Money Stress Is Real, But So Is The Solution
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George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. Lucy is in New York. Hi, Lucy. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. What's up in your world? Hi, Dave. Hi, George. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up?

So this is a crazy question, but I'm going to try and keep it brief. My childhood home where my dad still lives is an LLC with three other family member homes.

Um, there's five shares on each home, him, his parents and his two siblings. And my dad's in poor health right now and it will get passed down to me and my sisters after. And we just don't know how to even go about dealing with this. Um, due to the situation and other things, we just won't have peaceful use of this home. So we would like to sell it, but we have to sell it to one of the other owners and we just don't know what to do.

Yeah. Well, you have no control. They've structured this to where they have the control. And so it sounds like you're probably at their mercy. Is there anything in the documentation that dictates the price at which one of the other people buy you out at?

So I believe it's fair market value. But since my sisters and I will only own one-fifth of the house, does that mean if we can sell it to them that we would only get one-fifth of that? So your dad owns one-fifth?

Yeah, so like right now six people actually own his house because... But he also owns one-fifth of all of theirs, right? Correct, yes. Yeah, so your one-fifth is one-fifth of the total package of four houses. Okay. The total value of four houses you own one-fifth of. Okay, so that's kind of what we would sell it for then is the one-fifth value of the four. Yeah, that's probably equal to more than one house, yeah.

Okay. Then you and your siblings would split that? You said you have sisters? Yes. So our plan is actually to give it to our mom, the profits of it. Her and my dad built this house with their own hands when they were teenagers. And so we would like to see the money just go to her. But we want to make sure we're

treated fairly in the cell of it and the family has not been fair with anything else but they can't afford they're very wealthy they can afford to buy us out well you know i don't know what the documentation says that's the question is does the llc say that you have the right to call the

them to cause them to purchase and to buy you out. Do you have the right to demand that? And I'm a little shocked as controlling as they've been on everything else that they would have that in the documentation. But if it's simply if it's that simple, it says you can say you send a certified letter. Do you have copies of the LLC?

Yes, my parents do have them, and then there's a couple other in the family. Yeah, you need to take a copy of the LLC to an attorney, and they can tell you what your rights are. But if it states, and I don't know because I haven't read it, and you haven't either, but if it does state that you can just send them a certified letter, and in so many days, 30 days, 60 days, or whatever, they have to buy you out of your one-fifth of the whole thing,

Then that's what it, you know, the evaluation will have to be placed on all four of the houses. And, you know, one-fifth of that, 20% of that comes to you and your sister. They buy you out. Okay. And then you've got to decide, you know, your mother and father are divorced? Separated, not divorced yet. Okay.

but she was never put on the deed none of this no that's not the question i'm just wondering why why she's not already in the mix but okay all right so that she doesn't live there and uh you want to give her all of this money yeah okay all right so what do you think the four houses are worth um it's lake frontage property on lake ontario there's

A few million, to be honest. Wow. Okay. It's a huge compound. If it's two million, it's 400 grand coming to you. Okay. Okay. And is this Canadian or U.S. law?

Uh, we're in New York. I know, but I know you're in New York, but I use, okay. I'm just making sure. So if that's, so you also need to get tax advice cause you can't just write somebody a $400,000 check without creating a gift tax problem. Okay. So you give this, if they, if they buy you out and you are the lawful owner, uh,

Then that money is yours and you just give it to your mom. You're going to create a big tax problem. So you need to there's a way to do that called the Unified Estate Tax Credit. But you need to seek good estate planning tax advice in this whole thing as well. So two things. One is get the get the LLC to an attorney. If your dad's an ill health, go ahead and do it right now.

These just give me heart palpitations, the complexity of this, where you go, all right, 17 people will eventually own these nine properties. That's not a blessing. No. Left to deal with that mess. Not given that they also live there.

I mean, if you had, like, I've got 17 properties that will be left to the three Ramseys, the next generation, and then there's eight following them that it would be left to. Okay. Called grandkids. So eight of them could be easily managing or owning a whole portfolio of real estate, but they're not living in any of it. They're individual homes or their homes. So, but that's different than a family compound situation, which is a sweet idea until it's not.

Yeah, it's a problem. So, wow. You have to hope that there is a clause in the LLC that says you can actually force your share to be sold to the remaining parties. And if it's not, she might be out of luck. I don't know. I mean, you've got to ask an attorney what your options are. But it doesn't sound like you've got a lot of power here. And that sounds like that was the intent. They like it that way. They like it where they have the power and not you.

Yeah, so be careful what you sign up for. And see, this is one of those things that when all of these people sat down together, her dad and mom were together. They sat with his mom and dad. They sat with his brother.

And whoever else, right? There's three other houses. So two siblings and mom and dad, they all sat down and said, hey, let's go buy this lake property and we'll just do a compound. And mom and dad will pay for it and get it going. And then they'll give us the land and all be in the LLC. And we all love each other. And that's how it started. But it really wasn't very well thought out because the long-term unintended consequences of here and now we sit. And there's no exit strategy for us.

People not getting along. Do you have to think through all of the what ifs? Yeah. And if you do, it'll lead you to not do this is what it'd be. So the only one that this worked for was the grandparents. No one else has had fun in this deal. And the grandkids now resent their grandparents. Hmm.

That didn't work out. Not the intended goal here of leaving a legacy. Why? Because we screwed around with stuff and it got all mixed up in relationships. Instead of just keeping stuff real clean, basic boundaries. Love you. You have a nice life over there. Come over here and eat dinner with us. You got your life over there. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, when it's your personal residence, it's very, very, very sticky. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade Warshaw. And look, if there's anybody who knows student loan debt is a problem, it's me. My husband and I had $280,000 of it, but we were able to dig ourselves out and you can too. If your student loan payment in

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Nobody's coming to save you from student loan debt. If you want them gone, you can't mess around. Go to laurelroad.com slash Ramsey to find out more about student loan refinancing. Again, that's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. Anna is with us in New Delhi, India. Hi, Anna. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So my question is, I want to know how much do I need to understand about our investments? You say don't invest if you don't understand. I manage the U.S. investments for me and my husband, and my husband manages our India investments as he's an Indian citizen. Do I actually need to know about it, or is it okay for me to just be like, that sounds great, honey, thanks? You need to know about it.

Okay. The only caveat is I have no idea what part of Indian culture I just stepped in.

You didn't step into any. Don't worry. Well, I mean, I've not got him on the phone. He's Indian. You're obviously American. Okay. So every month we sit down and he shows me the spreadsheet. It shows me where all of our money is invested. Okay, so he's very open to this idea. You're just trying to figure it out. Okay. So what I found out was I was investing in real estate like crazy. I was really good at it.

And I've owned, Sharon and I have owned real estate she never saw. So like you're saying, she said, whatever you want to do, honey, I trust you. Well, it turns out I was an idiot. So it would have been better had she actually been helping me by looking at that and saying, you know, it just doesn't feel right. I got a bad feeling about that. And that's how she would have phrased it.

