If You Want Wealth Do What Wealthy People Do

Brought to you by the every dollar app, start budgeting for free today. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Normal is broken common sense is where.

“So we're here to help you transform your life”

from the Ramsey Network and the Fair Wins Credit Union. This is the Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality number one bestselling author, co-host of smart money happy on my daughter is my co-host today. The phone number here is Triple 8, 825, 5225,

Robert is in Houston. Hey, Robert, how are you? Hi, Robert. Hi, Dave. I'm doing good.

How are you doing? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up in your world? Well, me and my wife are $250,000 in debt.

Basically, on our business.

We're thinking on shut down our business because we've been self-restrauted. We don't have enough sales and we kind of care because basically we've borne money from our wife's credit and we're scared that if we close our business

we won't have any money for our next month. What kind of business is it, Robert? Well, we own a food trailer dealership, so basically my wife's father manufactures them and we are just the dealership. We just sell them to the people that want to start their own business.

Okay. And who do you owe the $250,000 for?

So basically $200,000 are for inventory, basically traders

that my father-in-law has bills for us. And just we wouldn't be able to pay back. And then the other $50,000 has been just $30,000 in car loan and $20,000 in personal and great car debt. Okay, so that's not business, that was just a car you couldn't afford.

Yeah, basically the car that we have is a truck that we used to tow those traders and deliver them because we thought that will be profitable if we do ourselves deliverings.

“How many trailers do you have on the lot right now?”

I have two right now and I have another extra two that are getting built. Are they being built custom for someone? Yes, they are already sold. Okay, and the two that are on the lot are not sold. So you got a $100,000 a piece in those two?

I'll say about 60. A piece? Both of them. So where does 200 come from if you have two at 60? I don't understand.

I think maybe we've been living on a live that we've been in a Ford. Who lives with the money? My wife's father.

So basically he's been putting the money from his pocket to build him.

Did he start building them before you had the dealership? Yes, yes. How was he selling them back then? He was working with another company that was selling them before another dealership. But if you complete the two transactions you've got on the line and you sell off the two that you've got,

he gets most of his money back. Yes, but I... And then you don't have a child. Yes, I have to also get some money to equip them to those traders. I'll say on profit, I'll probably be getting around $40,000 on the four traders that I have.

They take down the inventory. But let's pretend that we're just trying to get your father-in-law whole by selling the four trailers off the two in production and the two on the lot. And he gets all of his money that way. You don't get any money out of those.

And then you sell off the truck and you get a job. He's gotten out of your out of the business. You're not making money in this business. You're losing money, right? Yes, correct.

So why would you keep doing it?

“I mean, I think that in my wife, it's the only thing that we've been doing.”

Yeah, but you're not making money. Yeah.

Especially that theory of you're just...

You're comfortable where you are because it's all you know. And even though it's not smart, it's just...

“You continue to stay because it's the only thing you know, right, Robert?”

So it is... It's the uncomfortable reality of you're going to have to go learn and do something new. In order to make money because as we continue pushing on this, it's just... It may be worth it. It may be worth sitting down with your father-in-law and asking him if he sees a better way to run your business.

Because I don't know what you're doing wrong. I don't know if there's enough volume and food truck trailers or not. I don't know enough about that business. It doesn't sound like you're moving enough units to make a living, though. Correct.

Yeah. I don't add...

Just because he needs a dealer doesn't mean you need to be in business losing money.

And just because you've only done this and you don't have to do anything else yet, doesn't mean you need to be in business losing money. You could be at FedEx stack in boxes and make it more money than losing money and not have all this debt. Yeah. And then figure out what you want to do from here.

Well, right now we wanted to get rid of our inventory. We're discussing that and just stop our business. And we wanted to also get rid of the truck. Yeah. Because it's almost a thousand dollars.

You sell the four trucks at a profit and you use all of that money to clear the debt with your father-in-law. And you sell the truck. You're back at even about aren't you.

Right now the truck is worth around the $11,000 because I've put a lot of miles on it.

A lot. Okay. Well, then you're probably not going to be even on that.

“But dude, you have to go get a career now where you go make money.”

And you got to be thinking about what that's going to be because this business is not operating at a profit. Businesses have to operate at a profit. They don't get to hang around. That's a cold, hard reality. And I don't know enough about that to tell you how to fix it.

But it doesn't sound like you don't think it's going to be fixed. So you can't just sit there and rearrange the debt shares on the Titanic dude. I mean, you've got to do something else. And so we got to figure out what we're doing. And let your father-in-law know, I'm going to give you all the money from these four trailers to get you out.

His whole, as I get you as close to what I owe you as possible. And then I'm going to go get a job and get rid of this stupid truck that is eaten my lunch. And, you know, then I'm going to start making money from my family and moving on. That's where I would be. But it sounds like you've got the big thing is this, okay?

There's two real problems you're facing. And I know because I've been there myself. I closed a business and went bankrupt in my 20s. Number one, your dream is dying. You have this dream that this is going to be this wonderful thing.

You're going to own your own business. America, the beautiful, the free enterprise system. And you're going to get rich. And that dream has died and it hurts.

“And you need to grieve the death of the business.”

Number two, you're embarrassed in front of your father-in-law. Because he's over making trailers and you can't make a living sauna. And he feels like he's a good business guy and he's helped you. And, you know, he's barely even going to get all over his money back. Even if he doesn't get at all back, it's going to be close.

That's embarrassing. And those are feelings that I have had. They're not fun feelings. But riding the Titanic all the way to the bottom of the ocean is also worse. So make a call, dude.

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Monique is in Philadelphia. Hi, Monique. How are you?

Hi. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hi. So I'm new to baby steps 4, 5 and 6. I feel like it's taking me quite some time to get here. And so I'm super excited. However, I have a baby to next month and doing baby steps 4 with the 15% of my retirement. You know, everything is really scary with upcoming expenses that I know will take a fact once my maternity leave is out.

So I guess I'm just looking. I don't know if my mindset is wrong or my budget is incorrect. But I just need to encourage men or someone to walk me through. Are you going to be paid while you're on maternity leave, Monique? Yes. Yes. But you're just talking about like after maternity leave the daycare kicks in and wow.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. And just affording that 15% along with the rest of my budget. Yeah. Well, I mean, just let your budget out. You can look at it. You know what the daycare is going to cost already, don't you? Yes.

“Okay. And you've got it. You know, if you have no payments but a house payment, you should be able to do daycare in 15%.”

Well, I have two other children as well that are in daycare.

Yeah. I don't have three kids in daycare. And while you had that, you are already reducing debt. How much debt have you paid off? I've been debt free for a little over a year or not. Well, year and a half, but I pay off like 80 grand. Good for you. Are you single?

I'm engaged. Okay. When are you getting married? I'm getting married next year. Why? Why?

So it's more so mean. I was married before. You have a baby. I'm sorry. You have a baby.

Yeah. I assume with him. Yeah.

“I mean, you kind of already made these decisions.”

Yeah. So my fiance wants an actual wedding. And -- Why? Yeah. And so --

We're grown up with three kids. Yeah. So the wedding is coming, but we plan for it to be early next year. Yeah. I would do a party early next year and get married the next 20 minutes.

You are in an extremely legal and financially vulnerable situation. My good friend. I am scared for you. And you're worried about putting 15% away in retirement. And you're not even married and you have three kids.

Yeah. This is very, very important that you guys get this solidified. I would be in the pastors of the judges office this weekend and we'll have a party next spring. I don't want you hanging out the over the edge of this cliff anymore. You're scaring me to death. I understand.

Because he is the guy you want to marry. Correct. Yes. Yeah. You're making babies with him.

I got back from deployment. And I found out I was pregnant with a two or three weeks after that. So it was a shock to me. And --

“I'm just curious about how much do you make a year, Monique?”

Yeah. So I make institutions that income, but my main job is 81,000. You give them part-time military. Okay. I make 12,000 a year from that.

And then I give a few child support as well. And that comes out to be like 24,000 years. Okay.

I think that's 15 percent that is strained in your budget.

That is your money only. You're not including him. Correct. The 15 percent. I know what you're trying.

You're a single mom with three kids. Yeah. That would be straining. How much does he make a year? He makes --

Well, when he does taxes, it came up to being like 36,000 or so. What does he do? I do. So he works for a John Cormerval company. He's like the sole employee.

But she's about to take over.

It's very lucrative. There's no square meter. Well, not for him. What will it be when he takes over? No.

What will he be making? So it would be over. Well, it's made a little over 200,000. I'm not sure what his boss brings him.

“All we know is he's gone on vacation every week.”

Okay.

So here's the thing, huh?

Here's the thing. Yeah. You call me worried about ability to put away 15 percent because you're in an untenable situation and you're very vulnerable and hanging over the edge of a cliff. This all is solved.

The day you get married and you combine your incomes. Which is what should happen for this child. It's what should happen for you. And it's what should happen by Saturday. And then all of a sudden you have an income up over a hundred thousand dollars.

The two of us are doing a budget together because we're already planned house. So the house, you know, nothing else changes. And so we're now doing a budget together like grown up married people. Instead of two roommates. And you've got all the responsibility of three kids.

One of which is he is. Right? Okay. So he needs to marry you Friday. I'm going to come get him.

I'm serious. This is not good for you, my daughter. You ever heard of a shotgun wedding? I got a shotgun. Okay.

So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to sign line this up. This is serious time. This is really, really good. It's the right thing for everyone involved. There is no excuse for anyone at big wedding.

That ship sailed when you were 19 kid. Okay. You're not playing in that world anymore. Now you're playing in the real grown-up world where we have taxes. And we have trying to hand over our business from your boss.

