Money’s Easy Until People Get Involved
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Build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Bianca is in Los Angeles. Hi, Bianca. How are you? I'm pretty good. Thank you. Good. How can we help?

Yeah, so I have a spouse that we just got married maybe four or five months ago and he's super financially irresponsible. You're just finding that out or you kind of knew it before?

I am really kind of just finding the brevity of it out, how deeply rooted it is. What's that mean? Tell us what that looks like. Well, here's a couple of examples. So he's behind on his child support because the job that he had was a contract job, and so the

they'll contract for a few months and then they'll leave without work for a few months. Well, then he got another contract job and, um, he got into a dispute with the guy there and ended up losing it. So his child support is in like arrears and he could even like, if they found out, I guess he could go to jail. I don't know what the process is for child support, not being paid on time, but,

That's just, like, one thing. So when it comes to, like, the money, when he gets paid, he wants to go get his hair done or me to get my hair done. And I'm like, okay, we need to sacrifice this little bit of money so that we can actually take it and start paying off debts. Like, he also has a car that's in his mom's name that's out for repossession. And so, you know...

He tries to keep it hidden so it doesn't get repossessed. How long did you guys date before you were married four months ago? Not very long at all. We kind of met, and then we just got married a very short period of time afterwards. And how old are you two? I'm 41. He's 52. That makes it worse. Sounds like a story of two 20-year-olds. I know. Really, it does.

Okay. And you just, so it's like, you didn't know all of this. And now that you're living together, it's starting to be revealed what's really going on. So when you sit down and talk about it, how does it go?

He gets angry about it. For example, he just started this new job and he wanted to buy a shirt because his shirts from the job hadn't came through yet. And I'm like, well, let's get the cheapest shirt when we're at Walmart. And he's like, well, I want to get this shirt because it's better than this one or whatever, which was a little bit more. And I'm like, well, get the cheaper one. So you get, you know, the one for every little bit of money that you can save and not spend mad.

He's like, why do you not always argue with me? Why do you always got to make a scene? And I'm like, I wasn't making a scene. It's like he always refused everything I say. You don't have a money problem, darling. You got a husband problem. And there's part of this. Here's a piece of advice. When you're arguing in Walmart over a shirt.

We know the marriage is in trouble. Yes. But a piece of advice that you might try, because I don't know, you know, you still got to try here for a minute. Oh, yeah. A piece of advice is not...

having this conversation in the moment, like not having the conversation in the moment that the bad behavior is taking place, but setting aside a time that has nothing to do. Nothing's happened. You just say, Hey, let's go get breakfast. Like it's just a normal thing that you're going to do. And then you say, here's, here's some of the things I've been thinking about.

And as much as you can put it towards you, here's what I'm thinking about. I'd really like to feel a little bit more peace financially. I'd really some of the things I've been thinking about. Right. And it's not saying you're spending too much on this. Your child supports do. You're, you know, irresponsible. Not that you've been saying that, but that's clearly the way he's feeling, even though he is irresponsible. I'm with you. But.

But how can we have that conversation in a way that possibly he could receive it? And I'm not guaranteeing you that he will receive it, but that's a better... The hope that you've got is you guys... The Bible has a phrase that says, where there is no vision, the people perish. And what happens is you don't have a vision for your marriage and you don't have a vision for your financial future that you're aligned on. And so if you're up above the problem, looking at the ideas...

and saying, okay, we want to not be in repo. We want to be able to buy a shirt and not think about it. We want to be able to retire with dignity. We want to be able to pay our bills and not have financial stress. These are our vision things. Okay, then what does those vision then lead us to? What principles do we need to implement? Well, we need to sacrifice. Right.

And we need to live on less than we make. And we need to be on a written plan. And in order to accomplish the principles, the vision that we've agreed to, instead, you guys are down in the ditch fighting about a Walmart shirt. Right. And it's not just a Walmart shirt. I know, darling, but that's a metaphor for this whole thing. Right. Now I got you. And so if you can't, if the two of you can't rise up above that,

What is your functioning? I'm not sure you are personally, but the stories you've told me, we got married in 30 seconds and the way you've addressed these things and the way he's behaving, all of these are indicators of immaturity.

Mm hmm.

The only way you're going to fix that is for the two of you to get above that and have a long-term thing that we're willing to build together towards. If you can't accomplish that by the two of you talking about it above the problem –

not talking about the symptoms let's get above the problem and if you can't get that then you probably need to sit down with a good marriage counselor and i kind of think you probably do i think so too yeah yeah like i've like she said i've actually said let's schedule some time to talk about it and he like you know kind of brushes it off like it's really adamant about and angry and yelling and stuff he feels really he feels really threatened uh-huh uh-huh yeah and exposed and

He has a car that doesn't work that's got 200 plus miles, thousand miles on it. And I'm like, well, at least sell that and get a couple of thousand dollars. Well, I don't want to sell it. It's going to be worth some money when I get it fixed up. But that's what you're saying. And I understand why you're saying that. Why it's not working is you're telling him what to do. And I get it. And from a logical perspective, it's easy. Why wouldn't he just do this? Why wouldn't he do that? He asked me what to do. And I'm like, here's my thing you should do. Don't ask me if you don't think I should give you your...

my opinion about it. Yeah, I think you guys don't know how to do conflict. What I think we ought to do is I think we ought to agree on some principles, and the principles will tell us what to do. The principles will say buy the cheaper shirt at Walmart or just wear one you got till the new ones come in. The principles will say sell the old car. The principles will say that a responsible grown man doesn't short his own children. He catches up on his child support.

The principles say we're going to sit down together and map out a life that has peace and sustainability and love and not all this angst and disrespect. He feels very disrespected. And you're scared because you think you've you think you've signed up for a bad trip here.

Exactly. And let me just add this. So I met him because I have two properties and one of them I was Airbnb-ing out. So I started Airbnb-ing my property out and he was like my first guest. And he ended up like taking to me and liking me and fixing stuff around the house. And then, you know, we kind of didn't really date, but we got married shortly thereafter him becoming a guest here.

And I'm like, did you just need a place to stay at? Like, I don't know. You're starting to feel used. Yeah. So, again, to save this, you've got to get above it. Otherwise, it's not going to be saved. I don't give you two years. Counseling is a must. Max, you do need a marriage counselor in your corner. And they can help. Hopefully, they can walk you through it. Yeah.

Sticking to a budget is hard enough and inflation, George, it isn't helping us. Yep. In fact, 54% of Americans say it's a challenge to save on groceries without sacrificing quality. But Aldi makes it easy. Aldi's private label, it is delicious food with incredible prices that you can save within your budget. Yeah, and Aldi has the lowest prices of any national grocery store, which is really impressive.

And with all the money you saved, you're going to be making more progress toward your financial goals. Yes, which is what we want for you guys. So stop overpaying and start shopping at Aldi. Find a store near you today at Aldi.us. That's A-L-D-I dot U-S-S. So if you're going to get married, the data tells us a couple of things that's helpful. Data is not always 100% accurate. There are averages, which means there's people on each side of the bell curve.

But the bell curve in the middle says this, a good, fully engaged, present in the same city engagement for around six months has the highest probability of marriage success. Five-year engagements aren't real engagements. Those are people shacking up together talking about getting married. Five-day engagements are a date that went crazy.

