Don’t Let a Lack of Boundaries Turn Into a Money Crisis

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the Ramsey Network and the Fairwins Credit Union Studio. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host number one best selling author, host of Front Row Seek Kid Coleman, the Ramsey Personality is my co-host. The phone number here is free and some say the advice is worth what you pay for it. The number is triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two,

“five. Aaron is with us in San Francisco. Hi, Aaron. How are you? I'm good. How are you, guys?”

Thank you. Good. How can we help? So I just kind of want to know what to do in my situation and if I'm just being a brat. So my boyfriend and I we've moved in together into

his house. His house is fully paid off, but it's managed and addressed by his mom. I have

my own house as well that I got a mortgage on before we met and I paid $3,000 a month. We want to move into my home and rent out his home, but his mother is stopping us from doing that and she's not going to allow us to fix up his home or anything to get it rental ready. I just, I just feel bad because now I'm paying a mortgage on a home and it's just sitting empty. I'm not really sure what to do. Hmm. Well, so it's not

really his house. No. It's really owned by, it's owned by a trust his mother is

“the trustee. Yes. If she ever sold it, he would always get the proceeds. I think”

it's written in that way from the sale, but I just, I just feel stuck. No, I don't think

you're stuck. I think he's stuck. How old is he? Peace 39. Well, at some point you have to become a man in my son and decide if your mom is going to tell you what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're cracking up with a mommy's boy. Um, definitely. Yeah. She wants us to live in the home. I don't care what she wants. He's 30 freaking nine years old. She don't get a vote. So, you know, I mean, she, this is like underdeveloped psychology. Yeah.

And I mean, I would not recommend that he completely trash everything over a girl that he's not married to you. And so, but if he were married to you and the two of you are

“trying to set up a life and your mother is this controlling, I would just wash my hands”

of that house and say, Mom, good luck with that house. Hope it works out for you. You no longer have a vote and we're not going to live there. Okay. And so it would be better for us to move into my home, right? And not have it. It'd be better for you to do that if you were married. If you're not married, then he's taking a big risk. It's now he's living in his girlfriend. Now he has a roommate that's his girlfriend and she owns the house. He

went from one lady on in a house to another lady on in a house. This guy's yet to be still homeless. Yeah. No, definitely. You're not wrong there, sir. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bad thing for all of you. I'm sorry. It's in controlling people just piss you off. I mean, they just do. And she's obviously got issues, right? Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's the reason why I don't want to get married though, because until they can resolve whatever it is

between them, I don't want to cross that sentence. Yeah. He's not a marriage material and to, until he decides his mom doesn't get a voting more. I would tell my daughter not to marry him until he grows a backbone. His mom tells him what to do. He's starting freaking out in your soul. What's the penalty that she's holding over his head? That she's going to take him off the trust, getting the house if he moves out. What power does she really

leverage in here? If I understand all the details correctly, there's a few other rentals in the trust and he receives income from those rentals. We both don't have any consumer debt. You know, we follow all your steps and we try to do our best to live a debt free life. But he does receive income from those rentals and to her and job. So she doesn't have a choice in that. The trustee has to execute the terms of the trust and the

terms of the trust or the rental income has to be turned over to him. She can't take that away from him. And so that's what I'm getting at. For you all in your relationship,

And Dave just took the teeth out of the, the any kind of property threat. That's what I'm

getting at. What is he so afraid of? And what he's afraid of is upsetting mama, which is back to the core issue for your relationship and everything else. But he can leave anytime

“he wants to leave. He's just afraid to piss mama off. That's what's going on. So that's”

the bigger relationship issue. Okay. Yeah. And honestly, there's four things that you have to be in agreement on. And one of them is how we deal with extended family before your married. And we're not in agreement about that because this has got issues. So the I'd suggest you guys sit down and see a therapist and I guess you can move in with you

in your house if you want. But he's really still not dealt with his core issue. And

which is he needs to be an independent human being man child. And actually do stuff like man stuff. And instead of just going from mommy to girlfriend and scary stuff. So yeah. Has he ever been married before? Yeah, she's gone. Oh, she's gone. Yeah. I didn't see the boy. I'm guessing there's a pattern. I'm also guessing mom doesn't like her. I think exactly

“right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Storts and little rock arc and saw. Hi, Stuart. What's”

up? Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. So I'll try to be brief. My father had a heart attack in 2024 and he started taking his estate a little more seriously. And how he would hand it down to my sister and I. And he was advised by a friend of his who is a lawyer for a very prominent American family. But is retired. Not in the state lawyer that he does not need a trust probably does. And what's his net worth? I would guess it's somewhere

around 1.2 to 1.5 million. He owned the business. He owned all the equipment in there,

the building. About a half a million. Tax purposes. He does not need a trust unless he's trying to control something from the death bed are from the grave. The trust will help him do that. But he probably doesn't need a trust. It's probably accurate advice. Well, one, one kind of screwball in this whole thing curveball is that we have a special needs brother, my sister and I. And he's been taking care of by the state basically some

teams about 10. And we were hoping to avoid probate in any way possible. We just have a sense for on death, then I said that's a current situation. No probates not evil. If you've got a good will, you walk right through it. And what he does need is in his will, he needs to form a special needs trust upon his death and the death of your mother to take care of your brother. A special needs trust is funded at death. And then you name a trustee, maybe

you or your brother to manage that loot lump of assets and the income created by that lump of assets takes care of the special needs person. But that can be formed at death. That's not a, it's not rocket surgery. You'd a lot of people do it. And so yeah, we'll sit down with a good estate planning attorney and work on a special needs trust to be part of your dad's estate plan. But he does not need a trust today. And there's no big thing

on avoiding probate in Arkansas. Arkansas's not got a huge probate tax. It's not a big deal. . Statistic show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance. Or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John, why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, Hey,

the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a good punch. And oh, you're telling me, and for

“decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important”

to them. Me too. They don't know what to do next. Me too. I mean, I'm going to have a crisis here. And, you know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not miss this up or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly the two options. And turn your dad gum family term life insurance can replace income path. Dads cover funeral

expenses. So your family can actually have the opportunity to just be sad. Yeah, to just miss you. That's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's saying I love you to your family,

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Scarlet is in Boston. How you scarlet? What's up? Hi, to get straight to my point. My parents through a series of recent unfortunate events have to scroll to some financial metaps that

have occurred in their lives and it basically means that they have no retirement or savings

“plan beyond the immediate future. My husband and I are babysitter millionaires and I wonder”

what my obligation is if and when it comes time for them to be taken care of. How old are they? When it comes. They're in their 60s, early 60s. Are there still working? My dad is, my mom is on disability issues unable to work. And what were the misshaps? How do they lose all their money? My dad had a financial blow up post 2008. His company was bought by over a few company and basically stripped the result being he was sued by many, many people.

Eventually filed bankruptcy. He's now out of that and has worked just a JLD fence, but

it's never been to that level of success you had when he owned his own business. How long

ago was the 2008? Was the blow up, right? Yep. What does he make? Six figures. I don't know too much about his salary because I love it. But they've saved enough things since 2008. Correct. There have been some medical bills. My mom had a stroke and what's that? They don't have the health insurance? They did. The health insurance covered. There was a delay. So they had to front some money and then the insurance company kicked her off the disability

when she was approved initially for it, which is how I came by their financials. I helped them file an appeal and then we went to court to try and what the insurance company you don't really win. But they were the small settlement and that's been spent. So that's how I know through that process with my dad, what their financial situation has become.

Yeah. But the bottom line was after 2008, their heart was broken and they've never been

“really diligent about saving. I think they also checked up a lifestyle that was. Yeah.”

That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. They're going to stop that aren't they? I don't think they had any intentions of doing that. Yeah. Well, it's so. I don't give a drunk a drink. I'm not going to enable them and I know you have no moral obligation to take care of anyone. There's no moral obligation. That's not your husband or your children, the minor children. Grown children need one of a moral obligation either. But you have

a want to. I'd like to help my parents, which just makes you mean you have a heart and so forth. But I also have this paradox of law. I want to help them. They've not done a good job themselves with even notwithstanding the couple things they've run into. They're just not very diligent about handling their money and so they're broke. Well, hello. And so it makes it taste bad to want to have to give them money or to feel like I need to support

them. So what I might do, I mean, depends on how frank and how much you want to get up in their face on it. But it's mom and dad, I'm worried about looking down the road here that somehow your guys are going to be broken. You're going to be coming to me to take care of you and I need to go ahead and tell you upfront how that's going to go. If I end up having to put money into our needing to put money in so that you have food, it's going

to involve us selling everything you own and you will be on a budget that I create and you won't like it. So I don't want you to think you're going to be made that you're going to maintain this current set of habits with my money later. In other words, now I don't

like that, then sets them up to give them maybe a reason. And I'll coach you guys on how

“to start saving because you still got some earning your left and some potential left. And”

you can roll up your sleeves and you guys can build an estegers. No reason for you to return eat dog food. But if I'm in charge we're selling everything and you're in a one bedroom apartment and I will buy the groceries and pay the rent and you will not like your life. You will be able to exist and you won't be homeless. But I am not going to send you on Caribbean cruises. And you got the ability to do that for yourself if you guys are

rolled up your sleeves now and I can coach you on how to do that. Now I don't know how much how far down in this you want to get. It sounds like this stuff has been kind of dribbling out to you. You've not been involved. You've not been involved. And then finally on this one insurance thing you got a little more involved. And I don't think they're asking your help or advice right now. You just see it's coming. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, I think this

is great advice and I think Dave gave you the financial advice and I would just add to what he said.

“You need to create some emotional boundaries to where you are prepared for their reaction”

if this situation plays out as you fear it might. So that you've already made these decisions like Dave just laid out. But you now are emotionally mentally ready for any pushback and there's no guilt that comes in because that will be the hardest part of this is to actually execute on

what Dave said. Because there's a powerful pull with the parents, you know, your generation,

we call them sandwich generation because there's a pull from entitled parents and there's a pull from entitled grown children. And then what the trick, the way to undo that sandwich, is just remove the word entitled. And it changes everything. You're not entitled to spit. And neither want neither of you. Grown kids. You're not entitled to spit. Well, I'm not children. You want to go. I don't care. Get your job. Here's an idea. You know, go to work and

mom and dad, you know, you've had, you went through this horrible thing with the business. Some of that was you're making some of it wasn't. You went through this horrible thing with the insurance and you didn't take care of that properly. Let me tell you the number of times I front for an insurance

company. Zero. And then hope I recoup out of them. Now, I'm going to turn everybody loose on everybody.

