You Have To Own Your Stupid Mistakes Before You Can Win

And so, if you want to talk about relationships or crazy in your family, he's here to help with that. And we'll talk about your life in general. What we do around here is we talk about you right in front of you, and we get paid for it. So, thanks for hanging out. Open phones at 888-825-5225..

Ronald is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Ronald, what's up in your world?

So, what's going on in her life that allows a car to get repossessed?

Okay.

I may not in a few minutes, but right now I do. And so, I have to step back from my heart and use wisdom, which says, I want to do something here that is a help, that when, five years from today, we look back, not five minutes, that it actually helped her, okay? And so, number one, I assume you've got some money.

Assuming she's just not mad at your sister for some other reason, but yeah. So, the money you gave her before didn't help.

Okay? So, what that probably sounds like is she sells the car, buys a $2,000 car, and pays off all of her debts, and goes into Financial Peace University that you pay for, or I'll give it to her through you. And in order for you to help her, she has to promise to do two things that help her. One is she needs to go through this class and freaking, learn how to handle money. Two, so that this doesn't happen again.

Two, she needs to sell the car and get a car she can actually afford. Oh, I'll add one. Three, she needs to work on her freaking career. She's broke. She's living at the poverty level.

Yep. She doesn't work much. Or if she does, she's got the worst job on the planet.

Oh, man. That's a hard question.

good. Dave, that's tough love. No, darling, that's love. When you participate in crazy people stuff, that's not love. That's just weakness.

When people are doing stupid butt stuff, and you help them, how are you helping them? You know, I'm not fussing at you, Ronald, but people do this all the time. I do it. I have to catch myself.

And love this person enough to allow them to meet you, and she's not able to meet you right now.

I've been foreclosed on when I went broke. I know what it feels like. It's a weird emotion to look up, and your car is not in your driveway. You think it got stolen, and instead it was just repossessed. Let her sit in that.

Tell her, no, you won't help her buy this car out, but you'll buy her a $1,000 car. You'll give that to her if she'll go through FPU.

You're going to go through class and learn how to handle it, so you don't need me anymore. And you need to go get a better job, so you don't freaking starve to death. This is how we talk to people we love. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Sam is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hey, Sam, what's up?

So I was wondering if it's okay within a 401k plan to maybe follow, like, a little bit less strict to, you know, the exact strategy, and maybe just use, like, a large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap fund, and kind of nix the international. But I was just wondering, just wanted to get your thoughts on that.

So, so much so, Sam, that two years ago, I had my personal Smart Investor Pro that handles my mutual funds. You know, he and I are always bouncing ideas about our advice back and forth, because there's nothing in the Bible about this. This is not a, it's a Dave idea, okay? It's not a, it's not something that can't be wrong. It could be wrong, and I'm looking at it.

going, these internationals suck, and I've got good ones. I got some of them, I mean, I got the highest performing, and they still are underperforming the others. And so I called my guy, and I'm like, hey, let's run some hypos, let's run some hypotheticals. You know what that is, where you run the, you know, but for the audience, that's, that's where you run, go back 20 years, go back 25 years, and say, what if I had run just growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and did not have international? Even.

go back 50 years and do that, and run me some hypotheticals out on my four categories, or the three categories without, and let's see if it makes, if the diversification even makes sense, because over time, the diversification should make you more money. You and I know that, Sam, right? And it, and this category sucks so bad, I was just like, I think I may change my advice after all these years and pull it out. Well, we ran those hypotheticals out, and the weirdest thing happened, we made less money, because in the inverse, because the, and I couldn't figure out why at first, and he and I finally traced it down. What we figured out is, is the internationals run about inverse of the others.

And so when the market swings up, and is doing real good, like it is right now, the internationals are sucking wind, and that's when you notice them. When the market takes a dive down, the internationals hold or pick up, and that diversification then ends up making you more over the long haul, as a concept, okay? Now, that's a different part, that's an overarching thing on the Ramsey advice of the four mutual funds. So, me and him came to the conclusion, probably a good idea to leave it in there. Even though when I look at their returns, I just kind of want to puke a little, you know?

And so, it's just awful. Anyway, so, but back to your particular thing, anytime I'm inside of a 401k, and any one of the four categories has only extremely weak, I don't know if I would leave it out, but I might not do fourth, fourth, fourth. Right. I might do 10%, yeah, maybe 10% in a weak sister, and then up the others to, you know, 33 or something. Something, you know, that kind of a thing.

But, or 30 would be, I guess. But something like that, I like to have the flavor of that inverse relationship in there, if I can get at it. An example of that would be when we're making TSP recommendations, we do not tell people to do fourth, fourth, fourth. in the thrift savings plan. We tell them to, because they, honestly, those indexes that they put in, that thing, most of them are just horrid.

That's our problem.

That's good.

But, yeah, choose, spread your portions to seven, yes to eight, for disaster may come upon the land. Fauci may come upon the land. Spread your portions to seven, yes to eight. Some people might vote wrong. Spread your portions to seven, yes to eight.

And that, in other words, diversification, not necessarily the four types of mutual funds I talk about, but not having all your money in one thing, your portions, seven, yes to eight, diversification is biblical.

