Financial Momentum Starts With a Shift in Perspective

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life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwins Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show. George Campbell, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality Coax, just smart money happy hour. Here on the Ramsey Networks is my co-host today.

The phone number is AAA-825-5225, you jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money.

“Betty is in Washington, D.C., Hi, Betty, how are you?”

I'm hanging in there. I can't believe I'm actually talking to you. Well, I'm honored. How can we help you today? Well, I'm going to apologize that front-to-case I cry because this is going to really stress

the situation. I'm sorry, short, my husband and I have a house that we cannot afford. Our mortgage payment is over $6,000 a month and it's been listed for over two months now and the house is just not selling. And we got, who's got to report back from our Ramsey Trust at Real Estate Agent's

last night, that's not very good and so we're looking at, either having to drop the price again and try to find $30,000 while we're in maybe step two to be able to pay to get out of this house that we can't afford. And the other options that they gave us really were to potentially look at a short sale or a date and a lower something like that and those options aren't on the table because

my husband will lose his job. If we go that route tonight, I don't know what to do. Okay. So what is your household income? My husband is currently working between 24 and 30 hours of overtime each week

to be able to bring in $12,000 a month to income. Okay.

“And you're payment is $6,000 and how much debt have you got in baby step two?”

Well, we started out with a lot more than this in July of last year but we were able to get cruising through through December and now we just have $45,000 last to on two personal loans. So how much have you paid off before when you started in June and down to $45,000? Uh, we, I think the balance was a little over $70,000.

Okay. So how did you get that $30,000 given that this house payment so how did you manage to pull that off? That's a precious. My husband, David, received a bonus at the end of last year and we used all of that.

And I was working at the time when we first got started with our debt snowball.

And over the course of last year, I lost all three of my part time jobs and I have not been able to find another one and we have a seven month old July's pregnant during all of that chaos as well and no one will hire, we'll hire each year, apparently. Yeah. What is your career field?

Um, I, um, primarily a fit for mom, my home school, so I, you know, I'm in the jobs, the jobs that you've been getting. What were you doing? I mean, what was your, if you could go get a dream job right now, making $6,000 a month, what would it be?

I worked remotely, um, doing data entry for the past 10 years. Making, making for what were you making? Um, I was making about $2,000 a month. Okay. All right.

All right.

“Well, um, and, and the house, you owe so much on it, that's what the $30,000 is, is that”

you're afraid you'll have to sell it for it less than or you'll net less than U.O. Right. Correct, sir. Okay. All right.

What did the report say? You said you got a bad report from the real estate pro? Um, yeah, just that if we didn't lower the price, they thought that we had less than a hundred percent success, like likely success rate of being able to sell it. Um, we've been in the house for just under two years.

We originally purchased it, um, it was supposed to be with my parents who were supposed to split it. And, um, that seems to be closed before the first mortgage payment came.

My dad went back on his word and said he would never agree to split it 50 percent

with us, um, which was what we all under the impression that happened. And then since. And he's on the mortgage.

And not on the ownership either.

Okay. No. Okay. All right. Well, here's the thing.

The great news is is that with bonuses and finding extra work, both of which could be easily in your future, you've been able to hang on and reduce debt by $30,000. That's fairly impressive, really.

“And so if we can add the bonuses and the income from you, I think you can.”

Back to the equation, even if you stop your debt snowball temporarily and start piling up cash to write a check and get out of this house, um, you, you can make that. That's going to, that's going to work. You're going to be able to do that, that that you're not trapped. You're just in a really sucky temporary situation.

But you know, 10 years from now, this will be in the review mirror and, you know, be going,

oh, that's a dumb thing I did. My dad lied and I wouldn't have done it without that and dad gum. What a horrible mess. We got in just about the time the baby was born. At the time Rachel was that age, by the way, I found bankruptcy.

So there you go. I mean, and I'm okay now, you know, so you're going to be okay is my point. But right now, the snapshot that we take, it's got tears in it and that's valid. Okay, the snapshot is, oh, this I can't breathe. But the film strip says there's an end to the movie that's not the end of the world.

The rainbow comes out. So, um, yeah, so I would say stop your debt snowball temporarily and just start piling up cash because as soon as you start seeing options, you're, um, anxiety levels going to go down.

Um, and yeah, he picks up all the hours.

He can pick up and you pick up all the hours. You can pick up and yes, you'll find something. You just dump the address spot here and nobody's hiring people who have seven monthals. Not true. You're in Washington DC.

You'll find something. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's an easy now job market's kind of slow right now.

“But, but you could, I think you can do it.”

Then if you don't get any income coming in, you can make the payment and not go into foreclosure short sale or anything else, uh, for a short for a period of time until you get rid of it. And while polyp 30,000 bucks and get ready to do with the real estate agent said, let's write a check and get rid of this hell hole. It's driving us nuts, right?

Have you guys actually done a budget to see where this other $6,000 is going in your take home pay because you might find some 1,000 or 2,000 bucks right there? Yeah. Um, we, we have we've actually been pretty locked in since July, um, pretend thankful for. But, um, generally speaking, with the work that we had to do to prepare the house for sale

and everything, I think we're able to put aside about 1,000 to 1,200, um, months right now to go. And then you add your income that you're going to get and you add his bonus and you start selling stuff because the house is going to get sold anyways, might as well clear some rooms out, make some money on Facebook Marketplace and all that can help if you get

creative. Yeah. And again, I take the pressure off yourself to get rid of the 45,000 unless it's 45,000 or car, if it is sell it, be done with it. But, um, but I mean, the, if you're, you know, but I, I think the, the proper

perspective on this will give you a lot of, um, give you some of your fight back, um, and get the tears back, push the tears back from the edge a little bit and go, oh yeah, we can do this. This is actually doable. I think you can, um, but I think it's going to be, I think the next 12 months are not

going to be fun, um, and you get rid of the house, you've got $30,000 and then you go knock out the 45 and, you know, you learn a whole bunch of lessons in this short period of time about the time the baby was born and you'll look back on that 20 years later and maybe it's 27 and you'll go, man, and you're born our life sucked.

“And the baby will go, I don't remember that.”

Yeah, I don't remember that. What's for dinner? I don't remember that. Statistics 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, in front of 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. You're going to have a crisis here, and 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

That's exactly the two options.

“In turn, your dad gum family term life insurance can replace income debt, 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 term life insurance.

You have Zander and the team of Zander insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years that the only people I'd trust go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. [Music] Nate's in Houston, hi, Nate, how are you?

I'm doing great. Good. How are you? How are you doing? Good.

How are you doing?

I have a question about boundaries with parents and money, so I've had a family deal

and my mom and dad, they want to gift us a vehicle. They had a trial or something, a dad's had a trackwriter of just using parent guilt throughout my life and it's really created just some tension in our marriage. My dad likes to have control over our life when he doesn't have any really meaning to it. We have a breadwinner and my life stays home and takes care of the kids.

We're active in a church, reactive, and we're safe the way so it's really nice to have that distance. But we are trying to respectfully decline even though they're very pushy on trying to give us this vehicle when in fact they want us to be going, so just trying to find a way to respectfully do that.

It sounds like you over a period of time have established some boundaries because of

“this pattern and now they're like, "Oh, I think I'm going to try it again."”

I mean, there's not a current, they don't currently have any hooks in you do they? No. I'd rather go. Well, not you, but don't talk about you. Yes.

No, no hooks. Yeah. And so they're like, "Okay, we ain't getting hooks in him, so let's set one." Right? Yeah.

So I mean, just don't be a bass. Don't be a bass, yeah. Don't bite. Right? Don't bite on the hook, man.

It's just, I mean. So when you say they keep pushing, are they calling you saying, "Hey, we really want to give to this car, what do we got to do?" I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like texting, it's, you know, I mean, you get on the phone and it's...

Can you just say...

“Here's the thing, when someone's doing stuff like this, the fewer words and the shorter”

the conversation you have, the better for everyone than you. Because the longer you stay in a conversation, the more likely you are to revisit all the past sins, and that doesn't do anyone any good because they're not going to change. Yes. And so, you know, no is a complete sentence and keep your sentence pretty close to that.

Hey, Dad. Love you, man. Thank you for the offer. Not going to be able to do that this time we've got other plans. Thanks.

That's it. And we love the offer. We have a eater car. No, no, no, no, no, you don't love the offer.

You spent the whole first half of the call telling me you didn't love the offer.

But like a new car, but the cost is too high on this one. Yes. And you're open the door to him gone, ooh, it looks like there's a chance. I like to have a new car too, but I don't want a $1200 payment or I don't want my dad breathing down my neck again because I just got rid of him, though, the day.

So, you know, you know, it's inside that Trojan horse. And so you just got to keep it that big. Yeah. Don't let the Trojan horse in. So, even though you do need a car, then you just go, hey, I'm, you know, we're, we're

got all the plans and, you know, we appreciate it. Thank you. Not going to work right now. Yeah. I don't have to go into a long explanation.

And the more you feel tempted to explain yourself, the more you're going to call his issues that are not helpful. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I appreciate it.

Yeah. This is, it's definitely helpful and there's a whole sentence. Yeah. And we're driving a beater. We're on, we're going to do yellow course in our church and it's been very helpful.

Yeah. I'm, I'm working a plan.

I'm going to get me a car and, and I know you noticed our old car, but, hey, thank

you. I appreciate your offer. It's very kind of you. We've got it figured out and you guys give, find somebody that needs that car over there on that end of the world that's fine to sing a mom and help her out with

it. Thank you. Thanks for the offer, though. Mm-hmm. And, and, well, what about, what about now?

“That dad, I just told you, we're not, we're not going to do that, okay?”

And it's just, you know, we don't have to be mean, but just real low volume, slow sentences and short, concise conversations. And all of that's very helpful to bring this to a close. And it may, may take two or three times because this guy, these people are not used to hearing no.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No one tells them no. Yeah. And so, but I'm telling you, you're going to feel so much better when you get off that

texture off that phone and your wife is going to look at you with a beautiful smile and you know, I'm married a man. Look at that. Look at the backbone on that guy. It really is.

I mean, that's what's going to happen.

So, and if you continue to struggle with it, I always recommend Dr. Henry Claude's book

boundaries have sold, I think he sold 20 million and I told him the other day, I think I sold two million of them. So, I for him, because I just love that friend. I love him. He's a good friend, but also I love the book.