And that would have given me pause. Well, it wouldn't have given me pause in those days because I didn't listen to anybody. But now I understand that who can find a virtuous wife? Her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain. So it turns out that when you're married, you need to use all of your brain, which is both of you.

Okay. And it's just, you make better decisions. It's just better wisdom.

And I'm not saying he's probably a lot smarter than I was. That wouldn't be a low bar. But he's probably doing good stuff. I mean, he's probably, you know, and he's open to letting you see it. There's no hiding and there's no arrogance or anything like that in the way you've described this, which is a really good sign. But I think if something happened to him, I would want you to know what you had.

Yeah. And vice versa. And that when you work together, you make better decisions. Now, George, you and Whitney have been married how long? Seven years now. Okay. So that's different than an old dog like me being married almost 43. All right. But you guys have used that same principle because we teach that principle. And George is the nerd by far. I mean, he's deep down in the investments. Also the eye candy, but nerd as well. Oh, brother. Yeah.

Yeah, and humble. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll know that was a joke. But what we do. Anyway, Whitney would be, she's sweet, and she would be someone that would normally say, I trust you, George, whatever you want to do. Exactly. And she also occasionally goes, hey, how are the investment accounts doing? Where are we at with our savings plan? And I go, here you go. She has the access. She knows the logins. But she understands it. She understands what we're doing, why we're doing it, the principles. Why did you go to that trouble? Exactly. Because that's what we teach, I guess. But yeah.

Yeah. And so part of it is just knowing that if you ask questions, you should be able to answer them with honesty and show you the accounts, give you access to the accounts and understand the principles. Good job, Anna. Very cool. Interesting question. Shelby's in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Shelby. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

So my husband and I make about $4,800 to $5,000 a month, you know, give or take over time, things like that. But our mortgage payment is $1,750 a month. And I mean, obviously we have other bills. We end up usually being able to save about $400 a month, which isn't

I'd like to save more than that. So I'm trying to figure out how to increase our income. Should I have this idea to start a small business or should I just go get a regular part-time job? Are you guys debt-free?

No. So we probably, we just had a daughter. She's eight months old. So we're, you know, obviously getting bills from hospital stays and stuff like that from her. And then I have a $10,000 student loan. So we have about, I don't know, about $20,000, $25,000 worth of debt. Okay. So you did not have insurance on the delivery?

We did, but that was after insurance. You didn't have $10,000 over insurance on delivery.

No, I mean, I'm just kind of honestly, that's like a guesstimate. That's not just delivery. That's like I had a high-risk pregnancy, so I had to go to a lot of different doctors. So I'm getting doctor's bills from that and stuff like that. It's not just from delivery. It's just medical bills in general. Okay. And it's probably not 10. It's probably more like 5 when you get into it. But okay. Yeah, I kind of tend to over-budget and things like that. Okay.

All right. So I love the idea of a small business. I don't know that now is the time to do it, depending on what type it is and what kind of investment you're talking about. Because a small business might mean I got to invest 10 grand and I might not make money for two years. Well, that sucks when you're in debt. No, so I'm thinking more so of, and I mean, I don't know, but I'm thinking more so I'm trying to start like a photo booth business and I've done some research. It's minimal startup. We kind of have a lot of the equipment already. Um,

I think I could start making money very soon. Obviously, I'm not naturally like a go-getter as far as being my own boss or anything like that. So I don't know exactly what I'm doing in that aspect of it. I think right now what you would concentrate on is with a new baby in the house and cleaning up these bills. I think you want the quick money.

So that's going to be a traditional something that just hands you money right now. Right. Later on, we might try a business idea. But right now, I mean, you're eight months. Y'all aren't even sleeping great. Well, we actually have a really easy baby, so we do sleep really good. Yeah, I understand. Yeah.

I sleep a lot better. There are no babies in my house. Okay. So I'm just saying, it's a hard time. It's a, you know, you're carrying a load right now of other things and it's probably the time just to make it some extra money. And your first goal is not saving. Your first goal is clear these debts. Right. I want you to get a thousand. Do you have any money saved now?

Yeah, we have. So we bought this house. We had a house previously, so we have some money. We didn't use all of our money into this house, but we have like eight grand right now in our savings account. Okay. And so you could clean up these student loans today. I mean, these medical bills today. Yes. I mean, yeah, I could clean up some of them. Yeah, I want y'all to make a list of all of them tonight and pay them all tonight. Okay.

Yeah, because that's, I mean, we've always, we've never been able to save like a significant amount of money. And I've thought about just using that money to pay your loan off. But it's like having a security blanket. No, I'm telling you, if you want to build wealth, the first step is to clear your debt. The second step is to build a fully funded emergency fund. And then your third step is to begin investing long term.

And you're going to do that by getting on a detailed budget, making every dollar behave, and go create some extra income, which you were offering to do, and that's why you called. So we're going to add some income. We're not going to have any medical bills hanging over our head after tonight. We have a smaller savings, and then we need to knock a student loan out by Christmas.

Okay. But done with it. And then when you've got no payments and you're doing a detailed budget and every dollar is behaving, then you're going to see some serious ability to stack cash and really start to build a good emergency fund. Because you guys probably ought to have a $25,000 or $30,000 emergency fund when you're done with this. Then you start doing your investing for the kids' college.

for your retirement and you start to build some wealth. But so far, you've kind of just wandered along on the money thing. And what I'm telling you to do is get very serious and very detailed and very sacrificial. And like this matters because it does. You have an eight-month-old. This really matters.

So hang on. We'll get you signed up for EveryDollar Premium, which is the world's best budgeting app. And it'll show you how to do everything in there. And that'll get you started and get you going. This is The Ramsey Show.

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It's hard. When you go to work for yourself, you'll find out that your boss is a jerk. He'll work you like a rented mule. I mean, you just work all the time because you got to get stuff done, man. You got to get started. You got to get the thing moving. If it's to be, it's up to me. You got to do it. And one of the things we found at Ramsey over the years of building this company from a card table in my living room to where it is today over the last 35 years is

and now coaching over 10,000 small businesses, we've discovered that there are five distinct stages that small business goes through. And there are six things that drive you through those five stages. This outlines the clear path, kind of the baby steps for small businesses.

It's the Entree Leadership System, and we teach it to small businesses all the time. So we decided to put it into a book. It's called Build a Business You Love. The book will come out next week. It's $29.99. But if you buy it before next week in the pre-sale time, like right now, you'll get over $350 in free bonus items, like instant access to the Entree Leadership Hiring Playbook, number one pain point of small business hiring and firing.

The e-book, the enhanced audio book, the audio book for this is different. We really put a bunch of fun stuff in it, and it's more like listening to a podcast than an audio book. So check it all out. Pre-order at ramseysolutions.com slash store or YouTube or podcasters. You can click the link in the description and get going. Carolyn's with us in Cleveland. Hi, Carolyn. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Well, I'm a widow and I'm 81 years old and I am trying to come up with the best way to take the money I do have and make a short-term investment because being at 81, I don't think I'd qualify for the S&P. So I'm looking for suggestions from you as to where to put my $43,000. Okay.