I'm going to keep doing the hard thing, even though I look at it and look at it and get frustrated, get frustrated. But over time, it proves itself out.

But that's also the one that falls the fastest as soon as the market turns down. That's right. And then you'll be glad you got the boring growth and income, which is really seriously boring. It's awful. It never does anything.

It just sits there. Oh, God. But you're so glad you have it when the market turns down.

Being a good person.

But I still find myself wishing my life was like other people's. And, based on the data, I know this is happening to you too. Comparison is wired into us, but comparison can also become the thief of joy. Because we can feel like we're not enough and begin acting and thinking in ways we would never think otherwise. When all gets to be too much, think about contacting BetterHelp.

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And there is a handful of cabins left. If you still want to go, you can still get in. It is a totally Ramsey boat. Yep, the whole thing. Nobody on there, but people doing our Live Like No One Else Cruise.

It's not a partial. The whole thing is us. It's all the Ramsey personalities all week long. Plus, Monique Chauhan from the Food Channel. She's amazing.

Demonstrations and things. We're going to have all kinds of events and seminars on the ship as we go around. We're going to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas. It's going to be amazing.

We're going to have a blast. Stephen Curtis, Chapman, Dove Award winner, Grammy Award winner. Our friend, will be there doing a concert for us. You're going to love this. And we'll be with you.

I'll be on the boat all week long. Or the ship. Sharon says, quit calling it a boat. Well, it's a very large boat. It's a ship.

So there you go. Hey, you can secure your spot with a $600 deposit before all the cabins are gone. at ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. We have not done one of these. This is the first one we've ever done.

We attempted to do one. And there was this little virus thing that kind of screwed it all up. And it ended up getting canceled. Because we didn't want to die on the high seas or something. So now we're doing this thing.

And we're excited about it. March of next year, March 22nd, through the 29th. John, this is going to be fun.

This is big dog.

By the way, that means you should be in baby step four or beyond. You're not supposed to be taking vacations if you're in one, two, and three, getting out of debt and building your emergency fund. So we want you to come and celebrate with us if you've gotten out of debt, everything but the house, and you're working either four, five, six, or you're at seven, something like that. You got a little money and everything's okay. now.

We got you away from the edge of the cliff. We're not trying to take money from broke people on a cruise. That'd be kind of backward, wouldn't it? So no. We want you to come.

As a matter of fact, you can aim at it. We'll probably do another one someday, because this one's almost sold out.

Turns out. my wife is not into surprises. Who knew? All right. Ramseysolutions.com slash cruise.

That's how you do it. Anthony's, with us. Anthony is in Omaha, Nebraska. Hi, Anthony. How are you?

So my question is, I live in Sioux City, Iowa, and I drive to Omaha every day for work. It's about an hour and 40-minute commute.

I'm a journeyman plumber in Omaha, and my boss pays for my gas and maintenance on my vehicle, but I'm afraid that I'm going to drive it into the dirt before the loans paid off. And the whole reason I started working there was because he told me he would get me a company vehicle and benefits and stuff like that, but it's been about a year and none of that has happened yet. So I'm wondering if I should switch and go back to Sioux City and work there really close to my home. I could get a company vehicle and get rid of my car, pay off the remaining balance, but I would be making about $30 an hour instead of $40.. So it would be about a 30% deduction in pay.

So my question is, I don't know how I should handle it, basically.

They don't pay plumbers as much, but there are guys at the company that I'm talking with that do make upwards of $40 or more.

Are you married?

You could go to Kansas City, bigger than either one of those, and let's just pretend make 60.. Okay? So it's 60,, 40, or 30, based on the demand in the areas, because Kansas City is a boomtown.

I'm just making this up, okay? But in all of that, you're choosing to move away from her family, and really what sounds like your hometown, too.

So, choice number one is where do I want to live? Where do you want to live?

No way. Life sucks on the road that much. And yes, you're destroying a very expensive vehicle. This makes no sense at all.

So, yes, you take the other job, but you don't even have the other job at 30.. You probably walk in there and go, hey, I got a car promised over here at 40, and benefits promised over here at 40.. If you guys will give me the same car and the same benefits he's promising me, you don't have to say you got them, because you haven't got them yet. But the other guy promised, I'm making 40, and he's promised me a car and benefits. If you guys will give me a car and benefits in 40, I'm here.

You'll probably get hired.

And then the question you're asking me becomes a no-brainer. You don't even have to think about it. I'm not commuting an hour and 40 minutes to make the same money. No, right?

And then I think the decision will be instantaneous. John, that's kind of a faulty way of approaching decision-making, right?

And I can't imagine a spouse saying, well, I imagine you on the road for two and a half hours of every single day. So you won't be around. So we can get married and I can just get your check. And so, yeah, create a world where you can live, where you want to live, and make that thing happen. Unless you just can't live in that city.

Like being a book editor in Manhattan. You probably got to move. It's too expensive, right? But man, I think, Dave, I think you're a good journeyman. You can go to Sioux City and make it happen.

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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. If you haven't listened to the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Network, it is one of the top podcasts in the world right now. Talking about relationships and mental health issues.

He's a PhD in counseling, so he's there to help you.

Somebody told me this weekend you're America's coolest shrink.