And then I'm going to stand back and watch them all fight. Let the insurance come to you in the provider fight. You guys figured out then I'll clean up what's left. But I'm not writing a check and then somebody's got to come in borrow money. And then I try to recoup out of the insurance company. Not a chance. Still, I'm going to throw right now. And that's that's being proactive rather than just kind of gliding along. And there's a lot of gliding along in this. So it's a very hard thing to decide. Now,

you also can decide. You've got enough money. You don't want to deal with it. And I'm just going to write whatever check I need to write. And then just take care of them. And I'm just not going to worry about it. And if that's the case, you probably wouldn't make this phone call. Yeah. So you just done it.

“And I'm just going to be in an A blur and I'm comfortable with that. And that's what I want to do.”

I'm a dad took care of me. I'm going to take care of them. And it's no big deal. It's not morally wrong either way. But when you call up an ask, that means that you don't want to do it. That's what it means. So how much, how much preemptive strike do you want to get involved in is the next decision you got to make? How much preemptive conversations? Dave, I was going to ask you kind of a follow up. What are your thoughts? Because I think there's probably several hundred thousand people that could be listening

right now that are in these shoes. And they feel a sense of burden to take care of their parents. And when you say there's no moral obligation, I agree with you. But what advice would you give to them to get over that emotional hump that sense of guilt or shame that they ought to take care of them if they don't their bad kids? What would you tell them? Yeah. Well, I think you just need to decide, you know, whether it's your responsibility or not. If it is not your responsibility,

then there shouldn't be a shame or go. The only reason you have shame or go is if you feel like it's your responsibility, then you didn't do it. That's the only reason it would be there. And so like, you know, if my buddy calls me up and says I need some money, I have zero shame or guilt about either giving it to him or not giving it to him. Right. Because I don't feel an obligation. I don't feel like I have to do it. And honor your parents and the Bible does not mean honoring

misbehavior. If Mama's doing cocaine, you're not honoring her by giving her $10,000. That's not honoring your parents.

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Rank is in Toronto. Hey, Frank. How are you? Not bad. They finally got through this off to you.

Well, we're glad you did. How can we help sure? It's an honor for you to be there. You and all the personalities. I was just wondering, looking for future planning purposes here, once I get to baby step four, which I believe is saving 15% towards retirement, that I could have to maybe have to go a little more gun hold on that because I'm 54 and don't have anything safe for retirement. I'll have $215,000 worth of retirement investment room when I get to that

stage. I'll be that free in eight months. Good. I've actually set the date for November the 6th. And then I'll have my emergency fund of $10,000 saved. I have $3,000 and I just did it

“budget. I got $3,000 each month in the room. What's your household income?”

Right now, it's just me. I'm the household. 5,600 net per month. Okay. All right. So if you say 15% of your gross annually into good growth stock mutual funds inside of your retirement plan, now you're in Canada. So it's a little different. But still, you can do all of that. And you do that for 10 or 12 years. You're 55 at the point. You start and you do it to 6567. You're going to be a millionaire. You're going to be fine. Wow. And no, you don't have to know you don't have to do it out of order.

You do need to get your house paid off during that time as well. I don't have a house. Okay. That's the other thing too. Okay. Let me start talking about how we're going to do that and what we

can get paid for. Because when you go into retirement, your most expensive line item in your budget is always

housing. Yes. And if you don't have debt on your house, obviously it does it's no longer the most expensive line item in your budget. So you've got a lot of room then. But you're going to be fine. If you just continue to fall a tune, it sounds like you got it really dialed in. So congratulations. Keep it up.

“You need more help. Call us any time, brother. Nick is in Madison, Wisconsin. Hey, Nick. What's up?”

Hey, Dave. Just pulling. I hope that you can hear me. Well, enough. I'm in a real area right now. Okay. I got a couple of questions. I've got a couple of questions here. I'm going to go first now. If I'm only 27 years old, I've got a hundred and twenty thousand in debt year. 81 is about the house eight or one thousand. Twenty eight thousand is my car. And the personal load around six thousand medical bills sitting around eight thousand.

My main question today is, I always hear you say sell your car. If you can, the car is worth

about twelve grand today. Who said? I looked at tell you blue book and then I also looked at the dealership, a couple of different dealerships, on private sale or trade-in. It sounds like a trade-in now. That would be, that would be just a sale because I'm trying to get out of this loan and not get a new one. Okay. Well, it's not math, it's correct. I think we're sitting at like 17,000 under the water right now.

So you owe? I mean, thirty. Thirty two thousand dollars on this land? Thirty four thousand dollars on this land? Yeah. Did you roll a negative? Did you roll negative equity from another car into this deal?

Yeah, exactly. So I, we do 70,000 before the taxes and tax come out. We get about 56, 57.

Well, I mean, you're stuck in that car. They're selling it as if no benefit because it's not worth anything compared to what it's owed. So okay. You know, it's not much help, but what that doesn't mean sadly is that you're going to work six extra jobs and you're going to sell everything else inside. Everything's on put the cat on Craigslist and the dog on eBay. I mean, we're going crazy here and beans in our beans and rice, man. No, no life. You've got to lean into

this and start throwing grenades at it. Harsh like your life depends on it. It's not, you can't wander out of this mess. You're going to be extremely intense. Okay. So the monthly payment

right now is six forty seven. Yeah. And I have them the past few payments to eleven hundred.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about coming up with thirty four thousand dollars.

“Extra. Okay. So you need to be making like an extra two thousand dollars a month and squeezing”

every dime out of your existing budget, too. So you are you're married. I take it. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody in the house is working. The children are going to the salt mines. Everybody's working. We're all making more money. We're all going to throw it at this mess because this is not going to go away with, you know, just sitting down and tightening up the only budget you have right now. Because you've tried that and, you know, and an extra payment is not getting you out any time in this

century. Because you probably also have a high interest rate on this thing. Don't you? Yeah. It's it's about ten to ten right now. So you got screwed coming and going. Yeah. You don't need to be on a car lot for a while, do you? What a mess. Yeah. I, you know, if I'm sitting this situation and have any cash, I'm, I'm going to go ahead and move this thing. And I'm going to drive a clunker because of, if you can get the cash, if you can

get the cash. But at, but at 17,000 upside down and that numbers accurate and the things worth 12, we're going to replace it with a five. You only got a $7,000 move. Yeah. Yeah. Here. So, you know, getting rid of the, getting rid of that thing and getting rid of the debt on it and getting rid of these other debts so that you can attack it with a vengeance is absolutely necessary here. Yeah. So any money you can scrape together that's not in a retirement, anything you can sell

is not in retirement and any extra work you guys can do. And I'm talking about work that makes money. I'm just out there moving around. I'm talking about Uber. I'm talking about really making some money. And I want you working weekends, nights, overtime, once you're wife doing the same, y'all got a mess. And you're going to stay in the mess unless you throw some money at it.

“And so that's what it's going to take. It's going to take as crazy intensity and then you can”

move the needle. Isabella is in New York City. Hi, Isabella. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I need your opinion here because I need you to act as a tiebreaker. But I just got a new job with a higher salary. And my parents are really pushing me to buy an apartment in New York City. Obviously, New York City, it's one of the most

renter, heavy city in the country, I've really never saw a buying or considered it. But my parents

are not letting it go. I'm happy renting work. Why do your parents have a vote? Because they're my parents. And that doesn't give them a vote. You're supposed to be like a grown woman and stuff. I do take a lot of what they say into a cow. Well, that's nice. That's sweet. But they don't really get a vote. I do see where they're coming from. I think from me. It's all over

“you. I'm 24. What do you make? What's the new salary? 95,000. What's the cost of the apartment?”

We've 95,000. I could reasonably look at anything between 300 to 400,000 in the city. That's not in the city. That's in an outlying borough somewhere. If it's in a co-op, I would have to. It would be within that budget, but there would be co-op fees on top of it. In Manhattan? Correct. You talking about 400 square feet or something? My own apartment right now that I'm renting is pretty tiny. So I see where they're coming.

That I could upgrade while loading at the same time. But I don't know. I'm not sure you can. That number doesn't sound right to me. But okay, I'm not a Manhattan expert. But all right, I mean you might be on the Bronx or Queens or something

So here's the thing. You're 24 years old. You make 95,000 dollars a year. And you don't really

“want to buy right now. It's what you told me. That's kind of what you said.”

For me, I don't see how I can buy. I'm not sure how either. I don't think you buy right now. I agree. I'm okay with you waiting. Some day you want to buy. And maybe you're still in New York City. Maybe you're still in Manhattan. But home ownership when you don't want to is a bad idea. Home ownership when you can't afford it is a really bad idea. All home ownership is not good. Only when it's done properly is it a blessing.

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Get started at CHMindustries.org/budgets and use promo code RAMSI. That CHMindustries.org/budget and promo code RAMSI. Colton is in Atlanta. High Colton, how are you? Doing good. Hey, I got a quick question for y'all. I have a small business and I'm wondering how I should do profit sharing with my two team members.

“Okay. That's a great question. And I think it's really important that you start thinking about”

that at your size we did then when we were that size. Now there's a thousand of us and we have 14 core values. One of our core values on the wall is share the profits. So we share with everybody in the building and one way or another all kinds of different ways. Now it's somewhat

complicated because there's so much. The first thing I learned, the hard way that I'll teach you,

is to make sure that the two team members know that this is Colton's money and I am sharing it. That's different than corporate profit sharing this part of my comp plan that I'm entitled to. This is you out of the goodness of your heart setting up a culture inside my little company here that I believe in sharing with the team and I am doing that voluntarily. You see the difference in the spirit? It's like like when you're in a kindergarten sharing, you know what I'm saying?