Are you using the $43,000 for living? Well, no. There's $18,000 in my checking account, $17,000 in my savings account, and I have cash on hand of $16,060. And my...

yearly income is $66,864. So the money that I've saved... So you can live on the income you have coming in without touching this money? Correct. Okay, good. In fact, I usually...

take about $2,000 out of it, out of my monthly income, and I keep it to build up on my cash. Yeah, that's how you got all that money in checking. Yeah. Okay. Right. Good. And I really should take some of the money in checking and switch some of that over to my savings. Yeah, you should. But I'm not getting anything in my savings or anything on my checking, and so...

No, you're not. You probably just – but I don't want you taking a bunch of risk with it. Like you said, the S&P, you know, that's probably – I don't want that money to go down in value three weeks after you put it in there. That would scare me for you because you don't have a big pile of money. If you had $400,000 or something, we'd have a different conversation. But with $40,000 –

I would just use a high-yield savings. And George, what are you getting on high-yield savings these days? Current rates are about 3.8. Oh, not great. Is what I've been seeing. They've been ticking down over the last few months, but that's still better than your 0%. And so I would put anything above your expenses that you need in that checking account, I would just store the rest in a high-yield savings account. It's not making a ton. It's not exactly high yield. It's kind of a misnomer if it's only 3%. That's kind of like a low-yield savings account. But

It's going to be, you know, $1,500 a year. Yeah, you'll make a little bit on it. $100 a month. But you could lose that much in one week if you had it invested, say, in an S&P or something along those lines, or even a growth in income, something calmer than an S&P, but still could go down. And we've had that experience in the last week with the tariff stuff going on. The stock market's gone bananas.

And so, you know, you could have lost $4,000 of your 40 in the last week in value. So the key is if you need it anytime soon, don't invest it. You don't have that margin. Yeah. I don't want you losing $4,000 in a week because the president is playing tariff games. You can't do that. And so I can afford to take that hit, so I'll be in there. But, you know, that's not that big of a deal.

A huge nest egg, and so we don't want to lose 10% of your $40,000. So, no, I think high-yield savings and just hold your nose and you're not making much money on it. Just keep up with inflation. But such is life, and that's how it works, you know. So, ouch. Candace is in Cleveland, Ohio as well. Hi, Candace. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Um, so my parents are giving me $60,000. Um, they asked that one thing I do is to put it towards a new car and I don't know what to do with the rest of the money. And it makes me very nervous. Okay. Uh, a, a better car, I hope not a brand new car. No, I don't, I don't want a new car at all. Oh, okay. Okay. So where are you at financially? What's your income?

I work for myself, and with that, I make about $60,000, and then I have a part-time job, and I make about $25,000. Way to go. So you're making $85,000. Are you single? Yes. How old are you? I have a 13-year-old. I'll be 35 in two weeks. Good for you. Okay. And you have a 13-year-old, all right. And do you have any debt? No.

No, I actually just finished your book last week and paid off my credit cards two weeks ago, and I don't have any student loans. I love it, Candace. You got some money in savings? I have $1,000 in my savings, and then my son has about $3,000 right now. I do pay him for my company, so each year I can get up to the max of paying him. Cool. So you read Total Money Makeover.

Yes. Okay, so $1,000 is baby step one being debt-free other than the house is baby step two. That's where you are. So you need to move to baby step three and fully fund your emergency fund, don't you? Yes, I do. Okay, so that's what we're going to use some of the $60,000 for. And what kind of car are you driving currently?

It's a Nissan Rogue 2015. It has 162,000 miles on it, and I did replace the transmission a year ago, which was 6,000, so I'm kind of done with this car. Okay, so you're going to trade cars. How much are we going to spend on a car above what this brings?

Right now, I looked at the value. It only would give me about $2,000. And I was just going to hold on to it so that my son can learn how to drive on it and he can kind of tear it up in like the next year or so. Okay. So what are you going to spend on a car? I did not want to go over $30,000 at all. Oh, no, I wouldn't. I think $20,000 is your max. Okay. Yeah. I put $20,000 on a car and then I would do the emergency fund.

of three to six months of expenses. And so you probably need 25 in there. So we've about used up a big chunk of the money. Then that leaves you 15, and you can move some of that towards your son's college fund and some towards your Roth IRAs and start your retirement going, right? Yes.

That's pretty cool. All I did was follow the baby steps. Did you hear it? Okay. Yes. So it should be about 15 left to put in the savings is what you're saying? Yeah. I mean, if you put 25 in the emergency fund, 20 on a car, that's 45 of 60, correct? Yes. And seven grand would max out a Roth IRA for the year. Yes. And then you got eight left over. If you do it before tax, before you file your... Have you filed your taxes yet? No.

Yes, I did already. Okay. And then you could do seven grand and you could do seven grand next year and so on. But yeah, you're right on track. Now, your mom and dad just gave you a $60,000 gift. They understand there's gift tax involved?

So they're giving me some and giving my sister some too. I know, but there is a gift tax. Anything over $19,000 has a gift tax. So your mom could give you $19,000, your dad can give you $19,000, but that's only $38,000, which leaves them taxable above that. So they need to get some tax advice because there's a way they can do this with the Unified Estate Tax Credit. But if they just write you a check and then they get audited, they're going to get hammered.

for gift tax. So you need folks be aware 19,000 is the max. Now again, you could do four times that if it's couple to couple, but this is a couple to an individual. So double that mom gives her 19. Dad gives her 19 is your max.

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Possibly, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks. So why is that? Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the creditors.

the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing. So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. What's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner

changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Yes. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer. You know, that's why we're partnering with them.

because they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience, and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service, and the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up, and we got an account. And I'm not kidding, it took less than five minutes.

It was so user-friendly. The step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings, and it says Fairwinds on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there, and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer. And so again, they just really care about your experience, and I so, so appreciate that. So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, but Fairwinds,

Again, they make it so easy. Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app. And you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs.

Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general. And so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe. You guys, it's incredible. Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey.

The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. Y-Refi offers a different approach to paying off your defaulted private student loans with a low fixed rate, less stress. It's a deal.

you can get the loan back moving again and you can get it paid off. Go to Yrefy.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Brooklyn in Maryland. She

She asks,

We're on baby step two with about $100,000 of debt. We rent and don't plan to purchase a home until we have a fully funded emergency fund and at least a 20% down payment. Good. A lot of good things happening here. So the question is, income increases. We recommend 10 to 12 times your income in a term life policy. And so he's making more than 75 now. It's time to get probably keep the policy you have and add a new one onto there to supplement it. Yeah, that's what I would look at. What you can do is price that.

and say, all right, you don't have kids yet. So if he passed away today and you got 750, you probably are fine.

