You Have To Own Your Stupid Mistakes Before You Can Win
2024-07-29 01:59:59
The Ramsey Show believes you can build wealth and take control of your life—no matter what stupid mistakes you've made with money. Join as Dave Ramsey and his team of experts answer your questions on the top problems holding you back. Listen now or ask your question live by calling 888.825.5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET. Learn more at www.ramseysolutions.com
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, number one best-selling author, PhD in counseling, Ramsey personality, host of one of the most popular shows on the Ramsey Network these days, the Dr. John Deloney Show. He's here to help.
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?
Nothing too much. How are you doing, Dave?
Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help?
So, I have a kind of a strange situation. My sister called me this morning, and she was crying, and she told me that she had her car repossessed because she didn't pay for her car for about four to five months. And she wants me to help get the car out of the impound and pay the full amount of her car payment to get it out of repossession.
Wow.
So, what's going on in her life that allows a car to get repossessed?
I find just bad money choices. She only makes $500 a week, and I'm pretty sure she bought the car for $16,000, way over her income, and she's just been drowning in the debt.
She's single, I guess?
No, she has a boyfriend, so I want to tell you that as well. So, she has $1,000.. Her boyfriend has offered $2,500 to put towards the car, and the balance is $8,000 after repossession fees, and she wants me to take care of the rest.
Okay.
Well, my rule on helping people is that I have to back up a minute from all the emotions in my heart, because my heart wants to help her right now. She didn't call and demand. She asked, and she was crying, and she's scared, and her brother wants to help her, and I think that's all good. There's nothing wrong with her requesting this and nothing wrong with you hearing her heart on it. So, my heart wants to help her right this second.
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.
Yeah. I have a good reservoir of money.
Okay. And are you married?
I'm engaged.
Okay. What would your fiance say if you helped your sister?
Not too happy about it.
Why?
Because I've helped her in the past. I've spent.
So, there's a pattern.
Yeah.
That is, that the help wasn't help, instead it became dependence.
Exactly. Yeah.
Which John would call you co-dependent, at that point, an enabler. I think John would say that. I think that's what psychologists call it. So, that's a bad clue. When your wife, or in this case your fiance, says you're not being wise, then that's something you need to listen to.
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.
Yeah.
It was you participating in her crazy world.
Yeah.
That's what I don't want to do again.
So, I have one question. So, at first I was thinking about helping her pay the whole entire thing off, and then her immediately selling the vehicle, and then paying back everybody that she owes, and hopefully have a little bit of money left behind so she can have a reservoir. And then I went on to offer to sell the vehicle, and then she could drive my truck for however long that she needs it until she saves up her money.
No, I wouldn't do that. We need to create something. that's what we call sustainable. at the end of the story. When we finish helping her, she can operate without more 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.
Yeah, that's why I told her that she needs to find another job. Yep.
So, if you give her three or four things like that to do, what's she going to say?
I'm not sure, honestly.
You know. She's been your sister a long time.
Junior, I will.
Oh, man. That's a hard question.
I'm guessing by your hesitancy, you know that you're going to put some things in front of her, and you probably have most of y'all's life together. And they're pretty low barriers to entry, and they include a lot of support from her brother. And she doesn't make the choice to do those things. Is that right?
Yeah. A lot of the time.
Yeah. I'm with your fiancee, then. Yeah. I think this one she figures out on her own, brother. For her.
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.
It's like going into the gym and taking the weight off the bar to help somebody lift, and then they get put in a situation where they need that strength, and you've robbed them from it. And, like, Ronald, I mean, the world needs more compassionate people who will sit next to somebody who's hurting and say, I've got a path for you, but you've got to meet me on this path.
And love this person enough to allow them to meet you, and she's not able to meet you right now.
That's good. You know, let's make this even harder, just for the fun of it. Let me tell you what happens, Ronald, when you get a car repossessed. You feel like someone stole something from you. It is a weird emotion.
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.
I love that.
And then she's not going to do either one, because she wants her life back, her unreasonable life back. And when you don't help her with that, she's going to react poorly, and you're going to know what's going on.
And if you buy her that $1,000 car, you have to say, this is it. You have to hold to that.
Done.
Hold to it.
Finne. Over. No more. Money. That's it.
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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Dr. John Deloney Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225..
Sam is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hey, Sam, what's up?
Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me on the show. Sure.
How can I help?
So I'm an independent financial advisor, and I use your investing strategy in a lot of accounts that I have for clients. I love it. You know, I've definitely seen strong performance with it. And so one question I sometimes come across is, you know, within clients' 401k plans that they have, their investment options are often pretty limited. So I was wondering, with your philosophy, I try to follow it in there, but sometimes the international fund options are pretty lousy, as you know.
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.
That's a very intelligent question by your customer. They really, you've done a good job, because you've taught them well to where they are looking at the track records, because of the four categories, growth, growth in income, aggressive growth, and international. The international category among those four underperforms the other three dramatically, including in my portfolio. So I'm really impressed that they actually figured that out. That means that they were, that you did a good job teaching them to look at their long-term track records.
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.
They're so bad.
Yeah, the C plan outperforms everything else so drastically in the TSP that we finally said, okay, we're going to do 80% C, 10 international, or 10 I, which is their international, and 10 S, which is their small cap. And so 80,, 10, 10 is our TSP recommendation. And that's a similar question to what you're asking about a particular 401k. Does that make sense?
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I guess that was primarily my question, because, like, within the account that I manage, like, we can go through fund selection and find something that's, you know, pretty decent for international category, but it tends to be tougher when, you know, the options are limited within a 401k or 403b or something like that. Exactly. So that makes total sense.