You got daycare coming out your ears. And no wonder you can't say 15%.

“So no, yeah, you need to take your child support.”

You're in common. His new fabulous income. Put it all together and make a every dollar budget because you've got married Friday together. And then let's go build a life together because that's what all the data tells us is how you win. The data tells us that if you persist in this methodology, you're going to have one tenth of the net worth of your married friend.

One tenth. Okay. It doesn't work. That's why I'm for your sake passionate about this. And I want you to win.

I want you to have a good life.

And the data says those that shack up.

The lady has one tenth at 35 years old of the net worth of her married. I mean, honestly. And she wants everyone that's going to be walking out. If that's the case. Yeah.

He's running in an out making babies. This is got it. You guys got to get this lined up, man. It's just it's the best thing for everybody involved. So with the assumption that he is the man you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with and all things.

If you don't, he shouldn't be your fiance. Right. That's what I'm saying. And if you don't, but I think that. But I think the mindset today is it's we can get engaged and we'll figure out the wedding later.

It's almost like a student of saying that that's the mindset though. I think there's a child that needs a dad. I don't think you get to make this up. You know, you got to get this. I know.

But maybe he wants to go family. Yes. I agree. And in a perfect scenario, that would be the case. That's my hope for Monica.

But also. Yeah. Yeah. And that he's a horrible guy. Like, you know what I mean?

You've got to be doing any of this. Right.

“That's what we shouldn't have even been having this conversation.”

Protecting. Yeah. And making sure that this is it for her. But if it is to the point that, yeah, we have to start making growing up decisions. Well, she didn't say she was allowing the marriage to all the spring because he was a horrible guy.

And she should marry. I agree. She says because he wanted a party. I know. We.

I'm just saying that everyone out there listening is this has been a trend that we see. Yeah. And we're going to have a party. And we're going to have a party. And we're going to have a party.

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[MUSIC] This is a weird show.

“I started doing this show as a talk radio show almost 40 years ago.”

And people would call in off a talk radio. When Rush Limbaugh is a big deal. Dr. Lara was a big deal. Dave Ramsey was a big deal. That was all on that AM band.

And a few FM talkers. And I'm still on 640 talk radio stations.

We're still the second largest talk radio show on America.

So that's kind of the genesis of this thing. It's where it started. But it started back then. And it stills to this day. Talk radio is generally two things.

It's generally politics. Mainly Republican. And it's generally sports. And that's pretty much it. And then there's this weird thing called the Ramsey Show.

The drops in the middle of this. And the Ramsey Show is where we teach you what we have learned. Some of it we learned the hard way. I have a PhD in DUMB. I've done plenty of stupid stuff.

And I can show you where the pot holes are. Don't run into them.

“Some of it now that we've made a lot of money over the years.”

We have a research department. We have 1,000 team members here at Ramsey. All kinds of things other than this show. But that includes research on millionaires. Research on everything.

Especially around the money piece. We've got other shows and podcasts that are vastly popular. Like Rachel does smart money. Happy hour. Dr. John Deloni show is massively popular.

Best selling books of all kinds. And across those things. So that the whole premise of the whole thing though is to teach you Gods and grandma's ways of doing things because they work. It's called Common Sense and Common Sense is so rare in America.

That it's like having a superpower. And you can just start with the idea that even if I'm getting in your face or one of us is, it's because we love you. And we want you to win. And that formula has propelled us to be one of the biggest brands in the entire marketplace.

It's a simple formula. And so when we're coming up with something, sometimes something is our opinion, sometimes it's data based based in data. And sometimes it's based in 35 years of doing this. I got socks older than some of you.

So I know what the flip I'm doing. This is not my first ride on the cabbage truck. So some of it's based in that. And some of it's based in the research that we've done and think observable trends. And some things we have shifted and some things are based on principle.

And we don't shift them based on principle.

This whole marriage thing never came up in the first 20 years of doing this show.

It was not a big deal. But in case you didn't know, if you're an old fogey like me, I'm not just bringing this stuff up because I'm an old fogey. And I'm an out of touch boomer or something like that. Although those things might be true.

But that's not the basis for the argument. The basis for the argument is I love you number one and number two. It is the data tells us this. And there's all kinds of data now on this. It's hardcore.

Today, if you didn't know, more people live together that aren't married, than live together who aren't married. And that line crossed about 11, 12 years ago.

“And I remember the first time I read it.”

It kind of blew my mind because I'm an old school. The dinosaurs used to play my backyard. I mean, it was, you know, I'm that guy. So, but here's the actual, here's a couple of the pieces of the data.

and when he was president, had a whole another set of research done,

“that was detailed and very good research done,”

called the success sequence. Listen to this. If you can teach your children, or if you are still young enough that you can do these three things, do them in this order.

If you first graduate from high school,

then get a full-time job, then get married, then have kids. High school before babies, marriage before babies, full-time job before marriage, and before babies.

Real simple. Doesn't say what kind of job you don't have to be a doctor or a lawyer. If you graduate from high school and then get a full-time job, and then get married, and only then do you have children.

“97% of millennials who completed all three steps in that order”

were at middle income or higher by their mid-30s. Only 3% were in poverty. All the people living in poverty violated that success sequence. 97% who followed that success sequence are not in poverty. That's a huge number.

That's everybody. When you statistically adjust 3% goes away. Okay. Within a 3% margin of error, which means it's all of them. Okay.

Now, median net worth of married households is greater at all age levels. Marriage households at 35 years old had 13.8 times, 13, 14 times of the wealth of an unmarried female, and almost five times the wealth of an unmarried male.

“So more than 15 times our last caller is off on net worth”

if she doesn't follow the sequence, or get back in line in the sequence as fast as she can, the way I was telling her to do.

Marriage Americans in their 50s have more than twice as much net worth of divorced and never married Americans.

And we're just going to live together in act like we're married our entire life and it's because we're all hippies. The data says you suck. That's what the data says. You failed.

Epically. That's what it says. We did our own Ramsey study of millionaires, the largest study of millionaires ever done. 46% of Americans are married. 80% of the millionaires are married.

Marriage men earn 26% more income than unmarried men. Apparently she has a stick and she beats your butt out the back door to go get a job. Marriage couples also benefit from dual income. They reach goals faster. They have tax advantages married filing jointly.

They have more retirement contributions with spouse or IRAs, etc. So they end up with more money. Hello. Marriage men live eight to nine years longer than unmarried men. Apparently women keep them from doing stupid stuff.

You're not going to drive that, are you? You're not going to eat that, are you? You're not going to climb out there, are you? Women live four to six years longer. This is shorter ladies.

The ladies don't get as much health benefit. Better recover from health. If you have a major health thing, you have a 20% better survival rate from cancer if you're married. This is actual data. Lower rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, fatigue syndrome, especially in men and in women in their 50s.

This is data. All the data reports that married people have more sex and better sex. That's what all the surveys tell us. And all the data comes in. When the research is properly done and controlled for, there is a huge advantage to doing the stuff right.

And so you can call me names and you can put all your crap and bull crap on. Read it about Dave Ramsey's out of touch or whatever, but you just don't have any data to back up your stupid but opinion. That's your problem. And we do. And so we're going to tell you the truth.

And in some of you are not going to like it, oh well, you'll have to listen to something else. Because this is called the Ramsey Show, which means it's like our opinion, not yours. So in ours is based in the fact that we love you, we want you to win. And it's based in the data and the 30 years of experience of doing this.

10 million families have been through financial peace and diversity.

Shut the hell up.

“You don't know what you're talking about.”

10 million people say you're an idiot.

I'm serious. You know, it's like the funny hilarious money used to bother me. This is so funny. It's so funny. I was so bad read it.

It's awful. I don't get all of it. It's a sewer. Don't read it. I don't get in it.

I try to stay out of it for that reason. But it's just people are so stupid. So here's a funny one. Okay. I have to go back and look at it.

But there's something like 60,000 people have left ratings on the total money makeover book.

I've sold almost 20 million of them.

Okay. The book has a 4.75 stars out of five. Which means almost all five stars. And yet after thousands, tens of thousands of people leave five stars. Some genius comes on and says, "I'm going to leave a one star."

Obviously you're wrong. I think you can. Oh, you can. But you're obviously just stating how stupid you are. Based on the survey that the data that's in front of you.

Not based on the book. Not based on me.

Let's talk about something nobody wants to think about until it wrecks their budget.

Medical debt is one of the biggest financial landmines in America today.

“And that's why health trust financial is the only health insurance provider Ramsey recommends.”

You guys a lot of people have medical debt, even with health insurance. Because you can pick the wrong plan, pay big monthly premiums, and still get slammed with huge out of pocket cost later. And if you're self-employed or you run a small business, you're paying 100% of that bill. But health trust financial shops multiple top-rated carriers with no extra cost or pressure to help you get the right plan while finding you big savings. And they don't just look at the cheapest one.

They help you understand deductibles and networks out of pocket costs, so you don't get surprised later. And most people who work with health trust financial save up to 50% on their health insurance costs. That's real margin you can put towards working the baby steps instead of medical bills. So don't let one hospital visit sabotage your financial plan. Go to healthtrustfinancial.com and protect your budget.

That's healthtrustfinancial.com. If you want to get on the same page with your spouse, or you want to just be able to feel in control with your money, you have to have a plan. If you manage money for a company called you Incorporated and you manage money for you and corporate, the way you manage money for you now, would you fire you? Well, then don't expect a prosper, hello? So sit down, lay out a game plan in detail, address the issues, on paper, on purpose before the month begins.