The data says six-month engagements, on average, lead to long-term marriage. Now, that can be nine months. It could be four months. It could be whatever. I've got friends that dated for a few weeks and been married 40 years. There are exceptions. I'm just telling you the data says, on average—

What was yours? How long did you date, Sharon, and how long were you all engaged? We started dating in February. We got married the following June, which would have been we dated for 18 months. Okay. And we were in college. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And we got married right out of college, the day we graduated from college. So-

There was a timing thing there. It really wasn't as scientific as I just laid it out a minute ago. And we got engaged in September and got married in June. So that's going to be nine months. Okay. That's similar to Sam and I just flipped up. But again, that was senior year of college. So the senior year was dictating it, not the actual engagement. That kind of had something to do with it. But it just turned out. I had no idea. I was a stupid redneck, hell-raising hillbilly. I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, she just...

I just got lucky and she didn't. That's all it was. So anyway, that's how we signed up 43 years ago for that deal. But the data does say that. The data also tells us that if you're going to get married, to be in agreement before you're married in detail, preferably in the office of a pre-marriage counseling. Now, by the way, pre-marriage counseling is a large indicator for success going in, and very few people do it. The Catholics do a really good job.

Really, if you're Catholic, in general, they have the best program I've ever seen on pre-marriage counseling. It's in-depth. I mean, they take you through it. They talk about your mama. You know, I mean, they go into everything, you know, that kind of stuff. And his mama and all that, right? That's good. Pre-marriage counseling. But anyway, in that, you need to be in agreement on four things. Money in detail. Debt, saving, generosity. Budgeting.

Who's the spender? Who's the saver? Who's the nerd? Who's the free spirit? Who believes in abundance? Who lives in scarcity? All of that. And because number one cause of divorce in North America is money problems and money fights, the lady that just called. What are the other ones? Religion? Religion. Kids? Kids. Dealing with kids. How many to have and who's in charge? Hatterasum. Is the asylum, are the inmates in charge of the asylum? What about politics? In other words, are your children free range?

You know, and so that kind of stuff. Right. And so and then the last one's in-laws. In-laws. Extended family. Extended family is the number four because there's crazy in every family. And if you think there's not crazy in your family, it means it's you. So you've got to figure that out and go, how are we going to deal when you're

When grandma wants to move in or owe money. That's a bad one. Or when your brother-in-law who does drugs comes by and wants money. But he's hungry. I don't want him to be on the street. Well, he chose that when he chose heroin.

So, you know, but the this is this is you got to decide this stuff ahead of time. So these are the four things with pre-marriage counseling and a medium to lengthy engagement that are high indicators for the probability. Now, I don't want to take all the romance out of this and turn it into a science project, but you ought to use some common sense and go, that's what the data says.

So if you're not in agreement on those four things, you're going to have a problem. If you have a short engagement, you're more likely to have a problem than if you don't. If you have a super long engagement, you're more likely to have a problem than if you don't. These are the things that you run into, and so you can...

especially those of you, we've got this tremendous number of young people listening and watching now on YouTube and TikTok and so forth. And so, because the guy, we were at a nice hotel in California last weekend playing golf and the young man that was taking our car and parking it for us was, um,

Just an incredible young guy. I got to talk to him a long time. But he just came up and he went on and on. Oh, I love Dave. You're Dave Ramsey. Oh, my God. He was like starstruck. And I'm like, dude, it's just me. It's okay. What are you working on? Tell me what you're doing. And he told me his whole story. He's just an incredible young dude. Those guys are everywhere. And so I'm kind of talking to him. That's kind of who I've got in my head right now. Because he's dating some girl, I'm sure. He didn't bring that up. But I'm sure he is. And, you know, you've got to be thinking about, okay, what's the –

What can I do to make this, the love of my life, the highest probability of success? Yeah, you do have to think like that. That's being a grown-up and stuff. I think so. Well, you just took all the romance out of it. No, baby, let me tell you what romance is. Romance is 43 years. That's freaking romance.

And I would rather spend time with her than any of you. Okay? Best friends. So that's romance. So you don't get to get there without this other stuff. Yeah. Because you kill each other. That's true. That's true. Gabriel's in Pittsburgh. Hey, Gabriel, what's up? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I'm just wondering, I'm going to...

What's the job you actually want to have? A production designer. Tell us what that does.

So they're the ones who oversee and show everything that happens, like in the movies, TV, commercials, everything that you see on camera. They're the ones responsible for that. When have you done that? I haven't done it yet. I've just been researching it ever since I was in high school. And I was getting into, I studied acting, directing, lighting, technology, all sorts of things. Where did you study that? I even...

Oh, I studied it while I was in high school, and currently I'm in acting right now. I do community theater and that sort of thing. Oh, good for you. I study it all my own time. Is there someone that does that in your acting studio? When you go to your acting, is there someone that does that job there? Well, it's a community theater, so I actually will even work the tech booth, and I will get insight from everyone who's done acting outside of that theater. Who builds your sets? Anybody that can get me.

So it's all live on stage. So there's some people who come in and volunteer and help do costumes and design. That would be you. Well, I'm actually, I do the acting. I don't. No, honey, we're just saying if you want to do that stuff, you ought to be doing that stuff. And you're surrounded by people who are doing that stuff that you can learn from is what we're saying. Okay. No, you don't need a four-year degree to doing that. If you were in Hollywood or you were in Atlanta, you're

which are probably the two largest soundstage areas right now. If you were on one of those stages, you would not find a lot of four-year degree to people building those sets. Okay. So now would that be for like everyone, like even the ones doing the movies and stuff too? Yeah, that's the soundstage. That's where they do movies on soundstages. Okay.

Okay. So they usually just do it through experience? Yeah, there's very few of them. Some of them have art degrees. Some of them have graphic arts degrees. They all have a bent the way that you do, which is towards your creative. That's how you're wired, which is wonderful. And I want you to pursue this. I just don't think a four-year degree is necessary for you to go do it. It might be, but I doubt it. I'm not an expert on the space. I've never hired anybody to do what you do full-time, professionally.

I mean, we have a lot of stages built and things for Ramsey, but they're a little different than what you're talking about. And so event stages and so forth, which are way different than theater or certainly different than movie. But I think you'll find...

that there's a lot of technology involved and a lot of apprenticeship type roles. That's what I would have you get into. If I were your dad, I would say move to L.A. or move to Atlanta. Move to Atlanta and start working. And go push a broom first if you have to.

and be around those people and then tell them, I'll help you stand that thing up. Oh, I'll help you move that chair. I'll help you with this paintbrush. And you just work your way in and ingratiate yourself to the folks. Even if you had to work a side job somewhere else, I would rather you do that and work your way into the business. I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle.

which is what I'm describing to you. Get in the proximity of people doing what you want to do. You might discover Dave Ramsey's full of it and you do need a four-year degree. If you do, then go get you a four-year degree. But if I were you, I would move to where it's actually happening and go do it. Let me tell you something. Most home security systems don't work until after someone breaks in. That's like putting your seatbelt on after the wreck. It's too late. And that's why I recommend SimpliSafe. Their active guard outdoor protection has...

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with 24-7 professional monitoring at SimpliSafeDirect.com. That's 50% off at SimpliSafeDirect.com. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Derek is in St. Louis. Hi, Derek. How are you?

Hello, Mr. Randy. Thank you so much for having me on today. Sure. What's up? I have a question here. I just wanted some Christian advice for my finances. I just graduated from dental school on Saturday, and now I'm a dentist, and I signed a two-year contract with an office, and my daily minimum is $1,200 a day.