Yeah, that's more like the TSP in that situation, and I would just change the ratios somewhat. But, again, you are obviously well-versed in this stuff as an advisor, and the thing that people forget is the power of diversification. You know, having some money in different things is very important. So, even if it's just a little, maybe we don't want quite as much Tabasco in there as we want other things, but we do need the spice in there, you know? And my mouth just watered.
And, Sam, I was going to say exactly word for word what Dave just said. All that stuff about CFUNs, I was going to do exactly that same. So, kudos to you, Dave. I'll let you take that one. I'm just going to run with it, and you're right on.
That's good. Thanks, John. Thanks for covering for me there. I appreciate it. Let me talk.
That's good.
You've got to get your voice back in this show a little bit.
Yeah. What's interesting, folks, is the Bible does say in Ecclesiastes, Spread your portions to seven, yes to eight, for disaster may come upon the land. Now, keep in mind, Ecclesiastes is not the positive thinking book of the Bible, okay? Pretty much everything in there is the world's coming to an end, you're going to die.
It's the choose reality book.
It's worse than that. It's the we're all going to die book. It's the zombie. apocalypse is on the way. You know, it's all this.
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.
And I think it's important, you said this, but to double click on it, when you have a, what I call a failsafe or a stopgap, or we get a lot of grief for telling people to put an emergency fund in a high yield savings account. Just leave it alone. It's to be there when you need it. I like the idea of there being a, what feels like a drag sometimes, but man, when the market goes south and this thing has proven over time to hold steady or to kind of buoy everything, I like it. That's discipline, right?
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.
Well, when I was young and rash, I only wanted to invest in things that were going straight up.
That's right. But I see that on Instagram and TikTok that they do that too, and they're going to fall off a cliff, right?
And so you would only buy an aggressive growth stock mutual fund, then, a small cap fund.
Because the world's just going to always be...
Yeah, it's always going to be high tech. Yeah, you don't have that wisdom. It's going to have the high tech in there. It's going to have all the startups in there. It's going to be exciting.
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.
I was going to say, you know what else is boring?
Being broke.
Diet, nutrition.
Being a good person.
Mental health.
Was that the old... Spiritually. The worst part about being a Christian is that it's every single day. You can never wake up on the first day of the month and memorize all five books of...
You know what? This week, I'm just going to raise hell. Yeah.
Next week... The worst part about exercise is you just got to do it again tomorrow and then again the next day. And you look up over time and you have a healthy life, right?
Yeah. It's worth it. It's worth it. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but it yields a harvest of righteousness. This is the Ramsey Show.
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is Deloney, and I'm always railing against social media, especially in the summer. Because everyone uploads the highlight reels of their perfect bodies and perfect vacations and perfect kids. And I know they're not real. And I also know that I'm blessed beyond my wildest dreams.
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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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. Well, you have almost missed it, but not quite. We're going to be doing the Live Like No One Else Cruise in March.
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.
I can't. I tell you what. I can't wait. It's my first cruise.
You've never been on a cruise?
Never been on a cruise. This is my first cruising experience.
Wow. Well, you're starting out on high cotton. Because this is like Holland, America. This is not Walmart on the seas here. I know.
This is big dog.
I'm a Walmart on the seas kind of guy. So I'm pretty excited about this.
This is good stuff. here. You're living high. Good stuff. Hey, it's a live like no one else cruise.
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.
But here's a great idea. You're getting ready for school. It's back to school starts, all the drama. Imagine just sliding over your spouse like, hey, honey, in March I got us taken care of.
We're going on a cruise. You probably should discuss it with her before you slide over there. that we're doing it.
Way to go. fun, ruiner.
I know I'm a fun ruiner. That's me. Don't make large decisions.
That's a guy that's made large decisions and got hit for it.
Yeah. Yeah.
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?
Good. How's it going, guys? I'm a huge fan.
Well, thank you. How can we help today?
All right. So I'm a newer listener to the show and my baby step number two. I got about $5,000 in credit card debt and a bed that we financed. And I also have a car payment that's $500 a month. And I owe about $25,000 on that 9% interest.
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.
When you make $30 an hour, where does that take you in five years?
Definitely more than $30, and I don't know for sure that's what they'll pay me. I'm just low-balling it, but I would imagine it's going to be around there.
Why is it less? Same job? Journeyman?
Yeah, same job. The demand for work is just higher. in Omaha. There's not as much. in Sioux City.
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.
How old are you?
I'm 31..
I would not make the decision on a singular piece of data, meaning your job. There's other parts to the data. There's your future. Where do you want to be in 10 years? There's where I want to live.
Are you married?
No, engaged.
And where is her family?
Her family lives in Sioux City.
Pretty high likelihood you're going to be in Sioux City, right?
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
That wouldn't be unusual anyway, unless you just decided to move. If you wanted to make more, you could go to even a bigger city than Omaha. You all leave Sioux City. What does she do?
She's a pharmacy tech.
So she can land anywhere.
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?
It doesn't really matter to me.
But you're married in her. Do you guys want to leave there or not? You know.
No.
So we're going to live in Sioux City. Then that helps me a bunch, because I ain't driving an hour and 40 minutes for 10 bucks.
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?
Right.
So go see what you can get. And then that answers your question. So what you're doing is you're proposing, you're giving me and John an actual versus a hypothetical. Because you don't have a solid second option yet. You need to turn your hypothetical into three different solid job offers.
And then I think the decision will be instantaneous. John, that's kind of a faulty way of approaching decision-making, right?
Yeah, you said it best. I don't like ever making a decision based on a singular data point. And I also think it's worth, you're about to say, I do. You're about to create something totally new with another person. I think it's worth asking that person, what do you envision our life like?
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.
I accept that.