But that's okay. All that's good, I'll take it. Steven is in Austin, Texas. Hey Steven, what's up?

Well, anytime someone has any kind of a non-retirement asset, like mutual funds or stock or anything like that, I'm always going to use that to further them on our seven baby steps, because we have now proven data, after decades of doing this, that that is the fastest right way to become wealthy. So, all that to say, do you all have any debt?

Three is to build an emergency fund on top of that $1,000, that is three to six months of expenses. So, I'm going to use any assets you've got that are not retirement, including the stock, to do that first and foremost. So, I'm paying off your student loan and your furniture loan today, when you sell that stock, and I'm going to use the rest of it to start building my emergency fund as fast as I possibly can. And now that I don't have those two payments, I should have a little more room in the budget to build that emergency fund quickly.

No. No, you would not do that. I would not let you do that. That would be silly, okay? And in essence, that's where you are.

It isn't how you got here, but by not selling the stock and paying off the loan, it says if you did that. Do you follow me?

It'll show you every little nuanced question about walking those steps and why they work.

And, you know, we've sold 10 million of those at this point. So we know, and we've had 10 million of those. We've had 10 million people go through Financial Peace University also. So we know this process works. And that's, you know, there's no question that you can go that way.

If, 20 years ago, if someone said, hey, Steve's going to give you 30 grand to go to college, I'll take that deal. So it's hard to pay for something you think you've already gone through, but you haven't paid for it yet. Let's just cash it out, pay for it, and let's move into the future.

I'm going to be a Charlotte police officer.

Jewelry stores will often tell you three months of pay. Our rule is one month of pay.

How old are you?

And then I'll throw in some unsolicited advice. Diamonds and furniture are the two things that are marked up the most that we buy in our 20s.

High markup. Big margin. So my point is, what you would pay for a one carat at a retail jewelry store, you can probably buy that diamond for half of that.

Okay. By snooping around and finding a broker. Now, the danger in doing that is, and it can be dangerous at the retail store too, you're going to invest $5,000 in something, you're getting ready to learn a little bit about diamonds as you go along. Okay. And meaning you're going to learn about clarity, you're going to learn about flaws, you're going to learn about these things because you want to know about it.

If you're going to spend $5,000 on something, you should want to know about it. And I've bought quite a few. My wife has several things that sparkle in her life. And so,

but,

you know, and this is very tacky sounding, and you would really need to have someone with you that knows something about jewelry. If you happen to have a friend or a father's friend or something like that that is in the jewelry business, that would go with you. If you can find it at a pawn shop and it's a good stone, you probably can buy it and have it reset. You can probably buy it for 25 or 30 cents on the dollar.

Like, I bought a diamond for $12,000. that was easily a $50,000 diamond.

Okay. Just to give you an idea. But I've been screwing around with it a little bit. I still wasn't completely comfortable with my level of knowledge to do that. So I had a buddy of mine come over and look at it with me.

And I did know the guy that owned the pawn shop and I trusted him. He was actually a friend and a good, he knows the stuff too. But I checked it two different ways and I grasped what I was doing. So that can be kind of a little bit of a fun treasure hunt for you. So don't just walk into the people that are, oh, he got it at Jared's.

No, thank you. No, he shouldn't get it at Jared's.

Those people, that's going to be like buying furniture at the mall. Okay. You're going to pay full stinking price for it. No deals. You're in North Carolina.

You know about furniture deals, right? And so you run over to Hickory and it's 50 cents on the dollar, right?

Okay. That's what I'm talking about. So poke around, learn a little bit about it while you're doing that and have some fun with it. And if she wants to pick out a certain type of thing, that's fine.

We'll look for it. I wouldn't break my back on this, but I also wouldn't just walk in there like sheep being led to the slaughter thing.

$56 in 1982.. I'm just saying. And I remember those $56 payments, too. Wow. Unbelievable.

This is The Ramsey Show.

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as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. So last week,

we did something I've never done before. Well, to start with, the last grandbaby came on Sunday. So Daniel had Evelyn Grace, which is precious. And he has informed us that's his last one, and the girls have both informed us that's their last one. So we have eight.

We'll top out at eight. And baby came at 11 in the afternoon. We flew to Washington, D.C. after holding Evelyn Grace and took our oldest grandson, 10, on his, apparently, we do grandparents' 10-year trips with each kid now. And I just found this out.

So we do this, and we had Washington, D.C. and touring everything, the Capitol, the White House, the Tomb of the Unknown, the Marines at the Iwo Jima statue, doing the drum and bugle corps with the snap rifle hole routine, and he loved that. And if you don't come away, even in the middle of a political climate like we're in, if you don't come away from a visit from Washington, D.C. when you're 10 years old, feeling very patriotic, something's wrong with your grandpa.

And he was elated and saw and understood. It was very fun. A very fun trip. And in the middle of all this rhetoric, then I open up and I notice the post you put on Instagram of, OK, if you've decided who to vote for, quit watching this stuff. All it does is piss you off, OK?

Because no one ever said, OK, I don't know. Would somebody help me?

Or vice versa.

About three in five Americans think so.

By most measure, the U.S. economy is doing well, and yet many people would argue otherwise. Roughly three in five Americans believe that the U.S. is currently in a recession, according to a new survey of 2,000 adults by a firm. See, I don't understand.