And I currently have $215,000 worth of debt to my parents, and that's at 0% interest. I still live at home, and I commute to work about 40 minutes, and I'm looking to move out. I mean, I still get along with my parents, and I can still live here probably for another two years, but I'm

I'm 26 years old and I kind of want to get out of the house. And I'm just kind of looking for some advice on how I should be investing my money, how quickly I should be paying my parents back. That's a lot of debt. It's a lot of debt. Yeah. I mean, I would be interested in moving out. You said you're 26. Yeah, I'd be interested in moving out and maybe closer to where you're working since you've got that commute. And then is this your only debt? Is this the only thing you have?

Yeah, it's only $215,000. I mean, it is a lot. I'd say only, but... $215,000 or $250,000? $215,000. Okay. Okay, and you're making $350,000 a year? Yes. Okay. Yes, sir. And the year before you graduated from dental school, your income was what? I mean, $0. Yeah. So if you were to move out into a tiny little apartment...

And your car is paid for, right? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And you don't borrow any money and you don't go on vacation and you don't go out to eat and you pay your dad back in a year. That's the plan. Yes, sir. That would be that would be fine with me. Yeah, I would do that. I would do that. I think that is good. I don't think and honestly, I don't think Christian has anything to do with that, by the way. I think it's just a matter of it's a developmental thing. And

You know, the only thing that comes into Christian here is you don't want to be in debt. The borrower is slave to the lender and you want to honor your father and mother. And we're not doing we're not going to dishonor them with either one of these answers. And we're not going to not pay the debt with either one of these answers. So there's not a Christian answer versus a non-Christian answer to the question. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah. I think you can do this lickety split. I mean, if you make 350 and you live on nothing, no, no investing, no saving, no life. Yeah.

You had no life last year. Yeah, last eight years of my life. Yeah, so you got one more year. So let me tell you one of the things we've observed, Eric, and it'll help you, I think, if we frame it this way. We call it Doc-itis, okay? So one of the things you have been able to do that virtually none of the rest of the public in the United States has the ability to do is,

What's fabulously complimentary to you is that you have the ability to delay pleasure beyond belief for a greater good. I mean, you've been in school forever. You've been sacrificing. You've been nose to the grindstone. You've been holding your breath, however we want to say it. While, you know, for eight years after your buddies graduated from high school, you have delayed gratification to get a greater win. Right.

And docs do that and dentists do that, lawyers do that because you're doing a lot of postgraduate work, in other words. And what ends up happening, though, in those professions because you make a lot of money when you come out, hypothetically, and you are making a lot of money, thank goodness, is that you've been holding your breath so long and people, when they graduate and finally get the job, they exhale money.

And the exhale sounds like new BMW in a new house. No, sir. Well, that's called doc-itis because all the young broke docs and dentists have bigger debt than docs do on average. A lot of dentists we talk to are 450, okay? And so a lot of young dentists and docs have nice houses, nice cars, and an eight-year plan to get out of debt.

Because they felt like they deserved finally to get something. And so that's called docitis. And so just avoid docitis. Don't catch the disease. Keep living like a broke dental student for one more year and put this whole thing in the rearview mirror. Because then, dude, you're making $400K and you got zero debt. You know how fast you're going to be a multimillionaire? It's going to be unbelievable. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's probably going to be the plan. And don't sign up for a half million dollars to buy into a practice either. That's my long-term goal. Yeah, save up and pay for it. Yes, sir. You have this wonderful income. Keep your stinking lifestyle down. Clear your dad. Bank some money and get ready to buy a practice with cash. You can do that by the time you're 30. Yes. You're a stud, man. I'm proud of you.

Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. And I think I know my answer to this. And keep my nose to the grindstone. Yep. One year. One year. Yeah. Hey, dad, in one year. I think you stunned him. Well, it's good. He's good. He's good. I mean, you know, how many times? I like that. That's a good call. That is a good call. Very good stuff. Before it was worse, he called before it got worse, which is good. Yeah, way to go. Carol is in Houston. Hey, Carol, how are you?

I'm fine, thanks. How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, thank you for taking my call. Mom just recently passed, and I haven't moved anything yet. Thank you. But I wanted to get some advice on suggestions on where to be moving her money into. Okay. So let you ask the question. Her money is now your money? Yes, I'm sole beneficiary. How long ago did she pass?

Almost one month ago. Oh, I'm so sorry. What happened? Alzheimer's. How old was she? I cared for her for 96 years old. Wow. What a long life. Way to go, Mom. All right. My boy said that she wanted to live as long as her dad, and she got her wish. She died one day before her 97th birthday. So how much did she leave you?

A little over half a million. Wow. And how much did you have before that? About the same amount. I have saved and invested. So are you 70? Uh-huh.

No, you're good. 71. Well, I guess the 96-year-old might have had you when he was 26. It wasn't hard, but yeah. Okay. Wow. I know. Yeah, I'm 71. I'm retired. Okay. Well, the first thing we want to do is we want to honor Mom's memory by doing stuff with the money that abides by the common sense that Mom used to get the money. She also has passed that on to you. That's why you already have a half a million. Okay.

Correct. You already have common sense, so I'm going to tell you to trust your instincts first and foremost. Okay. You're your mother's daughter. Yes. You're capable of doing this. Okay? Okay. So the things that we would do with it is we would walk you up the baby steps. Yeah. So you are worth $500,000 now. I'm assuming you have no debt, or is there still some debt in the picture? No debt at all. Including your house? Yes.

Including my house. Wow. Way to go. That's excellent. So you're really this is just an open field for you. How did you receive the money? Is it property? Is it land? Is it? I would say most of it's all going to be bank accounts. We sold her home and moved her closer to me when, you know, the dementia started and everything. So we sold her home.

And between the sale of the home and her savings is where she has been able to achieve a half a million. Okay. You got kids? They're grown. You got grandkids? No. Okay. And all the money is liquid. None of it's invested, right? With mom, I would say it's all liquid with the exception of...

two cemetery plots and after we go over her finances I was gonna make mention of that and tell you my options.

Yeah. Okay. I'm not using the cemetery plots. That's why I wanted to run something by you. I would just sell them. Yeah, you could sell them off. I also would recommend getting with a smart investor pro and trying to invest some of this money because it just sitting in savings accounts, it's not growing to its full potential. And so that would probably be my first move. And like I said, you can go to ramseysolutions.com slash trusted to find someone to help you invest this money. I'm 64 and I would put it in four types of mutual funds with a pro.

Growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, and international. There's a time in your life and the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down.

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All right.

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So it's time to stop spinning your wheels and go to Yrefy.com slash Ramsey and learn more. That's Y, the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Amy in Tennessee. She says, how do you feel about those buy homes for cash companies? Our home has been on the market for months with no offers, and we're running out of time to close on our new home.

I could tell you what I think. Dave's probably going to be the expert on this, but my initial thought says if they're buying a home for cash, they know you're desperate. They're probably going to give you a lower offer because it's in cash. And my guess

bigger question to you would be why is it not selling there's probably a reason maybe something that you can take care of or handle as to why it's not selling maybe it's not priced right maybe your home has a weird smell like maybe there's something going on uh maybe it's your realtor so those are the questions i'd i'd probably be asking first buy homes for cash feels maybe it's the realtor that has a weird smell yeah maybe the realtor has a weird smell

Trust me, you don't want that. Sorry, I just went there. I mean, you know those signs that you see on the corner and they're like handwritten? Those are called wholesalers, meaning that they are buying the property for flipping. And if they're going to buy it at a price that they can resell it and make a profit. Low ball. That's called a wholesale price and you're not going to like that price. That means you are super desperate to buy this other house that you should probably just let go.

Because you probably have a contingency on closing on the new home. And the contingency says if your house hasn't sold that you're not required to close. And you probably shouldn't close on it unless you can get rid of this other one without giving it away. I mean, are you going to give up an extra $50,000 or $100,000 or whatever the number is in order to just get this other property? Yeah.