I'll go with that. Rock and roll t-shirts, Led Zeppelin t-shirts on your shrink, right?
I had a woman say, you know, you're the big brother. I never had, and I thought, that's about right.
That's kind of nice. Yeah, I'm the uncle. And now I've become grandpa. I'm the grandpa you never had. First I was the friend, and then later, as I went along, I got to be the uncle, and now I'm the grandpa.
But that's okay. All that's good, I'll take it. Steven is in Austin, Texas. Hey Steven, what's up?
Hi, Dave and John. Hey, I have a question. My wife and I have $30,000 in Apple stock burning a hole in our pocket, and we have a tight structured lifestyle with three kids, and I would love advice on what to do with those shares.
Okay.
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?
Yes, we owe $170,000 on our house. We have a $20,000 student loan, and then just a furniture loan of $2,200..
Okay. All right. Well, we teach folks, the baby step. one is to have $1,000 set aside, a little starter emergency fund. Then two is become debt-free, everything but your house.
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.
I see.
And here's how I know that also works. Do a little reverse engineering. Let's pretend you did not have a student loan, and someone came up and said, you can borrow $20,000 on a student loan and buy Apple stock with it. Would you do that? No.
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?
Yes.
It's the same risk portfolio, same risk analysis, same mathematics involved, and all of that. And so, yeah, clean it up, man, and work it all the way through. So you're new to all this Ramsey stuff. Let me send you a copy of the Total Money Makeover book. It's the one that's the baby steps on steroids.
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.
And it's also, when you have stock like that, like, just say, Apple stock or Tesla, it's easy to say, I'm going to use this for something great, not to go back and pay for something I've already been a part of. But think of it this way, like Steve Jobs, just put you through school. Let's just be happy about it and move. Like, let's come up with some way to frame it.
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.
Very good. Riley is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Riley.
Hi, how are you doing, Mr. Ramsey?
Great, brother. How can we help?
So I'm calling. I've been watching all your videos for a little while now, and I wanted some advice on an engagement ring for my girlfriend. as far as price goes. I'm about to graduate UNC, Charlotte, this fall. Congratulations.
What's your degree in?
It's actually going to be in history. And the reason why is that was one of the closest things that I could get to finishing on time. It was going to be criminal justice, but my job doesn't care what my degree is in, and they'll still give me a 10% increase in my pay.
I'm going to be a Charlotte police officer.
Oh, good. Thank you.
Very cool. So the real question is, how much should you spend on this engagement ring?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, how much do you love it?
You didn't go there.
Not very much, though.
So when will you be getting married?
So it would be next year, probably the end of next year.
Will you be a police officer by then?
Yes, I'd be through the academy and they're paying me officer salary to the whole academy.
And how much will you be making as an officer?
About $65,000 a year.
Okay.
Jewelry stores will often tell you three months of pay. Our rule is one month of pay.
Okay.
Five grand.
Okay.
Or less.
How old are you?
23..
Okay, good.
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.
That happened to me, man.
You paid full time? I paid full time for the first one. First one was 0.23, baby.
Yes.
We're talking a spec.
Yes.
0.23.. You can't even see it.
That's what love looks like, baby.
That's what love looked like when I was 20..
$56 in 1982.. I'm just saying. And I remember those $56 payments, too. Wow. Unbelievable.
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, PhD in Counseling, Ramsey, personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, one of the more popular Ramsey Network shows out there, and, of course, number one best-selling author. He's my co-host today.
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?
Well, I haven't seen one single post where there's someone trying to weigh the issues. It's somebody yelling at the other person, saying, I've never met a diehard Republican. It's like, you know what? You're right. I'm out.
Or vice versa.
I completely messed this whole thing up.
Yeah. So if you already know who you're going to vote for, just turn it off, man.
Just turn it off. So CNBC prints this article, Is the U.S. in a recession? Of course, we're in a political season, so the Republicans are saying that the Democrats have ruined the economy. That's part of running for office.
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.
That needs to be your post of the day, Dave, which I know you spend lots of time contemplating.
There's an economics, if you take economics, and if you're going to use words like recession, that's an economic term, you should understand the definition of the word is two consecutive quarters of the gross domestic product, which is the measure of all goods and services in the U.S.,
shrinking.
If the economy recedes,
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.
I love the idea about the question.
My feelings matter.
Even the question.
The question is wrong. Do you believe we're in a recession? You dumb butt, don't you know what this is? It's you. either is or you isn't.
It's a math thing.
Hi, this is John from the John Deloney Show. Do you believe the sky is orange?
Yeah.
Three out of five Americans, they believe that.
What do you believe? I don't give a crap what you believe. Some of you, people's parents, are cousins. I don't care what you believe. A recession is an economic term.
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.
Are you feeling good about things?
The famous Reagan line, are you better off now than you were four years ago? You could say, I am or I aren't. And then you have to answer. the question that goes with that is, do you think Washington actually had anything to do with it? Which it usually didn't.
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.
Dave, my feelings are all that matters.
Yeah, this is the problem. According to a separate Guardian-Harris poll from May, 56% of respondents said they believe the U.S. is in a recession, although gross domestic product has been increasing for the past several years. Officially, the National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as a significant decline in economic activity that has spread across the economy in the last more than a few months. Well, that's even wrong.
There's a technical definition. Freaking. take economy. God, I got a degree in finance. They make us take economics.
Listen, we were talking about this before the show started, Dave. This idea that real facts don't.
matter.
It's like, hey, gross domestic product has been going up. What do you feel like? I feel like we're in a recession.
I know, but my feelings are more important than the data. So I feel that's correct. Madness.
And please don't hear me saying that Biden caused this. He's asleep. He didn't cause anything. OK, he didn't cause anything. All they're doing is causing disruption and everything.