Your expenses haven't doubled. Yeah, you're probably fine. Now, if you wanted to replace the income and the lifestyle associated with this income for you and a couple of kids, then you're not fine. And so, you know, you're going to kick it up to about $2 million. But, you know, price another million if you wanted to, and look at how expensive it is. It's not very expensive.

If you're, you know, it sounds like I'm going to guess. Healthy 35-year-old? I'm going to guess and say they're in their 20s. Oh, no, he's 35. He's 35. Yeah. And, you know, if you're not overweight and you don't smoke and you're 35 years old, it just doesn't cost that much. But those are the two. It might be. Those are the obesity and smoking are the two biggest factors. They'll blow your life insurance through the roof.

Likely less than $100 a month based on what I've seen from these quotes. And you've got $100,000 you're trying to pay off. So you might say, I'm going to price it, and then based on what the price is, if it's really cheap, I'll go ahead and do it. If it feels an ouchie while I'm trying to get out of debt, I might wait a year to do it. It's not the end of the world. You're going to be fine.

Either way, but yeah, you're really wise to be staying up on it and asking the question. And George is right. The ideal amount is about 12 times your income. So somewhere around $2 million in this situation, which would be adding 1.25 if we said if we want to be real ticky tacky about it. And if you were out of debt and in your emergency fund, I'd say do it right now.

But you don't want to pick up that extra $100. Maybe not right now. You want to use that towards the debt. So price it out with Zander Insurance and see where you land. And that'll kind of tell you if you kind of flinch a little, then just wait a little bit. But if it doesn't feel like the cost of a pizza, then go ahead and do it, you know, that kind of thing. And that's really term insurance is so inexpensive that it's mind-blowing that it really doesn't become a huge budget buster. Trevor is in Baton Rouge. Hi, Trevor. How are you?

Doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm just calling for some advice. My wife had gotten pregnant, and due to her job, she couldn't work while pregnant. So due to that, we ended up getting behind our house note, and we have about $20,000 in debt. And I was just wondering, where should I go from here? How much is your house payment? It's $2,100 a month. What do you make? $2,100.

Uh, I made last year I made about 75 K. Okay. So you're taking home about four grand. Yeah. How many payments are you behind? Uh, I'm behind $18,000. So I don't, I don't know the month. I think around nine, nine months. Yeah. Um, when's your baby coming, honey? Uh, we've had her already. My wife went back to work Thursday. Oh, good. Yeah. She's, she's three months old. Yeah. Okay. So what's your wife make?

Uh, she brings home, but she's, she's working less hours now. So we're, she's going to be bringing home about 45 this year. Okay. She's working less hours because she has a three month old. Correct. Yeah. She's going to be working part time. Who's the baby staying with us? Oh, so her, at her work, there's a, they have a playhouse that she, uh, pays, um, $180 a week for. Can she work more since there's a playhouse there? No, the playhouse is open on Fridays. That's the issue. Okay.

So she's working all she can. Four days a week instead of five? Correct. Okay. What's the mortgage company told you? I actually just got off the phone with them. They were telling me, you know, that we're not in active foreclosure, but it's going to be coming soon if we do something about it, you know. Is it an FHA, a VA, or a conventional mortgage? It's an FHA. FHA, okay. Yeah, you're due for them to start coming now. What's the house worth? About $250,000. And what do you owe on it?

$225,000. What other debt do you have? I have a car debt that's $8,000, some credit cards. The total is about $3,000. You behind on everything else? I'm not behind on anything else, no, sir. What's that car worth? You owe eight on it. What could you sell it for? Like five. You're underwater on that? Yeah, it's been an accident. You got anything else? You got anything you can sell to help with this $18,000?

I don't, but I am. So I'm going, my job recently asked me if I wanted to go to Florida for two months, which is going to, I should be making around $30,000 for the next two months with per diem and stuff. So that'll definitely help out a lot. You can make an extra $30,000 in two months? Yeah. And she can be at home working and keep bills covered at home?

Correct. Then you can be current before you get foreclosed on. Okay. Right? Yes, sir. If you make 30 and it takes 18, now it takes 20 because we've got another month involved, right? It takes 20 to get you current. And you make 30, I think we've got it covered because it takes 30 days to foreclose minimum, and they hadn't even started. Yeah, I haven't even received the breach letter. They were saying after the breach letter, it's 65 days before it goes into active foreclosure or something. Okay, so you've got 90 days.

You got three months, and in two months, you can make 30 grand to catch it up. Right. Well, I'm not leaving until the end of this month, so it'll be right at three months that I make the money. So May and June, you're bringing in this money. Okay, so here's what you can do then, all right? There's a process with a mortgage company called a forbearance. A forbearance is where you pay payments, double, triple payments, that kind of thing, until you're current, and that stops the foreclosure.

HUD FHA requires that they attempt a forbearance before foreclosure if you request it. Okay. So you're going to request it. Okay. And I want you to set up a payment, a system where you pay double payments until your current, but you're going to get current in 90 days. Anyway, you're going to, you're going to pay it faster than that deal. Okay. Okay. So, um,

If you want to call them back and say, I want to do a forbearance of two payments a month beginning at the first of the month. Okay. Then I want you to pay it current as soon as you can, even though you made that deal. Does that make sense? I want you to pay it faster than that because you're going to have the money. Yeah. Is that all making sense to you?

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. You remember the word forbearance? Forbearance. Tell them your financial coach told you to do a forbearance because I'm your financial coach and I just told you to. Okay. Now, if that does not work, I'm going to put you on hold and Christian is going to pick up and we're going to set you up with one of the Ramsey coaches in your area and

And they can call on your behalf if you're unable to get the mortgage company to do this because they can get the mortgage company to do it. I promise you. Okay. We stop foreclosures all the time. It's one of the things we do around here.

Okay, but it requires making substantial payments. And what we just learned is that you're not afraid of hard work and you've got a way to clean this up. Thank God. I was worried there for a minute. And you brought me that last bit of news there at the end, and that was perfect. So hang on. Christian will pick up. We'll hook you up with one of our coaches. And you can either call or you can have the coach call or both and get you a forbearance done. If you go to Florida, you can catch this house up before they get it foreclosed. Good job, man. Good job.

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do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Tanner is in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi, Tanner, how are you? George, Dave, man, pleasure, guys. In a little bit of a pickle here, so just real briefly, I just realized that

I haven't been taking responsibility for my taxes. And so I've reached out to a CPA prior to me realizing this. Excuse me, I'm emotional. So back three years of taxes turned out to be about 45 grand. I'm in sales. I make about 220 a year. I do have some consumer debt. I'm at the point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I just wanted to see what you guys thought on my situation and how I could get out of this as soon as possible with as much aggression as I can. Are you single? No, sir. I'm married of six years with two kiddos, two and three. Your wife work outside the home? No, sir. She stays at home. Okay. She has a $225,000 income, so you're making about $20,000 a month.