Yeah. So. But there's nothing like negative about those cash buyers. Like they're not doing anything wrong. I mean, some of them are slimy, but, but most of mostly it's just, they're buying the property to resell. It's like a car dealer buying your car. That's right. They're going to give you the lowest. They're going to give you a wholesale on it, trade in value because they're going to resell it at the retail value.

And they make money. They make the profit on the difference in wholesale and retail. Yes, they want that spread. You know, that's so, I mean, Carvana or CarMax is not going to give you as much for your car as a private sale will. And so in most cases, I mean, there's very few exceptions to that. And that's true in the housing market. Now, there are a few people buying single families out there that are buying them to hold long term. And they're not individuals. They're more like hedge fund types. And they're paying like retail.

So if you want to get a price from one of them, it's probably not the sign on the corner. But, you know, what you've got to do is you have to get away from this sense of desperation that I I'm running out of time. This this the way the sentence is structured tells me you're going to give your house away and I don't want you to do that. Well, she's already found a kitchen that she would rather be cooking in. She done got the fever.

So there we go. Taylor is in San Francisco. Hi, Taylor. How are you? Hi, I'm great. How are you all today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. My husband and I have a child, and we would love to consider having another, but we have some debt. So I'm just calling to ask about that. Why wouldn't you get pregnant today?

Well, a lot of that's not specifically in our hands, but we're big fans of doing every dollar budget, and they bring these shows, so we know that we need to save up before we have that child. We have about $97,000 on a HELOC, and that's all that we have. But we're looking at that from a perspective of I'm now a full-time stay-at-home mom. What's your household income now?

It's around 65 is our bring home. In San Francisco? It's tight like a tiger. That's tough. San Francisco? Right. In the city? Right. Right. Wow. Wow. Okay. I'm guessing things are tight. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, it is. Okay. Okay. I mean, I'm all for, I'll tell you this, I'm all for entering parents

parenthood and motherhood with your eyes wide open and kind of thinking through what that can mean cost wise. While at the same time, I would not necessarily delay it unless you could really, unless you decide together, hey, we're just going to do this for the next year and then go forward. It's got to be a decision that you make together. It's not a Ramsey principle to say you must be out of debt before you have a child or

And I think I heard you say something about saving up for a kid. And what we mean by that, it's not to say you don't get pregnant until you've saved up this money. It's simply to say that if you're walking through the baby steps...

and you find that you are pregnant, you can pause the baby steps and save up cash during that process. Does that make sense? Okay. So I mean, I just, I feel like everything is so tight. And with my husband being in a ministry type position, there's not really an opportunity for more. Does that make sense? Unless I go back to work. And I think that we both feel called for me staying at home. So I think we're just having that. We're obviously praying through that. You live in one of the most expensive markets in the world.

in America, and you have a below average household income. Okay. That's what I was observing. That's why I went San Francisco. Yeah. So that's why I said that. All right. So I mean, you're obviously called there in the ministry, and that's wonderful. I'm glad you're there. And the thing is, we don't want to

No, we don't delay having children based on income or based on debt. That's not a Ramsey principle. But we do use common sense in looking at these things overall. I mean, whether you have a child or not, you have a tight budget and you live in an expensive market and you have $97,000 in debt. Having a child is not really going to be the major issue that affects that. What's going to affect that is something that happens to the income or something that happens to the area you live in.

And so you become a minister in another city, a pastor in another city that you can more afford to live in or at a better income. Or you look at that church looks at paying more in this situation. I don't know. But I mean, long term, yeah.

Whether you've got one kid or two kids, you have a tight budget. And you need a plan. And I think that's what it boils down to is what is the plan versus just kind of saying, we'll see what happens. You come up with what you think because plans can change. You come up with what you think the plan would be if you had a child here in the near future. And you come up with what the plan would be if...

if you waited. And then you look at it from both angles because on the show, Dave, as much as I do, people tend to look at it from one side, which is the best possible scenario, instead of looking at it as, well, what happens if that's not the case? And then what would we do then? So that's my best advice to you. I can tell you that Sam and I delayed having kids because of very similar issues. It's just the income wasn't there yet. And we did have a lot of debt. It was a personal decision and one that I do not regret.

Yeah. But again, what Jade says is true. As a blanket thing on the show, we don't give advice to say, you know, don't have children because of financial situation. I mean, you know, I do think some common sense is involved. Don't have 16 children, you know, when you make $16,000 a year. I mean, come on. I mean, there's some common sense involved in this. But we're talking about in general. Don't wait to get married because of debt.

But do you think about what it means for you to be home? And you're starting to do that. What does it mean for us to go down to one income? What will that look like? As opposed to not thinking about it at all. Think about if you're a person who will do daycare, what does it look like for us to pay for a daycare once they hit six or seven months old or whatever the plan may be? Think through it. Don't just jump. Yeah. According to scripture, they're doing four things that are all godly. Yeah. They're adding arrows to their quiver. Mm-hmm.

She wants to stay home and be there with the kids. He wants to serve the Lord in the ministry. They want to get out of debt. Yeah. All of those things are biblical. And so I'm going to ask Father for some help.

Hey, Dad. Hey, God. I need some help here. Explain the add arrows to the quiver for the folks who don't know what that is. Proverbs about having children. There you go. More arrows in your quiver is more children that you can release into the world. Hopefully they fly straight.

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

And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch. Oh, you're telling me. And for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. Me too. And they don't know what to do next. Me too. I mean, you're going to have a crisis here. And, you know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Kyle is in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Kyle. How are you?

Hi, I'm doing well. How about yourself, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm calling today because I'm looking for some biblical counsel on navigating conflict within a family business. Wow. Something you might know something about. Well, I know something about conflict, and I know something about family business, so we'll try. I appreciate it. Wow. What's going on, dude?

I feel today I'm at a crossroads, and like I said, I'm trying to seek some biblical guidance. But long story short is I left a successful corporate career working for a Fortune 500 company about five years ago. Joined my father and my younger brother in the business with a shared plan to eventually take over as my father stepped out.

About six months ago, there was a little bit of a falling out that was building after my brother has pulled a little away from the business, reduced his hours, ultimately moving out of state and became increasingly disengaged. I confronted him about a little bit of the imbalance and felt I was almost being taken advantage of. And that combined with some tension with my father ultimately left him in quitting the business.

Since then, I've taken on a whole host of his responsibility. All the while, he continues to benefit financially, receiving the same distributions, still a small salary, health benefits and perks, and if nothing's changed.

And the long story short is, you know, I shared some of my displeasure with my father about the situation, but he doesn't want to go back on any of the equitable arrangement, even though it's coming at my expense. And I want to handle the situation in a godly way, but I'm feeling a little bit exhausted, slightly resentful, and I'm unsure how to move forward and trying to get some counsel. How old's your dad?

He is 65 this year. What's the top line revenue of the business? About $30 million. Okay. All right. Well, the family business research that we have done, one of the things it taught me, there's a guy that is probably, I guess, one of the Mount Rushmore guys in the

In that space, his name, John Ward, and he's a professor. I believe it's University of Michigan or Minnesota. One of the two. Can't remember. Anyway, I bought a thirty nine dollar book that was about an inch thick from him. It was but the book, but the information was worth it. And so one of the things in it was a Venn diagram.