This is not like profit sharing is part of my comp plan and they didn't pay it. And so I'm pissed. Now you don't get that option. You're not entitled. This is me being kind and you smiling when I'm

“kind. That's how this works. Okay. So I've probably been doing it wrong. Yeah that the meat I did,”

I screwed it up when I was your size and I had to go back and reset. The second thing I do and we still do this to this day is we pay out profit sharing here once a month and our CFO gets on the stage and says hey profits were up over last month down over this month last year. We had a good month. Here's a couple of bright spots in the company without going into details of numbers. Here's how many people are involved in the profit sharing plan this month. And so your profit sharing check's

going to be a little better than last month and not as good as two months ago. And here's why. And then we close that talk out with here's where profits come from and everyone in the whole room. All 1,000 people say profits happen when revenues go up. Everybody says up and when expenses go down. So your job is to make revenues go up and expenses go down and then you get more

kindergarten or something every Wednesday or every Monday morning that we do once a month or

doing profit sharing announcement. So because we want everybody to remember this is not Santa Claus is not delivering a bag of money. This happened because we all work together to keep expenses

“down and revenues up. And you have to reset that in people's minds over and over and over again”

because people forget and they're like oh well the company didn't give me any money. Now that's not how this works honey yourself employed like the rest of us. We as a group sucked so your profit sharing is down because there's less profit to share. And so we talk about it and when it's up or down. And so those are two things you want. You reset the entitlement and the

ownership aspect. And then you can figure out from after those two things are in place how to do

the calculation. I used to do hours when I was your size once a quarter because it wasn't much money and it'd be like 500 bucks or something after a quarter, right? And so because they're putting a lot of profit when a lot of revenue and there's four of us you know and so and I wanted it to be a little bigger check but what I figured out was that people weren't they couldn't count on it because they only got it ever so often and so it wasn't connecting in their brains and so

once we figured that out we went back we went to a month like what you could do is not do any of that and you could say hey guys ever so often we had a great month. I'm taking all of us and the

wives and the kids out to dinner and we're all going to a movie and I'm going to spend some company

money just to say thank you because we want to share some of our profits with you that way. And here's a hundred dollar handshake we had a good month and it's not formal and it's not a bunch of math calculation and you can keep it fairly primitive and simple that way when there's three of you without getting into some kind of freaking spreadsheet analysis and by the way our team does not know how profits are how they how their portion of profit sharing is calculated

that way they don't have to back into and worry about what's going on all they know is we share with them

“and it's pretty bad going sweet these days so that makes sense what what do you say you did wrong?”

Well so what I've been doing is we do a commercial residential remodeling so by the time I take all the expenses out and after I pay myself and there's some left then I I usually what I've been doing it's just to have given them three percent of that. I didn't tell them this I did told them that they're going to get some sharing in the profits we make of it there's a successful job. That's a good job. I like that. We're trying with that.

And then they don't get in it they don't get any but then I'm also trying to figure out what percentage that I save back for retain earnings because sometimes we don't work for a while and then I'm like don't have enough there to save. Yeah the profits that we use to calculate number we use to calculate profit sharing is after we have set retain earnings aside.

“Okay that's what I was kind of wondering. Yeah so we set retain earnings aside and that creates”

we have several layers of profit in a net profit NP-1 through 7. I have seven different layers of profit before or after certain expenses and the only one that gets paid off the actual NP-7 is me and a couple of our senior leaders but everybody else are different layers in there as to where we're cutting profit in and out because I've got some of the VP's that some of the vice presidents to get paid a percentage of the profits in their area as part of their comp and that's not technically

profit sharing I've got profit sharing in addition to that. So I've got all that complicated bulk crap in there but yeah it's after retained earnings. So you have to run your business and when money's left after you run your business you share with them. Okay and and I think it's smart to say hey guys if we can keep the cost down on this job and keep our estimating sharp and estimate the job properly so we get the proper price on the job and then we don't you know we don't

buy 73 tools that we don't need in order to do the job because we're all two Aladdinics and everything else in your world then we're going to have some profit left and I'm going to make sure some of that goes home with you and I'm making it up as I go but I'm just promise you the spirit is I want to share with you. Okay so you think it's okay to do it by job like I've been doing. Oh I think it's smart. Okay because there are jobs times when we don't we don't profit yeah

I mean like I profit the date the business doesn't profit and so then we just say hey we need to talk about why this didn't profit. Exactly we're all self employed and if the the job doesn't make a profit we don't have anything to share. Hello? Okay. That's perfect. How old are

you still you spend some time thinking about this. Yeah it's really good. I read your book. I

look so. Tell I want I want the audience to hear how your team members reacted when you first

gave them some profit share. What was that reaction like? The first time it was like $6 and they were imagine the joke that they could go buy an ice cream. Right. But it's been up since then and they really it really surprises them every time. Yeah and so that's what I

“wanted to just emphasize by asking you that question is because that is the key to building loyalty.”

They appreciate you know even though it was six bucks they still appreciated that you put thought and the thought you know we've all heard it's the thought that counts our wife tried to drill

that into us husband's you know it's the thought that counts get the birthday card right and

know you know the whole drill. But I just want to make sure young leaders catch this. This is how you build a business on core people is fundamentally showing people how much they matter to you. And I think it's going to serve you very well so I wanted to applaud you as well. That's really good. Yeah I did a great job very well done. So yeah building a business you love one of the things we talk about in there is the importance of being able to you know share that it's the

“beauty of small businesses. Most small businesses are not greedy people. They're not like”

corporate America. They don't piss on their people. Most of them take care of their like family. They take care of each other. And so you know that gas like that right there that's pretty cool. It starts with six dollars. That's that's pretty fun. I like that a lot. Owning a business can be a heavy load. You want to serve your customers well. Make a healthy profit and grow. And your team, family, and customers are all counting on you. And now everybody's

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wends Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey your host. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality number one bestselling author and host of the show from Ro's

“seat on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. Monica's in Houston. Hey Monica. How are you?”

Doing good. Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I'm calling. Thank you for taking my call first of all. I've been sent to your show for quite a while.

And it's primarily me, that let's see your show. My husband doesn't at all. My question today has to do with the cashout reply. My host and I are almost to the retirement age. He will turn 65 next week and I will turn 64 in the summer. We have no savings, no retirement. Our joint income is around 116k. We have debt, personal loans, credit cards, and automobile look 83,000. And we have a 28,000 dollar mortgage delaying that we disagree on. But we do have it against our primary

residents. So my husband looked into getting a cashout reply to grow all of our debt into one loan to three of the century of all of the debt. Well, it doesn't free you all of it. It moves it onto your house. Right. It moves it onto the house. You're not paying off anything. You're just moving it. Right. And so I'm trying to find out to my husband. I said, look, this is a 30-year loan. And we're our mortgages at 53k right now. Why wouldn't it make sense for us to grow all this debt

tag team and me with my husband trying to get me to agree that it makes sense to finance this loan

again and put all the debt into one pot. And you saying that I would be walking away with an extra $3,000 a month if I were to go to this route. And if we added an extra $2,000 a month, we could pay off the mortgage in six years. I don't know if that makes sense to me or not, I need to help me to sort this out. Well, what's bothering you is that nothing changed in your habits when you do this. And so when you're 70, you're going to be back in debt.

“I don't like that idea. I don't know. But that's what you're going to do because the system”

we all are using now, put you here. And you're not changing anything in the system. You think

and your husband thinks he can borrow his way out of debt. And you can't dig your whole dig your butt. You can't dig out the bottom of a hole and get out. That's not how it works. So how much of the 83 is his truck? I've started $2,000. And that weird that I knew that. I'm prepared to sell my truck and just drive the other one. How much do you owe on the other truck? No, the Jeep is $24,000. And we have at F-150 that we paid cash for that. He drives occasionally when he doesn't drive a more expensive truck.

And I told him. How many cars do you owe? We have $3,000. It was $2,000 in one Jeep.

Okay. And truck number one that he drives occasionally that's paid for is worth what?

Maybe $6,000. Okay. And the other truck is worth $32 and owes $32 on yet, right? And then there's the Jeep that you owe $24 on, right? Correct. Mm-hmm. I think I found the problem. If I was going, if I was 65 years old and getting ready to retire and I was Stone Cold broke, I'd be scared. Oh, well, I am. Not looking for a six-year plan. There's some freaking loan officer gave me. That gives me chills.

So y'all probably aren't going to do this because I don't think you and your husband are aligned on this. But mathematically what y'all ought to do is sell both these cars. Both up. And not do a cash-out refund. And instead pay your way out of debt and be debt-free soon, earner than six years.

“That's what makes sense to me. That's what I've been trying to do. I think you can pay off the house”

and everything in about three years at 68 years old. But you're going to be not driving these two cars. Well, I tried to explain that to him. I said, look, you know, we all into vehicles with two notes and then make sense to me to begin with. We have a consistent trailer that we use occasionally. That's why he bought the truck to move the consistent trailer around. But now that we have one spot, you know, I don't see us moving it all the time. I see us trying to use it to get out of debt.

Yeah. So I really feel like not giving up the 53K that we have left on the mortgage and sacrifice the 485. Yeah, so $85,000. If you sold these two cars, get you completely out of debt mortgage and everything, and you make 116, you can do that in two to three years.

“And you should because you're freaking retirement age and broke.”

Can you say that? Well, my top is up and not here. And I want to make sure that I got it written down. Well, I mean, you said you had 83,000 dollars in debt, right? Not counting the mortgage. Yeah. Okay. And if I take 32 from that, if I take 32 from that, I have 51. And if I take 24 from that, I have 26. 26 and 53 mortgage is 78. You make 116. How fast you pay off 78? Making 116. If you paid off 35,000 a year, you're done in two years. If you pay off 25,000

dollars a year, you're done in three years. Okay. And that's not a six year plan that makes your banker rich. That's what I told him. I said we could do this in three years. Yeah, the last financial planner you need is a loan officer. That's not thought. That's why I'm listening to your radio station. So I don't get to these. I don't know if you're going to get a hubby to do all this, uh.

Dave gave you speeds up if you guys are working extra. Yeah. You could do it in two years. Well,

“you got health. And if you got no house payment, no payments at all. Yeah. I got your $3,000.”