All this means is you people, some of you that I've surveyed are freaking illiterate. OK? Because a recession is not a feeling.

shrinks, by the measure of the gross domestic product, two consecutive quarters, we are in a recession. If it didn't, we are not.

It's a math thing. You know, one plus one, I'm not sure, I don't feel like it's two. I'm not sure if it's two, and my feelings matter.

It's a math thing.

You either is or you isn't. It's a math measure. Now, you can say, do you believe the economy is doing well? You could say, do you think we're in a time of prosperity? Those are more subjective versus objective terms.

If you're better off, it's not their fault. None of them. All of them together, put together can't find a brain. They can't balance their budget. If you ran your household like they run that place, you'd be bankrupt.

So please don't tell me, they helped you. Unless you got a government contract, you're not prospering because of them. Now, moving on from that, this thing, if you're waiting on Biden or Kamala, or Trump or Vance or whoever to fix your life, your life already sucks. You got your eye on the wrong thing. Get you a mirror.

That is your solution. Three in five Americans believe I don't care. what you believe is are we actually in a shrinking economy, or aren't we? Let me help you with this. The housing market, there's a shortage.

Prices continue to go up. Up. So guess what part of the gross domestic product is? Housing. Up.

It's growing, not shrinking. Up. Wrong way for recession. Let me help you with this. The stock market is up.

15.3% since the beginning of the year. Now, I don't care if you think a Democrat did that or a Republican did that. In either case, you'd be wrong. But nevertheless, the American stock market is up. If you had a million dollars in there at the beginning of January, you now have $1,150,000..

It's up 15.3% as of today, from the first of the year. Now, you know, it's not a feeling.

There's a technical definition. Freaking. take economy. God, I got a degree in finance. They make us take economics.

I know, but my feelings are more important than the data. So I feel that's correct. Madness.

And the same is true of the other side. So I'm sorry, boys and girls. If you feel like things are bad, it might be bad at your house. And maybe there's some reason to do something about that.

Why is this hard?

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Thanks for hanging out with us. We appreciate you being here. If you want to help us out, we can use the help. We really can. Follow the show on the format or the platform that you're listening or watching.

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I was listening to a podcast this week. Friend of mine was on Tucker Carlson. Hey, man, listen to this. I sent it to another friend of mine just like that. And Tucker's got a great podcast.

It's going big. It's going Zoom, Zoom right now, and so on. So listen to one of Joe Rogan's. It was going Zoom. Zoom is really good.

I sent it. You know, just share it. You know, anytime you read a good book, Jack Carr's got a new book out. If the terminal list is read, every one of his. And so, yeah, I'm telling her I go get the new one.

It's good. It's very cool. So Falcons brought me a copy of Jack's new book. Have you seen it?

Fabulous. If you don't know Jack, he's a former SEAL. And so these are all Navy SEAL books. And they're like, you know, shoot them up, spy movie type stuff. And they're great books.

Fiction, obviously. And yeah. But so it has a bullet hole in it. Amazing. I may want to do that with my next book.

Hi, Kathy. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

They're pretty young yet. Three and five. We feel like we've got some time to.

You're not going to, is a little different than Philly and not Seattle. You know, that kind of stuff. So you just think about what you got. I don't know the technical parts. What I do know from the financial side is I've been doing this for thirty, five years.

I've watched the solar panel efficiency as far as what's the break even, meaning, what do you pay for it? How does it? how quickly can it convert the energy? How efficiently can it convert the energy? Thus, how fast it saves you money.

I've watched the technology on that. It's probably five or ten times better than it was thirty years ago. It's really come a long, long way. It used to just be total crap. And now it's like.

I actually endorse solar companies in a couple of cities that we have talk radio on, you know, and I'm fine to do that, as long I don't endorse financing it, obviously.

But generally I tell folks a five to a seven. Your eight is borderline. What I might do is see if they're selling you some bells and whistles you could take off, that would still get you. that would get you down to the forty thousand range or so. And that might get you to a six or seven year break even.

Maybe they got you, you know, with a convertible and power windows. I don't know. Right.

I'm not a fan of that. You're not doing this, but for the rest of you out there, that they really try to force a payment plan on you and go, look, your payment is less than the amount you're going to save on your electric bill. No, that's dumb butt stuff, because the things are attached to your house and then you're, you got a mess. You got a lien on your property. You got all kinds of mess.

No, do not finance them ever. Do not finance anything ever. You're listening to Dave freaking Ramsey. OK, so. But the but you're not doing that.

But that's for everybody else. The, the technology has come a long, long way. I will tell you this, Kathy, I think it's going to go a long way further. So, like if you sell your house in seven years or eight years, probably what's attached to your house is crap. OK, it'd be like you had a seven year old computer.

Or a seven year old cell phone. You know how much further it's come along. That's the rate. That's the pace of change in the technology. And so don't think this is going to enhance the sale of your house.

It's probably cluttering the sale of your house a decade from today. That's why I want you to get a quick break even on it, because it's just, you know, what is a seven year old computer, a.

How are you?

But Fire and E.C. You know, you've got to run the analysis on it. I didn't think about you being in Florida. Ugh. That's super expensive.