And the Venn diagram has three circles, obviously, intersecting in the middle. You know what that looks like. One says one of the circles is owner, one is family, and one is team member or employee. Okay? And so, for instance, your mom would be, or your cousin would be family, but not an employee and not an owner. Agreed? Agreed. Your dad would be owner, employee, family.

and family member. You would be owner, family member, employee. And so that diagram helped me to say I've got to keep these three things separate. So it is, I run into a lot of family businesses that are run successfully where the owners are not necessarily all working there. They're not paid a salary and they're not paid benefits as an employee, but they are paid profit distributions because they're one of the owners. Right.

Okay. That's not unusual to be like a stockholder in a company that doesn't work at that. You know, you can buy stock in Home Depot and not work there and get distributions of their profits and so forth. And so that could be your brother.

But he does need to get off the payroll, and I don't care if you give him health benefits, whoop-dee-doop-dee. But, you know, then the thing is, okay, when your dad hands this over to you, you're then going to be a 50% owner or what with your brother? 30. Each of us have 30. 33. There's four total owners. There's 35 for my father, 30 for my brother, and 5 for another employee.

Okay. What's going to happen to your dad's shares when he's gone? He could choose to retain them still as a passive equity owner, just I guess like how my brother is today. Or there's a potential that perhaps some of it could flow my way. Right. So your dad has any two of you can outvote your dad, not the 5% guy, but the other two. So you and your brother could outvote your dad.

You and your dad could outvote your brother. Your brother and your dad could outvote you. Okay. So the way that the operating agreement is actually structured is that although my father only has 35% of the equity, he has 100% of the vote. Okay.

Okay, so he decides. When is he going to give that up? Never. That's the million-dollar question. I agree. Okay, because what happens when he gives that up is then that you need to have controlling interest or you need to be sitting in that seat in the operating role to where you can decide what is distributed to the non-employee family.

Okay. So your dad's at home and retired. Your brother's working another job in North Carolina or wherever, and you're the only one there, but they all, they own 35 and 30. And when you do distribute profits to the owners, they're going to get their share, but you're going to be sitting in the operating seat.

That's what we've got to solve for. And you have to solve for it today, but you need a path to get there, and your dad needs to take your brother off the payroll today. That's not equitable. I don't care if he gets health benefits. Whoop-dee-doop-dee. I don't care if he gets a company cell phone. Whoop-dee-doop-dee. That's not a deal breaker. The deal breakers control issues here, and then the distribution. So if your dad – are you underpaid? No.

No. Okay. Then you're paid for your position. By the way, when you're the CEO and you're in control in the governing and the operating role, okay, you also only collect a salary equivalent to a CEO of a $30 million company. All other profits need to be distributed to you and everyone else. So you don't get to double your salary to keep your brother from getting something. That would be unethical.

Correct. I'm not trying to be punitive as well, but I agree with you there. But I think the issue here is what you don't see is you don't see the old man walking out. I think your problem is with the old man. It's not with your brother. Your brother's just shined a light on it. You're probably right. Yeah. He's got founder-itis, and founder-itis is those of us that start something, we're freaking hardheads. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to build. He built a $30 million company from nothing. He's a hardhead.

Yeah, that's his second one, too. I agree with you. And he can be a pain in the butt. That's how he got here. I know this guy. I look at him in the mirror, okay? And so, but that's what you're dealing with. And, Dad, we need a plan where you're going to hand this thing off instead of me leaving it and it all getting destroyed. Because if I don't see a plan, I'm starting to lose hope. And this emotional stuff with the brothers brought it all to a head.

And so we need to, that's the way we, you know, we need to resolve, we need to solve for 10 years from today. And stage gate, what has to happen, what are the things that has to happen for us to get to that point 10 years from today and solve for it.

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to help you. So stop throwing money away and get the health insurance that's right for you at healthtrustfinancial.com. That's healthtrustfinancial.com. Josh is in Pittsburgh. Hey, Josh, how are you? Better than I deserve, you know. How are you? Just the same. How can I help? Doing great. I got a question. How do I combine finances with my wife when one spouse isn't willing to? Why isn't she willing to? Um...

I think maybe some of the long-term money goals. I guess I'm wanting to put more towards investments and maybe she doesn't see the value in some of that. Is this your first marriage? Both of you? Yeah. How old are you guys? I'm 24, she's 25. How long have you been married? Just over two years. Good. Okay, perfect. I have a feeling it's probably not so much about...

her not wanting to do this. It might be the way it's being approached. How are you? What's it? What's a, what's a conversation sound like? Let's role play. You I'll pretend I'm her and you, you come to me how you've been coming to her. Um, so I guess I would just ask her and say, um, I just like, let me set you up. I I'm, I'm making dinner. I bought groceries today and I went over the budget again. What do you do? Um, um,

So I guess I just tell her mathematically, bringing our values and goals together makes more sense to both be working on something. What do you do for a living? I'm a pilot. Yeah, I thought so. Okay. You're wonderful. You are what I call a super nerd. You are going to be so rich.

If you if you learn how to talk to your wife, but your mind works only on math and on details. You are a detail fiend. You've done spreadsheets at 1 a.m. when you couldn't sleep. You think they're fun. Spreadsheets. I love it. I love it. You're going to you're really going to do well.

but can I say something? Sure. Am I wrong? Um, no, you're right. So, so I know you guys are completely against that. And I was saying, so I was in high school when I first heard about you guys, I guess it was 2017, 2018. And some of the people that I've been influenced by, they like are multimillionaires. They recommend when it comes to business and, um,

I kind of like when you guys talk about psychology and behavioralism, it's not about all the math, it's about financial peace. And so I feel like I'm at a crossroads with that. I guess my wife actually is totally more on board without no debt, but she's also not into investments even considering all that. The way you approach it, sure. I would be into it the way you approach it. You would have turned my wife off, though, I can tell you that.

Because I did, doing the same kind of crap you're doing. So, yeah, it doesn't work. So here's the thing. She feels like that she—you don't want to. It's not your intention because you're not this person. But she feels like she's being preached at by you. Mm-hmm.

And that that and she thinks if she goes along with you, that you guys are going to live in a cave, collect Lent and never come out except on triple coupon Thursday. That's how she feels. She's afraid if she goes along with you, she has given up life on the planet as any normal human being knows it, because you're going to save everything.

Everything. And every time she gets her nails done, she's going to get shamed. That's how she feels. I'm not saying you're that guy, but that's the vibe you're putting off to Jade and me. I think for you, if you can talk to her in pictures instead of numbers, it would go a long, long way. And I want her to understand her vote counts equal to yours. You do not have a superior vote because you have a superior math skill.

You only get one vote. She gets the other one. In case of a tie, you lose. True. She's got to get this message that her voice is being heard. So, honey, when we sit down and do a budget, if you don't have enough fun in there and you don't have enough facials in there, that's going to be your fault because you have a vote.

And I want us to agree on our long-term goals. Our long-term goal is to build wealth. Our long-term goal is to avoid debt. Our long-term goal is to work together because the families that do that have the most successful marriages and statistically have the highest probability of becoming millionaires.

80% of the millionaires that we have studied, and we studied over 10,000 of them, said they worked together with their spouse combined and in sync, and not one of them doing what the other one was told. They're not doing what they told. They were not a handmaiden, or they were not a husband that didn't have a brain, and his mommy took care of him in the form of a wife. These were two, like, grown-ups and crap that worked together.

And you get together with her. But all she's hearing is she knows your nerd tendencies. And I've got to tell you, she's real proud of that when you land an airplane safely. I'm real proud of that when you land an airplane safely, by the way. Yeah.

And so that's what allows you to do that is all these nerd tendencies. These are the nerd tendencies. You know, one of my good friends is a pilot. He went out for a flight last Saturday and he was doing the aircraft wasn't small plane, but it wasn't airworthy. And he walked away.