The way to do that on a digital world is the world's best budgeting app, every dollar, and it will hold your hand and coach you the Ramsey way all the way through. You can download the every dollar budgeting app for free in the App Store or Google Play and I suggest you do that immediately.

“Sofia is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi, Sofia. How are you?”

I'm good, no, yes. Better than I deserve, or what's up? Okay, so I'm calling to see if I should sell my house or keep it. And I'm questioning if I should sell it, maybe just to try to build a wall faster, maybe pay off the home sooner. I just recently did a new build in December 2024, and it was a total of 3.617 days. And I put a down payment of 36,000, 160,000, which last month was alone of 325,000, 500, $3.

For a monthly payment of 2,454 dollars and 98 cents. Now, the thing about is I just recently started listening to you guys, and the $2,500 of my monthly payment is technically almost 50% of my income. I'm bringing in 5,200 a month. Does the 5,200 a month have health insurance taken out before you get it? Yes.

Does it have 401k taken out before you get it? Correct. Okay, that is not the number that we're talking about. Okay. You're taking home pay that we're talking about is just net of taxes only.

Okay. So if you add back the health insurance and your 401k contributions, that's the percentage we would want to be lower. What's your income?

So you're making 75 or 80? Yeah, I'm like that, 83. Okay. Are you getting a tax refund?

I did, this year, my first, we're not my first year, but only because I can give my mortgage insurance.

And that was my first time item my theme. And so how much was your tax refund? It was like 1500. Okay. All right.

So that's another $100 a month, plus $125 a month, plus that you would add back in, because you're taking having too much taxes taken out of your check. Yes. You follow me. So if we add 125, plus health insurance, plus 401k, 401k, this doesn't sound quite so dire anymore. I suspect.

“What do you think it's more at than 40% Sofia, if you had to guess?”

Yeah. I think so for my 401k, I do technically it's $277 and 50 cents a check.

So I get 28, twice a month, almost 400 a month, plus I do $60, $8 in, twice a month, that's my medical insurance.

And my HSA is $75 a check. Okay. So that's like $60, $640, you could add back in. So it wouldn't be super significant from a percentage of the avoidance. And the reason I also ask is because I do have a deteriorating eye condition, and so at some point I could lose my vision completely.

There's not like an estimate of time of when it can happen, because it varies by person. And so that's just kind of like one of my fears, well, what if it could be five years? It could be 25 years. I'm 41. Okay.

Well, I mean, you don't have enough house payment that I am panicked with the thing, but the adjustments that we've just made, but it is a little bit tight. And is your income been going up pretty steadily? Yeah, luckily I do get a valid 2% cost of living life a year. And not much, then. Yeah, that's not going to bail you out anytime soon.

All right.

“Okay. Well, just the warning that you have to give yourself is, no, you don't have to panic and put a for sale sign on the art today.”

But there's two problems. One is you don't have enough margin to be able to build an invest, like you need to, and two is without any margin to save. Everything that comes up is going to be a potential debt in the future. Are you carrying any debt other than the house? No.

And I'm able to save about like a thousand a month after like, you know, my utilities and students. You're a very precise person. Okay. Well, I think you're going to be okay. You got to just make sure the next car is cash.

The heat and air goes out. It's cash. You've got your emergency fund in place. It's cash. And I would say though, if you look up in six months, Sofia, and you're still

strained and life is miserable because of this house, your house is supposed to be a blessing.

“And when it eats into your income, so much, you know, there may be a world that you're like, you know what?”

It's not worth it. I would rather have half the house, half the mortgage, and enjoy my life a little bit more, right? I mean, being stretched so thin can be exhausted. You're not though.

You've got a thousand bucks margin, which is amazing.

So give yourself a little bit of time. But I would say if you do look up, your house is not worth stressing and losing sleep over. And so if you wanted to downsize, you got to factor in fees and, you know, commissions and everything that goes into the final purchase price. But I wouldn't be mad if you did decide to make that move. Yeah.

The good news about you is you're so precise and detailed in planning that it's not going to sneak up on you. You're going to know long time. You get stress relief and anxiety relief from details. Well, if you know the details, you're calmer, right? Correct.

Yeah. I could tell by the way, you're $207.14, hello. I mean, you know, that kind of stuff, right? So that's the beauty of who you are. And that's going to work to your advantage because what happens when you can be strained by the house.

We call it house poor is it sneaks up on people. And then they go, oh, I got to have a car. Why don't I have any money? Oh, I got to put a heat in America on that. Oh, why don't I have any money?

And you're going to know. You're not going to say why don't you're going to exactly where your money is. So via, do you have do you have a lot of savings just on the side for an emergency? Right now, I have about 7,000 and I'm trying to. I would like to do six months just because of my vision.

Yeah, you need to.

And I don't drive.

So it would have to be like a remote job.

Yeah, your $1,000 savings needs to all go on emergency funds right now to get it up to where you need it to be. Because again, that savings is also going to give you pad and the keeping up with the detail and a big podcast. She's going to remove stress for you. And then if you can see the thing that the numbers start to go the wrong way. You can sell the house like Rachel said.

But for today, as long as you're not feeling so pinched, you can't breathe. I would not keep it if it's bothering you. But I don't hear it bothering you. You're just the only thing you were concerned about was that the renting show said your ratios were off. Yeah.

And they are off. But they're not we off. Like we thought when we first started the call. So yeah, you're going to be fine. But cause you're such a planner.

“And because of what you're facing medically, I guess you have to be, right?”

And that's just a really good way to react to your situation overall. And I would apply the same diligence to career options that you could look at add and move towards. As your site starts to go and you know, depending on the timeline, like you said it might be two years. It might be 25. You don't know.

So we'll pray for the 25 or never.

That'll either one of those will be fine, right? But in the meantime, yeah, let's start thinking about what our next thing is that we can make 80,000 dollars doing with even if this medical condition gives us a fit. So I think you're pretty impressive girl. I think you're sharp. So I think you're going to be okay.

But don't let, don't keep the house if it steals your life. That was Rachel's tune, and I agree with that one. Wow. Real estate is awesome until it's not.

“When you buy real estate and make your broker, that's why they call them brokers.”

Be careful, don't buy too much. [Music]

This show is sponsored by Better Help.

Summer is here and whoa, everything changes this time of year. The kids are at a school, routines are out the window. You're traveling more, probably sleeping less. And if you're not careful, you and your family can end up running on fumes. I know, I'm running on fumes right now.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show and the Fair Wins Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz is my co-host today. Nicole is in Philadelphia. Hi, Nicole. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up? So I'm about to get married to my fiance and we're looking over our budget because we want to be on the same page financially. And I'm realizing that he really prioritizes giving, which is something that I agree with, but it's getting to the point where he doesn't want to put anything in savings

because he wants to trust in the work provision in our lives. And so I was just wondering if you guys had any advice on that or how you decide what to fix. Wow. What a great guy.

“Honestly, I mean, seriously, I mean, you can find somebody that gives like that and as a heart”

like that, he's going to be a great husband because he's going to take care of you. You're going to, you guys are going to, you're going to prosper. He just needs to fine tune his doctrine of understanding a little bit because he's off biblically, he's off. Okay. Because the Bible is very clear in the house of the wise,

proverb says, our stores of choice food and oil. And when Solomon wrote that, choice food and oil were signs of wealth. Oil kept the lamps lit in the temple and the holy of Holies.

Of course, choice food was only eaten by aristocrats.

Everyone else got hummus. This is the Middle East. Okay. Everyone meat was a rarity. It's choice food like you and I eat every day as a sign of wealth. So again, in the house of the wise, our stores of choice food and oil, wise people save money.

Okay. They don't cop out and say, I'm going to trust in the Lord's provision, although we all need to trust in the Lord's provision. Wise farmers plant corn. They don't look at the mud and go, I'm going to trust in the Lord's provision.

They sow because they know they're going to reap what they sow. Right? Yeah. So there's a cause and effect thing that the Bible is very clear on. The Bible also says that if you don't first take care of your own household,

you're worse than an unbeliever. So when you're generous to the point that your own household is at risk, that's not biblical.

“How do you decide what puts your household at risk and what is?”

Well, I think that's the ultimate discussion between the two of you. But we certainly have to have needs covered and that includes saving. That we have to have needs covered and that includes basic provision for the home.

And so we don't give away a million dollars and mom drives in 93 canry.

Right. See, that's automatically. We can look at those ratios and go something screwed up here. Yeah, and the thing about looking at it through a spiritual lens is, God gives us a brain.

Reason is also a major pillar, especially when you look within cathalses on the Orthodox Church. I mean, reason is godly as well, right? So when it just doesn't make sense, it's okay to plug in your common sense and your reason to say, "Oh, that feels a little bit off." It feels like when we live on the edge of a cliff month to month,

probably not the wisest thing overall when it comes to our levels of stress and anxiety. Like the warnings about money and scripture is about a level of trusting so much and something, worldly like wealth. It is, I mean, like that there's major for sure warnings about where it's positioned in our lives and our call of, are we worshiping it more than something else, right? I mean, like all of that is very real.

“But living at the edge of that admit, that makes no, that that's not sensical, right?”

And I think God does understand that he gave us a brain to Nicole. So there is like a level to say, "It's okay for you to tell him." That just doesn't, that doesn't make sense logically, too. A lot of worse things can be said about you at your funeral, though, other than your generous. Yes, sure.

He was your, you ever heard the phrase he generous to a fault? No, but if you're the applicable one. Yeah, it's kind of an old-fashioned, it's kind of an old-fashioned piece of language, right? Generous to a fault. And that's what it is.