“And so, because it's most every family struggles with some kind of boundary violated”

being person, at some time, sometimes they grow out of it, or sometimes they finally get the message or whatever, but you just have to go, there's a universal rule. People who violate boundaries don't like you setting them. That's when they throw the fist up and go, "That's all the ways." A hundred percent of the time, expect pushback, because their goal is to get through the fence,

knock the fence down, act like the fence is not there, and then you put the fence up, and it pisses them off. Wait, there's a fence, I don't like fences. And so, a hundred percent of people who don't like boundaries don't like you setting boundaries.

So, when you do, and you know, you just go, "Yeah, but look, there's a fence." I just had Jefferson Fisher on my show this morning, and he was talking about this. If you start to sort of ramble and talk more and more and more, it just gives them more ammo. It gives them more leverage. And so, he said, "What's the story?"

He said, "What's the story?" He said, "What's the story?" He gives the same advice. "Firm, short sentences, frankly." He's smarter about that stuff than I am, so.

He's very taxful. I might have actually stole one of it from him. He's a lot nicer than I am. That's true. For sure, he's a genius.

He's misarranged. He's just compared to you. But I'm just like, "No, piss off." That works too though. In Dave's defense, that is the strategy that can work.

It does work. It's just a little more brutal. It sounds in Bend, Oregon. Hey, Sam, what's up, man? Hey, guys.

I'm a big fan. I've been working with Isaac's plan for several years. I absolutely follow everyone everywhere I can. Well, thank you. Awesome.

I'm going to try and keep it short and sweet and not get too emotional. I'm at the tail end of the divorce world, being able to have access to funds and properly

“pay for debts and everything, and I'm just trying to figure out what's the best way to”

go about that with some of the lump sums that I'm going to be receiving when the divorce is finalized. How long were you married? Last Friday was our anniversary, and it was, we're still legally married, but 16 years. I'm sorry.

How many kids you got? Three boys. How old are they? 16, 10, and 8. Okay.

All right. Well, rule number one, take care of them and you're broken heart. Oh, we are. We are. That's rule number one.

That's the most important thing in these.

And then, it's a pretty soon you'll be able to laugh about this. I talked to a lady of the day that they got divorced. She said, you know, I got out of debt, I divorced him. So, there's good, there's good that can come of all this. This much manure, you can grow something, right?

So, I'm so sorry. What a horrible thing to go through. All right. And so, I'm still going to take the, I'm going to take, make sure the household is taking care of food, shelter clothing, transportation and utilities.

And then lump sums, if they're in retirement accounts and need to stay in retirement accounts, I'm just going to do rollovers. And other lump sums, we're going to walk the baby steps. You got debt, you're going to get out of this? Well, so I was, that was my kind of on the sense part with the retirement as I'm still

young and 38. So, I have time, I have a full time job on my own, I have a full time job on my own. I have a full time job on my own. I have a full time job on my own. I have a full time job on my own.

I have a full time job on my own. I have a full time job on my own.

I have a full time job on my own.

I have a full time job on my own. I have a full time job on my own. I have a full time job on my own. Apply that to your next smallest debt, make minimum payments on the rest, and just debt snowball it.

And if you get a big chunk of his 401k or something, then go see a smart vester pro and just do a rollover into an IRA into some good mutual funds. George Campbell here, let me give you three signs, it's time to stop hoping your debt problem goes away and actually take action to fix it. If you've defaulted on a debt, if collectors are calling nonstop or if you're facing

a lawsuit or think once coming, you don't just have a debt problem anymore, you've got a legal problem.

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It's hurting advertising, results may vary in no specific outcomes guaranteed. Well, we wish every call could get through on this show. But before I write now, the lines are jammed. And as soon as one of those people are gone, there'll be four more. And we hope you can get through.

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You can ask your question today for free at ramsiesolutions.com. Click the link in the description. If you're listening on podcast or YouTube, and in case you didn't know, and I didn't, because I'm a boomer, how AI works. I did know that AI is artificial.

It's not real. That's a good start. Artificial intelligence. So it doesn't manifest its own intelligence. It only can speak from the database that has been fed to it.

And so that's the problem, for instance, with Google using AI to answer your questions, because they're so stupid that they're using Reddit as part of their database. To answer the question, and Reddit, if you look it up, in the Greek means not true. So people's opinion is like the TikTok and written form, you know, stupid stuff. But that's being entered in.

“So we don't have any stupid stuff, and our AskRamsie AI, because the only thing we put”

in there was three years of this show, answer all the Ramsie personalities answering your questions, and all the books we've written, and all the articles that we've written. And so they're all our opinion, how to work our system, how to work the baby steps. That's the only data that's in there. So that's the only possible answer that's going to come out.

We've almost got it as snarky as I am. It's about a George level of snark. Not quite in the level. It's not yelling at you quite yet. It's just snarky.

It's kind of funny snarky like George not me and snarky like me, yeah. It is conversational though, and you can have a conversation with it. So there's a back and forth, which is great. You can enter your own information, and it'll get to some really, I'm really proud of our tech team.

I mean, it's thinking good.

Maybe back's been amazing.

100% for a Ask Ramsay at RamsaySolutions.com. You can get the answer as if you called in on the show. Ash is with us in New York City. Hi, Ash. How are you?

Hey, thanks for taking my call. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Awesome.

I'm 26, and I make about $100,000 in your $100,000 a year in my salary. And I have an education known award $65,000. My mum originally promised that she would pay for my education. So I went through school expecting that to both, but now I'm left with the student that, and she hasn't followed through yet.

I'm sort of struggling with how to handle both the financial side and the emotional side of it. I want to move forward responsibly, but I also feel hold and honestly misled. So what would you do in my situation do you have any advice for me?

What would she say?

She gets really emotional, and then she says, oh, I did so much for you, and, you know,

this small thing is bothering you, you make so much money, I don't think the $1,000 whole month should hurt you that much, and it's, we just usually end up getting in an argument. And then I, okay. So this is settled, and this is settled. This is settled.

She's not going to pay it, and she doesn't care if it hurts your feelings. That's the fact that that's the fact that those are facts, those are data points. She doesn't care if it hurts your feelings. She's not going to pay it.

“Now then you've got to decide what you're going to do, okay?”

I'm not going to give her access to my feelings anymore. So I'm not going to talk about it whether ever again.

She's not going to pay it, you are.

Okay. Now the next time. It's easy. Let's attack this debt with our great $100,000 income. How fast could you pay it off on your own?

Well, so I've got about $20,000 in saving that $20,000 in that debt. Good. So I live in New York, so I mean, my monthly expenditure is about $4,000. Great. So you pay off the $40, and you've got 60 to go, and you just lean in and knock it out.

And you know that your mom is your mom, so we can't be too mad at her, but we can be mad enough at her to go.

“She's not reliable, and if she promises me something ever again, I'm going to laugh”

and wink and not believe it.

Because she doesn't care if it hurts your feelings. Right. And then I had this conversation that if she wanted me to pay it off, and she said, "Just 10,000 dollars." And then you want to have to worry about it from like, Jan 20, 27.

So now, she's not going to pay it off. You're wishing for something that's not going to happen. Dogs can't climb trees. She's a dog. She ain't going to climb a tree, dude.

Squirrels, climb trees, okay? She can't climb a tree. She's not going to do it. And every answer she gives you is telling you, she's not going to do it. And that it's on you.

And so if the pastor, you just go, you know, I hate that I have to say this about my mother, but she's an unreliable person and is not concerned about the fact that she lied to me. And that just breaks my heart, and I have a bill to pay now. And you go pay it as fast as you can, and the center you get it paid off. And then please, don't ever believe anything else she says.

So any plan she comes to you with is false. The plan should have a check attached to it for $65,000 if I'm going to believe forever again. Yeah. And it can't bounce.

“So that's the only way you go, okay, we're going to rebuild trust here.”

Yeah. But how she's not going to do it? No, I mean, there's no chance. She probably doesn't have it either, by the way. It was probably wishful thinking and it sounded like a nice thing to say that I'll cover

your education one, you know, I believe in you, I got your back. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, this happens a lot. We hear this way too often, a parents that don't want to follow through on the promise of what they were going to do with their kids education costs.

And so it's yet one more reason for those of you out there that are considering taking out a student loan based on the promise of a parent to pay it, that would be a dumb idea. It puts a strain on the relationship even if they do follow through and pay it. Chris is in Fort Collins, Colorado, high Chris, how are you? I'm fine.

Thank you. My question to you is, I lent my mom and dad $40,000, 20 years ago. They put my name on their house via a quick claim in 2012 and I haven't lived in their house for 40 years, well, they both passed. They have a will that says to pay me $75,000 off the top and split the rest between myself

and my three other siblings. Well, kind of a tax invest in my end. Are you the only one on the deed or were they on the deed with you after they quit claims you? They were on the deed with me after they quit playing.

Okay. Okay.

“And if they had taken themselves off completely and it was just you, when you sell the”

house, you're going to be taxed on every dollar above what they paid for the house.

Which was nothing. Probably. Yeah, I would say it's been paid $13,000 and now the house is worth $500,000. Yeah, so you'd have, you'd have capital gains tax on $500,000 if the house was in your name.

So you may have tax on half of that since the house is in their name and your name. You probably had to, you probably have tax on that. And so what I would do is require that that tax be paid before and my 75,000 be repaid before we give you up any proceeds.

“And so you need to get tax advice, figure out what your tax bill is going to be and I”

would add that and make the estate pay that because you got screwed. If you run a business, you already know this, bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now, AI is everywhere, but AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend NetSuite.

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Do not give capital assets like stocks or real estate to your children while you're alive, except in rare circumstances. Here's why. Our last caller Chris, Mom and Dad, quit claimed the house over to thinking they were doing her a favor.

They were trying to do something nice. They were ignorant of tax law, so here's how tax law works. Chris, again, in Chris's situation, both names were on it, but it was just her name. So if you gift, if Mom and Dad gifted that property to her, her basis for calculating capital gains is their basis, what they paid for.

It was $13,000 in this case.

And the household for $513,000, then they got a half a million dollars that's taxable.