Now it's $4,000. Freeed up to start saving some money. Yeah. You start saving 50 grand a year. And you do that for four or five years. You're going to have a decent nest egg in your 70s. And you won't be retiring eating dog food. Alpo, the breakfast of champions. It's like, oh my gosh. You know, I mean, yeah. But here's the thing. We've been buying crap. We can't afford because we wanted it. And some loan officer told us

it's a good idea. The guy at the car, a lot said, look, I got you approved. And like we're supposed to celebrate that. Hello, you owe more on your cars than you do on your house. Oh, Alch, fact, pinch me. It's true. What is wrong with this picture? Right? Yeah. Well, she's been controlling the house thing. And he's been doing the other stuff. And now he's tinkering with the

“thing. She's been controlling it. That's right. And that's why she grows up. That's right. It's good for you,”

kiddo. Yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to call some marital discord. And I'm happy to. , when you're drowning in credit card debt and collector start threatening lawsuits, a rep from some call center debt relief company can't protect you. A lot of so called debt relief programs leave people wondering, I might actually protect it if I get sued. When all you've got is a legal plan added on as an upsell. Of course, you feel stuck. But Guardian isn't another debt relief

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“Charles is in Sacramento. Hey, Charles, how are you?”

Doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up? I was wondering if pulling out an S.B. lock for an investment property would be the right move for me. Okay. Well, I'm guessing you're fairly new to our show. As I'm listening for a while, but my financial advisor presented me with the option of an S.B. lock. It's not pushing me towards there just, you know, presenting the options.

But I mean, if you've been listening to this, you know, I don't borrow money or tell people to borrow money, right? That's right. Okay. So the answer will be no. Okay, got you. Yeah, I mean, that's I love real estate and I love investment property. I hate debt on it, and I really hate the small business administration. They suck. If they're you to get tired of them with them and what that's going to do to the rest of your

whole portfolio and all just to get a rental property is the risk level that you just took on neither one of you two are thinking about what you're doing here. The risk level is through the roof.

So your investment guy's risk meters broken because the S.B. lock is always tied to other assets

as well. So you're putting all of that at risk to screw around with a rental property in California.

Oh, that's worse. It's a lot further away in Taiwan to go on.

Oh, that's really bad. No, it's my wife's grandmother's house. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, we don't, we do not have rental property that's a law investment property that's long distance. And we certainly don't buy grandmother's house for rental property and go on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This guy, you're trying to figure out a way to do something you can't afford. And this guy's presenting you an option to finance something you can't afford to do. And really, it's God just yelling at you.

Don't do this.

“That's true. It's a long distance headache. That's what you're looking at. Well, and it's foreign country.”

Hello. I mean, if you're going to invest in real estate, you want real estate to be a very predictable

environment. Okay. And so if you're going to invest money in a foreign country situation,

you've completely left the stability of the US economy. And so you can do that, but you need to be able to burn that amount of money down. And so if you want to buy a property in Mexico, you want to buy a property in Glam, Costa Rica. I got a friend of mine bought a place in Costa Rica the other day. That's fine. No, they're all there. But we somehow we Americans think that everywhere else in the world still functions the way the United States functions. And it doesn't. It's a freaking

banana republic. Hello. And so, you know, that they may just come over there and take your property. So you need to be able to just abandon that amount of money at any point if you're going to do that. And I'm not saying Glam is going to do that. I'm not saying Costa Rica is going to do that. But we cannot make the assumption that there, that their governmental processes, their ownership, private property rights function the same way in that culture in that country as it does in the US.

It doesn't. And so, you know, these things turn socialist or communist in about a eye blink. And I'll sudden, you know, you're one of those evil property owners. So you just have

“think about these. You need to be able to burn that amount of money down. And you don't borrow”

small business amount of credit to buy in a foreign country. No, for sure, for sure. So

you do whatever you want. But you called Nascas. And we're always going to tell you the truth because

we love you. And we don't want you to get hurt. And you're going to regret that one if you do it a promise. Albert's in Phoenix. Say, Albert, what's going on? Hey, hey, doing well. So I'm 25 and my girlfriend's 23. Friday is our five year anniversary. So happy for that. What that timeline comes marriage. And I do want to propose to that girl. Good. But my main concern really isn't that it's what comes with that marriage. So

the potential in laws. And their fantastic people don't get me wrong. Love them. But I've noticed that their finances are all out of whack from like the last three years. Okay. They're in their early mid 50s. And they have nothing saved up for retirement. They owe $107,000 on their house. And they make a combined household income of 70 to 75,000 to paying on over. Sure. Is your girlfriend

“sane? Yeah. She's going to be a wife that wants to do what they've done. No, no. That's what I mean.”

Definitely financially on the same page. So we're good there. Okay. So the two of you are going to be okay. The only question is, is you've got this potential liability off in the distance. Yeah. So they're going on three to four vacations a year while we're leaving. You can't fix that. If you're going to start out your marriage trying to fix the end laws, you're going to have a long life. Okay. Gotcha. It's just that we're in the situation where we've

been asked for money personally for the most basic necessities. And how would you say no? The groceries. Say no. And if she doesn't get comfortable and you don't get comfortable saying no, then we've got other problems. But it's the two of you that are the problem, not them. Because they're a known quantity. We know what they're going to. They're going to piss away money and ask you for money. That's a given. Has your girlfriend given in and given them money?

We lost you. Did she? Did she give them money or not? Say it again? Yes. Okay. You know, that's what I'd be worried about. This is the person we need to be talking to. They're not them. Yeah. You're not going to fix them. The only thing you're going to determine with her is the two of you are going to hold hands, lock arms and say this, so we're going to have a life and life includes your crazy butt parents.

Gotcha. My only concern is I don't want to be a pocketbook for their retirement and don't be hard to say no. Don't be. It's just plan on it. I'm planning on saying no. This is the premarital counseling stuff. This is this would be issue number one for me.

concern. But you got to hear what Dave said. The concern is with your girlfriend, potential life.

And you. Yeah. You both have to be locked in here to say no. We're never going to say yes.

Again, we made that mistake once. We're not going to do it again. You're not poor, pitiful people. These are people who don't manage their money well. So it's hard to feel sorry for them when they need money. Right? And you need a new phone. Okay. It's about the fourth time I've been through that. All right. So guys, learning to set boundaries with your in-laws and with extended family of any kind and extended families, anyone that doesn't live inside of our home. You,

“your spouse, your personal minor children. You have to be able to set boundaries with them and create”

quality, kind, compassionate boundaries to say we're not able to do that. It doesn't match with our goals. I'm sorry. We're unable to do that. And about the fourth time they'll get mad and they'll say but you just, but I deserve. No, I'm sorry. I, we're not able to do that. I'm just, I'm so sorry. We're not able to do that. Yeah. And we, we, we've looked at our budget and we just don't have room for that. Yeah. And we were a millionaire. I, I know, but we looked at our budget and we were a room

for that. So, um, you know, that, that's it. I mean, you just, you just got to be kind about it and go, no. And, um, you know, now I'll, I'll be listening. I'll be happy to get you into financial patient diversity and, you know, I'll help you sell your car and, um, you know, I'll help you get an extra job. Yeah. And I'll coach you. I'll be your biggest cheerleader. I love you. I want you to win. But I'm not able to enable. Yeah. I love that. That's really good. I would say, hey, let me tell you

about these baby steps. I'll walk with you. I'll hold you accountable. You up for that. But you can't, but that's only after they ask for money. You don't just go marching in that's just that. They're not going to hear it. That's it. But they come in and go, you know, we're not able to do

“that. But I'll tell you what it can do. Yes. And even if you want to go super crazy, you can go listen,”

if you get on a plan and you're real intense and you're starting to work, I might even throw in some towards the plan after I see the plan working. But the plan right now is you just spin piss away money and then you come over here wanting some. That's not a plan I'm in for. You piss away money and then tell me, I got to make it up. That's not something we do here. So, you know, and but do this is you and your girlfriend being grown up stuff and setting boundaries with people that you

love, but don't respect. That's hard. [Music] This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I am right here because some extraordinary women in my life,

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One of our favorite things to do around here is a debt-free scream in the lobby of Ramsy solutions. We even have a debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsy solutions. So we can see the people talk to them when they're doing their scream. And our super-favorite thing to do is when it's one of our own Ramsy solutions team members, which will be true of Josh today, and his wife, Holly, or with us to do their debt-free scream. Welcome, guys. Thank you. We're excited. Very cool.

at Ramsy for about five and a half years, and I am on the Ramsy Education Team. I'm a relationship manager for our sponsors. Okay, and that's the high school curriculum primarily, and we get sponsors that pay for that to go into the high schools, and you help get that done. Yes, sir. Very cool. Because the high school curriculum is at about six million students though it now. Uh-huh. Yeah, sir, and counting.

“Yeah, there we go. Good stuff. We'll congratulate you. All right, how much debt have you two paid off?”

We paid off $175,000, just north of that. Goodness gracious. And what period of time? 18 months. Wow. Okay, and now we don't ask in comes because your team members are all standing

around. That will be unfair. Otherwise, we always put everybody else on the spot that how in the

world do you pay off $135,000 and 18 months? That's like $10,000 a month. A lot of Chick-fil-A. Um, but then also like working here, working our jobs, but it's been so fun. So yeah, when she says Chick-fil-A, we picked up some side hustles. We were to Chick-fil-A, it's been super fun. I've always done Instacars, or did Instacard on the side. And yeah, when we first got married, I had been saving up money while we were engaged to put down. You know, once we got married, we wanted to

start knocking out the house. So you had a chunk of throw at it? Exactly. And how long you all been married? A year and a half. 18 months. That's the beginning, right? Yes, sir. Okay. So this is starting to sound like Holly brought this. I did. I did. I did. I came with a lot of baggage, which was the mortgage. Look, you're worth every penny. I hope so. So this is your mortgage. It was our mortgage, too. I know, you're freaking house. We did it. I was thinking, "Student loans. Oh my God.