And, but if you're going to have a fault, that's a pretty good one to have, you know? Because it's such an indication for us. Wonderful warm heart. Yeah. Good man smiles a lot.

Easy to get along with. He's not stressed out over stuff. I mean, this guy is just a good guy. I already like him. I just want him to tune his biblical knowledge a little bit to make sure his family is cared about.

“Yeah, that's why I hear a new Nicole calling to be like, "I love him."”

And it's great, but also there's a little of a shakiness there that's not stable that I don't like. Yeah. And I don't want to, I'm not accusing him of this yet. But if he persists in this, I'll accuse him of it. Okay.

Because here's the thing.

I get people through, I mean, I meet these people. I'm a Christian and I've always said this is biblical based stuff on the Ramsey show. I've always taught in churches all this stuff. And so, but I get my brothers and sisters and cry some of them are over-saved. And they, you know, they like, "We're not going to buy health insurance.

We're going to pray." No, you're an idiot. And don't be an idiot and call yourself a Christian. That's dumb. Okay.

You need to take care of your family. Yes. No, I'm not going to have life insurance. God will take care of. Yeah, you ain't worried about it.

You're going to be dead. How about your wife and kiddo? They need some money when you're dead. So, you need life insurance. I mean, this is, so this vibe, like you said.

Yes. God gave you a brain, use it. Yes. You know, and don't blame your stupidity on Christianity. It makes those of us that use our brain that are Christians ashamed of you.

Don't do that. Now, your husband's not in that category. I'm not putting him there. But if he persists in this, I'll put him there.

to where it includes saving and it, and that is not evil.

You're not hoarding. Larry Barcat, the most famous teacher in evangelicalism on Christian money. A biblical finance is where I learned a lot of things from many, many years ago. He's been gone several years. He's been in heaven a long time.

But Larry used to say, the only difference in saving and hoarding is attitude. It's not an amount. It's why are you doing it? And so yeah, you need saving and you need wise, careful spending and you need giving.

“And you need to teach your kids to do all three things.”

And by the way, you're going to have wonderful children from this guy. This guy is going to be a great dad.

I mean, generous people are the easiest ones to work with.

They're the easiest ones to work with. Because they've just got good hearts. They're not selfish people. Yes, no. They're pretty people are harder to work with.

No, I know, but I want him to be smart for Nicole Stake. He needs to be smart though. So that's that's what you did. Yep, yeah. Yeah.

But living life with an open hands is part of a part of what we talk about. And even the idea of doing the baby steps and building wealth.

“It's not for you just to hold and just to buy more stuff and that's it.”

Right.

It is to bless your family, bless those around you.

Live like no one else to later. You get to live and give like no one else. Giving is a central part of our message. Because it is a huge piece that's a find your character. But again, you can't unplug your brain from reality of living in 2026.

Great call, great question. Thank you. [ Music ] If you run a business, you already know this. Bad information leads to bad decisions.

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check-up, and find out the protection that you need. Alex is in Detroit. Hey, Alex, how are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel.

The pleasure to speak with you both. You too? What's up? I'd like to get you guys as perspective on whether it makes sense for my wife to leave her highly stressful job and become a stay-at-home mom

while homeschooling our children. So we have a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old and our oldest is scheduled to start kindergarten this fall. So it doesn't make financial sense if we drop down to one income and just, yeah, I have her become a stay-at-home mom.

I guess a little bit of background. What's the math tell you? Can you learn your math?

Yeah, the math tells us it works.

“I have everything plugged into every dollar here.”

But it would, you know, mean, right now we're triple paying on our mortgage. So we won't be able to do that anymore. We'd have to drop down on some of the other things as well. But what do you mean? What do you mean?

I make 103. What does she make? She makes 80. Okay.

She basically got in your household income and I have.

All right. And you're going to go $100,000 household income, which is above the national average, by the way. Still when you do that. You're right now almost triple the national average.

And triple. No, not quite double. Oh, no, because with like the 180. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.

So I mean, yes, it's the way you've formed your sentences. It's what you all want to do. Both of you. Yeah. You just hate to give up the criminal house payment.

Yeah, exactly. You know, we had a fully funded emergency fund. We got 30 grand in there. We got 26 grand in a car fund. For when our car goes out.

We have a Christmas fund that's fully funded for this year. We got a little bit of education fund. So we have some savings. You know, available. We're not going to live on that.

We're going to live on the 100. Right. Right. But our mortgage is 1,300. So dropping that down with the take home pay of just me.

But us at 29% of, you know, our house to income ratio. So the little higher than I know 25. But I still think it's doable. Yeah. Very much doable.

Yeah.

“I mean, here's the thing Alex is money is not supposed to be the thing that drives you.”

Money is the tool to create a life that you guys want. And the way you phrase the question is exactly right. It's exactly how I heard it was.

You didn't say my wife wants to leave this amazing, wonderful, high paying for filling

job to homeschool our kids. It was like she wants to leave a very stressful job to be home with our kids. I mean, like the way you even presented it means that this is. Is this what she wants to do? Does she want to do this?

100%. Okay. Yes. It's a to me. I'm called 24/7.

Yes. Yes. And it's hard to be present. Be a mom and do that. That's tough.

What does she do then? She's an aviation. She's a trip coordinator, an aviation. Oh, good. For clients.

Yep. So yeah. What do you do?

Same thing, except I'm on the operation side.

Okay. What's your career trajectory? What will you be making in five years? That's a good question. I haven't actually researched that.

I'm not entirely sure. What do you think? I will. I will say. Based on the last five years.

What do you think? Well, when in 2022, I was making 60K and now I'm at 103. So I'm almost doubled up in three years. I don't expect it to go up too much higher, especially in the next three years. But I would say maybe 120, 130, the next five years.

Well, that would just be cost-living only. You need to be doing better than that. But I don't know anything about your world. What I should pay. I'm just saying.

That's one of my considerations is we're looking at this at a snapshot rather than a film strip. The snapshot is today. But life is not a snapshot. It's a film strip. So the next frame will be different.

The next frame will be different. And five years from now you'll be making more. Five years from now you have a nine year old. Five years from now you know you have a seven year old. And so these things start to the picture starts to change as you go through the film.

Yeah, and Alex and I just know even with my own group of friends. I've had some that homeschool that still do. I have some that homeschool for three years. And then they were like, eh, I don't want to go back and do that. You know, you guys can make different decisions too.

“This isn't as a decision you have to make.”

That's going to be your forever. So you guys have worked hard. You sacrificed. You made wise choices to get to this place. It's even an option.

If you call to us and said, Oh, I make 30 grand. She makes 100. And she wants to quit. I don't think we can live on 30. You wouldn't have an option at that point.

You both would have to work. The math would tell you. That's right. So everything's a green light to me. Yeah, I hear green light.

If you want to be super sure and you're a very detailed person. I can also tell that by the way you're asking the questions. And answering the questions. You could really simply between now and the time that you're going to pull the plug on this. Just practice living on your income because it'll be on banking her entire income.

Yeah, next month you guys just do that. And plus or minus daycare or whatever else is going to go away when she comes home, right? You'll save on daycare. You'll save someone car gas when she comes home. You'll save someone clothing when she comes home.

True Alex, we're what's the child care situation.

So we don't have any daycare costs.

Okay. Yeah, well, yeah, regardless.

“I mean, I just think I think it's what you guys want to do.”

And again, everything else supports it. So I'm a, I'm a yes. If you wanted to ask if I should my wife can my wife quit, she can. Yes. Under the scenario that you just came out with, there's a portion.

There's something. I mean, a different, maybe a half time of what she's doing now. I think she wants to homes. Maybe for there. I know, but they're both at home now watching the kids.

That's new information.

I just got so brand new information.

Yeah, that is very the lead. That's from the, um, yeah. It's fine. It's fine. Math Madagre.

“If you're both going to the office and she won't go to the office anymore.”

And she wants to home full time. That's fine. She's already doing this from home. And she could just cut back by 75%. Yeah, and how to do a little something.

She wants that would be fine. And then all of a sudden, the thing, it may be a toxic environment that company. I don't know. But, um, it's not too toxic. She's not there.

But, um, yeah. But a boundary. Sounds like no boundary. It may fall 24/7. It's what he said.

So now you could drop that and say, I'm going to pick up these pieces of Operations in the booking. And I'll work in during, I'll work this many hours a day. And she wants to see if you can find that kind of thing. She's got it.

The ability to do that. And because you're already both there, you're already both watching the kids. So yeah. Wow. All right.

Open phones to triple eight, eight, two, five, two, two, five. Thank you for joining us America. We're glad you are with us. If you're facing that kind of thing that every dollar budgeting app can help Rachel said it, he said it.

Sit down and just run your budget out as if the other person's income wasn't there. And then exactly what does it look like? Yeah. And that tells you. And then the pure proof is in the pudding is let's say she was in a office.

And you said, okay, other than daycare, we're going to bank her whole check. In this case, you'd bank her whole check for a couple months. Improved to yourself. You can live on his check, right? And if you just bank it, just put it over there in a little account for three or four months.

You can always move it on to another goal later, throw it on the house or whatever else.

You can just set it over there, pay one house payment and bank her check. And see what the budget looks like. Improve it to yourself. Because if you do that for like three months, you'll be going, oh, yeah, we can do this. Or, oh, how this is awful.

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That's zander.com. [Music] Haley is in Portland, Oregon.

Hey, I have a question or looking for advice.

Okay. How me and my boyfriend have been together for like two years. We're house hunting. I have many to put down to make an affordable down payment. How do I convey to him?

