had a blast. It wasn't money wasted. And I can't wait to be at my grandkids' weddings. And I may write those checks. So there, shut up. Clip that one, too.

I want to send that to the grandkids. Let them know. Well, they already know. Try to keep the old man alive long enough. That's it. That puts the Sauer 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.