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.
Or all the tick tockers on your account might be having bad things going.
Maybe you should unplug the Internet for a few days and see if your negativity wanes. Who knows? But let me help you with this. Affirm and CNBC. Recession's not a feeling.
Why is this hard?
More than a feeling.
Wow. That's a little Boston sleep in there. Is that Boston? No, it wasn't even close.
That was Boston.
I mean, that song is Boston, but that wasn't. That was not. This is the Ramsey show.
Hey, guys, George Campbell, here. As a new dad, I see a lot of things in a new light. The cost of diapers, the value of sleep and how crucial it is to have a will. Because if something happens to me, I don't want my family stressing about the details. And that's why I recommend making a will with Mama Bear legal forms.
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Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is The Ramsey Show. The phone number is 888-825-5225..
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.
Click subscribe or click follow. It really helps our numbers big time. And because it causes the show to be pushed forward with their algorithms and other people who don't know about it, hear about it, it's the best promotion we get. And also, you share the show. A lot of these apps and platforms have a share button or share feature, and you can just send an episode to somebody and let them watch it or listen to it.
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?
I saw that he signed it and he.
shot it.
Oh, I didn't see that.
It's got a bullet hole in 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.
I think that would be fantastic.
Has absolutely nothing to do with the book, which is does. But I still want to do it anyway. Yeah, that's pretty cool. All right. Kathy's in Philadelphia.
Hi, Kathy. Welcome to the Ramsey show.
Hello. I'm calling today with a question I can hope, or I hope you guys can help me with. My husband and I are considering putting in a solar array to offset our utility bill. And I was. I just wanted to like bounce the numbers off of you and see if it was a smart move with where we're at currently.
OK.
So hubs and I are like between baby steps five and six, I guess, like. we have a substantial amount of money in savings, but we haven't earmarked that like. specifically, this is child A, this is child B. There's their college fund.
They're pretty young yet. Three and five. We feel like we've got some time to.
So you would pay cash for the solar.
That's what we want to do. How much is it? for the solar? The unit's about fifty three thousand.
OK. And what is the? what's the break? even on it?
They say they have it calculated out. And we looked at the numbers about eight years. We'd have it all back between like the ITC and our like state credits for Pennsylvania and FREC and those things.
OK, that's borderline. I usually look for a five to a seven year break even. And most of the time that you see that you're going to get that, it's going to be in a area of the country that is a lot of sun. So, I mean, like, you know, Phoenix, Arizona type of a thing. You're, you know, that kind of thing.
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.
Right.
But, you know, check that out, learn about that. That's what I would do if I were in this situation.
But I'd run one more company to have one more company come over and get a, give a bid and see.
what they're saying. That's a good idea.
We ran two companies and we actually have gotten from seventy five thousand down to fifty two thousand by pitting them against each other. So we kind of. that's about where I could bring in a third company. But I feel like at this point, you know, if we've come down twenty five thousand, almost. That's a good start.
That's a good start. I got some margin in that crap. That's cool. OK. So I knew they were making bank, but I'm a fan of the technology.
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.
doorstop?
You know, that's what it is. You know, it's like, what? It has to boot up. You know, it's like, you know,
where's the DOS? What is this?
What is this strange beach ball thing? You know, it's like, you know,
so I even handed one of our audio guys an old iPod that I found and said, hey, I want to pull the music off of it because I don't let my son have a phone out in the wild. But I said, I want you to fill it with old country songs. And he looked at me like I had just handed him a box of fresh dog turds.
Antiques.
What is this? I don't know what to do with this thing.
Fresh dog turds.
Yeah, I could use a better analogy on your radio show, Dave.
Our radio show.
Our radio show. There we go. Thank you. But yeah, it was strange. But hey, he took it back and figured it out, man.
There you go. Well, because he's that guy. Alex is with us. Alex is in Tallahassee. Hi, Alex.
How are you?
Good. How about yourself, Dave and John?
Good. How can we help? Yeah.
My wife and I have a little scenario. We currently have seven properties. One of them is my partner residence and then six investments. Three of the investment properties are paid off. And we've been discussing about maybe selling two properties, and selling two properties would pay off the remaining of the balance that I have on the four other properties that still have a mortgage on them.
You'd be a hundred percent debt-free.
Including my partner. Yes, sir.
I would do that.
Right now?
Today? Yes.
Yeah, today. OK.
I love real estate. I love real estate, Alex. But I like being debt-free more.
I agree. And we were trying to hold on to not sell properties and just add more to the portfolio, just for our children and future.
You'll be able to do that because you won't have any payments.
I think.
How much you can stack cash with no payments to be able to buy the next one debt-free and buy the next one debt-free and buy the next one debt-free. That's what I started doing about 20 years ago. And I've got quite a large amount of real estate now.
Can I ask one more quick question on the topic of real estate?
Yes, sir.
On the property, once they're all paid off, would you recommend I continue to keep the homeowner's insurance?
Yes.
I'm in Florida. Homeowner's insurance is.
through the roof. Well, it's not homeowner's. It's Fire and E.C. It's not technically homeowner. Homeowner's is for owner occupied only.
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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Thanks for joining us America. I'm Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey Personality is our co-host. Today's question of the day comes from Amanda in Connecticut.
Amanda writes, My husband and I are in our late thirties and the only debt we have is our mortgage, which will be paid off in the next year. I'd like to start planning for baby step 7 and where to invest our money when we get there. I listened to Breaking Free from Broke by George Campbell, and George mentioned that whole and universal life insurance are not wise forms of investing. I currently have three policies. One is a 10 year term, another is whole and universal and one has a $70,000 cash value.
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?