I'm not going to continue looking for houses until we get married. What would happen if you just said that? I've said it and it's like not hitting. So you can continue looking. I'm interested here at Rachel's take because my take is the old guy.

Is this that women have been saying put a ring on it or you get nut and honey. For since time began. Right. This is like a normal thing. I don't know.

Yeah, what was it?

“Where did the conversation lead to the fact that you guys were actually?”

Looking at houses or did you change your mind in the middle of it? Thinking like, I don't think I want to buy a house with a guy not married to. And you changed your mind or did he just randomly start looking at houses? Like how did he even begin? No, like we've been like progressive and like worked up to it.

And then looking and me having inheritance where I could put a substantial chunk down. But I own my house outright currently.

I'm not looking at uprooting my kid until I have that marital commitment and insurance insurance.

Yeah. So. Very smart. Like for you. Yeah.

I mean, it's summer. It's summer. It's summer. I mean, you know, I mean. Yeah, because I said, I don't just want to ring to do this.

I don't think you can get married. I mean, I don't think you can get married. That's my way of saying get married. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. Women have been saying not until we're married for as long as time is begun. Okay. And so.

And a few guys, but not as many. Yeah. So I already on a business. I don't want to. How old are you?

I want to. I'm 39. Yeah. So you're you're established like a adult person. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You're not in a needy position at all. No. Not at all. Do you think he will be the one you marry?

I. I would love to. Yeah. He's a great guy. I just.

I'm not into like. Yeah. Mingling the finances. Yeah. Great.

And I've said it. And it's just. It's very dangerous.

“I think you're just going to have to have a very clear.”

No child in the room. Music playing. No distraction. Very clear. Define the relationship.

Conversation. And just.

You know, here's what I think.

I think I love you. And I think I do want to spend my life with you. I'm not going to. Because of I've worked so hard to get where we are. And because this is inherited money.

My grandmother would roll over in her grave. And. And it's just not wise. You know. And I'm just don't feel the wisdom in this.

And I'm not going to do this out of order. And so I'll be happy to look at a home together. And even put my home involved or some of my money involved or whatever. Because we're going to combine our lives when we're married. But until we're married.

I'm not going to. And you just need to hear that. And if that's a deal breaker for you, then you didn't think about that. Okay. I mean, you just got to kind of clarity, right?

I was. I've tried to make it pretty clear. But like, you know, he continues to like look at how those things that are. Well, you can go look at houses. But I'm not.

Like, yeah, what's his situation? What's his living situation? He has an apartment and car. Then 20 grand to put down on a house. Which isn't much for a down payment these days.

Mm-hmm. And what does he make? He makes play like 85 a year. What do you make? Probably 32 a year.

How old is he? 40. 40. Okay. All right.

She's same age. That's good news. And you're only making 32 a year. Haley, is that what you said? Yeah.

Have you combined your finances with him? Are you guys. Or are you living? I can't even combine anything. He has a place.

But you're living on 32,000 dollars a year. Importland with a kid? Yeah. Okay. That's great.

It's amazing. Yeah. Well done. That's a big string. Yeah.

It's outskirts of there. Yeah. Okay. How much inheritance did you receive? Which time?

Okay.

“How much inheritance do you have and who did it come from?”

My mother, my estranged mother, passed away last year. And I was left a quarter. There's four of us. There's that a quarter of her federal retirement.

And I have to empty that account apparently in like 10 years.

I'm going to have to start taking RMDs. Yeah.

“And I'm like, well that'd be a great, you know, to rent this house out.”

And, you know, progress with him and go in on a house together and start putting some RMDs towards that. But again, like I said. And that's the total inheritance? No, I have other accounts and trust beyond that. How much?

Um. Probably. I. Another 120,000. Okay.

All right. Cool. Well, you've got a really nice nest egg. He has a better income.

This sounds like a good situation overall.

Um. And, but again, you just need to be aligned. And I don't know. I, um. Sometimes I have because I'm a southern person. We have a tendency to be too nice to the point that we're not clear.

I'm free. And I learned. I stopped doing that about 20 years again. And now I'm extremely clear. Because I found out that that's actually nice.

To be unclear is to be unkind. Okay. And so be clear. Um, and because it's not fair to him for him to have, you know, we're out here looking at houses. And then what happened to Haley?

She just jumped off the rails. I thought this was what we had all this figured out.

Now, I think you need to be very clear.

And he can, I'm not going to go look at houses anymore until it's part of a system that includes a date that we are married before we buy a house. And so there's no reason for me to go look at houses in that situation. We can do other thing with our time. Yeah. And when you got the 2014, you know, that that was a year ago, you feel of 10 years, you have nine more years.

And, you know, and realistically, if you guys get married in the next year or two, you don't even like the time you can pull it all. Yes. Yeah. You can pull it all at once and just pay taxes on it and put it down payment. And I would.

And I think this sounds like this for all of what you're planning to do. But again, you guys, I, yeah, I think he's pushing on the gas and you weren't pushing on the brakes as hard. So, uh, bring it to a stop at the red light. BP. Yeah.

“And, and that's why he's hailing like you're gut and what you're.”

Yeah, it's very. Meaning towards is right. So it's the right thing. It's a very, very smart way to do this. Um, uh, and, you know, you've got, uh, 300,000 reasons to do this.

A baby has a reason to do this and establish 39 year-old woman who's making it on her own. You know, you're not. You're not. You're not. You're not.

You're not. You're not. You're, you're in great shape and you got to go ahead on your shoulders. The way you even post the question was, you know, there's wisdom and we could feel your spirit is solid all of that. So, trust your gut.

You got a good one, you know. And, um, just, you can be kind and very, very, very clear. And, um, that's all I would do. I'm not face that situation, but, uh, that's what I'm. So, we're, uh, clear is that you guys have established a relationship and that he's a great guy that he respect that.

And so, absolutely. Okay. Well, that's way. Let's make some plans. And, you know what I mean?

If it scares him off, then you probably wouldn't want to be on a relationship. If it runs him off, he was there for the money. If he, if he books based on this, he wasn't there for the right reason. Mm-hmm. So, it's a great asset test.

And that regard. So, he was just trying to sign up for a down payment. Um, with some girl. Hey, Matt, you know, oh, that's real scary, isn't it? I doubt it is, though.

I don't think that's the case. And the reason, you know, why I don't think so? Because I don't think she would have put up with him this long. Mm-hmm. I think she would have run him off for now.

She would have spelled that. We trust you, Haley. Yeah. No, I mean, they don't. I'm talking to you smart.

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Hi, Marta, how are you? Hi, I'm good, thank you. Good, what's up? So, my big question that the main question is going to be, "Should I get a loan?"

Or, "Should I get a loan?" To get a little of our debt together and pay it all that way,

or should we refinance our house first?

Probably neither. How much debt do you have? Um, without the house, um, it's about 14,172 dollars in one cent.

“No, you should not get any kind of loan,”

and you for sure don't need debt consolidation. What kind of debt is the $14,000? Um, about $1,500 is going to be credit card debt. Um, I have, or my, what I owe my car is about $4,600. Um, and then the rest is going to be medical.

Okay. And you have health insurance, I assume, so this has been deductibles and copays. Yes. Okay, who's been sick?

Um, I was really sick. I had a baby. Okay. So that's what--

And you end up with $5,000 for the bills having a baby,

out of pocket? Um, so, it's, yeah, pretty much. About six hundred of it was for genetic testing. While I was still pregnant because I'm adopted, so we wanted a little bit more information

as that could possibly happen. So what is your household income? Um, right now, with me out of work, monthly, it's up to $3,060. What'd you say about work?

I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Um, right now, I'm only doing, like, very minimal part time. Uh, with you being out of work with the baby, I see how old is the baby? Sorry.

That's okay. I didn't understand. I was the baby. You're fine. She's two months. You're all wonderful.

That's so cool. And your husband makes, well, your husband makes $3,000 a month. So, I, I've been working a little bit, but about $3,000, like, both of ours. Okay.

And what does he do? He, um, works at a drug manufacturing company at a town, um, close to us. Mm-hmm. And how old is he? He's 24.

24. Okay. All right. So, the bad news is you have $14,000 in debt. The good news is you only have $14,000 in debt.

And so Rachel and I are going to put you on an every dollar budget. We're going to give it to you. And then both of you are going to pick up side gigs. He's going to pick up a lot. You're going to pick up a little.

You're going to look around the house to sell so much stuff. The baby thinks he's next. You're going to stay out of restaurants unless one of you's working there. You're not going on vacation. And you're going to roll up your sleeves and put $1,000 a month on this.

By making an extra $1,000 a month, $2,000 a month between the two of you. And you're going to be 100% debt-free in about a year. Okay. But you're going to have to add some income to this. Because your income's already dangerously low.

Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah.

“When you go back to work, Marta, full time, what will you be making?”

What I was making before I was making about $4,600 a month. Oh, good. Okay. So you might more than him. It's really close to you makes a little bit more than me.

A little bit more. But he's bringing home $3,000 and you bring home $4,000.

Right? Oh, you're fine. Oh, you're fine. He makes $2,400 a month. $2,400 a month.

$2,400 a month, he makes.

Yeah. Okay. But you make $4,000 a month. Okay.

“So both of you are going to work on your long-term careers.”

Both of your jobs suck. Income wise. Okay. Your long-term career. In the short-term, you're going to work on some part-time extra work to add income to the household.

But that's not that unusual when you're 23 with a baby. Okay. It's not unusual. It's no shame in that.

So short-term, we get our income up.

And we knock out this debt with some part-time jobs. Long-term. We start really focusing on what do we want to be doing when we're 30, the pace.