It's a gain in the IRS's eyes. Yeah, it's going to be a 15% gain, capital gains taxable. $75,000. So it's a $75,000 error in that case. The reason it's an error is if her name was not on the deed and they give it to her

by will after they die, her basis is the market value of the house at the time they die. So her basis would be $513,000, and she sells it within six months of death. It's presumed to have been market value, and it's presumed that there is zero tax, which just saved her 75 grand by doing it that way. It's called a stepped up basis.

So the basis goes to market value if willed to you.

So if Grandpa has stock, and he's got $2 million for the Exxon stock, but he paid $10

for it, and he gives it to his grandchild before dying, they have capital gains on $2 million. He just passed the hot potato right over. If he waits until he dies, 10 seconds after he's dead, that stock basis for resale is the

This is huge, y'all.

Quit doing crap like this without seeking tax advice and knowing what you're doing.

And it's like, "Well, I don't want the government to get you just made sure of the government's going to get it done, but it's exactly what you did." And you can't just practice law and tax law out of your ear, and think you're going to get anything except screwed up. So just make a one phone call to a simple tax person, and they'll tell you don't transfer

this. Period. Now, again, there might be a situation where you can use some of your gift tax exemption, or you can use some of your estate tax exemption, and qualify it under unify to state tax

“credit, and you have to fill out some forms, and you can make the move and not get into”

the taxes, but you still could set up a problem with income tax on the other end. And so you really need to think this stuff through. It's not as simple as, "Well, I need to protect little Chris. She gave us that $4,000 and her brothers and sisters, and it's not right." So I'm going to put the house in her name and make sure it's okay.

Boom. Without checking.

That's exactly what those sweet people did, and they screwed this up royally.

They meant, "Well, I'll guarantee you they're not bad people. They didn't go, "Hey, let's screw Chris over. That wasn't what they meant to do." Sometimes good intentions are the most expensive mistake you can make. Yeah, just don't be doing this stuff, people.

All right. James is where this James is in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, James, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing? Better than I deserve, for what's up.

Hey, man. You know, I'm really interested in how can I regain control of my finances?

“I just graduated college, you know, I have a good job, but I feel like I'm just in control."”

Cool. What's the good job? What are you making? 73's base salary, and then with bonus and everything, I'll be, should be around 80.

Good for you. Cool. Are you married? I am. Well, fiancee.

And then I have a son with my previous relationship, and then we have to get my fiancee

and I. Oh, when you get married? No, whenever she wants to, we haven't said of that. They didn't. Yes.

Saturday works for me. David's friends. Okay. Okay. And the.

All right. So what does she make? So she stays at home. That is what's best for us. Yes.

Saturday works for me. All right. And she's an extreme risk right now. I don't like the position she's in.

“As her friend, I'm telling her to marry you now.”

Okay. Okay. Anyway, now we got that behind us. So you got how much debt with your $80,000 job and three kids and fiancee getting ready to be wife?

So my student loans, that is the largest $44,000 I've had to get. I've used that to supplement income all throughout my time at school. My car made a dumb purchase when my son was born. I'm not, I still owe about 20,000 on there. And then my credit card around 12 and then she has around 12 as well 12,000 on credit

cards as well. Yeah, that's you. Okay. 44. You got 88,000 you make 80.

It's going to take you two and a half years of living on beans and rice rice and beans and you can pay all this off. Okay. And that's if nobody adds any income to the equation, you ought to try to talk about somebody adding some income to this equation if you can.

So, and I'm not being just smart like only, there's all kinds of data points that says being married is going to cause you to succeed financially. And so I want good things for y'all to love y'all and want you to win, okay. So then we're going to list our debts, smallest to largest. We're going to cut up the credit cards tonight.

We're going to get on an every dollar budget tonight. We'll draw a draw. I'll give you a premium version and let you get started. The two of you sit down together and since you're going to be married on Saturday, you can go ahead and start doing it tonight like you were married.

And you sit down with everything and you're looking at it together and say, okay, we have this baby and I've got these kids and we've got this stuff we've got to take care of. And we've got a house and we've got to get, you know, we're going to plow through these credit cards, get rid of them. Then we're going to knock that car out and we're going to knock that student loan out, meanwhile,

paying minimum payments on everything. But the little one, attack the little one, knit everything, but the little one, attack the little one, the vengeance, you're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there's your extra job and don't talk to me about a vacation. You are seriously broke, broke people don't go on vacation and get this mess cleaned up

in the next two years. And if you get, you get kind of, you just kind of hear that anger in my voice like, ah, right, the coach at halftime, that's what I want inside of y'all.

I'm trying to transfer that to you and you get that, that's swagger going and you start punching these credit cards out, knocking them in the nose, going, you people are screwing

my family's future, I hate you city bank, I hate you fifth, third, get out of my life.

Then when you kind of get that idea going, then you have a villain in the story and you

“are the hero, you get to go win and it changes everything and that's what I want them”

to do, George. Yeah, what is your intensity level right now, James, one out of ten, would you say to get out of this debt? 20, you know, that's why I set down and I spent hours on an Excel chart because I hate for budgeting and apps, charge you a subscription fee, I think that's one of the biggest

games in this industry right now, man, it's mind blowing, you know, you get on the app store, look up budgeting, in app purchases, in app purchases, in app purchases, you know what I mean? Yeah, we don't have any in app purchases, but we do charge your subscription fee after we give you this free portion, so we'll give it to you for free for a while, so you aren't to worry about it, but you later on you'll have to pay.

Okay. I won't, I won't hold back on that, but we have to pay, we have to pay the guys that build the app and run the thing. So if you get you at an 88 grand end, I'd say it was worth the purchase, but if you don't do anything with it, I agree, it was a waste of your money.

So I hope it helps you, but I just wanted to see how intense you are and even think about selling this car, if it's worth more than 20 grand. Yeah, I'm far out of that payment. I think you're going to do it. I'm proud of you, man.

Go do it.

“You can have a great life, you graduate, you've got babies, you've got a new wife, life is going”

to be great, man. But for now, you've got to keep living like a broke college kid, which is going to be not as fun. You've got a new salary, a big, I had to go buy some things, nope, you've got to pay off some debt.

You'll get there. Absolutely. Absolutely. So why do people pay to join a gym if they can live? It's a scam.

If they can live weights at home. The environment, maybe they don't live weights at home. That's why. And there's some skin in the game. If I paid for something, you don't want to get your toe on them.

It's all there for it. stub your toe. I want to see a study.

“Free gym membership versus a paid gym membership, who's showing up at each gym.”

I'd be interested to see. I think wiring lines want to know. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, May is mental health awareness month. And according to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than one in five US adults

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That's BetterHelp, HELP.com/Ramsie. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality.

Number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Janessa is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Janessa, how are you? I am so good, how are you? Better than I deserve, what's up?

Oh wonderful. So me and my husband, we are struggling with a decision to make. And we have decided to kind of get our butts in gear on our student loans. But in the past year, we have promised our girls, season passes to a local amusement park, and we are trying to decide if we break our promise to our young kids and try to teach

them a financial lesson, or we are the way paying off our debt, about two to three weeks and keep our promise. Okay. Well, if you take, sometimes if you take an ethics thing to an extreme, it will give you

Okay.

So you have information that is available to you today that was not available to you today,

or at least your viewpoint on the student loans was not the same when you made the promise. Things have changed. Yeah. So if we took it to an extreme and said, hey, mom's got cancer, and so we're not going to get the theme park things to share because we're going to pay the doctor bills.

That's not that didn't happen, and I'm not speaking that into existence. Okay. But if it was something like that, you wouldn't have an ethics problem because it's new information. Correct.

Yes. You know, I would sit down with them and say kids, at the time we were trying to ignore these howled with the kids, we've got six-year-old, seven-year-old, nine-year-old, and a 10-year-old. Okay.

“Well, they're not going to remember whatever it is, much plus Friday anyway, but you know,”

what I would do is say, at the time we sat down and talked about this, we thought we were able to do it, and now we've looked at our details of our debt, and I know you don't understand that necessarily, but we are, we're not in trouble, we're not going to be hungry, we're not going to lose our home, but we do have to clean up this debt, and we're going to get serious about it, and that means this year we're not going to be able to do the

season passes unless we come up with some other way to pay for them, and you might create some, how much expensive are they? I'm all in all, it'd be about $1,300. Yeah. Okay.

And it might be that if we come up with some kind of fun, kid/parent participation adventure that is the, the go-fun me of lemonade stands or something, and you know, teach them a way, we got to go find this money if we're going to do this kids, and so we're going to have an adventure by doing these three things, and we're going to cut grass or we're going to rake leaves, or we're going to do this together, and come up with a 1,300 debt, that

way, because we can't just go buy it after what we've discovered about our debt, and we've

got to pay it, and so that's a third option.

One option is buy, when you can't afford it, one is just look at them and go, no, we can't do it, new information, third option is, is there some kind of an adventure that we can turn this into, this says, okay, the way, you know, what do we do when we're broke, we go to work,

“we find something, we'll find something, we'll get in here, and if you all want to do”

that, we'll be able to do it. If you don't want to do that, that's okay, it'll just be next year or at least because we've got to get the student loans knocked out. Okay. When I was 11, my parents sold our boat because they had a bad year in the real estate

business. And you remember it. I'm still in counseling, but now Dave has multiple boats, so he's recovered. I have, I have recovered, I have lots of boats now. His boat has its own boat, it's very impressive.

So yeah, this is a, it's just delaying, it's not a no, it's not crushing their dreams, it's just a knot now.

And so when are you going to be dead free?

I'm in a year. Okay. Great. Well, the theme park still be there in a year? I, I sure hope so.

Can we do something that's an alternative that maybe is free or super low cost that also is fun? This year. This year. This year.

Local pool has a swim pass for the summer we were thinking of doing instead. There you go. There you go. That's good I do. So there's still something fun for them to look forward to and there are other things

just delayed by a little bit. I like this plan. Yeah, our neighbors had a boat. That's what we did. Find a friend with a boat.

You just saved yourself a lot of emotional hassle and finding boats and pickups. Find someone else that has it and use theirs. That's what I do. I borrow Dave's boats. Yeah.

I wouldn't know how to drive it. I don't get near my boat. I barely could drive your little C-do. I almost crash that thing so I don't know. I haven't been on it since.

Scary. It was a really scary day for me. That I'm in counseling for that too.