You're right. Just run an analysis on it and go, how much of this pain am I willing to absorb? What happened if they all got wiped off the face of the earth by a hurricane? What would you do?

Uh, I wish you had insurance. You know, maybe. I don't know. That's what I'm, that's the, I run a worst case scenario through my emotional, uh, filters and see if I end up crying or not. This is the Ramsey Show.

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I have a 401k that has about 70 grand in it and I'm wondering what I should do with the life insurance policies. Should I keep them and keep paying the monthly premium, or cancel some or all of the policies and put that money towards different investments, or add the funds to my 401k?

Universal life. Any kind of life insurance that has a savings program built into it, is a bad deal. A hundred percent of the time. Period. And all you've got to do is run the numbers to figure that out.

The average whole life, or universal life, sounds like this. If you bought a term life insurance policy for a 20 year level term and the premium was $5 a month, if you bought the exact amount of insurance with cash value, it would be $100 a month. It's $20 a month. What does the other $95 go to? Well, it's obviously not for insurance.

You can buy the insurance for $5.. So it has to be going towards a savings plan. So what does a whole life life insurance policy look like? The first three years that you put $95 of your per hundred dollars a month into the savings plan, you get nothing. The cash value in a cash value plan the first three years equals zero.

You've obviously been doing it longer than that. You've got $70,000 in there. After that, you finally do start getting some return. The average whole life policy, according to much data that is out there in financial planning, not hard to find at all, 1.2% a year. So it doesn't even keep up with a savings account, much less a CD or a high yield savings account, much less a good investment.

A good investment would be yielding you north of $10, like a good mutual fund. Horrible rate of return. The first three years they keep all your money. The biggest problem with these policies is that you've paid an extra $95 per hundred dollars per month for this, and if you die today, Amanda, the $70,000 that you have in cash value will not come to your heirs. They only pay the face amount of the policy.

So let's say this was a $200,000 policy that you could have bought for $5. instead, you are paying $100 for it to build up an extra $70.. So now you have a savings account. that the first three years you put money in the savings account, they keep it all. After that, they pay you 1.2%, and after that, when you die, they keep your money.

No one would open a savings account like that, and yet millions of Americans have called whole life life insurance policies. The only people that still believe in this crap are the people that sell it. Everyone else in the financial world just kind of laughs and goes, that's the payday lender of the middle class right there, baby. They are screwing you to no end. So George is exactly right.

It's crap, crap, crap. Now, make sure you have the right amount of term insurance. if you need term insurance in place. You can go to zanderinsurance.com. We've been endorsing them for 20 plus years.

They're personal friends of ours. They do a great job. Go over there, get you some term insurance in place, and then cancel this garbage. Because if you die before you get this canceled, they're going to keep your $70,000 box.

That's bad. That's expensive insurance. So, and then take your $70,000, pay it down on your house, get your house paid off as quick as you can.

That's expensive insurance.

They do commercial lending with it. It's their primary thing on real estate. It's actually very secure.

She was a doctor. And she referred my company and my team and I to a hospital here locally. And she let me know, like, hey, look, I'm giving you a good review. Go there. I think your care should be in the hospital, too.

I think it's time for your team to scale up. And so, she was like, you know, you may have to put a bit of money towards a luncheon. She was like, but it's going to be great for your clientele list. I'm sorry.

Okay. Let's run down two scenarios. Let's pretend that.

the hospital administration determines who the nurses refer caregiving to, which would be logical to me. Okay. But I could be wrong. Okay. In that case, you would spend a lunch buying them lunch, all three of them.

Or just having a meeting with them and doing a presentation and getting permission and endorsement to allow you to then meet with them. Now, if they give you the go-ahead and say, okay, we will authorize you to and authorize our nurses to refer to you and you need to meet with all of them in order to build a relationship with them, to get that referral going versus the other two people they can send it to, then I would spend the money on the lunch and with the nurses. Or option two is you find out Dave's wrong, which is highly possible here. I don't think so, but it's possible.

You're going to spend a thousand bucks and go meet with those nurses. Yeah, I would buy them all lunch.

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Hey, John.

8,000 other digital billboards. Yeah. But it's still wonderful. Thank you, Amazon Music. Seriously, all kidding aside.

That's fantastic. What a thing. Very nice. All right. Mackenzie's with us in Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Mackenzie. What's up?

And in doing so, we met with a financial planner and they advised her to sell some stocks that are actually in my dad's name in order to pay off her debt. And I'm not sure how to advise her, because A, she'd have to, you know, get my dad's approval on that. And B, she's never really stuck to a budget. So I'm afraid, even if she pays it off personally, one fell swoop, that she'll just re-rack up the credit card debt rather than if she stuck to a budget and followed the baby steps and did it decently well.

So what we should be doing, your mom and your dad, would be planning to retire together, since they're freaking married. Yeah.

So no.

Okay.

And we should be on a budget together, and we decide on spending together. If we're not going to do that, I really can't advise you, because you're already divorced. You just still happen to be living together.

Mackenzie, you got to tell your mom, hey, I got to get out of the middle of this.

But my dad is like super, super frugal, and he doesn't pay attention to their finances. And my mom's more concerned about his mental health. if he sees how much debt they have. That he might do something drastic for himself.