“10 times more than we're getting paid now.”

What do we get what classes do we need to take? What certifications do we need to get? What new jobs do we need to get? Because you don't want to be 38 in making this kind of money. Mm-hmm.

That's the wrong end of the bell curve. You don't want to be over there. Yeah. Yeah. That is one industry.

If you call the hospital and you guys get some money, you know, piled in together.

There's a chance they will settle. They'll come down.

“There's a lot of a lot of stories that we've heard throughout the years.”

I know of people calling in that is one place that you could actually see your bill lower. So make that part of your part-time job, too, is getting tracking on the insurance company and the in the hospital and the bills and all of that. Sophia is in Idaho. Hi Sophia. How are you? Oh my gosh. Hi. I'm doing good yourself. Better than I deserve. How come we help?

Hi. So I'm a skit home mom. My husband and I are almost, we will almost complete babysit number three. Good. I have an opportunity to clean a friend business office for $300 a month, cleaning it twice a month. And I want to know how I can do that legally. Meaning like with taxes and everything like that.

Okay. Well, the easiest thing to do is just keep it as a sole proprietorship, which is what I would do. Open a separate bank account. It's not legally. It's just keeping up with it. Okay. Open a separate bank account and just put a business name on it. It's Sophia so and so.

DBA doing business as Sophia's office cleaning for whatever you name it. Okay. And use your social security number, but also put your husband on the account. But you've got a separate account just for the business. Okay. And you don't have to have a tax ID number. You don't have to have anything.

You can do it in a sole proprietorship. But DBA account doing business as then you put all the income from your side hustle. And to that and any expenses, like if you bought cleaning supplies or something like that, any expenses you have around the business come out of that account. Nothing else goes into that account except business. Nothing comes out of that account except business. And then when you take money out of that account to bring it home and use it, you set aside one fourth of it for taxes and you're supposed to file quarterly estimates for your taxes on your business.

And that's based on your profits. And so if you made $3,000 in a quarter, you're probably would have set aside $750 for taxes and that's going to be pretty close. And when you calculate out your quarterly estimates, they're not hard to calculate it's based on your profit. If you need some help with all that, you can just get with one of our smart, one of our rms. He trusted tax professionals and they can help you do it. But the big thing Rachel is just to keep your business stuff separate. Yes, well, and the quarterly estimates. That's the one that we could call small businesses. That's some of the worst financial calls. I feel like we get with small business. Now she won't be doing like tons and tons and tons of revenue. You know, as of right now.

Yeah, she could start to grow it. But if you run a 10 99 or you run a shop at so many, you're not paying your taxes through the year, you're going to get hit in the back of the head come April. You're going to get the devil smack that if you're going to like it. You're right. I just want the biggest problems we see. How'd you get a $20,000 IRS lean all along and pay my taxes? Oh, I was that for two years or one year or whatever it was on that side hustle. And so all income in America is taxable. So sorry, even if it's cash, no matter what it is, if it's income, it is taxable.

And if you're telling the truth and you have integrity, if I'll tax return, you put down your income, monitor expenses, the difference is called profit and that profit is taxable in America. Welcome to the United States. And if you start making a lot of money, you'll get the opportunity to pay a lot of taxes and you'll get the opportunity to listen to some communists, you're not paying your fair share, which is absolutely ridiculous.

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And on the last ID 1591, and on the last consumer access.org, equal housing lender, 1749, Mallory Lane, sweet 100 print went in to see 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. In the fair wins credit union studio. I'm Dave Ramsey or host Rachel Cruz.

“Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co-host today. Conner is in Boston, Mass. Hey, Connor, what's up?”

Hey, Rachel, how's it going? Good. How you doing, man? I'm doing well. My question today is about investing. So I'm 25 years old. I'm living at home. I make around $56,000 a year and cash flowing college. So recently I started investing in a brokerage account and I was wondering, is it wrong to primarily invest into a brokerage account? Yeah, so recently I was thinking more about it. I should put money into the retirement accounts, of course, but I was kind of wondering, is it wrong to put more money into the brokerage account versus retirement accounts?

Yeah, well, the first thing we would tell you to be dead free. Are you?

I am. And then we would tell you to have an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses. Do you? I do. Right. Your way ahead of the game. You're 25 and you're in college. What are you studying, sir? Business administration. Cool. And when will you graduate? This fall, but I'm thinking about going for a master's degree. Why? I haven't been able to find an opportunity in the field that I'd like to pursue.

You don't need a master's degree. That's not what's keeping you holding you back. Are you working full time now? What do you make now? Oh, you told me that. I'm sorry. You told me that. All right. So 25 years old, you make a 50% discount. What are you doing now, Connor? For a job. I'm a Delhi manager at a grocery market. Great. Well, I would start pursuing your merchandising career now while you finish up your.

Are you finishing a four year degree or a two year? Four year. Okay. Good for you. Excellent. Yeah. You got some pretty good basic business tools in your belt academically.

“So you would need for merchandising for sure. And what you need to do, those getting with a good company that.”

Let's you mentor and be apprenticed by some fabulous people that have been in the business a while. And you can kind of walk alongside them and learn from them, be disciplined or mentored, so to speak. That's what I'd be looking for. And I'd be looking for that hardcore and just working at like crazy. I want to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle, which will outline a good way to land that kind of position, which is where that's what I would focus on. Now, having said all that back to your question.

When you've settled in on your permanent career, maybe by this time, make sure. We would say that you're a baby step 3B and people do two things at baby step 3B. That 3B is before they start putting 15% away for retirement. They sometimes take up gap period of time and pile up money for a down payment. And you could use a brokerage account to do that.

Sometimes they put zero in retirement. Sometimes they put a little in retirement. Sometimes they put the whole 15% or baby step 4 in retirement while they're working on the down payment. If you've got the margin to do both, save a good strong down payment and start putting your 15% away at your new big time job that you've landed by next spring.

“And you're loading up that Roth 401k. I would love that for you. But if you want to take a couple of years and do no retirement and just stack cash for your down payment, that's fine.”

And then, you know, you do need to get the Roth long term working in your benefit. Because from age, let's say from age 25 to age 65, the amount of money that is in the account that is growth is about 90% of the money.

So let's say you had $2 million in there, then somewhere around a million eight of the $2 million is growth.

That means it's all taxable. You can pay taxes on $1.8 million if you've got it in a brokerage account. If you've got it in a Roth 401k, zero taxes on that 1.8. And taxes on 1.8 sounds awful lot like six or seven hundred thousand dollars. So long term, you don't want to only have a brokerage account. Long term, you also want to have the tax savings of a Roth 401k Roth IRA.

And the question you're asking is, is fair to say, "Hey, do I want money tied up to I'm 15 and a half?" Yes, some of it. And so that's it. So I would front load your retirement, take care of the Roth IRA, take care of the 401k. And then anything beyond that that you want to be able to save an brokerage account, you know, get some index funds, whatever that is for you. That's great, then you can take it. But I would do that second to all the retirement, go ahead and get all that fund. That's right, that's right.

Yeah, sometimes Connor, we get the question like a 40 year old one is worried about, okay, I might want to retire in 10 years at 50. And I can't get to anything to lunch 59 and a half. And in that case, you do what Rachel is talking about, and that's a third step, what we call bridge investing. And you'd have some a brokerage account, you know, an S&P 500 account, whatever you want to put it in. And you build some wealth there that you can use for those in between years until you get to the Roth attacks free.

But don't avoid the tax free growth. That's a a million dollar mistake minimum for someone your age.

That would be a huge mistake. So long term, it has to be part of your decision making, but it doesn't have to be the whole thing. And today, if I'm you, I'm I'm lying on that big job, and almost that cash for at least 18 months, maybe two years and give me a nice house. And then you can start loading 15% in and get the house paid off, work the baby steps. And I think you're going to be in great shape if you just do those things. Shelley is in Detroit, how are you?

Good, how are you? Thank you for taking my call. Sure, how can we help? So I will be 43 next year. I have a salon for the last like eight years, and I'm actually looking to close it and possibly then just kind of stay home with my kids. Great. Are you able to do that financially?

“Well, that's what I'm like hoping to see. We have two homes.”

We just have the mortgage on our first home. So again, I notice this is like first world problems.

My husband is always sad. Hey, like stay home, like I'll handle it.

And I think having my shop at help just keep things going and keep things afloat. But I think I could. What does he mean? I could. I would say between the two of us, we're about to ask what he makes. You're quitting.

Well, he makes a lot of like a hundred. Can you live on that? Um, yeah, I have like all their money coming. Like that has come in. You don't know.

“You're dodging all over the place. You need to sit down in detail and do a detail budget on every dollar.”

And you and him need to sit down and look at if my income's not here. What does our house look like? And if you like the way it looks, and you want to quit it. Maybe you sell one of the houses in order to make a work.

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Man real estate is crazy. Buying or selling a home is a big decision. Media and home prices went up to 425,000 National last month. Which is typical on the spring market. We generally see little moves.

“If you want to keep up the housing trends and see what weekly mortgage rates are doing and give free tools,”

to help you buy or sell with confidence, go to RamseySolutions.com/market or click the link in the show notes. Alex is with us. Hi, Alex, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I'm just calling because I was following your plan and I was doing so well.

And a few things came up and I unfortunately fell back into the credit card habit. And I guess I'm trying to reframe my mindset to get out of the habit of using the credit card. And I've kind of been struggling with that a little bit. I really want to get out of debt. Cool, straight up. How much credit card you did if you got Alex? Everything in total, um, 23,000. It's all credit cards.