“But yeah, I think the thing is it's a bigger deal to you.”

This is Grandpa talking, okay. A grandkids. It's a bigger deal to you than it is to them. This breaking your promise thing. And it's not like it's not like you have a pattern throughout their lives.

There's of setting them up in the disappointing them, setting them up in the disappointing them. You're not that person. Are you wouldn't even be asking this question if you were that person. So they're fine.

They're going to be okay. Find an adventure to get them paid for by the pool passes instead. One year from now you'll be able to do it. And you can all talk about the time that we took a year off and got ourselves cleaned up as a family.

And that's when we changed our family tree. And then when you're celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary, your kid can stand up and give a toast because of the character he witnessed when he was 11 that his parents

That's a great lesson learned and some character built there as well. That's it.

“That's what's really going to happen, not they're going to be so disillusioned that they”

need counseling. I would love for them to be in therapy gone. Yeah, what happened? Well, I got a pass at seven and set a six at really crush me, man.

I just don't think I've never recovered.

Never came back from that one. Thanks in Washington, D.C.A. Blake, out of the way out. Hey, how's it going? Better than how to serve. How can we help?

Uh, yeah, so I just had a quick question about I'll try to keep this or it will. But I am just wondering, I'm still planning out my education, my career path. I just graduated with my undergrad. Oh, cool. What's your degree in?

Probably. Public health. Awesome. Public health. Okay.

Good. Yeah.

“That's a good audiology school and that was the three-year program.”

And I do have some student loan debt from my public health degree.

I graduated in three years as well. And so now I'm just working and applying audiology school, but because of, you know, I feel like kind of times of change and I feel like there's something that I also need to change with my plan. I'm just, um, actually thinking of holding back audiology for like two or three years until

I worked. And then I can save up that money, pay off a moment like that, and then, you know, save cash flow. Well, nothing wrong with that. Try to, yeah, because it's going to be all of my own money, but my family does, they

do want me to go to straight into audiology school starting next year. I'm just a little bit scared because I feel like that. Well, they're not paying for it. Right. Yeah.

You can have an opinion, but you don't get a vote. And the opinion is, is that it's no big deal for you to go deeply in debt, no big deal to them. So I wouldn't let them pressure me unless they're right in the shack along with it.

“I think they mean well, but they don't see this as big a problem as you do, or you”

wouldn't even be calling here. So I like your plan better, Blake. Hey, guys, healthcare is one of the biggest stress points in your budget. It's confusing, and most of the time, it feels completely out of your control. But there is a better way to handle it.

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Hi, NOAA. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me. Sure.

What's up? So I am in a bit of a cliffhuffle. I have moved home to try to help my dad with his business, wearing construction, and we are digging into the finances. I've been listening to the show for a long time.

I am currently trying to get myself out of debt. I am a foreground away, but I have come to find out that Father at 61 has saved nothing for retirement. It has met every time I will figure it out for it's not your problem, but Dave, I feel like it is my problem.

You know, he is my dad, and I am going to take care of him at some point.

He is wrong. Yeah, really. Okay.

It is a thousand dollars in debt, your broke.

You came home to try to help him with his business, that is your problem, and you keep that running, you know, he is a grown 61 year old man, he should take care of it. I mean, he is not mentally disabled. You are right about that. Yeah.

So it is not your problem. I mean, if he had a brain injury or something, maybe you would want to go, okay, I need to help my dad. Okay, but all he is bullheaded.

“Did you ask him why he hasn't put a sento away for 40 years?”

I think the conversation scares him, I think he knows what you about it, and I think it is gotten to a point where the lead answer is the only technique. I think you can end up helping him, and I will give you an idea.

But first thing I want you to release this emotional burden of having to carry your dad, okay?

But the way you help him is that you finish turning this business around, get yourself out of there, and then the more you get involved in the running of the business, set up a 401(k) at the business and sign him up for it. Okay. I mean, he is probably going to work another 10 years, isn't he?

I am hoping he is able to get people on your construction team. So right now, we have just come down to three. So it is him, myself, and the accounts manager, and everything else for the most part, we have to contract out. Okay.

So he is not physically straining, so you know, the issue with his kind of thing here is that he is kind of avoiding technology, and he has got a bunch of other companies coming in and kind of taking over.

Yeah, but you can fix that too, to the extent you take over the running of the business.

If you guys keep running the business and you continue to insert yourself in the operations of the business, and you help with the technology, and you help grow the business, and you help keep it alive, and you know, if you can't do that, then you all need to shut the

“thing down, and you need to go, both get to go get a job, right?”

But if you can do that, while you are doing that, you can reach over to a Ramsey Smart Vester Pro, and set yourself up a simple 401(k) in there, and just sign him up and start dumping company money, and his name into it and dumping company money in your name into it. Awesome.

And you know, almost, almost against his will, but you tell him, you go, "Hey, I just set up a 401(k), I'm going to be putting my money in, I put my money into me, and our money into you, and I need you to sign this right here, shut up." Sometimes you got to sneak the vegetables in for your own good. Eat your broccoli.

Yeah. Does he have any money saved? Is he like a tin can guy? Does he have anything? Or is he really just can't live on us, and he makes?

Well, so the company does well enough to wear, when he needs money, he just draws it out. Yeah. So he has got nothing to say if I believe, from what the digging that I've been doing, he's got about eight grand in debt, which is nice, that's not much, and he makes enough to pay it.

But yeah, nothing in savings, no emergency savings. No other assets? Yeah. So part of your business job to grow this business is to take the inner workings of the business and make them more sophisticated.

You knew that already, and you were the one told us that. And as you're doing that, you get your debts paid off, his debts paid off, you start instituting some financial systems as part of it, and one of those financial systems is, what's called a simple 401k, it's a 401k or a simple IRA, it's a 401k for businesses, for small businesses your size.

And it's really easy to set up very inexpensive to set up except for the money that you stick into it. And so then you guys, when you go make some money, you don't have any debt payments, you've got some savings in the business called retained earnings, that's part of your systems.

You're building your technology base, you're competing, you're even getting ahead of the competition out there, and the way you're doing the jobs, and in the process, your profits

“go up, and you start chunking a bunch up into the retirement, that's how you take”

a IRA on, is almost against his will, but I don't want you feeling like you failed as a son, if a full-bodied, full-brained 61-year-old didn't take care of themselves, that's not a failure on your part, you've done nothing wrong, I'm not going to guilt trip you for, I don't know, and I don't want you to guilt trip yourself. You can't, and shouldn't fund his lifestyle for the rest of his life once he's done working.

Yeah, that's a bad plan. Well, 61 or so, somewhere in there you should grow up, somewhere in there, I'm trying to steal, but I'm still trying, but I'm getting there. Riki, Riki is with us, Riki is an orange county, high-riki, how are you?

Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

“I'll just paint a picture as to what the situation is, so I'm in California, so I'm considered”

in the middle of a high-network, based on my income, I have about five million inequities,

two little over two million, four or two at top of that, so we're looking at seven, income around 600 a year. Good for you. My question to you, my question to you is this, it's bothering me that based on discussing what my CPA, that the house that I live in, I guess around 6,000 square foot house, I've

brought up a two and a half mil, maybe it's worth four, three, four, four today. The mortgage is about 1.1, and I know I've been listening to you all the time, but I feel I want to continue to keep the mortgage because it's pretty money, it's at 2.2, 2.3% fixed, but that's the separate issues, but the bottom reason why I'm asking is question

“is, I have a lot of equity hitting there, roughly around 3 million, and I could be given”

the fact of my income, it's not allowing me to write off any of the $30,000 a year in taxes for property taxes, I have zero write off on that, they won't allow me to write off any of the interest, so I'm thinking like based on my return that I'm getting on my equities

where it is before, okay, or the other 5 million, I'm averaging only 12% a year in good

indexes, and I'm doing that on money, I could be making $153,000 a year on that equity, I'm better off maybe renting, given my, I'm not getting any benefit of the right off to being a homeowner, and I don't think in this country necessary, it's a benefit to be a homeowner if you're not getting the ability to pay for the problem as you're analysis is based on a moment in time, rather than projecting into the future, and so your analysis

is flawed, and so I'm calling bull crap on your statement that in America today it's not a good idea to own a house, that's just bull crap, so because you're looking at this particular moment in time, you forgot the fact that this house has gone up several million dollars while you owned it, you seem to leave that out of the equation. But true, but then again, if I were to put, you know, I based on the money.

California real estate is done better than mutual funds. R-O-I, return on investment, period, okay, it's done better, yeah, you can't write off the taxes, welcome to your socialistic state, but that's, you know, that's the problem that you got the way you chose to live, but the issue is that California real estate remains an axle in investment, and so no, no renting and, you know, putting all your equity in an

SNP does not outperform homeowner real estate. I own a whole bunch of both, I believe in both, and all the people that we know that have

10 to $60 million at worst that we coach, mine at worst, several hundred million, own a good

mixture of real estate and mutual funds, and they've owned their own home paid for for decades. They haven't overanalyzed this. Let me tell you something I see all the time. People are working hard, trying to get control of their money, and then their phone bill shows up higher than expected again, and they don't even know why.

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Charlotte and Denver, they're a big hit.

Oh yeah, we had a blast doing them in April, and we finally released the very first one.

Charlotte dropped last week, Denver episode releases later this week. We got Phoenix and Anaheim coming in the next few weeks, and I was on that one with Rachel and Ken. We had 300 people filled with live questions. So you actually get to see the person asking the question, and even better, we bring

the spouse or boyfriend up, and does that make you mean or nicer? You have to be nicer. You can kind of poke a little more, which is fun and be a little snarkier with the live audience, because they can tell it's for entertainment purposes, and you kind of get the crowd on your side or against you, and so that kind of adds a whole another element

to it. So my favorite was how much should my boyfriend spend on engagement ring, and Rachel and he's there. So we bring him up to say, hey, you tell me bud, and so that got into some juicy. Wow.

That's a good one.

“So if you want to go watch it, it's live on our Ramsay Show YouTube channel, Spotify,”

a network app, go check it out. It's like nothing you've seen before on this show with a live audience like that. That's fun. Very fun. Yeah.

Yeah. We got four cities, Denver, Charlotte's already up, Denver will be up this week, and then you'll see Phoenix and Anna have come on in the next few weeks. You don't want to miss these. Every one of the Ramsay personalities had a blast being out there with you folks.