His self-harm is a real threat and not just something your mom is saying to put off having this conversation. If you believe that to be true, then you have to act on behalf of your father.

So here's the thing, your mom is trying to handle the budget by herself. She is incapable of doing that for some reason or another, agreed?

going to combine everything, and we've got a million dollars to pay off $400,000, $450,000 worth of debt and we can move into retirement completely debt free with $600,000..

And, you know, I don't know exactly when she's going to turn 59 or whatever. You got to work that part through, but I think you're on track there. I think your advice from that guy was incomplete because he was only looking at the balance sheet. He wasn't looking at the relationship and I think we've got some relationship work to do. that's more important than the balance sheet.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. I'm, Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Dr.

John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, number one, bestselling, author many times. And host of the very popular Ramsey Network production, the Dr. John Deloney Show, where he helps people with relationships and mental health issues of all kinds. And we're here to help you with your life and your money.

The phone number is 888-825-5225.. Jessica is in St. Louis. Hi, Jessica. How are you?

Why? I think I feel this way...

So I think... Both are wealth.

What are you worried about? protecting your son's future? What do you think... I mean, you obviously have wealth. You're going to go buy more properties.

Um... Talk... Walk me through what you're thinking here.

Um... Like, I didn't... I didn't grow up with much. Sure. Very humble beginnings, and I made certain decisions to change the trajectory of my life and the future...

My family's future, basically. So I think I just want to protect that a little bit, and...

We were more concerned for their future. A higher indicator that they're going to have a good future is their character, their integrity, their work ethic, their values. We're people of faith, so are they walking with God? Those are indicators that they're going to win, regardless of what money we leave them. And if they don't have those things, they're just going to make them a bigger moron.

Okay? Sure. A well-funded moron. And that's what you do if you leave kids that aren't... So you're...

What you've done for your son, or what you do for your son. raising him to be a man is 98% of this formula. 2% of the formula is what money you leave him. And because of your upbringing... And I grew up around a similar situation, not exactly like you, probably, but...

But I know that... I know that because it's the neighborhood I grew up in. In those situations, we... If we're not careful, we tend to place... Rich people, place more value on things that last and less value on money, because they know they can always get money.

They have an abundance mentality. When you come from a scarcity situation, you tend to have a... You have a tendency to believe that the house, or the money from the house, has more power in your son's future than it actually does. Does that make any sense?

And do not leave the house to them. Leave the house to be liquidated and the money to be split. You do not want them owning it 75-25.. You're asking for them to not like each other. Okay.

That will end in ashes. So, at our death, the house is to be sold 25 percent. 75 percent to him, and all the other is 50-50.. At our death, liquidate it or sell it, or whatever. That's fine.

As long as you have talked to both of them ahead of time. How old is your son?

I mean, you're 25 percent mine. This one's 50 percent mine. And so, this is what we're talking about. This is what we're doing with this, and this is what we're doing with that. And we want you to know that, you and your brother, our primary goal is for you all to maintain relationship.

Growing up was tough and money was real tight, and things got scary sometimes. One of the calculations you made as you began to make changes, saying never again in my family line, is you married a guy with a five-year-old. That's also one of the choices you made. And so, you've been a part of this young man's life for 15 years. If he in no way calls you mom, if he in no way calls you, like, he, doesn't see you in that maternal role, that's one thing.

What's your husband think about this?

Even if it messes up your relationship with the 20-year-old. I wouldn't do it.

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That way, you can stop letting your money push you around and start reaching those money goals. Download EveryDollar for free on the App Store or Google Play.

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. The best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a plan. It's known as a budget. The best way to do a budget is the app EveryDollar.

It is free to download at EveryDollar.com, for Google, for Apple, on your desktop, whatever you want to do. The App Store, the Google Play Store, whatever you want to do. You can keep a pulse on your spending. You can work the baby steps the right way. You can do it in conjunction with your spouse.

The EveryDollar app. Tens of millions of people can't be wrong. You should check it out. Free. Download the EveryDollar app.

Meghan is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Meghan. How are you? I'm doing? well.

How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

But I'm being charged struggling with going digital, specifically with syncing funds. Like my insurance, my car insurance, I pay every six months. But, and so I save $170 a month for that. Are you using every dollar?

I downloaded every dollar and I

And so you, it helps you lay that out and it's got an advanced syncing fund feature that'll really help you do this. That's what I would recommend. I'll pay for it, I'll give you a year of it free and get you upgraded. and yeah, get you in that, that'll do it. And then, if you want to, what I would do there is just get away, get away from stuff like Christmas and car repairs.

But now, if you wanted to use the actual envelopes for grocery shopping, I'll come clean and say Sharon Ramsey still does that with cash.

Put in an envelope. Yeah, I mean, stuff that.

Now, I'm too lazy to walk in. I just pop the debit card in there and pay for my gas, right? Like everybody else at the pump. But the, but so a few things like that have shifted. But yeah, groceries, Sharon, still runs pure cash on it, and I'm perfectly cool with that.

There's something cool about, I still walk around with a bunch of hundreds in my pocket, you know, because I, there's times I want to tip with cash. It makes a difference when you're tipping. I want to, because when people see real money versus a digit in their little computer in their hand, I don't, I might not at a restaurant. if I'm paying with a debit card, I'll just add the tip to the debit card. I don't mean that.