Well, I'm in the roofing sale, so it fluctuates. I can make a good month of $40,000 and a month of $2,000. Gotcha. Okay. Really just fluctuates. And do you have any money? Very, very involved. We got about $8,000 split between our savings account, our emergency fund, and a little bit in the crypto market, about a grand in there. Mm-hmm. Okay.

All right, cash that out today and take $7,000 of your $8,000 with it and throw it at the 45 debt. Have the returns been filed? They just got filed as of last week. Okay. Now, of course, the 45 is not taking into consideration the penalties. Right. And the late fees, not too sure what to expect on that. Probably another 10. Yeah.

Okay. I owe about $38,000 on my truck. I owe another $36,000 on a dang vacuum. And about $31,000 on a dirt bike thinking I was trying to build credit. $3,100? $3,100, yes. Just sell it. Okay. And, yeah, we've got to get this mess cleaned up. Why are you on $1099 if you're doing roofing sales?

I was 1099 up until last November. We then switched to a W-2, which helped me in a small portion as far as this year's return. Had about 11,000 come back off the holdings, which of course that rolls over. Okay. Yeah, because you shouldn't have been on 1099.

Sure. Ever, but you're there now. Okay, so we've solved the problem. I mean, we solved the – you stopped up the hole, so it's not leaking anymore. We're not going to have a recurring tax problem. You're going to stay – you're going to file taxes on time for the rest of your life because it's too stinking expensive and scary. Correct. And scary.

Yes, sir. No doubt. So now if you sell the dirt bike, you owe $3,600 on a vacuum, and you owe $38,000 on your car, and you owe $45,000, right? Correct, yes, sir. Okay, so about $90,000, $85,000 gets you out of debt. Correct, yes, sir. And you make $225,000. What's your house payment? Well, and so that's another thing. We're right now renting to own from my mother-in-law. How much is that? She...

$800. Okay, cool. So just keep paying $800, and you need to pay off $85,000 in debt, making $225,000. That sounds like you're doing that in a year.

Well, and my question is, with the $45,000 in taxes, now that I'm W-2 and not changing anything as far as my withholdings, would it be smart to focus on the other debts? No. That IRS debt goes to the very top of your debt snowball. Make minimum payments on all of your other debts except the IRS debt. Throw as much as you can every single month towards it. Yeah, it's very expensive, penalties and interest, ongoing.

Sure. So you want to get rid of it. Plus, they have virtually unlimited power to come and screw up your life if you don't do this. Yes, sir. Yeah, you want to get them out of your life forever and ever. Amen. And the CPA that did your taxes, have him verify that you have the proper amount being withheld. Well, and so this is where I'm getting my knowledge from, or at least my plan there. He said, if you...

keep holding out the way it's holding out because they're holding out more than they should no no no no i want them to hold out the correct amount and the rest of it comes home and i want you to pay this off as soon as you possibly can sure i want him to calculate what the correct amount of withholding is and you bring everything else home and you give it to the stupid irs as fast as you can because i think you're going to have them out of your life by september

Well, that would be the hopes, yes, sir. No, it's a mathematical fact, not a hope. Sure, yes, sir. But you're not going out to eat and you're not going on vacation. These big commissions have been disappearing into toys. Absolutely, yes, sir, and eating out and just blowing money. Yeah, no more. You're on beans and rice, rice and beans. Yes, sir. What's that truck worth? If I was a private seller, I would probably get,

Maybe right at what it's worth, maybe $40,000. If you like it, you can pay it off in a year. But if you're not willing to sacrifice and cut your budget and your wife's not, and you all get down and start being grown-ups and clean up this freaking mess, then you need to sell the truck. But if you're willing to do what I'm telling you to do and be done in a year with a whole stinking thing, debt-free everything in one year. Yes, sir.

and you get your withholding to be the proper amount, throw everything at the IRS, then throw everything at the vacuum, which is one month, and then throw everything at the truck. Then you keep the truck if you're going to do it that way. But if you're going to drag this out for the next three or four years –

then we really can't help you, number one. But number two, you should sell the truck in that case. But Tanner, you know, two and a quarter minus 85 is still over $100,000 for y'all to live on. And your rent to own is only 800 bucks. 800 bucks. And so you can live on $100,000 and still be debt-free in a year.

Oh, you're killing me. Wah. You know, so let's do this and let's roll up our sleeves and punch this in the nose. But y'all are going to have to get on a tight budget. You know, hold on. We'll set you up with the EveryDollar Premium budgeting app and the whole thing and help you build all this out. But that's the math. It's two and a quarter minus 85 and you're living on 100. Wah. I think you can do this. That budget will show you real quick. This is not like we cut you to 30 and you got debt free in a year. No.

So you really ought to be fat done faster than a year. And when you don't have this IRS shame hanging over you and you don't have a stupid vacuum payment, which is really shaming, that's like stupid. Who gets a vacuum? Yeah. I mean, when you get that stuff out of your life, you're going to feel so much better about you. You're going to feel like clean.

You know, because this is you just look at that stuff and you go, I don't like me right now. I didn't pay my taxes and I bought a vacuum on payments, you know, and when you get rid of that, man, I'm telling you, it's you're going to love it. It's you're going to feel so much better. And but you're going to have to bust your butt for a whole year here, like going crazy. You can do this. And I've looked at stuff I've done. I go, Dave, you are an idiot.

And I want that stuff that reminds me and I'm an idiot. I want it out of my life because I don't like being reminded. You don't want to do it twice. That's for sure. I don't like it. It's not fun. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And

And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch. For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. Me too. And they don't know what to do next. Terrifying. You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up. Or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. Yeah.

It's saying I love you to your family. Term Life Insurance. Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable. I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Tax day is only a week away. Don't put yourself through the stress of waiting until the last minute.

Or worse than that, wait three years like that guy a minute ago. Don't do that stuff. Get your taxes filed on time. None of us like taxes, but it makes your life worse when you don't take care of stuff. So you're going to be fined big time, and you're going to see...

All kinds of late charges and interest like you've never seen. So you don't go to jail for not paying your taxes, but you can go to jail for not filing your taxes. Failure to file is criminal. Failure to pay is not, technically speaking. And 2,578 people did go to jail last year for failure to file. Wow. So it's very real. So I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just saying it is the law, and you need to file your taxes. Hell of it.

And if you want some help doing that, go to RamseySolutions.com slash SmartTax. Get everything you need to file your taxes. Doesn't cost for hardly anything, especially if you've got a simple return. Our current price offer expires on April 11th. So if you'll go ahead and do it like this week before waiting to the last minute, you can get the best possible deal on the Ramsey SmartTax software.

And it's very, very accurate, and it will help you get this done in a quick and easy manner. Do not put this stuff off, boys and girls. Do not put this stuff off. Jackie's in Denver. Hi, Jackie. How are you?

I'm doing well. How about you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, we have a little situation here that I need some advice with. My husband has a small business that he's been operating for a year and it's currently running at $20,000 in debt. And we have recently found out that we will be receiving an inheritance from one of my family members who passed away last summer.