So thank you all for showing up. We appreciate you. John is in Nashville. Hey, John, what's up? Hey Dave, thanks for taking my call.

I am 23, and I am debt-free.

When I first graduated, I got a truck alone and all that, and I got to go figure it out.

So right now I have no idea that I got about 35,000 saved up and trying to figure out what I should do next. Wow. That's impressive. Good job.

What do you make? I make about 60,000 a year and I work for family business, and that's part of my issue. It's coming up with that. What's the issue? First, that first it was me, Mom and Dad, in the restaurant every day, and everything

was going dry, and it seemed like more of the responsibilities, or we're going to push my way. And now it's me and every day, and Mom and Dad don't really work anymore. And he gave me a business college, so the owner operator, but I'm making about 20 bucks an hour, and Mom, yeah, I don't, I don't want them to work all the time, but you know,

Mom's working, no days a week, and Dad will work, you know, one day a week, and day on it. That's tough. Day on it. Right.

So it's a formality that it says you're not an owner operator.

Right. Your an employee. I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say, that's a no value, whatsoever. Okay.

“Well, I mean, could you get a job at another restaurant?”

If you were the general manager of another restaurant, you were responsible for the operations. What would you make? Um, well, I'm not exactly sure. I applied for Bucky's and Murphy's for her.

I applied to be the assistant manager up there, and it does pretty good. Oh. What does that pay? Well, it pays 33, plus benefits and retirement. See, right now, I'm a 1070, see, here's my issue.

So to kick the other house, understandable, I'm 23, you know, it's about time. And so I came and got an apartment, and I started looking at one day getting my own home. And I'm a 1099 employee. No, you're not. And you're not supposed to be.

Oh, I know. Yeah, y'all, y'all screw on that up. You're going to make a mess. You're not an employee. I mean, you're not a 1099, 1099, and an independent subcontractor, you're an employee.

They're going to get there, but find by the IRS. Big time, you're, you guys are going to end up with tax penalties and all kinds of stuff. You need, you need your family needs to get some professional tax advice on how they do pay raw. Okay.

Yeah, this is going to, that's going to get ugly. It's going to end up with a mess. But I think we got a bigger mess, and that is, is that your parents walked off and handed you this thing, but they didn't really hand it to you.

“So I think y'all are just going to sit down and go, okay, dad, what's the plan?”

I'm going to, I'm going to need to get with a tax person. I've gotten financial advice, it says I'm going to get messed up on this 1099, and you're going to get messed up when we get audited. You're not going to like it. So we need to get that fixed, and then we need to get me in there as the general manager

and I need you to be paid like a general manager, which is a base salary plus a percentage of profits. And it's not an hourly, it's not an hourly rate. We see it in, and, I'm sorry, I hate to get it, we keep it in a rupture. What kind of revs is the rest of the producing?

30,000 a month, roughly. Yeah, we got a food truck, so sometimes those numbers can change, but just in the restaurant, that's what I do. They, they'll do the food truck, when we do it. Now this year, they've decided we're rolling on to about five times this year.

Is this their retirement plan, like, is all, are they basically getting paid from the business

and don't have anything else? I'm not sure if we got a plan, that's my fear. That's my fear. I'm really starting to bother me.

“Yeah, I think you need to sit down and say, we've got, okay, Dad, we need to formalize this.”

Lucky's is going to make me an offer of 33 plus benefits and properly pay me on a W2. And so if I'm going to stay in here and I'm going to do all the work, I'm going to need to be paid like a general manager, because I'm general manager, and that's going to be a base salary that's the equivalent of $40 an hour per 40 hour a week, but you're probably going to put in more than 40 hours plus a percentage of profits as your bonus.

And then you need to close the books on the restaurant each month until what the profits are each month.

We see that's part of my problem is I pay all the employees, I buy all the supplies.

So I know, I can do simple math, I know how much it's making and a lot more than me, you know, and, I mean, you are only 23, but you are doing the job. So regardless of your age and your experience or whatever, if you're giving a job, you should be paid to do that job. I'm not asking you to be paid more than the job is worth, but if you weren't there, they

would have to hire a general manager for a salary of 30, 40 bucks an hour average.

“And some kind of a bonus kick based on profits, that's what you would get paid in that business.”

Agreed. Yes, sir. And if you weren't there, that's what they got to do. So if you take the job at buckies, that's what they're going to have to do.

They're going to hire somebody.

Right, and I'm about at the point to where I'm, I'm about to start looking and applying just about anywhere, because it's getting, it's been a little overwhelming. I think you sit down, have a cup of coffee before you do that and say, Mom and Dad, I got a problem. I'm about at the point that I need to go do something else.

The way we can solve that is I need to be paid for being the general manager and I'm going to close the books and we're going to get a base salary and a percentage of profits for being the general manager and we're going to develop a plan where I become the owner of this a little bit of the time over time. And meanwhile, you guys are going to make a lot of money and you don't have to work as much.

I'll take care of running the thing. But if you don't want to pay me to the proper amount to do the job that you've got, then

“I need to go work somewhere else and you need to get somebody in here that's going to enjoy”

doing this, which, by the way, you can't get for $20 an hour. Right, um, that's fair, I mean, you sell that conversation with them. And if they say screw you, you're supposed to work for free, then go get a job somewhere else and let them figure it out. They're not going to say that.

They're not going to say in that, when I told him, hey, I'm looking for a new job, it's kind of like he got aggressive and he took it out. And right, and I didn't want to, I don't want to miss out my family situation, you know. You're not messing it up. They are.

Okay. All you're doing is talking about it. And I wouldn't say I'm going to quit if you don't do this, but I would say, Dad, if we can't work something out that's reasonable here, I'm going to be forced to do something different.

And if he wants to get aggressive based on that, then go do something different. Because you're going to get aggressive every time you have a conversation about this business. And then you're going to build resentment. Can't have a conversation in the relationship anyways. Now, I mean, my son and I get in arguments, we run Ramsay together, but we don't get

an argument every time we're together, we're most of the time we don't have an argument. But occasionally, we just like, nah, we fush and fight. Fight like grownups. Yeah, we fight like grownups. We're arguing about an idea.

We're not personally offended like a four-year old. Okay, guys, let me ask you something. What would it take for you to switch your bank? Because if you're still earning next to nothing on your savings, you need to check out FairWins Credit Union.

And I know what you're thinking it might sound like a hassle. Moving your direct deposit, updating bills, getting a new debit card, feels like a lot.

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You got a high-yield savings account, a no-fee checking account, and the Ramsey Be Weird Devacard. The FairWins.org/Ramsey to learn more and make the switch today. That's FairWins.org/Ramsey, insured by the NCU-A. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi, when you fall behind on paying back

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a payment plan design around their ability to pay. Visit Y-Refi.com/Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com/Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Dylan in New Mexico. I'm aware of your recommendation to invest your money evenly in four funds, small-cap mid-cap

large-cap and international. I also hear you guys regularly reference the average annual return of the SNP over the last 30 to 50 years. Can you provide some insight into how his investment protocol has performed compared to the SNP?

If mimicking SNP performances the key metric, why wouldn't he recommend just parking your money in an SNP index fund? It's a great question. Be I assume meaning Dave per your recommendation for many, many years now. So, inside how this investment is performed compared to the SNP.

Well, the small-cap mid-cap large-cap international, there's not a one fund that we can look at compared to the SNP. But the SNP largely is a bunch of mid-cap and large-cap companies if you look at the makeup of that. So it's just not as diversified as what you're mentioning.

“So, here's the thing, individual mutual funds in the growth mutual fund sector, less than half”

of them beat the SNP. And that was the guy that started the Vanguard SNP index fund, Bogle, John Bogle was brilliant and he discovered that. And so he came up with this idea of where you hear the phrase passive investing.

That's where it first came from.

Where you don't have to worry about it, you just buy the SNP, screw it. Because half the mutual funds don't even beat it. And those people that do that are passive investors, there's an act sometimes called Bogle heads. Because John was actually onto something, he's actual data was correct and is correct.

To this day, half the growth stock mutual funds do not outperform the SNP. But that also means it's kind of like, there's a 60% chance of rain, there's a 40% chance a sunshine. So, I have picked in the four categories, four mutual funds that have outperformed their indexes.

Now, the small cap, the index would be the Russell, small because the small cap is not necessary.

“It's more like an aggressive growth stock mutual fund, right?”

A mid cap would be like a growth, that's more like a, that's a typical growth mutual fund, large cap, typical growth stock mutual. And like you said, the SNP is a mix of those two. And then obviously international, a foreign fund, that's a different index. Okay?

So, what I want to do is pick a fund that outperforms the no-brain way of doing it, the passive way of doing it. And so, if I've got a mutual fund that for 35 years is outperformed the SNP and it's a growth stock mutual fund. And I put that in my four, I've got a small cap that's outperformed the Russell.

And I put that in my four, and so on, well, guess what, the four of them as a group are going to outperform the group of indexes unless they don't do as well as they did in the last 25 years or whatever the number was of the history on the things. So my particular foreign mutual funds that most of my stuff is in, that is outperformed the indexes has outperformed the SNP because I didn't pick one of them that didn't.

That's why. And the other piece of this that we're not factoring in is that that international fund,

international fund usually is up pretty much runs the inverse.

“And so even even a given year if the index, you know, beat your mutual fund set up, you're”

not factoring in the long term of what could happen in the market. But it never has.

My, the four, I picked as always outperformed the SNP every single year.

So if the average in the SNP is 10 to 12, you might be seeing 13, 14. Yeah. I've not gotten 10 points more, you know, it's not 20%. And here's the thing. Let's go back on this too.

It's very interesting. I mean, the way I'm doing it is actually mathematically beating it. So it doesn't answer the guy's question. But the problem with this discussion is always that somebody's having this hypothetical if I had done this thing.

And when we actually have figured out that people who invest in slightly substandard mutual funds way outperform those who never invest or those who jump out or those who are in single stocks, those who analyze everything to the point that they've got an anal problem with it. And it's like, you guys, would you shut up and invest?

There's 100% of the people that invest end up with more money than those that don't. Every time.

“And that's the number you need to concentrate on.”

And so it's not mutual funds versus index funds.