You can't add the funds to your 401k. You don't have a method for doing that. 401k is only payroll deduct. So that's not an option. But George is right.
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.
So if you find yourself here, you can go withdraw that amount?
You can cancel the policy and they send you the check.
But if you die, they keep it?
Yep.
That's so weird.
Yep. Yeah. Well, you lose the insurance when you cancel it. Sure. But whoopty-doopty.
Yeah.
The insurance costs you whatever you're paying for it per month, plus $70,000..
That's expensive insurance.
And by the way, they are taking, they're paying you 1.2%. They're taking that and investing it and they're keeping the...
Oh, let me tell you exactly what they're doing with it. Okay? The primary place you go if you have a commercial building to get a mortgage is from a life insurance company. You want to build an apartment complex with 500 units and it's $15 million? You know, you go to XYZ Insurance Company and they loan the money out, and it's 7, 8%.
They do commercial lending with it. It's their primary thing on real estate. It's actually very secure.
So they're making the gap or they're keeping the building.
Definitely making the gap. They're definitely making the gap. Yeah, that's why their buildings are so tall.
And your houses are so small.
Exactly. It's a payday lender of the middle class. Kimmy's with us. Kimmy is in New Orleans. Hi, Kimmy.
Hi, Dave and Josh. I truly appreciate you all taking my call.
Sure. How can I help?
Thank you. So, besides being Christians, my boyfriend and I really look up to you, Dave, and the lessons that you teach us financially. We've recently been talking about marriage being in the future, up ahead and God leading us. And I'm a business owner of a caregiving service and he actually works for the federal government. And I have this opportunity from one of my clients whose family members was one of our residents in our care.
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.
Why do we have to have a luncheon to do caregiving?
So that I can sit with like 50 of the case workers and talk to them about it.
Okay. Is that who makes the decision as to whether you get to be a caregiver?
No, no.
Who makes the decision?
Oh, well, they make the decision as far as referring us to the patients there.
Oh, no. But do they not have to have the permission of their hospital to do that? No. No.
No. It just comes through them from what I've been told. Like, they handle that.
line. You mean like a nurse? What kind of caregiver?
Yeah. Yes, sir.
So the nurses, independent of the hospital that they work for, decide who they're going to refer care to. No.
Okay.
No, they don't. I don't think. I don't know anything about that world, but that sounds weird. I can't imagine. Well, there were a.
couple of options that I was given.
I want to find out who the decision maker is. Okay. And I don't think your info is solid, so I want you to dig a little further. I might be wrong. I'm willing to be wrong, Kimmy.
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.
Highly.
Just kidding. But let's say I'm wrong, and the nurses actually do get to make the decision completely independent of their employer. Then, yeah, it's a prospecting lunch. You know, you're like buying a booth at a nurse's convention. is what you're doing.
You're going to spend a thousand bucks and go meet with those nurses. Yeah, I would buy them all lunch.
And I always do the quick math on how many of these need to convert, right? How many books do I need to sell to make this booth worth it? How many of these would I need to convert? And you're probably going to be, it's probably going to be not that many. Yeah.
I mean, if you make a thousand dollars on one customer and you buy 40 nurses lunch, all you got to do is get one. That's it. And you're okay. But if you make $10 a customer, that might not be as good.
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Hey, John.
Yeah, Dave.
Amazon Music just put up a huge Ramsey Show billboard on Times Square.
It's kind of amazing.
Did you see it? No. Look at it.
It's amazing.
Is that pretty cool?
We picked the best looking personalities. I was going to say, you didn't put George on there. That kind of hurts.
Yeah, George and Jade, apparently.
We just took a new.
picture, but I guess they didn't have that with all of us in it.
Dude, amazing. That's really great.
That's pretty cool. Those things are digital, so it's probably up there eight or ten seconds.
But he caught it and now it's forever. Whoops! When you were a little kid in East Tennessee, did you think one day?
someday I'll be on Times Square?
Maybe in Times Square.
Yeah.
Surrounded by a couple of goofballs and Jade Warshaw.
There you go. And the.
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?
Hi, Dave. Hi, John. My question for you guys is, my mom asked me to help her plan for retirement.
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.
I'm confused. what happened where your dad and mom don't live together?
Oh, no, they do.
Okay. So they're not his stocks, then. They're their stocks.
Yeah.
They just happen to be in his name. I'm sorry?
Yeah. He considers it his retirement savings.
Yeah. I considered his house he's living in, too.
Oh, I agree.
She's wanting to pay off. It's kind of interesting how he chose to separate the two.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's bogus.
So what we should be doing, your mom and your dad, would be planning to retire together, since they're freaking married. Yeah.
Yeah.
I agree.
Okay. Instead of like, oh, this is mine and that's yours. That's so stupid because you're going to use it up either way.
Yep.
I assume when he dies, his stock will go to her.
Yeah.
And vice versa. Her house will go to him. Have they get married? No, they didn't get married late. They got you.
So no.
Okay.
Yeah. They're 10 years apart. So he got married late. She got married.
early. So I would suggest to this couple that they approach retirement holistically, that they should combine all of their assets and use those combined assets to create a combined picture of what retirement should look like and execute that. If I were doing that, I would sell his stock in about 20 seconds, her stock, their stock, and pay off their house. Yes, you should go into retirement with a paid-for house. Absolutely.
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.
Yeah. My mom's afraid to tell him about all the credit card debt she's racked up, honestly.
Yeah, and so now you're participating in her deception.
Yeah, I keep telling her to tell him, because it's not my place to.
Yeah.
Mackenzie,
Mackenzie, you got to tell your mom, hey, I got to get out of the middle of this.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Yeah. I think that's the conversation to have, because she's not interested in your help. She's interested in you being Thelma to her and Louise, and this ends badly for everybody.