When we set this whole business up, the understanding was that we wouldn't be mixing any of our personal money, personal finances with the business, and that there would be a hard line drawn there. I'm sorry, whose understanding? What do you mean? The two of us. My husband and I had that conversation. Well, too late.

Because the $20,000 debt is a personal debt. I agree with you 100%. No, I promise you that's what the law will tell you. They didn't loan this broke business money. They loaned you money. My fear is am I going to feel resentful when we use the inheritance to pay off that loan? I guess you should have decided that before you took out the loan. Okay.

And I know it was a verbal agreement between the two of us as husband and wife, and he totally was on board that the business would have to pay for itself and that we wouldn't be using any retirement money, any of our personal money to pay that off. But that was mythology. You don't have the power to do that. You understand that if you don't pay this bill,

That they're going to come take the stuff you're talking about. They're going to sue you. Oh, yeah, I totally understand that. So, I mean, you already have mixed it. You've already made that commitment when you all took out the loan. I think you're already resentful. You have some kind of mythology that you somehow kept this separate. It's not separate at all, hon.

You're on the hook for it. I understand that. I know 100% we're on the hook for it. I guess maybe it's a relational question, a relationship question. How much is the inheritance? It will be close to $150,000. Okay, and you didn't want him to open the business? No, I did. I wanted him to succeed at the business, totally. Is it succeeding? Not one year in.

Is it losing money still? Well, let me go back and say that. Last year, it's a very small lawn care business, and it's only last year he grossed $50,000, netted about $20,000, and put all of that right back into the business. Unfortunately, it wasn't to pay the loan. It was to buy more equipment, and that I didn't necessarily agree with, but I went along with it. Okay.

And then there was also an agreement he would be working in the off season to be paying off that loan, and that didn't happen either. So that's one maybe perhaps this is more of a relational question. Yeah, I think those two deal, those are the two problems, not the inheritance. It's he didn't follow through on what he promised as a part of this process. Right. I would agree with that statement. And I think we've got to address that. And how do I address that? Like the moment it happened, you should have addressed it. No, we're not putting money back into this.

We're going to pay off the debt. Yes, you are going to get off your butt in the off-season and work. This is what we said we were going to do. Now, you can be a little less mean than that, but you still need to have that conversation, right? I agree. I agree. I just want to make sure that what I'm thinking is correct. I think what you're thinking about those two things is absolutely correct.

I think you didn't address it when it happened, and so now it's lingering, and that's where the resentment's coming from. And I kind of don't blame you, by the way. I think you're right. I'd be a little pissed, too, about that. So I think we've got to reset our expectations on the operations of this business and the paying back of this loan, and then let's let that run a little bit, and then I'm going to write a check and pay off the loan. But he's going to have to – I mean, he's going to –

Number one, a lawn care business should be making more than that in one year. Okay. He's not working much. Well, part of it was the initial investment into the business. That was part of the $50,000. I mean, it was an already established business, and he bought it from another gentleman. Yeah. Doesn't sound like it was very established. Yeah, it wasn't making much money.

$20,000 and you run the mower yourself, you own a bad job. You don't even own a good business. Is that the question or was there too much being spent on the budget? I don't believe the budget was followed very well either. I think we need to learn how to run a business. I think you're right. So I think there's several things going on there that he actually does need your help with. I'm not sure how he ended up. How old is he?

56. How did he end up in the lawn care business making $20,000 a year at 56 years old? What happened to his career? Well, he had always worked for farmers, which is a pretty low-paying job. He just kind of always wanted to be his own business owner. And we actually live in a very rural area. Okay. And the options are pretty limited. All right. You have some business or accounting acumen, it sounds like.

Yes, I grew up, my father owned his own business. Okay. And I grew up around it. Let's reset this whole thing then, okay? Because I think I hear a guy who knows how to work hard but doesn't know anything about business. Oh, you are exactly right. Okay. And he's a sweet guy and he's not afraid of hard work, but he's clueless on what he's doing here. And so he went and bought a bunch of equipment because he's a gadget boy.

when he actually thought he made some money, but he wasn't sure he made some money because he doesn't even know how to do accounting. So I think the two of you need to be running this together, and you need to run the office, and he needs to run the mower. Okay.

I think you're right. And then the budget will be followed, and we make decisions together about when we're working, where we're working, and what we're buying, and we're going to get this stinking thing profitable. And if you're willing to help him and he's willing to let you, then, yeah, I'm going to write a check and pay off the loan because all this resentment is going to go away because now we're going to be both horses in the harness pulling. You're going to pull the front office stuff because you're good at that. I can hear it talking to you. You already know what is supposed to happen here.

and you're just standing back and watching him, and he doesn't have that skill. But yet this guy is not afraid of hard work. He'll go out there and work himself to death if you point him at the right thing. He ain't afraid of hard work. No, he's not, and that actually was one of the reasons I married him. He was one of the attractions I had to him. Yeah, so look at it this way. He liked marrying a smart woman, so that was his attraction to you. So let's use both these things.

I think it's a good idea. So you're spending 10% of this inheritance to reset the business and your marriage. I think that's a worthy investment. That's a good way to put it, George. Yeah, George. Once in a while, I get a win. You should do this talk radio thing. I'll leave it to Dave. But I think putting it that way just helps me loosen the resentment and go, all right, I'm going to drop it. It's a really good discussion. And the way you approached the discussion was very healthy, Jackie. Thank you. I like that. That was a good...

It was a good analysis. Can we send them your new book? Yes. Are we capable of that? Yes, we are. Build a Business You Love. We will ship it to you on April the 15th next week when it goes public. Read it together. Hang on, and Christian will get your name and address, and we'll send you Build a Business You Love. It actually does address some of this. That's a good point. Perfect. Ta-da. Who knew? Two in a row. The treadmill stage. Yeah, you're two for two and one-line zingers. There we go, man.

Yeah, man. George is pretty valuable today. This is The Ramsey Show.

All right, business owners, last call. The pre-sale for the brand new book, Build a Business You Love, ends April 15. Pre-order now and get over $350 worth of free bonus items to help you hire smarter, lead stronger, and grow faster. This is not theory. It's the system I use to grow my company from nothing and the same framework we've coached thousands of business owners through. You can only get the bonuses at

ramseysolutions.com store so don't wait pre-order now in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt free stage aaron and jenna are with us hey guys how are you very good welcome where do y'all live apex north carolina sorry that's okay you're doing it together you're we know you're united anyway that's good so what do you guys do for a living

I'm a director of music education for a music store. And I am an HR manager and catering manager for an ice cream company. Oh, that's fun. Good. Good for you guys. How much debt did you pay off? $75,000 in exactly three years to the day. Oh, I love it. Okay. And your range of income during that time? So it went from $79,000 to $109,000. Excellent. Cool. Good for you guys. What kind of debt was the $75,000?