If you actually do the index fund versus the person that believes what we believe and doesn't do anything, I'm on your side. I'm glad I got you to invest in something. Because if you just put money away, you'll have some money. It's magical.

It's also like for instance, we studied all the millionaires we studied. Most of them were not super sophisticated investors. They didn't spend a lot of time analyzing like Dylan is what this is and what I should do. And then there's not a lot of theoretical mumbo jumbo.

They want prodigies. They were sad. They were sad. I got a 401k at work and I'm going to put some money in a gross stock mutual fund. And now I'm a millionaire.

And that's exactly what they did.

I mean, they really didn't, they picked out their mutual fund based on what the guy

and the cubicle next to him was doing. They did not do some kind of sophisticated think tank analysis. But here's the trick. They did put money in investments. They didn't consider and talk about it and not do it.

That's the problem. So the percentage is all go out the window until you actually do it. Yeah, whether it's 12 or 13% doesn't matter if you have no money in the market. So all that to say, Dylan, I have four mutual funds that have outperform the S&P for 30 years. As a group.

Not hard to do. It's really not that tough to do. You can have your smart Mr. Pro say, show me some mutual funds that have a 25-year track record of outperforming the S&P. They can do it.

They're there. Not all of them less than half. But they're there. Okay. And you can put that little portfolio together.

And if it does what it did in the past, it will outperform the S&P. Mine half. But if you don't want to do that, and you just want to put it in the S&P, you're going to end up with a lot of money. We'll all end up rich.

And we'll be happy for you. We're not mad at you. But that's the answer to your overall question. What a great nerdy discussion. It is a fun.

By the way, do you actually cover how to pick mutual funds in our investing essentials virtual event? We've got one coming up later this year. So if you guys want to learn more about that, you can sign up for updates at RamseySolutions.com/events.

“And that's where, but if you want to nerd out like this, you're interested in this kind”

of conversation. You want to know how to build wealth the right way in depth. We'll walk you through it in that event. Yeah. But here's the thing.

I go, we have talked more people into putting money in their 401k and Roth IRAs than anybody in America, because we got them out of debt so that they could do it. And then they believe this year. So they went and did it. It's a margin issue and a little bit of education.

And then there's some not Dylan, but there's some more on the internet going, well, and Dave Ramsey has created more poor people. No, he didn't. He got people to invest while you're sitting with your thumb in your ear. You want to listen in very well if Dave Ramsey made you poor.

I mean, that's pretty wild, that's just, but that's, you know, because he doesn't understand. He doesn't understand how to, yes, I do understand it. You idiot, of course I understand it, but what I'm better at than you are is getting people to actually invest instead of discussing freaking theory. theory doesn't matter until it's applied, you know, I really don't care what you think

about swinging a baseball bat until you swing one, honey. And then we'll talk about whether you can connect. That's how this works. You got a lot of theory going on out there. You got a lot of people that have an opinion out there that have no stinkin' money.

It's all these life coaches that don't have a life. It's the same thing, you know, and so guys just invest, even if you do it wrong, you're

It's a bunch out of shape people talking about workout routines and which one's better.

It's like, yeah. Great, let's go work out. Have a whole Schwarzenegger has created more fat people.

“No, we didn't, no, we didn't, it's just, it's just dumb, okay?”

Seriously, but here's the trick. If you invest, you're gonna have some money. And if you don't invest, you're not gonna have any money. Take some money away? You're not gonna have any money?

[music] [music] [music] [music] [music]

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George Kamel Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Joshua's in Houston, Texas. Hey Joshua, what's up? Hey Dave.

Thanks for having me on your show. I appreciate you taking the call. Sure.

“Let me give you kind of like a brief backstory.”

I'm 31 years old. I work as an HVAC technician. I make around $92,000 a year. But I still feel like I'm drowning financially and living paycheck to paycheck. Over the last year, I spent $22,000 finding custody battle for my son,

which I want to ultimately lost and kind of wrecked me financially.

Right now, I have about $17,000 through a loan. Another $28,000 through a firm loan. And then I have some credit card debt, about $35,00. And I owe some family members around $75,00 because they helped with my attorney fees. I have some student loan, but I'm going to forgive this program with them.

Which I have like zero dollar payments, but they're expected to be forgiven in about 30 years. I've also been in a debt settlement program for about a year now through national debt relief. And I pay them about $600 a month while they're working to settle my debts. I pay about $22,50 a month and rate 650 in child support.

“And they also may be increasing that soon.”

I pay $750 a month in hosting shirts through work and I pay $520 a month for my trip, which is about to be paid off in two months, thank God. And other monthly bills obviously, but I feel like no matter how much I work, I can't get ahead. And I also want to buy a house soon, but I feel stuck.

You're not buying a house soon. I'm not buying a house anytime soon. You're broke. You got a lot of clean up before you buy a house. So let's just set that on the side. And then I mean, and you're getting ready to have the truck paid off. So that's going to free up a bunch of money.

You do know where your money is going. It wouldn't take you long to build your every dollar budget because you've got most of the numbers in your head that are pretty clear. And I still hear room, I still hear room and what you've got. But what you've done is you've been focusing on the heartache of a custody battle.

And you've been focusing every single dollar that you could towards that. And that's been a valid distraction for a year. And now that distraction has passed because you lost. And now you know where you stand. And now you've got to turn around and focus back on cleaning up your mess.

But you really weren't working on the mess before. And so it was sitting there or getting bigger. And now you can work on it. I think you're going to be okay. Well, my question really truly is like.

Now I should I get out of the debt settlement program and pay the $603 that I paid in. And just pay them paid my creditors directly. Probably. You can do what they're doing on your own without tanking your financial world. Because they told you to stop making payments.

Goes into collections and they try to settle. I've already done. Yeah, I've done that for about it. I've been doing it because I did it. I've done it like twice now.

I've gone through different programs. But I've been doing it for about two years. Yeah, you keep looking for one of the programs just right in you out. And you've got to straighten you out.

And that's kind of where it's like I've never really had any real instruction on.

How does put money away while trying to pay off those money? Well, you don't need to put money away. We need to clean up the debt. And then don't go in any more debt.

Yeah, first thing is don't borrow more.

The second thing is we're going to get on a detailed written budget. We're going to give you every dollar our budgeting app. Once you sit down tonight and fill it all out. It's really not hard. I mean, I actually have that.

Okay, then we'll start using it tonight. It's going to guide you through step by step exactly what to do and how to build that out. And then stick to it. And you making enough to pay all these bills and extra on these bills and get written up. Particularly when you get your car paid off.

That's going to free up another 500 bucks a month to be able to attack this stuff with.

“And then if you want to stay in the debt settlement thing until you get this moving, that's fine.”

If you want to step out of it, that's fine. If you want to check with Guardian litigation, they're a different type of program. But they do similar thing. They don't work the same way that we endorse. You could talk to them and see what they can do.

But I think more than anything, you've got to take control of this. And you've been focusing your energies emotionally, spiritually, financially on other things. And that's valid because it was a kid.

And you need to take care of that kind of stuff first.

But now, now we know where we stand. And now it's time to focus on the best dad you can be. And that is cleaning up your life and getting this mess cleaned up. Because dude, if you didn't have any payments, you'd have money to stack. You got serious payments going around that place from everywhere.

And no, we're not waiting 30 years, pay off the stupid student loans. They're just the last thing we're going to get to. When you get to them, knock them out too. List your debts, smallest to largest payment of payments on everything. But the little one and attack the little one with a vengeance.

So hang on. I'll send you a copy of the total money makeover book. Also, which shows you exactly how to do this stuff. And you can read it to go with your every dollar app. And you're be fine.

And you call us back if you want more help. But more than anything, it's focus and being very intentional.

“And I think you can do it with the numbers you gave me.”

You really do know what you're where you stand. And that's pretty stinking cool. All right, juniors, whether it's in Atlanta, how juniors, how are you? Hey, I'm doing well. Good, how are you?

Better than I deserve, how can I help? Doing well, doing well. So, what didn't, there is a long column because a couple of years ago, we went through Hurricane Heline. And unfortunately, with Hurricane Heline,

we had a couple of things that ended up happening. So, we are the best devastations to our home and our property. Things like in Atlanta are removed. It's in Augusta, Augusta hit us hard. Oh, okay.

Okay. Yeah. So, in Augusta, we got hit pretty hard with Hurricane Heline. And, you know, our roof for a deck, again, our fencing. And now, we got a power surge in it up.

And you're messing up our A-C unit. A fast forward. We've been doing band-a repairs.

“Did you not get an insurance settlement at the time?”

So, so we tried to go through the insurance at the time. We had all state. And all state told us that we had a clause that any typhoon cyclone or hurricane related damage

was a 10 percent deductible on the of the entire dwelling coverage.

My home's value is about 350,000 dollars. So, out of pocket, they wanted us to come out. First, 36 grand, roughly. So, what's it going to cost you out of pocket now if you do it on your own? Did you all the repairs on our own?

Well, right now we're going through getting all the estimates for everything that needs to be done. We've constantly, we've been approved. And, say, frankly, lightly because we do. Okay.

For a loan. Hang on. We'll be right back with you. We're going to make sure we get to go to all the details and we'll be back with you in a minute.

All right. Let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions.

Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling.

Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at RamseySolutions.com/agent.

That's RamseySolutions.com/agent. [Music] All right. We're talking with Junior. He's got a house in Augusta, Georgia.

“His damage by Hurricane Elaine a couple of years ago.”

All state doesn't pay out on typhoons and hurricanes. He discovered after the fact. So I'm guessing you have different insurance. Now that you figured out all states, not a good idea. And they pay out, but they wanted a 10% deductible of $330,000 on a $300,000 house.

So now he's got all these repairs that are still remain undone. And that's about how far we got in the discussion. Does that sound right, Junior? Yes, that's correct. Okay.

So what repairs remain to be done today? We are still getting an inspection on our roof. Thankfully, one person mentioned that it's looking good. They're spending to go into the--into that. I need to replace the AC unit.

Our deck is completely done for. And it's only deteriorated over the past year and a half.

And the AC has never been fixed since the hurricane.

It's been bent. We've had a couple of band-aid fixes. And then finally the convention is finally gone out. They said that all that's left to be done now is to-- We've got to put a new heat in there unit on it.