Because he's a super nerd. There's no chance. All that was missing was the gas cap. They could have put a gas cap on it. He walked away and went back home. That's my kind of guy. That's my kind of pilot. These are the pilots that don't wreck airplanes, okay? Thank you. I thank you for who you are. But you've got to, this is more of a collaboration than it is a flight plan. And if you can get her to hear that vibe off of you instead of this super nerd vibe, then you guys can work together.

And it took a while because the first seven years of our 43-year marriage, my wife will tell you that her vote didn't count. I didn't tell her it didn't count. I just got a big personality and did whatever the flip I wanted to do. And she just went along with it. Whatever you want to do, honey, which is Southern for you're doing it wrong.

That's passive aggressive is what that is. And so, yeah, whatever you want to do, honey. Yeah, right. I'm going to tell you later that that was stupid. But right now, just you go, you just do whatever you want to do. And that's the first seven years of our marriage because super nerd here had it all figured out. And I wrecked the plane in my case. Yeah. Yeah. So keeping the metaphor alive here. But yeah.

But the, yeah. So, Josh, I think you're going to do very, very well. You're smart and you're, no, you're not smart. You're wise for asking the question. That tells me you know that there's a relational problem you don't know how to solve and it's not a math problem. Yeah. And that's brilliant on your part because that's going to lead you to wealth. Yeah. I think that's good. I think...

I think a good question in those situations. Hey, talk more about talking in pictures and not words. I stepped on you when you said that. That's all right. That's all right. I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking there's something that she's seeing you do, like you said, that's just boring, boring, boring. And you're talking about numbers and math and what we can have numbers wise. But a better way to talk about is what does the future look like? What does the future look like to you, dear?

And she can paint that picture. And I think that's a lot clearer. I know for Sam and I, one of the clear pictures I had in my head that was a motivator was I had this vision of taking my kids to school and dropping them off and being there when they were out of school. That's a picture.

It's a picture. And that means you've got to be able to not work all the time. Right. And how do you work backwards from that? So maybe take her on a date and say, tell me what your picture of the future looks like. What do you picture when you think about us being successful? What do you picture? And really, that's your homework is to really keep it in pictures. Don't mention numbers a single time. Ask her what she pictures when she pictures a peaceful lifestyle, peace financially. And then you can get to know her a little bit better in that way. And then...

Let's have a dream date and do it in high definition. High def. HD. Let's get into details. And oh, by the way, Josh, you're not doing much talking at this. That's right. Lots of listening. A lot of listening. And just asking clarifying questions. That's your max. Yeah. Lots of questions. And they're not passive aggressive questions. You're like, you're crazy. That's not a question. And so, you know, that, you know, but yeah, just ask clarifying questions. And then, you know, what if we got, what if I got a $10 million signing bonus?

What does our life look like? And ask her what her spending love language is. Ask her that. That's a good one. What's yours? Probably convenience or like self-care. Oh, okay. I got you. Okay. All right. I know what mine and Rachel's is. Experiences. Experiences. Yep. For sure. This is The Ramsey Show.

All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah. I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks. Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit unions.

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. But 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. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They

They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer. 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 I love it. The things that we teach, they so line up with. 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, like 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

I so, so appreciate that. 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.

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Justin and Casey are on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Hey guys, how are you? We're fantastic. Thank you for having us. We're honored to have you. Where do y'all live? St. Louis, Missouri. All right, fun. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid?

$181,000. Love it. How long did that take? 24 months. Good for you. And the range of income during that two years? Yeah, that was about $170,000, then down to $120,000, then back up to $230,000. Whoa! Nice jump. What do you all do for a living? Um...

I work in the fertility field, so I make IVF babies. Wow. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm a car salesman. All right. And so one of you was unemployed for a hot minute? No, I was selling cars and then tried to make a career change and went down in income in case he wasn't too happy about it. I warned him. Warned me, and then about five months later, I went back to car sales at my job and got

The other money that we kind of added to the side hustle, I started landscaping. Oh. Because I did that before I sold cars. So for the first little bit, I had a 15 Subaru. I was putting mulch bags on the top of the car, doing – put my name up in our Webster Groves community page. It's our town's Facebook page, and it was a honey hole. And then I work at a car dealership, so we got married in 21 –

didn't combine our finances until, uh, April of 23. Just, you know, and when we kind of hopped on that, it was incredible. And, uh, April of 23 to April of 25 and, uh, you know, knocked it out. We, um, what kind of debt was the one 80? Uh, student loans, uh, credit cards. Um, our first year marriage, we owed almost 10,000 to the government. And, um,

That's it. Yeah, yeah. Student loans, two cars, a Peloton. Cars. Got to have the Peloton. Yeah, the Peloton tread. A clothes hanger. Okay. Yeah, right. Clothes rack. Yeah. I bought a truck in 2024, and it really ramped everything up in May of 24. So I was making...

In 2024, I made about $28,000 on the side hustle, then $32,000 on $25,000 on top of the car sales. And I was working seven days a week for two years, rain or shine. She cooked every breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two years, just absolutely battled together. And we're gazelle intense and just, you know, after work Thursday. So wait a minute. The story's running together. What was the moment? Yeah.

Where you said, okay, enough. I'm calling BS. This has got to change. Yeah. We were probably right around that April in 2023. We, you know, owed eight grand to the IRS. And I just hated being normal. I felt like so average, so ridiculous. Making too much money to be this broke. Yes, exactly. You know, had a good life. We were married. We were, you know...

But just so stagnant in how we felt and, you know, none of the materialistic things made us happy. And we got so close to each other during this process. Well, how did you find this? How did you find Ramsey? My brother Jay and his wife were doing it and they did it as well. We were definitely being Davey-ish. We're like, yeah, we don't – we're not going to do it just like that. We'll do it our way. Didn't work. So Jay told us about that. Then we did –

We bought the FPU class and we watched the first two episodes and that's what really brought her around. Once we saw episode two, it light switch for her and combining the finances and

Just incredible. Casey, what was it about that? What was the message in that that you heard? So, like he said, he was probably working on me a good three months before I, you know, was just... And I... And you know, he's a car salesman, so he's trying to sell you. I know, I know. But just, I just remember watching George up on stage talking about the debt-free snowball and just something clicked in my head. Just drowning in student loan debt, you know, $900 payments each month. It just...

seemed impossible and just George made it sound possible yes yes exactly that's called hope yes yep and it went once that switch went off and I felt that it was like I can't explain it it's just such a surreal feeling and yeah the budget is like a superpower I mean I don't know how every human being doesn't use a budget yeah after finding the every dollar app and yeah you know it's just a game changer yeah wow proud of you guys thank you thank you

You guys have been through a lot in just a couple of years of marriage. Yes. Yep. It's so silly looking back at it. And we could have started this four or five years ago. But we're really glad that we did it when we did. And our relationship has just changed so much. It's just amazing. And we just thank you guys so much. And we're just so appreciative of everything. What was the hardest part?

Maybe not eating out. We didn't eat out for two years, except if we got gift cards. Yeah. So that was hard. And then we didn't see each other much because I was, you know, working and she was just making all the meals. I tried. I tried to go to some side jobs. And we learned quick that it's best if I leave the landscaping to him. We became a great cook, though, didn't we? Yes. We learned really quick to leave him at home and not take him grocery shopping because that...

just got out of control. You know, started shopping at Aldi, saved so much money doing that. And now I'm an Aldi girl. Really worked that budget down to get the margin. Like that's what really clicked is just get that thing tight. And then every penny other than that goes to, you know, goes to the debt and now goes to anything we want, you know, and investing and all the good stuff. And we just really feel like,

Because of this, we can do anything together. It's like winning the Stanley Cup. You know, you battle all year and then you win that. Now you want to win more championships and just more good experiences together. It's just only up from here and we're just so excited. What would you say to the couples? Because, you know, folks call in here all the time. They struggle to combine their money. I mean, you even said the first couple of years you didn't have it together. So what does that look like and why is it worth it?