All student loans. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Cool. And how long y'all been married? So three years. Yeah, we paid it off on our third anniversary. So we've been married three and a half years. Okay. So you got married and looked up and said, probably in the pre-marriage, you're looking at it going, we're going to attack this. Tell us the story. What happened?

Yeah, so actually in December of 2018, we listened to nine straight hours of the show. We're originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we moved to North Carolina. So on the Christmas journey home, we were looking for a podcast and we came on yours. You just stumbled upon it? Yeah, I think that Christmas I was on YouTube and saw one of those clips. It was like...

a young kid from your show like made 20 grand or something and I like watched it you know it was like a kid who sold Pokemon cards or something and then when she was looking for a podcast you guys were on the top ones and so that's why she saw it I was like oh let's listen to that and it was like the first time we've ever heard people talk about that and then it was just

okay, put on another one, put on another one. And we'd listen to like nine hours from Pittsburgh all the way down to North Carolina. Yeah. And he said, wait, we could do this. Yeah. And so we were just dating at the time. So we were, we had some of our own debt. So I actually paid off my car that following September in 2019. And I started paying off some of my loans.

And then, yeah, 2020 happened. And we were able to, like, you know, the interest stopped on our loan. So we were able to make a lot of progress. We got engaged in October of 2020. When we got engaged, we paused. Because listening to your show, there's just so much wisdom that we heard. And we wanted to, we were dating for a while. And we wanted to have a good relationship.

wedding. And so we cash flowed a wedding for the next year, got married in October of 2021. And that's when we said, okay, now it's us against the world. We have 75K of debt and yeah, we were just chugging away. And then in 2024, in January, 2024, we found out that we were pregnant with our first kid. Yeah. She's over here. I think she might be crying off stage somewhere. Yeah.

And then, yeah, so we paused and paying off our debt, stacked up cash, felt really comfortable. I mean, that was just great advice from you guys because we're having a baby. And so it felt great to have more than a thousand dollars and

Then she was born in September of... Last year, 2024. Yeah, 2024. And two and a half weeks later was our third anniversary. And we were looking at the numbers. We're like, wait, we could pay it off on our third anniversary. So we're at home with a two and a half year old or two and a half week old. And yeah, we made our last payment. We actually have a big chart we wanted to show you guys. I think one time you mentioned, be weird, make a chart. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. So we bought this chart. There was 1,000 squares, and we said, okay, 75K, each square is 75 bucks, and it just made you think about $75 way differently. Wow. Yeah, every little bit adds up. Yeah. You got a fully colored in chart there. Yeah, and the marker, we didn't want to buy another marker, so we would like, as you see. Yeah, stay in the lines. That's impressive. Yeah.

Some of the best coloring work I've seen on this show. Thank you, thank you. Oh my goodness, you guys are incredible. So it is worth noting for the casual listener that they followed exactly what we say to do. I mean, they didn't deviate even a little bit.

They stopped, cash flow to wedding, came back, stopped. When the baby's on and baby mama come home from the hospital, everybody's healthy. Boom, push play. And the money was in there and it paid off everything on the third anniversary. So everything they did, they followed exactly. It wasn't an ish.

it wasn't Ramsey-ish. They were listening to way too much YouTube of us and completely did it exactly the way we teach. And guys, I got to tell you, that matters because it changes the speed at which these things happen. And it also lowers your stress level all the way through the whole process. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we've never ever thought about money or thought, you know, there's never been any contention over money. It's just been like, oh, that's the plan. You know, this is what we're doing. And it just made...

allowed us to focus on everything else in life. You guys are in your 20s from what I can tell? Thank you. Oh, thank you, George. I mean, just a young couple who goes, we can do this plan. Because people, here's the thing. How old are you? I'm 33. I'm 32. Amazing. Because Dave gets a lot of flack and they say, Dave's plan, it's so out of touch. It doesn't work in today's America. And here you guys are smiling, relaxed, peaceful, going, no, we did exactly what they said to do because they said it would work if we did it. Yeah.

Yeah. And actually, we even bought a car during that time because he had gotten into a car accident and his car was totaled. Yeah, we cash flowed a car with 240,000 miles on it. So we bought a used car, but yeah, we were able to cash flow it. And once again, it was just very quick, painless, and stress-free. Wow. Way to go. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

I would say staying motivated and dreaming about the future. And we would always talk about what we want our future to look like and, you know, having this baby and what we want her future to look like and just planning and really daydreaming about like what life could be. Wow. Congratulations. How's it feel now that you're free?

Great. Amazing. Yeah. And what's her name? Eloise. Ellie? She goes by Ellie. Ellie. Okay. All right. Perfect. Because we can hear her. I don't care. It doesn't bother me a bit. I've got grandbabies. She's already doing the debt-free screen. Do you want to bring her in? Yeah, she's kind of doing it off. Or do you want to let her stay? It's up to you.

What do you want the picture to look like? Yeah, we can bring her over. Okay, guys, let's bring the crying baby in for the debt-free scream. I love it. On YouTube one day. That's fabulous. Hey, she's why you did the whole thing. I mean, come on. This is changing your family tree. And if she wants to scream about it, we'll let her. I don't care. That's good. We're here.

It's all good. Oh, what a cutie. Oh, yeah. Oh, really mad. She's mad. I love it. That's so great. So fun. All right, Erin and Jenna and Ellie, you join in, too. From Raleigh, North Carolina, $75,000 paid off in three years, making $79,000 to $109,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah!

You did it, Ellie. You did it. I love it. She elevated that dead free scream. She calmed right down. I think she just needed some pop on mama time. That's all she needed. Oh, my goodness. That's fun. How fun. Hey, guys. That's pretty random.

that we should we show up because we're the the youtube numbers are ridiculous for the show they're wonderful because so many of you watch and listen there thank you we appreciate that but that drove it up to pop up on the landing page right they went to their podcast page or whatever and went oh there's dave's face and i remember him laughing about some pokemon thing or something which i vaguely saw an old clip on youtube and i vaguely remember some kid doing a pokemon thing or something but see social media is not all bad dave

Well, that helps people change their life. There you go. It's a rare moment. It led people to the full show, which has nothing to do with social media. But yeah, if it's a feeder, I'll take it. Right. And so they get somewhat randomly. We'll call God's finger dialing that in there.

And then we were good enough to engage them for nine hours. Wow. And something we were doing was that would give me a headache. But, yeah, that's a lot. I thought only Joe Rogan could hold you for three hours. That's a lot. He can. He can. Joe's the king. He does a good job. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess that's true. I guess I have listened to – I haven't binged. Well, we can hold a millennial attention span. That's something to celebrate today. Well.

Well, take the win. Well, and they won. Congratulations. What heroes, man. They're invincible now. They took control, man. And they can do anything. It's pretty amazing. This is The Ramsey Show. Let's play a game. Raise your hand if you've already filed your tax return. Ready? Go.