Yeah, just one specific one much to go on your car. I don't have a car at that. Well, I do owe a car, but it's still a family member. How much do you owe in your car? $7,000. Is that part of the 23?

Yes, correct.

“Okay, all right. Yeah. And so we're talking about 16,000 credit card debt in seven on the car.”

Yes, to be exact.

And what do you make sure?

Um, between 3 to 4,000 per month. Okay, how old are you? I am $30, 30 dollars. It's 30 years old. That's so good.

What are you doing for a living? Um, I do factory work. And on the side, I do a little bit of food delivery. So you said you were going along fine. And some things came up and threw you off the wagon.

What came up? Yeah. So my car broke down.

“And which is why I ended up borrowing money from a family member to get another vehicle.”

Otherwise, that would be carless. What else? What was the credit card debt? The 16,000. You said you keep going back in. What causes that? What was that?

Yeah. I was struggling to make ends meet. Um, and, uh, yeah, pain builds and stuff like that. So what, we've outlined your bills. What bills you got trouble paying?

Um, groceries. Um, gas. Uh, well, you're making a thing there. What's your rent? Um, I live with family.

So I, I just helped with the bills. Um, what does that mean? Yeah. So I help with electricity. You water.

Yeah. What's your bill? How much of that goes to bills of that 3 to 4,000? I would say about 250 a month. Okay. She got 250 a month for that. I don't know. Put in $300 for gasoline.

Uh, or 250 more that that's 500. Uh, you buy a little bit of food. That's a long way from 3 to 4,000. Why you have trouble making your bills? So you're a party in a lot.

No, I'm actually not. Um, where you spend in your money? Found for food. I spend about 600 every two weeks. Why?

One guy. Um, because that's what I contribute in the household.

Since I don't have to be rent. Oh, I thought you said you had $250. You had to help out with. No, you're saying it's $800. No, now you're saying it's $2,000.

“$600 is $1,200 plus 2/50 of $1,500 is your rent to live with family.”

That's no deal. Mm. Yeah. So $600 times 2 is $1,200 plus 2/50 is $1,450. That's your rent.

Mm. The equivalent of 'cause you're buying food at home. And you're buying food out also, aren't you? Yes, I am. Okay.

So here's what's happening.

I think. I might be wrong. Just listening to you trying to diagnose over the phone here. Okay. But I think you're disorganized.

And you do not have a detailed every dollar plan. Because you have margin in the budget you gave us. There is room in these numbers. Yeah. And the problem, too, is Alex, that the credit card keeps catching your slack.

So you're a little bit of the sloppiness and the knot. You know, not having like really strict boundaries with your money. The credit card is what sneaks in there. And you end up reckoned up 16,000. So here's the deal.

If the credit card wasn't around, you wouldn't have that option. Yeah.

“So I think Alex, you, uh, I think you cut up your credit card right now.”

Where is it? Yeah. So I actually did cut it up. And the mistake I did make, um, you know,

almost on phones have like, uh, Apple man.

You're a credit card. Yeah. If I take it off, okay, take it off Apple. As I was like, sighting is cutting up at a physical card. As soon as you hang up, you reach over an apple pie and delete it.

Yes. Yeah. But that's the, I mean, that's. Yeah. That's the step that starts to, when I'm just going to say that,

That's the purpose. That's the step for yourself. Yes. That's the stuff that starts to change your behavior because it's on an option anymore. And go on Amazon and unplug your card.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you want an Amazon account asked to be on a debit card. Okay.

Get your credit card on number. Yeah.

As soon as you hang up, do away with Apple pay completely deleted.

You do not need it. As soon as you hang up, take your debit card and replace it on your Amazon account. Or close your Amazon account altogether. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I can definitely play on doing that. And anything else that you use regularly that has your credit card on number on it, put your debit card number on it and take your credit card off. If you're paying utilities or anything else, take it off.

Get rid of it. Get rid of any sign that you ever owned a credit card. If I came and investigated you, I don't want to be able to find anything. For your sake, you got to get rid of it because it's keep sneaking back. And you know, and had one guy memorized the number.

I don't know how to erase that. But anyway, you know, it's like, You know, you got, you still got to, you got to put up some boundaries. But the biggest thing is you don't need it

if you would get organized and stick to the organization. You make enough to pay the bills that you have easily. And begin to get out of that. And if you add up what you're paying to live there, you ain't got to deal.

So you need to look at that too. And start thinking about a single guy for 1450 bucks. Because the food thing, I mean, you're not eating all of that. You're not a $1200 worth of that. If you do, you got another problem.

Yep. So we're looking at some of that, Alex. I think is it's going to help. And if you start putting some things in place, if it might be that getting out on your own with the room,

might help with a bunch of this. That's family. Because you have more reality of what it is. You actually need to spend for you to exist. And I don't think it's as much as you're paying to live there.

So it doesn't sound like it to me. But you can look at all that. It'd probably be good for you anyway. And so let's consider that idea. And then, you know, chop up the card.

You've already done that. Let's cut it off of all the anywhere digitally that it's stored. Get rid of it. Welcome to 2020, Alex.

You used to be like, "Get your scissors out and cut up the card." Now they're like, "No, it's on." Now we have to take it out. It's on average. It's on average.

It's on average. Hammer to your iPhone. Get your iPhone out. Lay it down. Hit it with a hammer.

It'd probably help you in a lot of ways. Probably a lot of things to get better in your life. I needed that. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Alex, that's the thing.

And the other thing I used to do when I was starting all this stuff. Alex, a thousand years ago, was I would pretend. I would say, "Okay, what if I had to pay off $2,000 next month?" Or something terrible was going to happen to a family member. And it isn't.

But I would just pretend that.

“Like, if I had to save a child's life, could I do it?”

Well, yeah. I could get organized. I could get into it. If I had to save a child's life.

Visceral.

And you go, "Okay, if I had to do that, then I could do it."

That means I can do it. Now I just have to do it.

“And instead of like, "Well, I think I'm going to be Dave Ramsey Dispo."”

And that doesn't work. Dave Ramsey wasn't watching over you. You got to go do it. And that's the beauty of this. You fix the person, your mirror, while you transform your finances.

Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here.

Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems.

And figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help.

It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com. [ Music ] Today's Ramsey show question that today is brought to you by Why ReFi defaulted private student loans.

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Today's question comes from Courtney and Minnesota. I own my home, my home, free and clear, and have no other debt. My ex has been moved an hour away, and it would be easier for me and the kids. If I move closer to him since we share custody, can I purchase a home with cash before my current home sells?

I have a realtor and know that what we can list my house for and what I can afford once it's sold. We've talked about contingency offers as well as taking out a mortgage, paying it off once my current house is sold.

“What is the best way to buy a house and cash considering my situation?”

I mean, the contingency is probably the easiest element there. So, I mean, it would be that. I mean, honestly, right now it is a some more of a buyer's market. You're not, you know, stuck in 2022 when it was just insane. And no one took you in contingency offers.

So now I would say you have a best case scenario with where the market is for you to be able to pull something like this off. So mechanically the way that would work is you could do two things. The straight contingency, you go find the neighborhood that you think you want to move into. There are six houses on the market. Look at them. You pick out your favorite one.

And you make an offer subject to the sale and simultaneous closing of your home. Most markets the way that's done. And it does, it is a little bit regional. But most people in most areas of the country the way that's done is they'll put a 72 hour clause in there. This says they keep the house on the market.

They accept your contract. You have terms. If you're sales, you simply close on it. Very easy. If yours hasn't sold it, they're how the other house that you're trying to buy is still on the market. If they get another offer that they want to accept,

“you have 72 hours to decide if you want to close or not.”

And you wouldn't. You would walk away. If your house hasn't sold. Because the only other thing you can do is go in debt to do that. And I'm not going to tell you to do that in this situation. So the other thing you can do.

That's if you can't get someone on the house you like to do a contingency with a 72 hour out, which is a fairly standard thing in the business. But if you can't get someone to do that, what we did, Sharon and I did this is we figured out the neighborhood we wanted to be in. And we looked at about six or eight houses out there while our house was on the market.

And then when our house sold, we went and bought one.

And we were ready.

“And actually one of the houses we looked at,”

we weren't able to get it sold. It got away from us while our house was on the market. But our house sold, we went and bought one up. And we were okay with that. Because we're not really freaking out about a house or something.

We can house, our house is on every corner. You can get another one. So it's not like we're getting married. We're just buying a house. You can move again if you need to.

So the third option is sell your house and go rent.

And then look for a house with the cash in your hand. And just buy one. So any one of those three will work. And any one of those three will work without you borrowing money. So no, in no case, what I tell you to go get a mortgage to make your ex husband happy.

No case. Yeah, I mean not to make him happy. Well, it wouldn't be nice if we could be relationship. He shouldn't have made. No, no, no.

He's the one moved away. Hello. All right, Abby's in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Abby, what's up? Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Sure. I recently was appointed a power of attorney for an elderly family member who's not a parent. As I've gotten into her finances, I realized that she's got no money. Her IRA has been completely drained.

She's got two savings accounts that have just basically pennies in them.

What did it go? She had someone that she had hired to assist her. And in the last six months prior to me becoming QA. Several hundred thousand dollars went on this thing. What is it for charging?

That's a different conversation. Yes, we're on it. Good. Does I'm angry with you and for her? Yes, I just makes me shake.

Yeah. But there's, I'm not going to see a penny of that. No, you probably don't. I don't disagree with that. Now, she owns free and clear no mortgage.

A condo and house. She also has a piece of commercial property that I can ultimately liquidate to fund her care needs. She's in an extended care facility now. But there's going to be some time right before I can get my hand on any

of those dollars. How much time do you need? How long will it take? What's the condo worth? It's currently like if I were to look it up on Zillow.