So you married a woman with a house. I got it. Okay." That's a lot better. That's a lot better, do you? Okay. Good job, man. Wow. Yeah. How long are you two? I'm 27. I'm 29. And you haven't paid for it. What's this house worth? Just under $300,000. See, you guys are going to be a millionaires in no time. Yeah, we're excited. Oh, proud of you. Awesome. So you just, you got married and then just went, we're game on. We're not going to,

you went gazelle and tense on the house. We did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We treated baby steps six like baby step two. And that's kind of something before we got married. We went through FPU. And we just wanted to, you know, we dreamed. Do we said, like, "Hey, what? What could life look like if we had no payments?" And so. So neither one of you had any consumer

debt coming in. That's right. No, I, I, when I first started working here, that's when I,

you cleaned all that. I cleaned all of my, I had about $40,000. And she's obviously responsible because she had no debt in the house. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's a shout out to Mom and Dad for, thank you, girl. No, she was listening to Dave Ramsey growing up in the car. Yeah. Actually, the car asked a lot of the questions that I didn't know what I was asking, but she was answering, and that is here today. So financial peace baby and a financial peace employee. There we go.

“That's how the happens. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Look at John. So proud of you all. Thank you, man. Thank you.”

Your mom and dad got to be proud too. I think so. Yeah. I mean, y'all went kind of freaky, though. I mean, you went after this mortgage. Well, people making fun of you outside of here. I know when here they cheer you on, right? Yeah. They weren't making fun of us, but they were definitely like, you know, this is the wisest decision on paper. And I was like, yeah, but it's like the best decision.

Yes. Yeah. It's always, you know, the answer is always just, we're selling for peace. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's important. So yeah. How many hours a week at the height of all of this, where you guys are putting in? Um, total probably like 70, probably 15 to 20 at Chick-fil-A. Yeah. And what it's, you guys were working together. After saying Chick-fil-A. Did you work in the back of the house? I worked in the front of the house. So it was, it was so fun. It was so fun. It was so fun. It was so fun. Yeah. Yeah. That's her Chick-fil-A. Why was it? Why was that so fun? Well, I've never worked in

foods. I was like, they just seemed so happy. Like, whatever they've got going on, I want to be a part of that. So on our honeymoon, I was like, can we please get jobs at Chick-fil-A? And then we did. And it was,

“it was so fun. I think that's fantastic. Yeah. I got to tell you, of all the couples as we write”

your money money. Maybe we get jobs at Chick-fil-A. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you guys, I cut your food budget, I imagine. Yeah. They feed you every time you work. So like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, like meal for the leftovers. Yeah. Yeah. I knew that was part of it. I could just tell. - Wait, are you saying something about, you know? - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no you know get on the every dollar budget. That was something from the get go. We had to

make sure we knew where every dollar was going otherwise this doesn't happen. So that was, you know, everybody says that, but I would say biggest thing for me is just taking

we were able to have jobs, we were able to have side gigs and we hit a milestone and we were just thankful to God that, you know, you put us in a spot where we can do this,

“you know, so that was big for me. But yeah, I think it was really fun to like lock”

arms in the first year of marriage and like we are naive, like life's going to get hard,

but it does feel like we can accomplish anything together. So that was kind of like being on the same page was really, really fun together. It's obvious that you guys were really dialed in together and there wasn't one of you drag in the other one along and that's you're right. You can take on anything. If you do that, you can do anything you want to jump so proud of y'all. Very, very well done. Very well done. What was the hardest part?

Yeah, we were thinking about this question. There were definitely some nights like when you're in the grind of like Thursday night, we're eating chicken again and we're like, I've got to go make chicken after this. He's got to go sell chicken after this and we were just exhausted. So we were looking into other and we were like, we're shells of humans. Like, is this worth it? So there were moments of really, really hard, but you get a good night's sleep and you like up and you can

go again the next day. Yeah, I can handle that, but I think the biggest, the hardest thing for me is I am in traditional, yes, a spinder. Yeah. So when we have most of our budget going towards throwing it at this every month, I'm like, oh, dang it, you know, I can't go buy a new pair of shoes or something like that. So it was hard to have that disappointed and just say no to a lot of things.

But you got there. We did. And now we're sure. What's the first big thing you're going to do

“to celebrate? I mean, you've got your time. I think you have a cheeseburger, huh?”

Yeah, no more chicken. No more chicken, man. I'm out burger, baby. All right, more across the street. Yeah, well, we kind of already celebrate. We went to, we kind of re-did our honeymoon. We went to Universal Studios in Orlando last month. And so we had that kind of, we like cash flow that and did that before we even, you know, had made the last payment. Exactly. So we did that, but yeah, we'll save up for a new car. My car is getting old and, you know, boost up everything. Yeah,

how's it going? What are you driving? I'm driving a 2008, like it'll infinity SUV. It has 250,000 homes. Yeah, so. Yeah, so. So it's a Ford Raptor. So that's next. Okay, so that's great. So I want people to do this. Obviously, how long is it going to take you to save up for the Raptor? Now it's your debt free.

“Eight months to 12 months, I would say. Yeah, I'm probably a year. Yeah, because because we'll let”

off the gas, we'll not work as much as Chick-fil-A, like little relax ones. We'll get there eventually. You say that until he wants that Raptor a little earlier. He's identified that he's driving a piece of crap. So that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I want to say it'll be a used one. Dave, you know about these, these cars. I've heard about it. I've heard about it. I've heard about

the rumor. Yeah, yeah. Probably all way to go, guys. You rock stars. This is absolutely amazing.

Very well done. Josh and Holly Ramsey Solutions team members and apparently Chick-fil-A team members. 175,000 dollars paid off house and everything at 27 years old in 18 months of marriage. Man, don't tell me you can't do it when you're Gen Z. These guys are just going mic drop. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one. We're a debt free. Yeah. Man. Makes me proud. He's working here. Yeah. A sharp guy, man. No question.

We knew that already, but you put all that underpending. All that foundation under it. My gosh. Andrew, let me point out that when you marry someone that is aligned with you, financially, and that is sharper than you. Well, that's true, too. I wasn't going to say that part, but hey, that is really cool to see their values aligned and now look at him. Boom. [Music]

You're a personal and professional growth hinge on one skill more than anything else. It's communication. And we're excited about this new book, Stop Talking, Start Communicating, that I did. It's now available for pre-order. The book unpacks the disc accepts a disc assessment, the DISC, and shows you the results of your test. So you get the test and the book.

and additional assessment for your friend or your spouse. If you've never taken this,

we use it inside the company here when we're hiring. And then we put the results on each person's wall. So when you walk up to their, the area that they're sitting in or into their office, you see how they think whether they're a DIS or a C. And without going into the full teaching on it, I took the test, I think, 40 years ago or so. And the first time I was in a volunteer thing, and at a church, and the church said, "Hey, take this." And I read it. The results, and I went,

"Whoa, this read my mail." And so I came home, it's first time I'd ever seen an assessment like this. I came home and I handed it to my wife and I said, "Look at this thing. This thing is amazing."

“And she read it, and she said, "Uh-huh." That's what's wrong with you.”

No, that is me! Wait a minute. So there's a lot of ways you can assess and tell what the way people

think and the way they take none of them are perfect and none of them are a fix-all. But if you know how someone is wired, it's easier to communicate with them. And if you think through for a minute, you'll know how they're wired. And this book will help you do that. Stop talking, start communicating. You can pre-order today at RamseySolutions.com/store, or if you're watching on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the subscription. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by

why ReFi defaulted private student loans don't fix themselves, but you can fix them. Why ReFi helps you refinance into a low-fixed rate payment to fit your budget. So you can get back to the baby steps and move forward. Go to whyreFi.com/RAMsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com/RAMsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Kyle and Kentucky. My wife and I have been told by our

financial planner that it's better to invest in the market than to pay off your mortgage if the interest rate is less than your average rate of return in the market. He explained that market gains can be used to pay lump sums on the principle of your mortgage to pay off your home. Sooner that way is this the best course of action. Well, Kyle, I don't know if you've been listening to us for a while. If you have, you know our answer if you have it. There's a reason

why Dave developed the baby steps many, many years ago because of the momentum and the strategy

actually pays off because it's disciplined action. And so the answer is we disagree with your

financial planner. That's a numbers game, it's manipulations, fancy math, try to make you feel good to invest with the financial planner when the discipline of the old Dave you've used the added so many times the the tortoise always speeds the hair, right? The idea of just discipline action. And so, well, then there's the other thing that the financial planner's math is just, it's not fancy, it's just wrong. Yeah, right. Okay, so a lot of you think you make 10% on your

investments and your mortgage is 4 or 5%. He's saying you make 6% difference and then you're going

“to get out of that faster. Well, that's wrong because he left out a key mathematical figure in”

this equation. This equation is very naive and very primitive and very simplistic. If you did a sophisticated analysis of this, you would factor in risk and risk is not factor in here. You just took risk. You put money in the stock market, which is risk, you didn't pay off your mortgage, which is risk. And so, if you take, if you're just for risk and taxes, because you do pay taxes by the way on that investment, return. So, his investment returns that you're going to lump

some and throw at this are taxable investment returns. So, you didn't eat in the just for taxes and he didn't adjust for risk. So, your financial planner's full of crap is the problem and it's typical financial planner. Too many of them are this naive, this primitive, this unsophisticated. And so, when you adjust for risk and taxes, there is no benefit. And here's the way you know this in your heart, Kyle. Let's pretend your house was paid for. And your financial planner says,

“hey, you should go borrow $300,000 on your house and give it to me to invest in a good mutual fund.”

And I'll make 10, 11, 12% on it. And you can borrow that money at 3 or 4%. And you'll make the difference. It's exactly the same discussion mathematically. But when you say, you want me to borrow on my paid for house, you know what happens? Your heart jumps, which is where you measure risk. You do math and your head and your risk and your heart. And your heart skips a beating goes, not just no, but hell no. I'm not borrowing on my house. It's paid for you, idiot.

Why would I borrow on my house to invest with you? And it's the exact same equation.

He's not got all the parts of the math equation in there. So, yeah, you need a new financial planner.

This guy's more worried about what you invest with him than he is what you're going to end up with at the end of the day. You're going to end up with a lot more of the paid for house and increase cash flow that you can invest in good mutual funds, which is what I've done, what Ken has done, what error all around his personality has done, what millions and millions of people have done, that became baby steps, millionaires, and they didn't have your financial planner. So,

you need one that can do math. You got left off the cab and the arrogance of these guys. It's unbelievable. Tim is in New Jersey. Hey, Tim, what's up? Hi. How are you doing? Good. How can we help?