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That's RamseySolutions.com/smarttax. Hey guys, if you want to help us out, you can subscribe to this show, click the follow button.

Click the share button or cut out the link and send it to somebody to share. Let people know this is happening. When you do that, it changes everything, and more people learn about this information, and it helps them change their lives. That last couple was pretty impressive. Very, very well done. Preston's in St. Louis. Hi, Preston. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Real quick, I just want to say,

I've grown up listening to you. My mom, every day when she'd pick me up from school, she'd pick me and my brother up and would be listening to you. So I wanted to give a quick shout out to her and a shout out to you. That's fine. How old are you? I'm 26. Okay. So you're like 10 years old or something listening. Okay. Wow.

I know, I know. I was a child listening to you. I grew up listening to you. Wow. How can we help today, sir?

So my question was, with everything going on within the market and everything like that, how is it that you're supposed to grow wealth throughout everything with the stock market supposedly crashing, everything like that? You're jumping on me, sorry. So you remember that part where you were listening to me before?

Yeah. And you might have been too young to hear it, okay? Probably. But this is not the first time the stock market has gone down. Yeah. And there's nothing to indicate that this is a crash. Nothing. Okay? Yeah. Nothing. The U.S. economy is not imploding and falling in. Not even close. Got you. Stock market's having a bit of a temper tantrum over tariffs.

Because the stock market does not like an unpredictable environment. And this is unpredictable as crud right now because people don't know what's going to happen exactly because I think Trump makes it up every morning. So who knows what he's going to do next, right?

And he kind of likes it that way. He's messing with the stock market and he's messing with these countries beyond belief. No question about it. It's almost entertaining to watch. But it's not a crash, Preston. You understand that, right? No, I got you. Okay, so in 2023, you were 24 years old. Yeah. The S&P went up 23% or 26%. In 2024, last year,

It went up 23%. So the stock market has gone up 50 plus percent in two years. In the last seven days, it's down six or 8%. Not exactly a crisis, dude. Mathematically. I got you. Mathematically. No. So what you can't do is you can't listen to the news to give you input for investing decisions.

Because the news is full of drama queens. Their job is to make your heart rate change, your eyes dilate, and sweat to appear in your palms. That's their job. Then you get addicted to the fear porn that they peddle, and then they peddle more fear porn. That's why 73 apps go off when a tornado is 60 miles away. That's fear porn. A tornado that's 60 miles away is not going to hit you.

But your app is going off and waking you up in the middle of the night. Your heart rate spikes. Adrenaline is released in your body. And you're in freak out mode. And that's the exact same crap that's happening right now in the stock market. It's false evidence appearing real. It's not real. And so you're fine. And let me tell you what I'm doing. I'm scratching around for some extra money to throw it in right now because I think the stock market's on sale. I think it's a great time to buy. How's that sound?

No, I got you. I was just wondering. Here's two quotes for you, Preston. Etch these in your brain. Number one, when in doubt, zoom out. When you zoom out, go look at the five-year, ten-year, all-time track record of the S&P 500, and you'll go, ooh, up and to the right with a few little dips in there. Oh, yeah, let's zoom in. Ah, it's a crash. No, just a little dip. We'll be all right. It's a bump in the road. And the other one is this. Time in the market beats timing the market.

And so what you're saying is, is now the time to sell? I don't know. I don't want to lose money. You didn't lose money. You have the same exact amount of shares that you had before. The value has temporarily taken a dip. It will come back. And a month from now, six months from now, a year from now, we'll be back to all-time highs, and the news will not be covering it because that doesn't get clicks and views. So for those of you listening out there, I've got one particular account that I've got sitting up waiting to buy some real estate with, and I've got about $5 million in an S&P.

and is actually just right at $5 million. And so I clicked on it to see what this did to it. And I think it lost like it's down like 200 grand, something like that. Okay. So which is a lot of money, but you've lost $200,000. I haven't lost anything. I didn't sell. If you sell, you take the loss. You lock it in. I didn't lose anything. I'm just sitting here watching with great amusement the roller coaster ride.

and I'm going to try to throw some in while it's down because it's going to ride up as soon as some of this bizarre crap clears the air. And I don't know whether that's a month or six months, and I don't really care because I don't have to do anything with that money. I'm just going to let it sit there and ride it out, ride it out. You're not desperate. Wave up, wave down, wave up. And you don't lose anything until you sell.

It's just a paper loss. I mean, it's just a chart is all it is right now. And that same account, by the way, has gone up freaking 23% and 26% in the last two years. Now, that's not normal up either. It shouldn't be that much. Your average on the S&P since it began is 11.8%. And so that's about what the stock market has averaged since it began.

And so, you know, 11, 12, somewhere in there is the average annual rate of return. So 23 and 26 aren't normal. Those are unusually like double of normal, like twice as good as normal. And back to back. But did you hear anyone when you had two consecutive years twice as good as normal, did you hear a single person on Fox News or CNN go, look how great the market is? Wow! Not one.

not a one, but are they all screaming and black? There's blood in the streets and there's a crisis and the entire us economy has collapsed in there. You know, we're, we're going to have an upheaval in a revolution or something. Good Lord. You would think that these people, but Nope, Nope. So I'll get to be on there again tonight. I'll be on one of them tonight. Tell them everybody calm down, calm your butt down, calm your butt down. Um,

What did you say that was? Zoom in, zoom out? I'll try to quote that. I didn't come up with it, but when in doubt, zoom out. When in doubt, zoom out. So if you got all this fear, you just pan back and go, oh, it's actually up 80% over the last five years when you look at it a different way. Yeah.

instead of zooming into the one little dip that's over a five-day period freaking out. So perspective definitely helps. And you have the benefit of that, having invested in it for 30-plus years. You were sitting here at the same desk you and I were when the Fauci pandemic hit and the market went down like 50% or something, 57. I mean, dove, right? We had this two-month chart that just dove off the cliff for two months. And everybody's like, oh, the pandemic's ruined the economy. The economy will never – y'all, I mean –

Is the economy ruined? No. Hello? We are back to record highs. Does anybody remember predicting the end of the world? I remember people predicting the end of the world. It's the U.S. will never recover from Fauci. We'll never make it. He killed it. No, not even Fauci could kill it. So there you go. It's too strong. Can't hold us down. Sorry, y'all. I mean, it's just it was disappointing for those of you that wanted the end of the world to come and

Didn't happen for you. Well, it's important to note the stock market does not actually represent the economy one for one. It's a part of. That's true. 54% of the gross domestic product is small business. It has nothing to do with the stock market. You're not going to find it on the S&P. Thank God. That's how Dave likes it. We're going to invest. And we're going to invest.

When it's up, we're going to invest. When it's down, we're going to invest. We're going to invest. We're going to invest. And then we're going to look up and we're going to be worth millions of dollars. Hello. This is how we do it, boys and girls. Don't jump off the roller coaster. Please. Not in the middle of the ride. Oh, my goodness. This is The Ramsey Show.