But like a valet, a hotel maid, or something like that, a hundred percent. I'm going to use cash. So I'm always going to have some cash in my pocket for giving and tipping, those kind of random acts of kindness, that kind of stuff. And occasionally, just a big old. thank you.

You know, it's, but anyway, all that to say that EveryDollar app will help you a bunch. The sinking fund feature in the advanced version, the upgrade version, and the paycheck planning, and it helps you with the baby steps. It helps you with everything. So I'll help you with every bit of that. We'll pay for it.

Hang on, Christian will pick up and we will get you signed up to that. Lee is in Tampa, Florida. Hi Lee, how are you? Good, how are you? Better than I?

We have a one-year-old, and we still can't afford to buy a house here. We're renting for very cheap from my parents, and they actually offered to let us buy this house from them for a very cheap price, yet we still couldn't afford it. And my husband is from Alabama. What do you make? I'm sorry?

What do you make? He makes about $90,000 before taxes. That's bullcrap. You can afford a house.

Absolutely you can.

You're telling me, people have to make more than $100,000 a.

Well, by the time, I mean his health insurance is pretty pricey. He's a diabetic, and if groceries and the price of living, we're pretty much living, paycheck to paycheck right now. How much.

I'm serious. You can live in Tampa, Florida on $90,000 with health insurance and with a diabetic and with children, and afford groceries.

I mean, you guys, I don't know what you're putting your money. Is he loading up his 401k also?

I'm not sure. Every paycheck is about $916 a week. That's $4,000 a month. That's $48,000 a year. That's not take-home pay from $90,000..

Something's wrong with your formula. Are you getting a huge refund? He's putting money in something.

Yeah. So your problem is you're trying to live on $48,000.. You're not trying to live on $90,000.. Taxes on $90,000 are not $42,000..

Right. There is no income tax in Florida. State income tax. Okay. So you all need to find out where your money's going.

That's your problem. Right. Your take-home pay is tight. I'm not going to argue with you there. Okay.

Mm-hmm. So you're running all your stuff on $48,000.. Actually, $47,000 when you really get down to it. But anyway, and yeah, that would be tight. So I want to know where his money's going.

Well, his.

I think like $1,500.. Mm-hmm.

Okay. You're still missing some money. $75,000 doesn't come home with $47,000 even then. And then the bonus on top of that. That's not as bad as $90,000 coming home with $47,000, but you're still missing some money.

Okay. Because you can run your taxes out. You shouldn't be getting a tax refund. That $1,500, though, I guessed five grand. That's what I guessed.

So I'm still looking for $1,000 to $1,500 a month. that's missing in this equation. I want you to find that before you start asking these other questions, because I think you've come to the wrong conclusion that someone making $90,000 can't.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know enough to know about it. I just, I'm hearing the calls all over the country. We can't afford to live here. We can't afford to live here.

And I know in certain... Get off of Instagram. Right. Yeah. And just, I just don't.

I don't need Instagram to tell me otherwise. Especially with a special deal from my dad. And I don't need some whiny other version of my generation, whatever my generation is. And every generation has a percentage of whiners. It's not exclusive to any generation.

I don't want to hear it. I'm sorry. You can make it easily and prosper. This is the Ramsey show.

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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Etienne and Jamie are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Doing good.

Doing good. How about you? Did I mess your name up? No, no, no. You got a spot on.

Got it. Good. Okay. I want to make sure, because I'm classic for messing up names around here. It's like a running Dave joke.

How bad I am. Okay, cool. So, Etienne and Jamie, where you guys live?

Good. Welcome. How much debt have you paid off? 235,850.. Wow.

How long did that take? Four years, seven months.

Yeah. Vet tech didn't jump 200 grand. No, no. Okay. That's good y'all.

Wow. What kind of debt.

Wow. Ouch. But then you got the job and you laid into it. That's right. So tell us your story.

What happened four years ago? How do you do all this Ramsey stuff? What happened?

And so back then we were already counting pennies. And one of my students, his dad, is a captain at Sparadigm. And I went up to him to ask him for advice, for career advice. And I'm thinking he's going to tell me things like, yeah, go, get your resume done here. Get the certificate, get the search type rate and whatever.

But no, he looks at me and says, control your money. And I'm like, I don't know what to say. No, control your money, because here's what's going to happen. You're going to get to your 1500 hours. Anybody that's been in flight knows what I'm talking about.

1500 hours before you can get a job at an airline. That's a magic number. And then you'll work at a regional, making a bit better than flight instructor, but still a little bit. And then second year gets better. And then, when you get to captain, he told me, stay living like a first officer.

And sure enough, that's what we did. And I'm so glad that we did that. Actually, that was Yamil. Shout out to him.

And that right there, that happened 2016.. And that same night that he's telling me all this advice, I ran into you really, Dave, your YouTube, this one where you basically blew a gasket, where you're saying the number one wealth building tool is your income. And when you give it out to credit cards, you don't have it anymore. And I'm floored because you're talking about all the trouble that we were in, credit cards and student debt and flight school and everything and all that. And that's when the spark started.