It's scary. I mean, to think about it at first, because you're so set in your ways, like, no, this is my money that I earned. And same with him. But once, you know, combining it, it was just looking back, it's so silly. Why didn't we do this? Trust each other, you know, trust each other and trust.

Communication. Yeah, communicate. And like you say, why? Like, where do we see ourselves in a couple of years? And if we see yourself there, what does it take? It takes communication and being together on it. You can't be together with money going different ways, you know, different places. You all got to know, you know, where it's going. Have any trouble with both of you having a vote?

No, no, no. We've always been, you know, even when we combine finances, it was just because we hadn't thought of it before. You know, we didn't hear a show where you guys said to do it, just ironically. So once I said, hey, let's do it, she's like, yeah, sure, no problem. It just was doing, you know. Just never thought of it before. Just never thought of doing it. I get it. The efficiency goes way up. Yeah, it streamlines it, like you said, and it just, you find more money. It's...

It's incredible. And just feel more of a team. Well, you get the momentum of both of your efforts going towards one shared goal. Exactly. Absolutely. Exactly. Proud of you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, you didn't eat out for two years. Yeah. Who made fun of you? Oh, gosh, everybody. Yeah.

Yeah. We had a lot of supporters as well, but a lot of people. You got to sing a Toby Cates song now, How You Like Me Now. Yeah, exactly. What was that debt-free meal that you won't eat anymore? Oh, my gosh. We used to have this thing for lunch, like this porridge thing. Ground beef. Taco bowls, probably. Ground beef and rice is what I ate every day for lunch and dinner because she'd pack it. Uh-huh.

I was like, no more of this. No more ground beef. I'm done. I like it. No more beef bowls. Proud of you guys. I'm so proud of you. Well done, guys. Thank you so much. Justin and Casey, St. Louis, Missouri. $181,000 paid off in 24 months. What would you do?

To pay off $180,000. Would you not eat out for two years? Rice and beef bowls. To do rice and beef. That's kind of like rice and beans. $181,000 paid off, making $170,000 to $120,000 to $230,000. They worked their butts off. They lived sacrificially. They worked together. They stayed on the budget using the EveryDollar app. They did the whole thing. They did it. They're debt-free, and they got the rest of their lives to become millionaires and multimillionaires. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one. We're debt free! Absolutely! What would you give to work with your husband, to work with your wife in unity like that? Oh, it's a choice, darling. It's a choice. It's a choice.

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Shelby is in Nashville. Hi, Shelby. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. My question is brief. I'm trying to figure out whether the person I'm dating is actually a scam artist or not with crypto. So, back story. We started talking about a month ago, and I was talking to a friend of mine, and I was

And he has way more money than I do. I'm on baby step three, so I'm trying to save up for my six-month emergency fund. But he's trying to get me to cash out my 401k to, I guess, fund crypto because he said he has this, I guess,

plan that he's been working for about three years and he said it has a 90% like money back. And what does that sound like to you? I mean, you're calling us. What are you thinking? It sounds pretty sketchy. But when I've tried to talk to him about it, it's... Sorry. He keeps throwing it back like if I'm making a wrong decision and it's really shutting me out. And I've tried talking to him about it, but he just...

He's coming back with that I'm not making good financial choices. He's trying to, it sounds like he's really manipulating you here. Yeah. I mean, all this emotion. Listen to this emotion. I think you've got good instincts. You want to know what I think, Shelby? I think when something doesn't feel right, it's not right. Like, I think when you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach. You know why it smells bad? Because it stinks. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was enough to make you call a radio show. How old are you? I'm 37 years old. Yeah. When did you leave the last bad relationship? Two and a half years ago. Toxic? Very much. Yeah. Okay. And so you were just really, really wishing this one wasn't. Right. Until it was. Yeah.

Right. That's part of what makes you cry. It's not just him. It's just you just wanted this one to be okay, and it's not. Yeah. Because here's the thing. Even if the advice was good, the process he's using on his girlfriend is toxic. Would you agree with that? Yes. The shaming and the gaslighting? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so I'm not sure if he's an idiot or a con man.

But I am sure he's one of the two. Yeah. 100%. Anyone that tries to tell someone that they love to cash out their 401k and put it in a crypto buy that has a 90% probability is either an idiot or a con man. Because there's no such thing. Even the people that are legitimately doing crypto would tell you that those numbers just don't work.

You don't put your 401k money in crypto. Even if you believe in crypto, you don't do that. And you don't have a 90% play even if you believe in crypto. And anybody that believes that is either an idiot or a con man because the numbers don't justify that. The market doesn't justify that. There is no such thing. Okay? And I'm not sure which one he is, but I can tell you this.

My friend Shelby, who I love, doesn't need to be dating a guy who's an idiot or a con man, and he's one of the two. You're done. I'm sorry. I have one last question. I'm sorry. Was that too mean? No. No, that was... Did that kind of ring inside of you like I just touched the truth?

Yeah, I just needed someone else's perspective from outside to tell me what I ought to do. Grandpa, dad would box this guy's ears if he's trying to date my granddaughter. I'd run him off with something that was loaded. Do you think it would be too mean if I just kind of ghosted him? I don't really care what you do. There's 50 ways to leave your lover. You can do whatever you want. I don't care. You've only known him for a month, didn't you say? Yeah. Where'd you meet online?

Yes. You know what? I've decided, you know, you can just send him a text or you can send him an email or you can call him. I don't care. And just say, I've decided that this is not working for me. I have a good life. Mm hmm. And end of story and no conversation. We're not going to talk about crypto. We're not going to talk about con man. Now, I will tell you just an added commentary just for the fun. Does that does that all sound right to you? Or did you think we were going to tell you something else?

No, I was kind of hoping that you would just set me straight. I'm not setting you straight. I'm setting him straight. You deserve some love. This guy needs to be set straight, not you. I'm just agreeing with what your brain was already telling you. Yeah. I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else. Yeah. Now, here's the deal. I've been walking around a long, long time, and I have gotten conned a lot more by enthusiastic ignoramuses.

than I have by con men. There's a lot more people who are enthusiastically stupid, including me at times, than there are actual con men. That's why I can't tell what this guy is, and I really don't care. Either one is dangerous. An enthusiastic ignoramus will get you in as much trouble as Bernie Madoff.

Okay. And so I don't care if he's an enthusiastic fool or if he is an actual con man. He's got some of the badges of con man. Yeah. There's a lot of the signals here. I don't run into this very often, but a lot of the signals are here. Can I just ask, have you seen him in real life or is this all online? Ooh.

Um, well, it's mostly online. I've been trying to meet him in person. That's the con man part. Wait, wait, wait. You've never met him in person? That's right. Can you spell catfish? Yeah. Not really. No, I can't.

But yeah, just because I'm a single mom and my schedule just doesn't match, we haven't had a chance to meet. Yeah. He doesn't exist, darling. He's not even real. This is a con. There's not even a person over there. There's a boiler room working you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is completely a con. I'm sorry. Good catch. I just had a feeling. I want to know.