And you need a new deck. And that's what we need. Correct. Okay. And the deck has been that way for two years.

And the heat in there unit just finally gave up the ghost after some band-aids.

“So have you gotten three or four beds on the heat in there unit?”

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Then what do they look like? Yeah, we're averaging at 10,000, 11,000, just depending on what the type of the air unit is.

Yeah. And what's your household income, sir? We're at about 175,000 between my wife and I. Okay. So why can you not come up with 10 grand making 175,000?

Well, the reason why is because since the hurricane, we've had--so we've had two major life events in the past couple of years. So one, my grandfather passed, which-- Anyways, we had some major--some major expenses come out of that. Unfortunately, we've also had some just now money management.

So we're currently in debt.

But we've truly never had been, as far as credit card debt goes.

So how much debt do you-- We've got about $30,000 in debt right now. So why can you not come up with $10,000 with $30,000 in debt making 175 grand? $175,000, man.

Really? Are you taking home 10 grand a month? No. So after all our taxes are taking out, our take home is probably about-- I want to say maybe about six.

No, it's not. You're taking home 72 out of 175? No, there's not $100,000 worth of taxes. No. No.

Are you putting money in your 401(k)? No. No. We stopped that. How much is your--

Are you taking health insurance out? What else is coming out of your check? Yep. So health insurance is coming out. So we do owe one hour on two vehicles.

Out of your check? I'm sorry, my apologies. I'm just pointing out the monthly expenses. Here's the thing. $175,000.

That's $15,000 a month. Okay. You with me? Yep.

“Minus taxes, you should be coming home with 12.”

In 12, minus your house payment, you should be able to save up 10 grand and fix your heat and air. But you guys are just running in a circle station. You're tail instead of getting on a system and making these dollars behave. As you said, Mal handling, right?

Yes, sir. Yeah. And so you got--that's how you ended up with $30,000 in debt. I'm sorry your grandfather passed, but that didn't cost you any money. Did it?

Well, the overnight travel for the families and just the same. So a few hundred bucks or something, but it really wasn't.

I'm not diminishing that, but we don't confuse those things with the math impact.

So you make enough money to have cleaned up this mess long ago. And that's what you should do.

“You should cash flow the heating and air.”

And then you should begin to work on paying down your debt and talking about putting to--there's some money to fix the debt. And out of your monthly income. And are you getting a big tax refund every year? Yes.

Okay. I thought you might be. So you probably need to look at that. You probably have too much coming out of your check. And you're getting it back at the end of the year.

Correct. Yeah, we clean zero. I'll call you around.

What was your refund this year?

This year, being the biggest one that's-- it's been-- yeah, this year was about nine thousand. Okay. Where did that go? So we would still have it in a savings. So you can cash flow the AC with it.

So here's it to buy a heat and air unit. Why are you getting approved for loans? Well, this one wants to do that's VA. The loan? So, correct.

I don't care what it's through. I don't care if it's through your mama. You don't need a loan. You have the money and your bank account to buy heating and air. Go fix the heating and air and start getting the money that you have coming into the

“house and you need to change your take home pay by $700 a month.”

Now, and that's the minimum you need to change it by. So that'll at least that and go in and change your going to more. To network, tell payroll you need an extra $700 a month coming out of your check. Pull the money out of your savings, order a heat and air unit. Call the guy and tell him if it's cash, what's the discount?

Because I'm going to give you cash like Benjamin's. What's the discount? And I want a discount. I want you to get over here and get this thing fixed now. Then I want you to get four beds on the deck.

And I want you to find some guy at your church. Just looking for work that knows how to build decks and get him to build the deck for you at a deal. And he gets work and you get to use some money to do that. And you got $700 a month now to put towards fixing that deck.

And then you start getting rid of these credit cards. You get them out and chop them up. So you just got to sit down by the way you eat an elephant as a bite at a time. You list these different things out that are going on and you fix them. One fix that one, then fix that one, then fix that one, then fix that one.

And you've been very passive and stood back and all of this has happened to you.

“And you're being a perpetual freaking victim and you need to stop it.”

Man, it's killing you.

I mean, I talked to you for seven, eight minutes before you finally

revealed to me, you have the money in your savings account about your heating and air. You buried the lead. That's how screwed up your brain is right now. So dig into this stuff, man, dig into it and get it laid out. Like it was your job because it is your job.

That's what you got to do. Anna is in New York. Anna, what's up? Hey, George and Dave. Very excited to be speaking to you guys today.

So I recently learned earlier today that my husband was hiding. I would say hiding. I'm not being fully honest with the $40,000 worth of credit card that. And I am unsure how to proceed in both our relationship and paying it off. Well, you're being very calm.

I'm trying. Is he alive? Why did he do this? Let him out of the closet Anna. You can't lock him in the closet.

That's illegal. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Well, you rebuilt trust one brick at a time by being trust worthy. And so it's not instantaneous and it's not a system and there's not a switch you flip up.

So he is violated trust. Whether he did it because of shame and didn't want to tell you about it or deception, which is even worse. Either way. I think it's the former. Yeah, either way, he, you know, he regains trust by being extremely transparent.

Both of you getting on the same page and every single transaction is in front of both of you for the rest of your lives. And then you sit down and you go, okay, with our income, how are we going to pay off this $40,000? We're going to cut up a stupid card. We're going to attack it and knock it out as fast as we possibly can. [ Music ]

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.

[ Music ] Well, we love debt-free screams, we love debt-free screams on the debt-free stage in the Ramsey Solutions lobby. We especially love them when it's our own team members. So Gabe is with us, Gabe Fox is a copywriter here at Ramsey Solutions. It's been with us for a whole year over in the Ramsey trusted area.

And he's up here to do his debt-free scream. Did I get all that right, Gabe? That's correct. Absolutely. Very cool.

“So when you moved here, did you move here from somewhere else?”

I did. Yeah. And you came here to take this job? I did. Yes, okay.

And how much debt did you have? I had 26,469 dollars. Okay.

And that's been one year you've paid it off them?

21 months. 21 months. Okay. So since you've been here, it's been half of that, roughly. Yeah.

Okay. Cool. Very cool. And we don't ask incomes on team members because he's got 50 of his friends that work with him standing around here. Don't make it we're not fair and awkward.

Okay. So anyway, what kind of debt was the 26,000? Completely student loans. Okay. And your degree is in.

It's called Integrated Studies with a minor in business. Okay. Very good. Perfect for being a copywriter at Ramsey Dresden. That's right.

No question. Good. Okay. So before you came here, had you just graduated? Is that what the 21 months is?

No. I moved home for a year. Graduated in 2024. I moved back to Texas for a year and then I moved here. Okay.

All right.

And so this was your second job, I guess after college then.

Correct. Okay. Cool. And so how did you start at this get out of that process a year before you came to work here? Correct.

And how did you find Ramsey at that point? So I graduated in 2024. Move back home to work a copywriting job for a Christian TV network back there. And right before graduating, one of my buddies sitting over there. He was like dude.

I was just becoming familiar with Ramsey. I had heard about FPU and a few other books. He's like dude.

“I think that might be something that you should take.”

And I'm like, honestly, I think you're right. So signed out for it. Started taking it. It fired me out. Financial piece.

Correct. Yeah. Okay. What do you want to say about your university crack? Yeah.

Freshly graduated from college. Freshly minted. Yeah. A little two weeks later, bought it and started taking it. Wow.

Okay. And so from then on, there's no looking back. Correct. Yeah. Because once we suck you into that portal, you're going to do it.

Oh, for sure. And then once you got here, did it put things into high gear for you? What changed once you landed at Ramsey? Lots of shaming. We shamed them.

We shamed them at length until they pay off their debt. Well, people don't even hire you unless you're dead for it. He'll not shut up in a lie. Lots of guilt tripping. No, I'm being sarcastic.

“There's a lot of encouragement really in there.”

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. My whole team was encouraging me. They knew where I was at. My whole onboarding team walked me through this and encouraged me to do the

Deafry Scream and it was just so encouraging to have people alongside me. That one had their own stories. A lot of people here have paid off their own debt. And we're just in it with me daily and catching up with me and taking me to the end. Very cool.

So other than the Ramsey team that you've shit with, every day who was cheering you on. I've got four friends over here. Yeah. Went to college with two of them.

And they were with me from the very beginning. When I realized, guys, I've got 26 grand a pay off. And I have a decision right now that could really impact my future. And not only my future, but my family's future. If I go ahead and deal with this now.

And they were, they just sat me sat me down and sent me straight and said, God, or gay, this is this is the time to deal with this. And I said, you know what, you're right. So decided to do it. Boom, gay mom.

I love it. So mom and dad cheering you on too, I'm sure. 100% let me live at home for a year. And I mean, that freed up so much money for me to send to the debt. So massive shout out to them.

So generous offer. Very cool. Very cool. Good to for you, man. And then you've been here a year and finished off the thing.

21 months total for 26,000 dollars. Okay. Now you write copy for Ramsey trusted, which area and Ramsey trusted, which protections? Protections.

Okay. So for insurance.

Out there. And so you're kind of immersed in this stuff every day. But now when you're personally doing this and your buddy from college calls up and says, Hey, what's the secret? What did you do to get out of debt?

What are you telling? It's a great question.

“I think the idea of ownership, just realizing that this is mine to deal with.”

I could look away and I could just act like it's not there for 30 years and look back.

And it's grown to be much larger than it was in the first place.

Or I can decide that I have a decision. I'm an opportunity to transform my family tree, my family's financial legacy. Both are hard. Both are hard in different ways. But I think hard things are worth doing.

And this was a hard thing worth doing. I decided that this decision is going to change my life forever. And just deciding that taking ownership is so worth it. That would be a message that I would share with anybody. Teaching them to take ownership.

Okay. So for all you people out there that when I say there's awesome Gen Zs and a bunch of work here, you just heard it. Okay. You just heard it.

That was a complete mic drop. That's a good hire right there. That's a complete mic drop. I see myself as a story game. Because when I started here, I was 23, 36 grand and student loan debt.

And we did good to get a continuum of sentence out of you. That's true. I was on the struggle. He just preached the sermon.

He gave the study from day one.

It took me a while to to blossom. But I just I love that story.

“Because I go, okay, he's on this trajectory to be a baby steps millioner now.”