John, let me ask you this. Would it be okay to help mom with courage, because obviously mom is intimidated as crap by him.
Yeah, if he's abusive or.
ashamed or something, would it be okay for her to sit in? Yeah. And say I'm going to sit here with you while you tell dad everything, and then I'm going to strongly suggest to the two of you that you start acting like you're married from this point forward and combine things and develop a picture of what the future looks like.
Yeah, but, Mackenzie, I'm taking it from the way you talk that your dad still treats you like you're 12..
No, my dad's not really involved in the finances, like at all.
Okay.
Except for the.
part where he owns the stock and doesn't want anybody to have it.
Okay.
Well, no, it's not that. My mom's retirement is like 10 times that.
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.
Like she thinks he's going to hurt himself?
Yeah.
Then she needs to call a professional ASAP because this ends poorly. He'll find out.
Yeah, that's what I keep telling her. I keep telling her that she just needs to be transparent.
Well, here's what she's done, though. She has placed an incredible burden on her daughter, because now you have to act for the safety of your father.
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.
Do you believe that or do you think she's full of crap just because she's shamed?
I kind of think she's full of crap.
Yeah, I do, too.
I think my dad would, you know, have a...
I think he'd have a coronary, but I don't think he'd be suicidal.
How much debt are we talking?
Credit cards are like $127 and then student loans are $24..
Okay. And do they owe money on the mortgage, did you say?
They took a cash-out refi back when the interest rates were low, so they owe $300 on the loan.
Good Lord, and he knows that. He knows that, he signed for that. So how much is in her retirement?
So in her 401k, it's about $740..
Okay, and how much is in his stock?
$270..
Okay. All right, so they've got a million dollars that they can get to. I assume they're over $59..
My dad is, my mom's not.
Okay. All right.
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?
Mm-hmm.
I think your dad helping her and working with her, and the two of them working as a team, have a much better chance of creating a sustainable environment for the next decade than her hiding things.
Agreed. I even tried to start showing my dad the Every Dollar Budget app yesterday.
Yeah, you're on the track. You already knew what to do, didn't you? Okay, good. Yeah. So your job now is cheerleader for your mom to come clean and then be, talk to your dad as forcefully as you can get away with and as profitable to, everybody's.
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.
Agreed.
Just to reframe this for you, Mackenzie, what you just did was you walked into a room and realized your mom is having a pretty serious affair, and she looked at you and said, don't tell dad.
Yeah, that's how it feels.
And she put you in a very unfair position, so any time somebody relationally puts me in an unfair position, I am going to do the next right, honest thing.
Yeah. And that's say you have 24 hours to come clean or I'm going to do it for you.
That's it.
Yeah.
I'm telling you how I would handle this if this happened in my house. I would tell my mom, you got 24 hours, 48 hours, I'll do it with you, but we're going to have this conversation or I'm going to have this conversation because I can't be your secret bearer. That's not my job.
Yeah. I'm not going to be part of your deception. That's right. And your shame and your other dysfunctions. So I think dad coming alongside, even though he's going to have a bust of vessel, and working together with everybody and applying his frugality to the budgeting process, or keep another 127 in credit card from happening.
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?
I'm doing well, Dave. How are you?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
So my question is, my husband has a child from a previous marriage, and we have a child together. And I think I would like to ask that our son inherits 75% of our home's value, meaning my 50%, and then my husband's 50% would be split 25-25 between each of the two children. And I plan to purchase multiple properties in the years to come, and I'm good with splitting the additional properties 50-50 between children. Why? Do you consider this...
Why? I think I feel this way...
No, I mean, why would the others be 50? The 70... I got your math on the 75-25.. That math I understood. I don't understand your math on the 50-50, given your position.
So I think... Both are wealth.
It's just... I'm sorry?
Both are wealth.
Yes. I think it's because it's our first one, and we're getting really close to paying it off, and I'm trying to protect my son's future, and not that I'm not trying to protect my stepson's future, but...
How's your relationship with the stepson? Wonderful. How old is he?
20..
20.. How much... How long have you been married?
Oh, gosh. Um... 15 years.
Okay. So you've been involved in raising him for 15 years, I guess, at some level.
Yes. I've been.
a little bit. He... We lived in different states for a while, but, you know, obviously, we would see him as much as we could.
Mm-hmm.
I have to say, man, this... This is tough. This is going to... I think this is going to put more weight on your son than you think it's going to. It'd be pretty divisive.
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.
So a little bit of background is...
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...
Good for you.
I certainly don't.
That's understandable.
I don't expect my stepson's mom to, you know, leave my son anything, and I'm happy to leave my stepson something, but I think I just have these strong feelings.
Your stepson's mom is not married to the father of your child. Right.
No, no.
She's not the same position, you're in. No. That's not... Not anymore. That's apples and oranges.
Yeah.
Yes, sir. Okay. So... Okay. Um...
I don't know if it's.
unreasonable... Here's what we did with our kids. Our kids are grown. Okay? Here's what we did with our kids.
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?
It does, and I'm not worried about either of them. Okay. Both of them have great character, and I know that they're going to be fine in that respect.
And I'm sorry to preach at you, but that's how we looked at it at our house. Now, given that... Given that, then my only concern about your formula would be if it separates your son from his brother in any way.
Oh, gosh, no.
Because I'm more concerned that the two of them, like you, love each other all the way into eternity than I am. who got 25 or 50 or 27 percent or whatever? bullcrap. Mm-hmm. Okay?
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?
Ten.
Okay. He's not quite old enough to talk to you about this, but... No. The older one you can talk to and say, I love you deeply. You are 50 percent mine.