But during that time, it was mostly me trying to make traction. I was the slow one. Yeah. And then we couldn't really make any traction up until we both got together. And then, most of 2018, it was marriage counseling and things like that.

We had to get it together, marriage-wise, before we could make any progress with that freedom.

And seeing how passionate Etienne was about it and him just leaving the little Dave Ramsey quotes here and there. And, hey, I'm watching this on Dave Ramsey on YouTube and this, that, just the little things. It was finally like, you need to do this. And, like I said, once I got my mental health back in, I was able to focus more on my family, focus on our marriage and realize this is what we needed to do. We needed to make a better life for our kids.

You had to do it from a position.

Free.

one of the things that drove me to do this was our sense of freedom. Because, see, we do genealogy. We know who our ancestors are. And both all over the continent, North, South America, all over this side of the world, we have the same story where our grandparents, great grandparents, they fought off tyranny, fought off European tyranny. And even in this country, we have little history of overcoming slavery.

And, like the scripture, you always quote, the borrower slave to the lender. I thought about my ancestors and all the struggle they did for us to have freedom. And all of that. And here we are in the first quarter of the 21st century, just giving it away, just so you can have a TV on payments off of Amazon or Best Buy. I was ashamed when I saw it from that perspective.

And I know I wasn't going to have it. As far as me and my family, we're going to be free. We're going to have freedom.

Amazing. Well done, you guys. All right. What advice do you have? Somebody's watching and they're going, okay, we're not really on the same page.

And we got a big old pile of debt. And my husband's driving me crazy with his Dave Ramsey YouTube.

And, matter of fact, I'm starting to hate freaking Dave Ramsey. And what advice have you got for them on what they should be doing to get out of debt?

You may not be paying off a bunch on the principal, but you're still paying it there. And eventually you're going to pay that one off. And then you can take that and add it to that next step and add it to that next step. That snowball, that snowball ain't no joke.

You took control of your life. And now here you are making a quarter of a million dollars as a pilot, vet, tech, and two great kids. What are your kids'?

Here we go, baby. Game on. Etienne, Jamie, Isaac, Hailey, 236,000 paid off in four years and seven months, from 50 to 250 income. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 19,, 21,. many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand. Henry Ford said, thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.

What were you thinking? I wasn't.

That's good. I like it. Hey, selling or buying a house in this crazy real estate market right now is a wild thing to do. You need a pro in your corner if you're going to buy or sell right now. Somebody who has actually done it before a lot, that is a high-octane, high-protein, high-performance real estate agent.

If you want one of those, we have vetted thousands of agents around America. They are endorsed local providers, we call them, Ramsey-trusted real estate agents. If you want to find out who we recommend and who we vet and who we coach, and who follows the stuff we talk about and is really getting a lot of work done, they're not a beginner, go to ramseysolutions.com slash agent and you can find a Ramsey-trusted real estate agent for free. Drew is with us in Seattle. Hi, Drew.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

And obviously, so I heard the last caller, one of the guys was a pilot. I, too, am a pilot. I work for the major airline. My wife is also a pilot. But a few years ago, we started this side business.

that's been doing really well and there's a lot of potential in it. And we're coming to disagreements on if we should really be doing a side business. It's a seasonal agricultural business. And for the about two months that we operate, we're bringing in about 75,000 on average. And so, but there's a lot of potential for it.

But my wife's argument, because I want to give her side of the story, too, is that she doesn't like that, the time it takes away from the family. So we've got two months a year. Well, yeah.

for me. I'm definitely balancing my time between family. And because I'm an airline pilot, it takes me away from home, which, I mean, that's already kind of hard on the family.

And so my wife's argument is we don't need the business. And I agree with her. It's not needed, but I listen to the Entrez Leadership podcast a lot. I have this desire. I love flying.

It's something I've done for a long time, but I get so much fulfillment and joy out of running a business and figuring out solutions and making things better. I enjoy that. I have a lot of friends that do it, and it just intrigues me. And so-.

And we had an opportunity. We passed up a large, about a $900,000 contract in Arizona.

You have a pregnant wife with a 15-month-old. Your house is insane.

It's that the timing of your side, business, given the stage of your family, sucks. Right. Right. You got a lot of crap at home. If she was sitting with two kids in elementary school and they were somewhat able to dress themselves and go to the bathroom by themselves and stuff like that, then it's a whole different world.

I mean, I got grandbabies. at this stage. When we keep them, it's a dadgum chore. Yeah. And I love them.

I love them. But it's like work and stuff.

And so, I mean, and the thing about being an airline pilot, it's like I do most of my administrative work, my computer work, when I'm gone. That's one nice thing. It's like I'm sitting at a hotel. It's like, I'm going to get this done. So when I'm home, I don't have to focus so much.

And she's like, they're great, but it's freezing outside.

Little babies and a house full of kiddos is chaos.

You're working two full-time jobs and you've got chaos at home.

Right. So you're not a bad guy. You're just, your timing sucks.

You can run a successful business and be a good family man. You can't do 50 things at once.

Hey folks, Dave, here. You want to hear even more life-changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place, like the Ramsey Show, Smart Money, Happy Hour, and the Dr. John Deloney Show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money, and your career.

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