Probably in your 30s. If you continue down this path. Oh, sooner. And so it just encourages me that we're going to see a whole new generation of of games who go, I'm not going to wait on the government or student loan for a

given us or make it someone else's problem. I'm going to look in the mirror and go, I'm clean this up. I own this. I'm not a victim. Yeah.

And in 21 months, it's done. 21 years in mediocrity, hoping that someone else changes their life. And you decided, it's my job. Amen. Amen.

Well done, sir. Thank you. Very proud of you. The gang is very proud of you. Got a few hundred people.

I know. Is anybody working anymore? There's anybody working anymore. They all come out and watch debt free screens. I love it.

Gabe Fox, copywriter for protections and ramps. He trusted been with us for the last year. But 21 months ago, he started financial peace university. And he's not paid off 26,000 dollars.

“debt-free, Gen Z, ready to rock and roll.”

Count it down. Let's hear a great debt-free scream. Three, two, one. I'm debt-free. Yeah.

Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ] And crowd goes, wow. That's pretty cool. Man, I love this answer.

Ownership, own it. I did it. I got to fix it. I own it. Personal responsibility.

You call it whatever you want to call it. But I mean, that at any age, once you look in the mirror and you go, you're the freaking problem and you're the solution. Your life has changed. But until you look in the mirror and you say that to you,

you're going to struggle. The rest of your life. And getting people to do this at any age group. That's an emotional maturity, a soft spiritual maturity, that is the same thing.

A soft spiritual maturity that is necessary to be, to be other, I mean, to just have a world-class impact on things. Yeah. I mean, if you can do this with money, now he's going, I can take ownership in every other area of my life.

And so it really gives you agency,

maybe for the first time, to go,

I can affect changing every other area. Yeah. That's encouraging. I'm not going to wait 30 years to pay off my student loans. I'm not going to wait on the government or Biden to forgive my student loan dad.

I'm not going to just knock it out. Just draw back and smack it in the head, man. Just go, you're going down. I own you. You don't own me.

And when you get that going, you get that thing going. You understand the borrowers slave to the lender. And I don't need any more masters. I am so done with masters.

I'm so done with people. Tell me, freaking what to do. What's in your wallet? Jump off a cliff. I don't want to care what's in my wallet.

You're what's in your wallet. Means and dollars for doing them stupid ads. That's what's in your wallet. So no, we don't want, we don't want to listen to some broke actor. This is not no.

No, no, no. I'm not living like this anymore. Not board motor company. Keep it. We don't need a payment.

You know, no. No. It changes everything when you take that ownership. I love this thing. Yeah.

When you have that level of focus. Just for a short time in an ADD culture, you'll be shocked at how far it'll take you. Just being focused on one thing at one time, you will get so much done and be so successful.

Yeah. But it starts with this idea of spiritual ownership and gave, gave and nailed it. So proud of you. I love the man.

Glad you're on the team. Man, we are, we're definitely proud of you. Glad you're here. Yes. Yes.

Yes. This is how it works ladies and gentlemen.

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Our scripture that I second Corinthians for eight and nine,

we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not into spare. Persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down, but not destroyed. A wreath of Franklin said, it's the rough side of the mountain that's the easiest to climb. The smooth side doesn't have anything for you to hang on to.

[Laughs] It makes a good point. Not bad, not bad. Hey, the right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones. And if you're wallet and your wallet, if disaster strikes.

Our free insurance coverage check-up helps you figure out if you have the right coverage by giving you a personalized action plan with clear next steps.

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And be sure you do that. RamseySolutions.com/check-up.

“Andrew is in San Francisco. Hi, Andrew. How are you?”

Hi, good to go and do. That doesn't have to serve. What's up? Good to just kind of calling about an issue I got myself into. A little bit of a backstory. About two or three years ago, I put myself in a bit of a hole.

I had a very good financial year for myself. And then I lost someone who meant to very much to me a good friend. I decided then to take the money that I had after becoming free. And buy in a car. You know, they went to a spoiled myself route to feel better.

I now have a remainder of a balance of $34,000 on a car loan at a horrible interest with a $795 car payment per month, not including insurance in the rest. I also have about $5900 in credit card debt included with about $7,000 in personal loans debt. And I have a baby coming up that is due in August. Cool. How long have you been married?

I'm not married. What does your fiancé make? She's actually a stay home mom. Okay. All right.

And how old are you? 23 years old. One more time tell me what you make.

“I make $83,000 a year gross doing loans up to about what you do.”

I work in, I work in sales. Okay. All right. Fine. Okay.

Well, you're probably going to get a little more than you asked for on this call. But I'm not trying to love you well. If you were my son is 10 years older than you.

But if you were my kid, here's what I would tell you.

The data tells us that people that are married and work together have higher net worth and higher income and live longer than people who are not. These are statistical data. Okay. So when we study millionaires, we find almost none of them shacked up.

Almost all of them are married. This is what we find. That's the data. Okay. So it's a financial advantage, a relational advantage and advantage for your child. A legal advantage for your wife because she has some protections then.

And so I'm my first recommendation to you will be to get married Saturday. That's my first recommendation. Okay. To help you move forward and build your family and let's go from here.

And you make 83. Is that your only debts? Those are my only debts along with the credit card debt. Yeah, credit card debt, personal loans, which was $7,000. Oh, I'm in the car loan.

Okay. Yeah, personal loan. Who are the personal loans to me? Okay. No, I mean, who are they?

Who do you borrow them from? Oh, um, it was an online company called Upstart. Oh, crap. So this is like a payday lender type thing. Uh, not necessarily.

Yeah. It's credible interest rate. Yeah, that's the one I remember. Okay. What's the car worth?

Car is worth an estimated of about $30,000. So I've already looked into getting rid of it. I'm about $4,000 upside down. Okay. Good.

Good.

“So I think I would scratch up the $4,000 first pay minimum payments on the other stuff.”

Let's get rid of the car and get you a $2 or $3,000 car that you pay cash for. Getting rid of that car mistake does two things. One, um, obviously the mathematics are horrible. The interest rate and all of that, the payments crazy, all that stuff. It's dragging you down.

But the other thing is that car is tied to pain. It's tied to psychological trauma for you. So every time you get in it, every time you write a check for it, you know I got ripped off because my heart was broken and I made a bad decision. And it's a reminder of that.

I'd want that reminder out of my life. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. And with that, $800 a month raise.

Yeah. Yeah.

So the first thing I'm going to do is pay minimums or just quit pay in the $7,000.

I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. But I want you to get rid of the car by scratching up $4,000. It's working over time. You got anything you can sell to you.

Have any money saved? Um, I don't have any money saved. I've been trying to work continuously to save up a little bit extra money on the side. Um, I'll do that. The baby isn't here yet.

Luckily. So we're doing August. Oh, great. Okay. She can get married before that.

That's even better. Okay. That's that's very helpful to the data. Okay. Good.

Um. Yeah. Well, I mean, anything she can do to earn money and tell the baby comes. I know she's in her third trimester.

I'm not trying to put her in the salt mines.

“But if anything she could do to earn money, it adds flavor to this, right?”

Because here's the deal. If the faster we get rid of this car, we get 800 bucks. And then the two of us sit down. We do a tight budget. We work.

And then all we got to do is just, you know, knock out a 10, 15,000 bucks. And you can do that in a few months. Yeah. Because most of this debt isn't tied up on this car.

Think about what it would be like to get to Christmas and have zero debt. Man. It was so good. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I want for you. And a new baby and a new wife. Life is good. I'm smiling right now. Now we're moving forward.

I like this a lot. And you've learned you're less than at 23.

And never go on one of these rip off interest rate personal loan sites.

Like you got screwed. And you got screwed on the car, too. Yes. I did. Yeah.

It was a very bad issue. The good news is you got the whole rest of your life. It's screwed again because now you know what it looks like. And you got him not signing up for that. I don't care what you do.

You can do whatever you want to do. I'm not signing up for that. You can have a gun. I'm not signing up for that. Ever.

Again.

“I'm not going to let myself get screwed ever again.”

You got a beautiful life ahead of you. Only 23. I went broke when I was 28 in file bankruptcy. I've had a beautiful life since then. Because I learned a lot of stupid but stuff about myself during that time.

And there's a lot of stuff I never do again. So you got a great thing going here. I'm so proud of you young man. You're going to be great. This is going to be so good for you.

All right. I'm going to give you a wedding gift. So kind. Let me give you a copy of George's book. Oh, perfect.

Yeah. Happy to give that away. And a copy of the total money makeover books. Since you and I are the ones that took the call. And the baby's going to have a mommy in a daddy.

And they make $85,000 a year. And he's 23 years old. And he's going to get rid of people screwing him. All these car companies. All these payday lender types.

I was upstart. Upstart this. Yeah.

Upstart just had 30 million people say you suck.

Upstart. I hope you heard that. We just told 30 million people you suck. You screwed a 23 year old kid. And you deserve for everybody in America.

And I bet they're marketing is like, we're the lifeline. We'll give you the financial marketing is like, we suck. But come do it anyway. That's their marketing line. Just it's like, like so far, right?

Yeah. We have a stadium. Who do you think paid for that? Yeah. You, you interest.

And you. And you. And there are people that we help. Yes. We're helpful.

That's what we are. Oh man. I'll tell you what.

Well, it's funny that the villains will happily show up in your life when

you're so desperate. And they'll act like they're the hero. That's a scary part. Where you're now?

“You'll get an Instagram ad going, oh, finally.”

Relief is here. No, that's not relief.

That's 600% interest on your payday loan.

Relief is when I get upstart. Not the song. Unless you're selling. How do we name? We don't want to name.

You people ought to be it.

“I bet your mother's ashamed of you if you work it upstart.”

Oh my gosh. Wow. Hey, hang on. And hurry.

We're going to give you a couple wedding gifts and congratulations on

your wedding this weekend. That's exciting. I love that Dave just planned the wedding for you. The man should be in the wedding planning. Totally.

A sumptive close. Yes, no question. I wonder how many people you've convinced to get married. Otherwise wouldn't have. That's a beautiful thing.

It's a wonderful thing. And you're not even ordained, I don't think. That's not yet. You never know. I'm a lot of things.

That's not one of. We'll be back with you before you know it.

“In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial”

piece. And that's to walk daily. With the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. [Music]