“So, I'm a baby step five now. So, and that's free. I do have a car lease. That's the only thing”

that I might, well, then you're not in baby step five. You have dad on your car.

You're right. So, I have to question one if I should pay it off. But my main question is, the reason why is because I would like to have like a my car. I can afford it. But if you come out more money, you're going to be a bigger headache for me to have to sell it and everything like that. And I don't have a big payment on it compared to what I make. But my main concern is, my wife is very concerned when it comes to spending. So, we used to be, we need to go and click.

We had a lot of that, and I paid everything. No, you paid off over there with the car. I'm, for real. Okay. So, let's say I pay off the car. I will pay off the car.

I make enough for my wife to be able to spend nicely for like, for stuff, personal stuff.

“I work at night as well. So, I, I can really kind of work at night. What's your household income, Todd?”

So, I make 170 after taxes roughly. Oh, good for you. Good for you. You're a card. Good for you. And you have no dad except the car lease and you're paying it off good. Okay. And what is it? How much is it in your wife? How much is it your wife has trouble spending? How much money? It comes like any, any purchase, but it's like 250, 300 dollars for clothes or something like that. Well, if you do a detailed, if you do a detailed budget, where every dollar has an assignment

before the month begins, and she's in agreement with that budget, she'll be able to look at that budget and say, if I spend this 250 dollars on some clothing, we still have the money for groceries. We still have the money for investing in retirement. We still have the money for x, y, z. And as long as she knows she's okay, she can spend it. But when it's all discombobulated, and it's just kind of swimming around in your head, and you don't have a detailed plan,

she doesn't know it's okay to spend it. When we were broke, Tam Shannon, I would go the grocery store and when we're buying groceries to feed our family, we wondered because we didn't have a budget. We didn't have a plan. We wondered if we'd just spent the money to keep the lights on at the house.

“So it was stressful to buy groceries. That's what your wife is experiencing. But once we had a plan,”

we said, this much is for groceries, this much is for electricity, this much is for the house payment, and we have that plan laid out. Then when we spend money on groceries, we're not stressed because we know it's a part of an overall plan, and we're going to be okay. She needs to know she's going to be okay. If she spends this money. Mathematically. Yeah, and hang on a line. We're going to give you Rachel's book. Number one best cell or know yourself, know your money. My guess is your wife's background,

in other words, the environment she grew up in, plus her experience with money to this point, is shaping some of that fear. I think that book will help. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwins Credit Union Studio. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality, host of the front row seat show on the Ramsey Network. He's my co-host today. Josh is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Josh, how are you?

I'm great, David. The pleasure to talk to you. You too, man. What's up? So, what had a question? We're in okay shape financially. The wife and I, we have combined finances. And I've got some extra side hustle cash that I've got coming in. And usually, I just use that to play golf or buy some beer or do whatever. And, you know,

just something that's a little bit more than just a, you know, you don't pay for it in cash.

You might need a debit card, something like that. So, I guess my question is without opening another

“account, what's the best way for me to go about doing that, surprising or while also, you know,”

make sure our finances kind of stay together in a one place. Yeah. What's your household income? Right now we're at about, you know, 140, 150 every day. How much debt have you all gone? Nothing but the house. Good for you. Well done. Okay. All right. Well, um, I mean, you certainly can do whatever you want to do. You're not doing a bad job, your managing oil. What Sharon and I have done and what we teach is, is that all monies are combined. Okay. Now, then that begs the question,

how do you surprise Sharon with something? Okay. How do you surprise your wife with something? And, um, if it's all in the budget, it's kind of boring. It's all, you know, surprise. There's your surprise fund, you know, and so, um, you know, the way it ends up working at our place, honestly, um, we do a lot of travel today, particularly. It's kind of one of our things we're doing at this stage of our life. And, um, so, uh, in, in my case, I've actually figured out my wife

does not like surprises. So, that's a little different. But aside from that, um, she does not want to do all the detailed work of planning the trip. And so, uh, we would have in our, you know, maybe a modified way of our thing into you would just be that, you know, you could have a surprise line item in the budget. This is money. I'm, uh, a sinking fund that is for me to surprise you with. And I'm going to do different things and we might, I might buy a trip or I might buy you something

else or whatever. And, um, the fact that the money is in the budget is not a surprise. But, um, the item or whatever I buy is going to be a surprise because it's a surprise, it's a surprise fund.

“That's what it's for. And you guys are grown-ups, you're not four years old. So, you know,”

that probably will work good enough. Um, if she has to be, like, tricked into thinking you have money, you don't have, I, that one I'm not, I'm not good with that idea. It's not an idea. It was about tricking her. I know, but I'm just saying, you know, you gotta hide it from her, so she's surprised to the back. Well, is the surprise when you reveal that you have book the trip or the surprise when you just put her in the car and say, hey, we're headed to the airport. What level are we talking

about? Well, I mean, no, it gets. Be nice to, you know, and I don't think we get as far as because we are, you know, a child, no, that's like we can't, I can't just put her in the car and say, hey, right, it's the airport, but it'd be nice to have something booked a few months out and then go to her a couple weeks in advance and say, hey, you know, that pre-weekend that we have. It's not for you to get something like that. Yeah, that's right. You can do that. Yeah, you can do that with a,

an anonymous category. We can name it whatever we want to name it. An anonymous trips or surprise trips or surprise, for this, I like doing this for you as husband to wife and so I'm going to put it in the budget. Yeah, and I'm going to give it a name. I don't care what it is. I mean, we got, we have so many friends, like, you know, we've talked about it, Sam and Jade or Shaw. I mean, Sam, we talked about on the show recently. Sam, they put money in there, budget away for each other,

and it's just, this is Jade's fun category, it's his fun category. Well, Sam never spends his

and he just stacks and stacks and stacks and then he does something really awesome. So you could do it that way too, where as long as it's in the budget we're communicating, it's like, this, this is the old blow envelope is what this is, and if it stacks up, then you can surprise her with that. So it's a lot of ways to do it, but I'm always putting side hustle money in the budget. Oh, yeah, period. I'm not, I'm not going to run it as a side. No. Do you have a separate amount?

“I'm saying, I know, I'm just saying, I know, I'm just saying that's what he was doing. Yeah,”

I'm going to do that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's, you know, it's certainly up to you Josh. It's a, you know, and again, we've been married 43 almost 44 years and so it's very little of surprises. Right. That is a different deal. I agree. So it's like, she's not four. Yeah. It's not like, you know, it's hard to surprise him even for, he doesn't even like a surprise birthday party. So you understand that this woman. What about her? Does Sharon tell you what she wants for your

birthday? Or do you surprise her with that? I'll surprise her with that. Yeah. And most of the stuff that we do on a trip. I mean, she may know the location and the date. Right. But most everything else, she's like, yeah, surprise me. Oh, that's okay. So she wakes up and you're like, here's the

agenda. Here's what we're doing. Yeah. That's great. Here's the plan. That's right. And you know,

I got a plan. Oh, believe me. Yeah. From sun up to sundown for ridiculous. But it's fun. Jack is a New York City. Hey, Jack. What's up? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

coffee roasting business. And now that I'm about three years into this long, there's about a 100 grand left. It's a 9.75% interest rate. And I feel like I'm finally catching my breath a little bit with this. So I'm trying to figure out where I should start putting any extra money I have. Catching your breath, meaning you're just not profitable. Yeah. So what kind of profit are we expecting in the coming 12 months? It's about 20% of our revenue. Our revenue last year was 660,000

and more projected to do about a million this year. Okay, so you may make 200 grand. And is this a

“side householder as is your full-time gig? Full-time gig. Okay. And so what are you all living on?”

What's the take for you all to live out of this? Yeah. So last year we brought home about $77,000. And you lived on that. There's your wife work outside of this? No. Okay. So you lived on 80 grand last year. About. Yeah. So if you made 200 and you lived on 80 grand this year, you could pay off the loan. Yeah. Yeah. 200 minus 80 is 120, the loan is 100, right? Right. Okay.

So do that. Well, I'm not. Why would you keep this loan around? It's not a pet.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I give you a saying. It's, um, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So hold on, weigh that really quick with what you were thinking about doing. What were you, what were you thinking

“of? Well, we're actually looking to move into a new space. The spot that we're in right now is”

very small. And that's obviously going to be another expense. It's going to cost about 60 grand to get the new space bill about. So what I was actually thinking was potentially refinancing this loan because the interest rate is so high. I could get six and a half percent if I were to say to take out another 150,000 dollar loan and that I'd have 50,000 dollars of capital to put towards the buildout and then the more the more debt that you have in business, the more unstable and unsustainable

you are. The less debt you have, the more sustainable you are. So I would go with everything you're talking

about doing only I would just pay off the loan first and then I would cash flow the move.

“And way do you feel how easy it is to breathe in? Yeah. And if you got this move completely cash flowed”

and you've expanded, now you're making 300 grand and you got no payments in the world and we're what 24 months, 36 months from now. It's a lot better place to be in business. It's too volatile out there, man. It's that time again folks. Tax season is here. I know some of you would rather bury your head in the sand until April 15th then face your taxes. But here's a better idea. If you're tax situation is complicated, get in touch with a Ramsey trusted tax pro today. That way they can

take the stress off your shoulders and once those tax forms come in and teach you how to keep your tax bill as low as possible. But don't wait, Ramsey trusted pros can book up fast. Go to RamseySolutions.com/TaxPro to find one who serves your area with excellence. That's RamseySolutions.com/TaxPro. If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to do it is by using every dollar. It's more than just a budgeting app. It is now the whole plan. The Ramsey plan built right in.

You track your progress, you get personalized recommendations and coaching for your situation that'll help you free up more money and work the plan faster. It's like having one of us walking with you every day. Showing you the next right step and holding you accountable. Start every dollar for free by downloading it in the App Store or Google Play. Adam is in Seattle. Hey, Adam, what's up? Well, how do you thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. So, I just feel

lost in life. You know, I am 26 years old. I have no degree. I'm unemployed and

Yeah, yeah. What is your assessment and give me a single one or two words at most?

“Well, what has kept you from holding down these jobs? What is it?”