It's like 300. Is it the cheaper of the three? It is the cheapest of the three. Yeah, sacrifice it. Okay.

And get some cash in the bank to take care of her. I'm still, even if, you know, I'm just thinking like, if I got an offer tomorrow, which I won't, because my, yeah, because I can't list it tomorrow. I could probably list it next week, because I got to get it cleaned out. But that will still be.

Not if you're sacrificing it. You're going to list it and sell it by the morning and close it by Friday to an investor and sell it for two and a quarter dump it. Okay.

“Yeah, zero cash and she needs money this moment, correct?”

Yes. That's what I was understanding. Okay. Yes. And then the other two properties you got patience on, because you did this.

Yes. Okay. Otherwise, you're going to have a person in nursing home who's out of a right mind. And you are the POA and now you've gone and gotten a loan. Oh, gross.

Yeah. That's Iki. That's so Iki. I'd rather give up 75,000 dollars over equity and sell that other condo for two and a quarter as is and you shove it out, Mr. Investor.

Okay. Let's some guy that took a TikTok course. Come give you some money. Okay. Okay.

That makes sense. I mean, it absolutely does. And it's very clean and very, very quick. I used to be that guy 30 years ago. I used to buy real estate like that.

And one of the things we, you know, we're going to not give you a lot, but we'll close it Friday. Okay. Would you do one of those, one of those billboards that you see. We buy your home cash or shop around.

Yeah.

First thing I would first thing I would do is just go to Ramsey Solutions and hit the Ramsey

Trusted and calls for the real estate agent that are two that were in the area where that condo is.

“That Ramsey trusted and tell them, what have I got to do to move this?”

Do you have a couple of investors in your pocket that buy stuff at a deal? Because I got to move this thing by and close it Friday. And see if, how any of them respond. That's probably the easiest way to do it. And they'll take care.

Tell them what's going on and they'll help take care of you. And you know, you take the least beating on it as possible. But I'm, I'm thinking. 200,000 dollars. I'm thinking 50, 75,000 off of 300 is probably going to get you anybody you want.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And there's, there's, there's nothing else you could move that'll buy you a month.

She has a 2,012 Volkswagen jetta. That might be, get me a thousand bucks. No, it'll get to five, but it's not going to get you a month. What is the bill? What's the bill and who's it owed to?

Well, she has her bill for her assisted living,

which I, I covered her first month and deposit that was $7,500.

And that, but then she has a couple of credit cards. She has some medical bills from hospitalizations and annual rights. I don't want to pay any of those for 60 days. They can sit. Okay.

Do anything I got to take care of her. Right.

“If the jetta, what's the monthly bill on this assisted living?”

It'll be around five. Well, if the jetta will cover your month, don't be it. To carve on our, somebody. And that might buy you a little bit more time. And you don't have to sacrifice the condo quite so deep.

To get it moved the next month and then systematically work through the other two properties. Maybe we don't have to be quite so desperate. But just kind of work through your cash flow analysis that way. You're doing a great job. And thank you for taking care of her.

[MUSIC] Hey, guys, George Campbell here. You ever feel like you make good money and still have nothing to show for it? You run into Target for one thing and somehow walk out $87 later with toothpaste and emotional support candles. Just me, okay.

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Go download every dollar for free on the App Store or Google Play. [MUSIC] Our scripture today, John 14, six. Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John Maxwell said a leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way. Classic John, nice a little ration there, John. Well done. Scott is in Washington, DC. Hey, Scott, how are you?

I'm great day. Thank you both for taking the call. Sure. How can we help? I was married for 15 years.

We've been divorced for 20 years. We had two daughters.

“They're in the middle of the late 20s now.”

Both very good people never, in trouble, not weeded.

They're professional careers. Which has never had a relationship sadly. Or, you know, you know, you know, I've always said, "Is what as you can't make things happen sometimes." But I get an occasional, you know, random text, "Hey, how are you?"

There's nothing structured like a Christmas or Easter. Thanksgiving or August day or birthday. Never a card, never a call. Just, you know, drop out of the hat. You might get something random.

My mom, even old son, you know, 50 bucks on a birthday. And there's no no gratitude. I mean, when I was at age, I was writing thank you notes. Because you couldn't afford long distance calls. And, you know, just a second nature.

And, you know, we're doing my final stock in mess now. But get my wood get ready to rewrite the wheel. I might, they're not in it currently. And I'm starting to rethink it. You know, there's a distance called something out of my control.

Maybe they had somebody in their ear. I don't know. I don't want to have those questions. It just seems intrusive. And a lot of water over the dam.

And, as I'm about to rewrite everything, how do you include what you know? So, yeah, this is a behavior into, into your wheel and your slave plan.

Yeah, you've always said a, you know, a wise man leaves in here.

Just do his children's children. And, you know, I made a loss with where to go from here. Well, the sad thing is, is when there's that much pain. There's not a clear answer. You're not morally obligated to give anyone money.

Legally obligated or spiritually obligated to give anyone money.

a godly man leaves it in here. It does to his children's children as a proverb. But that inheritance is sometimes pastors will teach that as a spiritual inheritance, not a money inheritance. And I think it's both personally.

But if you're prohibited from doing that, because you don't have a relationship with the grandchildren's parents, then you can't do that. So, you're prohibited in terms of having an influence with them, okay? And so, you're under no obligations.

And there's a lot of pain. And it's very difficult to weed through all of that. And find something.

“The only thing I would throw in is just,”

I have never, I mean, when you write this down,

it's as if it's done, okay? Until you change it again, okay? If you die before you change it, it's going to be done. And so, in a sense, when I write it down, something on my will or in my state plan,

I consider it done until I change it. So, I have to be willing to quote die with it, not live with it, right? So, in that sense, one of my things, and I do this with team members that are leaving.

I do it with anything. It's a situation like this. I have never regretted generosity. And generosity is a form of grace, and that is undeserved. That's what grace is.

It's undeserved.

Your daughters don't deserve this money.

Based on the fact that they don't have not reached out, have not created a relationship in there. As adults, they're old enough to have gotten away from people in their ear, to have healed from whatever happened 30 years ago, or whatever else in a established, some kind of relationship.

They're not in a deserving role, but deserved doesn't go in and do it with generosity or grace. So, if you did something in the name of generosity or grace in your will, you would be doing it for you. It makes sense.

Not for them. And that's a good thing. And if you did something for the grand babies, you'd be doing it for you. Because you don't even know them.

Oh, we don't even have any yet.

Well, if there's grand kids, I'm sorry.

“If there's grand kids, and that's the children's children, right?”

Or if you left something in trust for future grandkids, that would be, you could do that. And it's more about you addressing all of the stuff that's in your stomach and in your heart while you're dealing with all this. And as very little of this, what's in your head?

Yeah, it's definitely a humility play, Scott. Not an ego play, right, of this. I've raised great kids and I get to leave them. You know what I mean? That feels good, right?

This is the part, this is the other end of the spectrum. So it would, yeah, it would be out of pain. Sorry out of a level of just humility, and that you love them, because of just for the sake that they are your children, and not on any level of condition of a relationship,

which is sad, really, really sad. But that's where that's the posture that I would come from. Is just as their dad. Your mom asked him how old you are. 60, to be 63 this later this year.

Are you ill? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Oh, certainly. Yeah, so we're the same age. I mean, I'm sick of that. Scott, can I be nosy and ask how much, how much will you be leaving? Just in general, if it's not to them.

Or to them. Right now, the net worth about two and a half. Okay. And, you know, I'm not a spender by any means. Where would you leave it if it wasn't to the to your daughters?

I'm curious. Right now, it's a couple different charities. Okay. You know, orphanage better women shelter kind of church. Yeah.

I would do some of both because of you, not because of them. And you can decide the proportions and whatever.

“And if you want to go really deep into it,”

you could leave some into a trust for future grandchildren as well. Now, you've got to figure out who the trustee is in this mess. Plus they're hard. But that's, you know, that's the three things you could do. Nothing, something, and/or something for the grandkids.

Even though I try to live my life on the other thing, I just talked to you.

“It'd be hard for Dave to leave a bunch of money to somebody I hadn't spoken to me.”

Like, almost impossible. I couldn't do it. I'd leave something probably. But, you know, I, but I leave a tip when the service is bad. Because this says something about me, not about the service.

And that's going to be their freaking Dave Ramsey story. So there you go. That thing too. But, you know, that's not going to do this discussion. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's hard.

Well, it is.

“And, you know, and the hope Scott obviously is that between now and then that there's some level of reconciliation.”

And you know what I mean? Yeah. Things can change. Relationships can change. And, you know, that's the ultimate prayer regardless of the money.

But for the financial side. Um, yeah, it just would take a deep level of humility. Because you're getting nothing from it, right? To leave you something, because you gave me something. There's like a condition there.

Yeah. It's not really conditional. It's just, well, it's, it makes sense. I know. But, but, you know, and it's not like the girls, because he said,

his daughters are not, you know, they're not. You're responsible or crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um.

Yeah, that's hard. That's hard. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. You're facing that. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah.

Sometimes generosity and forgiveness and grace have more to do with what it does for me than it does the person that is directed toward. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There almost could be a level of healing in it.

I don't know if that's true or not. But, I don't know there's kind of this like extra extension. Or, or what you're leaving it to is beautiful too, Scott. The legacy that can pass on if you choose not to. What you've just lined out.

Yep. Incredible.

Incredible work in your city.

I put this hour or the ramps. You're showing the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

“And the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace.”

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