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.
Yeah. And the only other thing I would add in the calculation, and I got to tell you, Jessica, for some reason, it's just not sitting well with me, and I may not have all the details. If you and I were to sit down and have some chips and salsa for an hour, you could tell me more about it. But, along those choices, you said, because I'm like Dave. I'm like you.
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?
Well, that's a I have not posed this to my husband yet, because I wanted to see if it's even... Is it an objective ask? Is it unreasonable?
It's not unreasonable to talk about it. It would be unreasonable to die on the hill. And it would be unreasonable if it causes a schism between the two brothers. Those would be my caveats, because the amount of money is not worth the... The juice ain't worth the squeeze, if you're going to mess up something else in the deal.
Even if it messes up your relationship with the 20-year-old. I wouldn't do it.
But... Because when me and my wife are gone, man, I want my son and my
daughter to get along.
To be ride or die together.
Yeah, my kids are all doing a cookout this weekend, all three of them, all eight grandkids, without me. That's what I want.
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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?
First off, thank you so much for taking my call. I am on Baby Step 2, or we are, me and my family. And I was curious. I started the envelope system when I was 19 and in the Air Force and I fell off for a few years there in the middle. I am now 33, and I'm trying to get back on the program and the last six months have been paying off debt.
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
have failed to start doing it yet. Okay, let me give you the upgrade. that's a charge, that we charge for, that connects you to your bank, makes it super easy, and it's got a feature in it called paycheck planning. that'll also help lay out which paycheck pays which bill, not just which month. Like if you get paid twice a month, I put cable in the first and I put water in the second half or whatever, that kind of thing, right?
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.
Okay, yeah, I love that, because I do a lot of gig works, I get cash in, but it's just, you know, I'm trying to be more digital. My husband's very digital, so it, I think it would work better for our family, but I just end up being in the.
account and I spend it. Fight the system, Megan.
Put in an envelope. Yeah, I mean, stuff that.
you're gonna do regularly, I would, I still like to see the actual green stuff laying on the counter, because it makes me remember I'm actually spending money. And that's, groceries in particular, that's the biggest one. I did, I fought it for years because when I first started this, of course, no one paid for gasoline at the pump. You had to walk inside and pay for it with a debit card, a credit card, or cash. And so it's very easy to keep my gasoline on, on a cash envelope as well.
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?
deserve. What's up? Okay, so we live in Southwest Florida, and we are trying to buy a house. My husband and I, we got married kind of late. I was 34, and we just had a baby.
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.
in Tampa, making $90,000?.
Absolutely you can.
You're telling me, people have to make more than $100,000 a.
year to live in Tampa and buy a house? Come on.
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.
is your car payment? We paid cash for our car. What other debt do you have? We have zero debt. Something's wrong with your formula, darling.
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.
salary is $75,000, but he usually takes home about $85,000 to $90,000 depending on his bonuses. The bonuses, he's a project manager at a construction business. Mm-hmm.
How big was your tax refund last year? I'm sorry? How big was your tax refund last year?
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.
afford to live in Tampa, Florida.
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.
know enough about it. Get off of TikTok. I mean, you can afford to live in Tampa, Florida making $90,000.. Yeah. I, you know, I don't need Facebook to tell me otherwise.
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.
Listen, tickets for the live like no one else. cruiser selling fast. This is the ultimate debt-free vacation. And I can't wait to celebrate with all the folks who've worked their butts off and changed their family trees. We will be sailing through the blue waters of the Caribbean with the Ramsey personalities and other special guests.
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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?
Auburndale, Florida. It's right next to Lakeland, Florida. Oh yeah. Yeah. Love it.
Good. Welcome. How much debt have you paid off? 235,850.. Wow.
How long did that take? Four years, seven months.
Good for you. I love it. And your range of income. during that time? It was somewhere about 50 when.
we started 250 last year. Whoa. Nice jump. What do y'all do for a living? I'm a vet tech in a.
small clinic. I'm an airline pilot. Oh, okay. So yours has gone up. The airline's gone up.
Yeah. Vet tech didn't jump 200 grand. No, no. Okay. That's good y'all.
Wow. What kind of debt.
was the 236?. Most of it was between college and flight school. Okay. All right. And then the rest.
of it was pretty much credit cards and then our van. Okay. So you were like normal plus some flight school. Yeah. Yeah.
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?
What's the whole deal? Well, I think the story starts a little further back in 2016.. I was working as a flight instructor. When you work as a flight instructor, you don't make much at all. I mean, you're poor, like swift, shampoo, poor.
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.
Jamie, what was the breakthrough on that? What happened that caused you to decide,
I'm going to do this? I finally took back over my mental status. I'd had trouble after having our two kids and everything. And being a stay-at-home mom, I needed a little bit more. And I got back into the workforce after that.
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.
of strength, mental health wise. That makes sense. Good.
It's amazing how many people sit down to do this, like the quote unquote, get out of debt and realize we got some things we got to work on both individually and together, so that we can take this adventure together. Because four years doing any project with anybody is hard, much less paying off debt and saying no to things and sacrificing, especially when you're making a big, fancy pilot's income and everybody at work, when you roll into the vet's office, they see the car you're driving, like, get your husband a fancy pants pilot. And you're like, yeah, but we got a different kind of mission. But this thing's paid off.
That's right. You're still got payments on your car.
You got it, but you got to go with that mindset. That's right. Very good. Good job, you guys. How's it feel to be free?
Free.
Weight off the shoulders. So much weight off the shoulders. And when we sent in the last payment, when we clicked last payment, it felt like I lost 100 pounds, right? It was beautiful. But it's interesting that you say freedom, that right there was.
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.