I just wanted a lot of... I think it was a learned hypothesis and then also just a lot of anxiety and... Did you self, did you self-sabotage? Yeah, yeah, it's... Yeah, okay. So, what's it? What's at the core? And again, don't worry about how you word it. Just be as gut-level on us as you can. What do you think to the core of all the anxiety, this fear, this worry? It's my fault. You know, I took ownership of it. I just don't know how to move forward. So, yeah. Well, the first way to move forward

is to realize that you're not a failure. And I think it would make a lot of sense for somebody in

your shoes at 26 who's never had anything stick. Doesn't feel like you've had much stick in your

life. Is that a fair assessment? Things haven't been... It hasn't been sticking and... Yeah. I think it's just this hearing anxiety that I have and I am in therapy for... Okay. For that, so... Are you making progress? Do you feel like you're making progress in therapy? I want to do that. Yeah. So, let me tell you right now, instead of this big philosophical and big

“strategy answer, I think you just need a win. And I think you need to redefine what winning looks like.”

And I think winning, if I were going to prescribe something to you, is go get a job and go get

the hardest job you can get. I mean that. I don't mean something that pays you very little. I mean

hardworking, maybe some manual labor, working the trades, and have one clear win. And that is, I'm going to keep showing up. I'm not going... I'm not a screw up. Therefore, I'm not going to screw up. But I got one thing. I'm going to show up and I'm going to keep a clean nose. I'm going to do it they tell me. I'm going to learn how to do more. I'm going to be hungry and I'm going to keep showing up. And I'm going to put one month, two months and three months. And while you're getting this therapy,

I think you need to do something really, really hard. Because I think you need to prove to yourself that you've got grit and it's your actually tough and that you're not a victim. But I want to bring data because I know he's got some great insight on this too. But I'm trying to simplify for him to get him a win, Dave. What are your thoughts? Where's your family? You know Uncle Ann, brother, sister, what? Where's your mom and dad?

Physically, where are they located? They're located in the same city. It was just where you know, I failed hand. I haven't really did some. So, I don't really talk to my mom much, but yeah. What did you call for today? What did you want from Dave and I? I just feel I feel lost in life because I'm 26. And you know, I have no to be in, you know, it's

I'm just. No, listen, I can tell you right now you're so ashamed of yourself. You are just covered in shame. So, Dave and I aren't therapists. I'm glad you're with a therapist. I cannot preach that enough. Do the hard work. Keep digging in. Don't stop that. But I'm going to go back to what I think I think instead of, I don't think someone who's in your state of mind can have great clarity. But I'm going to give you a resource. I'm going to give you my book, find the work you're

wired to do. I want you to take the assessment. But I'm going to caution you that I think you're so down on yourself and you are so loaded down with shame that I think you're going to have to do

“a few little things at a time to build up a belief in yourself. And that's why I'm prescribing”

hard work. I mean like brick crew, working on a construction site to where your body aches all day and you just get some confidence to go. I'm showing up doing the hardest work possible. I really believe that's what you ought to try. Try for 90 days and get that back stiffened up to say, I just did the hardest work on a planet for 18, 20, 22, 25 bucks an hour, hard work, work two jobs. Don't do anything but work and stack up some cash. For the whole purpose of beginning to believe

hard assignment. Get a job doing anything that's tough and show up every single day and work your

butt off. You can do that. You can do that. Yeah, build some grit. You're partying your butt off, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. That's got to stop. You're killing yourself, man. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's dripping off of you. So if I was you, I'd plug into a great church and get some men that are welcome with God that are clean. They're sober and they'll walk alongside you. Put their arm around your shoulder and kick your little butt and get you in a job and hold you accountable for staying

clean and working your butt off. And you got to get, you got to get a community this different.

The community you're running in is a bunch of losers. Amen. And you're going to become who you

“hang around with. So you need to change who you're hanging around with. Yeah. And you're going to,”

that's a mess. So yeah, the thing is, Ken's prescription, I think is exactly right. You need some wins. You need some confidence and some dignity. But that means you got to walk away from the stuff that's been taken in from you. Yeah. And that's the partying. And the reason you're not showing up at work is you're hung over. You're strong out. You can't wait for happy hour. Can't wait for smoke another joint while I'm on the job. One of course you're getting your butt

fired. No kidding. You can't pass a drug test. And so that's what's going on. I mean, so you

you step in there and you stay clean, dude. And I'm telling you get a whole new crew to run with, get into it, get into it, get into a good church. And as far as I was asking about family. And so the reason your family is upset with you is not because you're a bad son. It's because they

“love you. And they hate watching you destroy yourself with your bad habits. That's what they're”

they're not mad at you that they love you. And they can't stand watching you kill yourself. So I would just walk away from that stuff and go completely clean and just let's go for a whole new direction. I mean, we're going from drunk to monk right now, man. I mean, game on time to make a move, right? You got to make a shift here. And if you do something radical like that for 90 days, you can do all kinds of stuff. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. And I can't see this enough.

At some point after the 90 days, I want you to do something that you're afraid of doing. Yeah, something that you're afraid of. That's like really a stretch. I don't mean something stupid financially. I just mean something you're afraid of which right now is everything. It is. But I cannot tell you how much hard work will do for the soul. Oh, yeah. You know, we're, and by the way, you're only gold, by the way, stack as much cash as you can in the 90 days. Stay

in clear. Get a goal. Stay in clean. I think you can do this out. I know you can. I really don't think it's as bad as your brain has told you it is. But yeah, you got to walk away from some stuff and towards some new stuff. Yeah, if you want a different recipe, if you want a different thing, you got to change the recipe. Keep doing the same thing over and over again. Expect a different

“result. That's the definition of insanity. That's what the 12-stepers say. And they're quoting”

Einstein, by the way. Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real, money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show whether you're making a decision or just want something explained. Ask Ramsey is here

to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey Today. That's RamseySolutions.com. In the lobby of RamseySolutions, one of our own RamseySolutions team members, Brandon Ray, and his wife Madison to do a debt-free scream. Welcome, guys. Hey, how's it going? Good, man, how are y'all? Good, well, cool. So how much debt have you two paid off? 118,000. Wow, and how long did that take? Four years. Good for you. And you've been here about four years, right? Yes. Okay, tell folks what

tax, uh, getting help from a tax pro or real estate agent, it's very likely that Brandon Ray

“might have written the code. Sure. They caused you to be able to do that. So that's how it works.”

Now, way to go, guys. Well, congratulations. What kind of debt was the 118,000? So we had two cars, student loans, four credit cards. We also owed some family, some money. So you were normal, normal. Yeah. How long you two been married? Almost 10 years. Okay. So where did you move? Did you move from somewhere to come here four years ago? No, we're from here. You're from here. Okay. And so you join the Ramsey thing. And around here, the peer pressure is all positive,

to get you out of debt. It's the opposite of most places. Yes. Like, it's kind of over the top. It's like like a culture, something. Yeah. But yeah. So we're pushing you because we love you

to get out of debt. Everybody in the whole team's cheering you on, right? Yes. And so you didn't have

a choice hardly, but to get on the plan, right? Exactly. Okay. And so Madison, did you know what your husband was getting into when he joined this place? No. No. I didn't know we were joining a cult. It's okay. It's the good kind of cult. It's a good one. Yes. There's good ones. There's bad ones. We're one of the good ones. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. So you guys decided about the time you can work here. Okay. We're going to attack this debt. Yeah. It was kind of a little bit before that.

It was like, hey, I've been, well, I'll go back a little bit. My mom actually introduced us to you when we were, when I was like a little kid, we were listening to you and Susie Orman and we were doing all sorts of stuff there and she introduced me to like the envelope system and all sorts of stuff. But like a kid, you know, I didn't listen to any of it until well into our marriage. Yeah. And I was like, hey, you know, and Robin, you're normal. You got all this. Yeah. And I'm like,

oh crap, we're starting to have kids and things are starting to stack up and we need some room. And then I was already starting to look into the baby steps and then I was like, hey, I really want to work here too. So that, that kind of went hand in hand. Okay. Yeah. All right. So Madison, how did you, how did you play into this story? He suggested and I followed. Was that it? That's simple,

“huh? Yeah. I love my husband. Could you teach a class on that, please?”

Yeah. I mean, one-of-one. So no questions at all. No struggles with it. You just were like, okay. Well, we did a little bit of kicking and screaming. Oh, okay. When he told me I had to stop ordering the cheese dip at, you know, the Mexican restaurant, I got a little frustrated, but yeah. Because she's more of a dreamer and I'm more of a realist. So it's like, she comes with me with dreams and I'm like, there's no room in the budget. So we need to like do some work to make those

dreamer and dream killer. Yeah. And apparently, Kaseo killer is one of those. Yeah. So killer. Whoa. That's horse and dream killer. Wow. It is. Hey, but we're that free. So we get that. Yeah. Well, now we can get the Kaseo. He's bought it. Now we got it. Okay. So what he all tell people the secret to getting out of it is, 118,000 and four years. So you did like 25,000 dollars, 30,000 dollars a year, right? Yeah. That's so substantial. It's doing lots of late nights. We did, I did two side jobs

to make that happen. So it was a lot and you gave up a lot because you had to like get the kids the bed do a different things. It was, it was a lot of sacrifice. Kaseo. And Kaseo. Yeah. A lot of missed out cases. So there was just a lot of, a lot of sacrifices, a lot of late nights. A lot of coming here, eating beans and rice. The Taco Bar looks really good on Tuesday, but lots of beans and rice. We ate a lot of lots and lots and lots. Yes. Yes. So that was probably the hardest part, too.

It was like giving up time with the kids, giving up time with family and night and giving up just, we like food. So it was worth it now that you're free. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

How's it feel now that you don't have any dedication up the house? It was weird at first because

it's like, oh, is it, is it over? Is it actually over? It doesn't feel really. And then, yeah, it's still kind of getting to that real part. But it's like, hey, wait a second. We can actually, the kids want to go do something we can do it, right? It's not a no immediately. It's like, yes, we can go do that. I forgot who works here. You know it. You've lived it. You've done it now.

“What do you say to people that this is the key to winning on this debt free journey? Well, you got”

yourself into it. You got to get yourself out of it. Just do it. Put in the work. Get it done. Love that. What about you, Madison? What do you say the secret to getting out of debt is? A lot of patience and a lot of trusting your partner. Oh, a lot. There has to be good communication between both of you about where your money's going, all those random subscriptions that you forget you have to be canceled and yeah. Yeah, it's a constant thing. Yeah, why

to go, guys, I'm so proud of you. So proud of you. I know your parents are proud of you. Try to get you to do this 20 years ago now. No, you're not really doing it. That's good. That's good. It's very good. Very good. We'll congratulate you on congratulations and thanks for being on the team. We appreciate it. And when the Taco bars open, you get all the case so you want, okay?

Quite the present. Yeah. How are we celebrating tonight? We're going to ice cream after this.

Wow. Yeah. There we go. There we go. That's good. Two scoops. Two scoops. Okay, today. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. That's crazy. That's go crazy. That's it. I like it. Very well done. All right, Brandon and Madison from the Ramsey Solutions team, living right here in Nashville, 118,000 dollars paid off in four years. Oh, what are the kiddos names and ages? We got Beckett is five Cecilia seven in Adeline is five months. Oh, perfect.

Very cool. And they look like they've been practicing their debt free cream. So they're already to do your debt free cream. Are you ready, Adel? All right, count it down. Let's hear a debt free

“cream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt free. Yeah. Wow. That's how it's done. Wow, man. That is fabulous.”

Congratulations, you guys. Well, in the teams I hear cheering them on. It's fun. It's a good news

about the team here. They love each other and they're always praying for each other, helping each other.

You know, passing on tips and encouragement and everything else versus tearing you down. And it's one of the beauties of the culture and at Ramsey, I'm real proud of our team and how many of them came out. You can see them if you're watching on the YouTube Man that's a huge number of people come out to cheer them on. So very cool stuff. And it's interesting that you can grow up right here in the shadow almost of this building. Yeah. And mom telling you to do this stuff and then you look up in your

118,000 dollars in debt in your married. And we've been married five years. And oh, this is not working. And oh, I got to do it too. And then joins our team four years ago and actually applies to stuff and goes crazy. So the interesting thing is with all this stuff, it's just a matter of a decision or three to decide, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to do this. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do this. And this is, I'm identifying what works, what doesn't work. And I'm going to plug

in to what works. I'm going to walk away from the things that don't work. And this, you know, using these credit cards to get my airline miles bull crap, you know, I'm not, I'm not paying attention. What we're spending at restaurants. I'm not paying attention. And then all of a sudden boom, it gets serious. And everybody turns their life around.

“You know, as it's seen when I asked Brandon the key to get out of your debt, he said,”

you got yourself into this. Now you got to get yourself out. Really ties into our last call that young man who had, you know, done some things where he created all the shame and guilt and he's telling us multiple times he's lost. And it's very similar to people that feel lost financially, because they just do what the culture kind of tells him is normal to do. And they wake up one day and they feel lost stuck financially. Oh, yeah. And the advice is so great. You got

yourself in it. You got to get yourself out. There's a lot of empowerment there. So a great message to a lot of you that are new to the show or a lot of debt. And you're just feeling like this is a pipe dream. It's really not. It's that simple. That mindset and crazy discipline that you heard there. So you can do it. Larry Brickett, you should say it takes you about as long to get out as it did to get in. So if you spend three years making the mess takes you about three years. Interesting to

mess. And my experience has been different in Larry's. Yeah. I think maybe because we got the whole gazelle intensity thing going agree. It's roughly about half. So you figure if it took you five years to make the mess, it probably going to take you two and a half to get out of intensity. And so how quick do you clean up the mess? In our case, they cleaned it up in four years. Took him about six

“years to make the mess. They've been married ten. So that's how it worked out. Very interesting.”

proud of you guys. Well done. [Music] Good folks, Dr. John Deloni here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsay Solutions is hiring.

If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope,

we want to see your application. Right now we're hiring for technology sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. Check out all our job postings at ramsysolutions.com/curriers. That's ramsysolutions.com/curriers. Our scripture today, Hebrews 10, 23 and 24. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we

toward love and good deeds. John F. Kennedy said too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion

“without the discomfort of thought. Yeah, that's really good. Oh, out.”

Ronnie is in San Jose. Hey, Ronnie, what's up? Hi, thank you for taking my call. I've been listening for you guys for years. Well, thank you. And I really appreciate your words of wisdom. So I'm going to be 59 in July and I'm trying to think how I'm going to retire. I'm working right now part time of the teacher and I own my house. But I don't think I can maintain the house here in California. I have a

little farm and there's always something happening. You know, the septic system and then

the well is going bad. So every time there's something else. So I'm not sure I can I can keep this house for retirement and I was thinking to renovate it. I don't have enough cash to renovate the house and I was offered to take a heloc and by listening for you for so many years I know that you're together, not pro heloc or taking any loans. So at this point I just don't know

“what to do. What's the best way to go? What are you thinking of doing? I'm thinking to move”

to a different state. So either Nevada or Arizona or somewhere I can old, you know, it's it's too expensive here. There's no way we can stay here with the taxes and everything else. It's just crazy. Well, we are married. I'm not married, I'm single. Right now my son lives with me and my daughter is going to finish his studying and he's going to move out. But right now he's kid with me. Yeah, I'm sure about moving to a different state because I don't think there's

no way I can retire where I am. Okay, so what if your property worth? My property is about one point six. Okay, all that'll buy a nice property and another place for sure. Yeah, but I still need to listen with some mistakes for retirement because I don't accept the house and I have some money market. How much do you have in a money market? Right now it's too collapsing but it's about 600. Okay, so if you sold your property, I'm just thinking about the math only, not the emotions.

But if you sold your property from me in six and you bought a property in another location

for 600,000 and you paid cash and that would give you a million dollars to invest for your next

egg. How would that sound? Yeah, I am not sure. I'm only 69. Yeah. I'm not sure if you're going to take me all the way, if I know. I'll take you all the way. You don't make 100,000 dollars a year now, do you? I am definitely not doing 100,000 dollars a year now. What do you do? She's a teacher. I'm a teacher, but part-time, yeah. So what do you make there? You're just working part-time. You know, I've been working for so many years full-time and I want to do other stuff so

I'm working part-time. How much is it take for you to? Right now about 65, 100 per month. Yeah, how much does it take for you to live? 3000. Okay. So you can work part-time as a teacher somewhere

else. So if you had a paid for house in another market and you put a million dollars or whatever,

800,000 in a good investment and you're working part-time from 59 to 69, you being great shape, wouldn't you? Yeah, but they don't want to work in 69. I mean, you're going to make some money somewhere.

“Yeah. Yeah, so I think you're playing a work. It's just you're just going to have to be limited”

on what you spend on the property that you're going to move into in the next state. Yeah, I mean, look, if any, if the whole place is your oyster, if you can go anywhere, then I would go to a state that has no state to income tax. I'd go to a place where I could buy something that's more than enough room in the $300, $350,000 range and up to up to 600. I mean, up to six, but I'm saying you don't have to spend six and invest the rest of that, that's going to, that's going to do

fantastic for you. It's going to double every seven years and you're going to be fine. Yeah. Just don't touch that in this tag and let it grow and you continue to do a little work. It won't kill you. You're not done. You're 59. It's not like you're 89. And so yeah, there's a lot of stuff you can do here. But yeah, I got a feeling though that it's very emotional for you to leave that farm and leave California after all these years. And so the math says to do what you're doing. But then you've

or Arizona, wherever you're going, you know, you need to go to house shopping over there and you buy an airline ticket and go over there and look at houses. And you know, start talking about, you know, where, where will they accept your teaching credentials so that you can teach part time over there, create some income. And then sit down with a smart vester pro, go to ramsysolutions.com and click on smart vester and sit down with one of them and say, gosh, if I put $800,000,

a million dollars with you, what kind of income would that generate for me to live on in my retirement

“years if I pay cash for a five or six hundred thousand four hundred thousand dollar house?”

You got to have some taxes on this probably, too. I don't know what you paid for that property, what your basis is. But either way, that's still, that all makes a lot of sense. But I also have a sense that you're kind of stuck there emotionally. And you're going to have to unstick and what's kind of the process you're going through right now of going, this is smart. It's going to make me sad though to leave this farm after all these years. It's going to make me sad to leave California

after all these years, but their taxes and the cost of living is driving me out. And, you know, it's sad, but that's a reality. And people do it all the time. Matter of fact, people of Lyft, California and New York and Chicago at record rates and have navigated

to low tax states in the past eight years, like never before in the history of the U.S.,

pretty crazy. It's like a reverse gold rush. You know, in the old days, there was all this migration to California in the 1800s, right? The gold, the famous gold rush. And now it's like a reverse thing. They're running away from running back to the gold, which is no longer there apparently,

“but yeah, or if it is, the government takes it. Yeah, so there's that. And that's what's happening.”

Nicole is in Boisey. Hi Nicole. How are you? How are you? How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm trying to figure out if my ask tonight has been just one real decision to reasonable right now financially. I'll spit it out for a run out time. What is it? So what we, I'm trying to what we're doing is not working, and we need a parent home with our three kids. I just don't know, I, I, after paying for daycare for the three kids, we might end up $1,500 a month.

Okay. I don't know if it's realistic to ask him or if we can even financially afford for me, and you live on his income if you didn't have a daycare bill. We're $500 a month short. Okay. What do you do for a living? I do finance right now. I am finishing my master's. I am done next month with my masters. And that you got to stay home with three kids. Yeah. Well, the goal is to work remote from home teaching at an online school.

Well, why would they not pay more than $500? It would. Okay. The problem is that that when it

starts until July without a paycheck until August, we have a thousand dollar paying day fund right now. And that's it. We don't have car payments, but we do have a little debt. And basically, my last day of work is an April. Oh, you already quit. No. They need a full-time person, I cannot do full-time any longer. And so I had to step back because of medical issues with my sons. You already quit. You already quit. Yeah. Okay. And so, so you got to find some way to stop

gap the bit the difference between now and August, right? Yeah. So how many hours extra is he going to work to cover that? He has offered to work one to two extra days a week. He doesn't have a choice. Somebody's got to feed your family. You all just made a decision. You just quit your job to go be with the kid that's sick, which I don't blame you. That sounds like a right thing to do. So you just got to find a stop gap and then you can make it work from there. That puts us out of the Ramsey

“show on 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.