We're not going to piss our freedom away for some stupid object.
Nope.
I like that. That's noble, right there.
That's amazing.
That's cool. That's cool. So what is your country of origin? Something other than the US?
I was born in Chile. I grew up in Salt Lake. And now we live in Florida.
I got you. Okay. All right. Okay. Very cool.
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?
Be on board with your spouse, like fix whatever it is that may be making that crazy. And then just keep at it. Keep that persistence. Say your minimum payment is $230.. Pay that $240, to that $250..
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.
Yeah, it works.
Once it starts rolling, nothing stops it. Once you get that gazelle intensity, once that snowball starts running, you've got it. And pray. Pray together. It truly turns night to day.
Yes, it does. It really does. Well, congratulations, you two. We're very, very proud of you. Very well done, heroes.
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'?
names and ages? Bring them up. Hailey and Isaac. Hailey is eight and Isaac is 10..
All right. Have they been practicing their debt-free scream? Yep. Yep. Ready to go.
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.
Three, two, one. We're debt-free!
That's how it's done, ladies and gentlemen. That's how it's done. This is the Ramsey Show.
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.
Hey, good afternoon, Dave, Dr. Deloney. Thanks for taking the call.
Sure. What's up?
Hey, quick question. Well, first, off, the Bible verse, you guys just spoke, that was really speaking, I think, my call. But I just had a question for you. Is it possible to be a successful businessman but to also be a successful family man? And I can kind of refine that a little bit more and give you kind of my background of where I'm coming from.
What would make you think that is not possible?
Well, right now, I'm working with my wife to try to come to a middle ground on our side business.
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.
And what do you have to do on the other 10 months?
Well, so there's a lot of planning. And because we've been in business for about four years, there's the growing stages. I mean, it probably consumes my mind a little bit more than I should, which I've gotten much better at not bringing it up at the dinner table because she's told me. She's like, okay, I want to hear about it. And I kind of have this guilt, for, I'd say for about six months out of the year, leading into the start of the season, it's a little bit busier at home.
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.
What do you make as a pilot?
Well, right now, yeah, I make about $120,000.. Next year, about $200,000.. And then it just keeps going up. I just started at the major airline. And so, and my wife, she brings in about $85,000..
And how old are your children?
We've got a 15-month-old, a 10-year-old, and then one on the way.
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-.
What is the business? What are you growing?
So what we do is we do bird abatement for agriculture solutions. So people who own vineyards and different types of farms, they'll hire us, they'll contract us out, and we show up. And it sounds kind of funny, but we use model aircraft. We kind of play cat and mouse with the birds all day. And so we have a team, generally about 15 people.
And we had an opportunity. We passed up a large, about a $900,000 contract in Arizona.
You should have.
And rightfully so.
Yeah, you weren't prepared to take it on. No. All right. Let me tell you what I'm hearing. And let me talk back at you what you told me.
You have a pregnant wife with a 15-month-old. Your house is insane.
Right. It's busy.
No, it's insane. I mean, it's chaos. Yeah. There are very small humans taking up large amounts of calories from both of you.
Yeah.
And you're flying model airplanes at birds.
Right.
Right? And she's over it. She's over it. She's got her gut full, man. So it's not that a businessman can't be a good family man.
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.
Well, the last two years, because we came up with a compromise, and so we started hiring managers. And so last year, we tried it out. It worked pretty well. And then this year, we pretty much had the managers run the whole operation. And I mean, they did a much better job than I thought it was going to be.
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.
That's not the point.
That's not the point, Drew. Hey, Drew, your wife is asking one question. Do you love me as much as this side hustle?
And I'm going crazy right now and I need your help.
Right. No, I do love my wife.
I know you do. I know you do.
But she's asking you that.
You're trying to show her how much you love her by creating a business and creating extra money and extra margin. And she is saying, do you love me?
Right.
And Dave and I are both, I mean, you're not going to meet two guys who like working. I think both of us love work. But I hear Dave say there's a season to this. It's the winter time. And you're like, look at these cool shorts I just made.
And she's like, they're great, but it's freezing outside.
Yeah, I got a 15 month old. I got a baby on the way. By the way, all of this spells hormones. Did you know that?
Yeah, we've been, we've been working through that.
Yeah, hello.
Quite a bit of postpartum.
Yeah. I mean, that's normal. It's not bad. It's just life.
Yeah. She misses you, man.
Yeah. You need to be there hugging babies, changing diapers, not flying birds.
Yeah.
Not right now. I mean, I want you to run your own business, Drew, but you ask us a question. And the question is, yes, you can be a successful businessman and a family man, but the spouse has to be able to carry whatever weight that you're not carrying. And you're asking her to carry more than she's willing to carry right now. And I don't think she's being unreasonable.
Little babies and a house full of kiddos is chaos.
On top of a $200,000 a year salary.
And she's flying.
And so in her 80, he was saying, so, about 300 grand they're going to be making next year. And the question that she's asking, which question my wife asked, when, is enough enough?
Yeah. I, in other words, she's saying for $75,000 a year, I'd rather have your help.
I'd rather have you. Yes.
I'd rather have your help right now, right now. And it might not, if that might, I'm telling you, you might be three, four years and you, you can either restart this or take back over some of the management. You got it, but you got to offload all of it or most of it to be able to manage your help, manage your house right now. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.
You're working two full-time jobs and you've got chaos at home.
And your wife has a full-time job.
Yeah. Oh, by the way. Yeah. Wow. Three full-time jobs.
Right. So you're not a bad guy. You're just, your timing sucks.
Yes. And it's kind of a deceptive question. Yes. You can be a man. Yes.
You can run a successful business and be a good family man. You can't do 50 things at once.
That puts us out 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.
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