I went for the old guy that was just dumb. And you got it. Now, this is a boiler room in Russia. Yeah. They're trying to get your money. It's a Nigerian prince. You are getting worked, kiddo. This is a romance job.

Oh, man. Yeah. Wow. He doesn't even exist. That's even worse. Well, that's how those crypto schemes are. My last boyfriend didn't exist. I'm trying to get a real one this time. Okay, that's your next toy. That's how these crypto things are. You meet online and then they start trolling and next thing you know,

You're talking about money. Well, I'm a lonely person is a target for sure. Sometimes it's old people. Sometimes it's somebody fresh off a breakup. Yeah. That's why I asked about the former relationship. Fresh off a breakup. You're vulnerable. Wow. Yeah. It's tough. You got to meet people. You got to see people in person. Oh, you don't have a boyfriend, honey.

You have a boiler room. There's eight people on the other end typing these things out and occasionally they put a male voice with it from AI. Wow, you are, yeah, that was con completely. Yeah. I changed my answer completely.

Yes, you need to just ghost them. Yeah, just ghost them. I got a thing on my text the other day that was a spam text, and it said, you have an unpaid Tennessee traffic ticket. Yes, me too. Yeah, they're going crazy with it right now. You got it too? Yeah. Yeah, I got it. Everybody in the audience is getting them. This is so great. It was pretty well written, actually. Yeah, it is, until you look at the email. The email, yes. And it was from ElvisFan.com.

And so I just sent it back. I couldn't resist. Instead of just hitting it spam and go, you know, delete and all this stuff, I just sent it back. Elvis fan, good luck with your con. That's hilarious. And just sent it back. But yeah, but it is very well written. Yeah. That was one of the best ones I've seen, I have to say. What gave it away? Yeah. The number, the email on the number is what gave it away. The phone number. Yeah. It was something 8-5-7-5 at Elvis fan dot com. Yeah.

Yeah. Help me, Lord. Yeah. Poor Elvis. He gets drug into everything. He does. Maybe he's not really dead. There's always a sighting. There's always a sighting. Kind of like Bigfoot. That's right. And her boyfriend, yeah. Yeah.

Jade, that's a good catch. Well, I didn't want to say it, but then I was thinking it. You got that. You completely nailed it. I already felt bad because she was heartbroken. I didn't want to make it worse by letting her know it wasn't even a real guy. Oh, man. I'm glad you did. Because it helped me because I'm so naive. How many of you out there are naive? Oh, my God. Wow. Catfish for sure. Wow. Wow. You don't get that on other shows. Wow.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth.

do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walsh, our number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, she's my co-host today. Destiny is in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Destiny, how are you? Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up?

My question is trying to navigate debt as a single mom on a part-time job. I'm door dashing currently, and I have a little one-year-old boy who has come with a lot of medical debt, as well as me trying to consolidate my own debt. And I'm currently living in a DV shelter, trying to navigate our way out. You're living in a what shelter? A domestic violence shelter. Okay. Okay.

How old are you, hon? I'm 24. Okay. And how much debt do you have personally? Collectively, about $18,000. That includes his medical debt? Yeah. Okay. And what was this precious boy born with? What's he struggling with? A number of things. So he was born with left heart syndrome. That means part of his heart was not developed correctly. He had several surgeries to take care of it. Okay.

Meanwhile, now that he's on the up curve and he's seeing a lot of his milestones being hit, we're trying to get him into speech. He's one. He's turning two in September here. And we're getting him to speech, and they possibly think he may have autism spectrum disorder. So I have a lot of...

Extra doctors I need to bring him to, like the speech therapist and the behavioral therapist, on top of being a single mom and trying to navigate his schedule as long as keeping a job. I had a way better job before. I'm door dashing now, but...

Back in January, I was released from my other job, a patient advocacy job for people who have cancer to help them get their medication cheaper. But the job was terminated because I had a lot of hospital stays with my son. But his hospital stays, thank goodness. It sounds like you said he's curving up and hitting his milestones. So a lot of those issues are now behind you. You've just got to face the speech and a possible...

Not necessarily probable. Autism thing that's in the offing here, we don't know for sure. Yes. Be careful getting sucked into that world. Let's first take care of what's right in front of us, and that's taking care of him and his speech, and he's one years old. Okay? Yeah. So if I'm in your shoes, you're...

My first job is to create a stable home situation, not get out of debt. Yeah. My first job is to get an apartment and get a full-time job and create a manageable situation with him and your schedule. Right. And that's a challenge. Those two things right there, that's a big ask, a full career and an apartment. Yeah. You've obviously got a car.

Okay, I don't care about the $18,000. They can't get anything from you, darling. You don't have anything. Exactly. You're safe right now. And they're about to repo my car. No, they're not going to get your car. Did you say repo your car?

Yeah, I'm about $1,000 behind. Okay, they will do that. Okay, we've got to get that current. But we've got to get the car current and get it paid off and get you in an apartment, and that's going to require more income and a stable thing. Do you have family in the area that's trustworthy? Yes.

Not trustworthy. They're helping me. My mom is helping me a bit, but it's more of a catch-22 situation. She's having him while I door dash through the day, but she also at the same point, um,

He's starting him in daycare. It's an expensive area, so it's hard for me to manage because she's also working. She takes over nights while I'm door dashing, and I'm putting him through daycare during the day. And it's about $175 a week on top of a $264 car payment that I pay every two weeks. Yeah, that's not helpful. And so we haven't gotten any help yet. I'm still trying to get you some help.

Okay. Are you plugged into a good church there? No. Okay. All right. We're going to hook you up with some pastors and some church congregations in the area that we know and see if we can get some folks to come around you and walk with you while you're doing this, because you've got to have some support right now. And your support, because you obviously don't need to return to the situation you've escaped from. That's completely in the rearview mirror. Say, I promise.

Yeah. Yeah. The situation is in your rearview mirror. You're never going back. Say, I promise, Dave.

I promise, Dave. Trust me. That boy does not receive a fever. That boy and you do not deserve that. That's why you're in this shelter, okay? And so you are a warrior, and you've lost a few battles, and you're going to keep fighting, princess. You're a warrior, princess. You're going to do this. I've got faith in you, and we're going to put some people around you to help you. I'm also going to get one of our Ramsey coaches that are financial coaches to help you as well.

But your deal is don't worry about the debt. We do need to worry about the $1,000 on the car. We got to get that straightened out. And I'm going to help you with that. Okay. We're going to get the coaches to help you work that out. And we're going to get you with a church and see if maybe they'll catch your car up. Okay. And help you get into an apartment and bring some people around you to love you well.

And so we're going to put some community around you and we're going to put a coach in your corner. We're going to pay for all of it and cost you a thing. Okay. And then, um, cause that you've got to get a full-time gig going for your long-term future. I know it's hard. I know it's hard to see that right now, but you've got to have some money and DoorDash doesn't cut it.

And that'll get you out of the shelter and get you in an apartment, get the car caught up. See, if you were in an apartment with food on the table and the lights and the water were paid and the car was current and you had a schedule set up for your son, you would have a real life. Agreed? Agreed. Only then do we worry about the stat. First, we take care of you and the boy. Yeah, it's...

Like I said, it's been a catch-22 for quite a bit. Yeah, you're stuck. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. That's where you are. So you've got to have some help to get unstuck. And we're going to help you, okay? Thank you so much. Anything you want to add? Yeah. You said she was a warrior princess, and I feel the same way. I feel like...

Kudos to you for doing everything you can to take care of yourself and take care of your boy, and this is a really hard season. But it's not forever. It's just a season. How old are you? I'm 24. Yeah. 18 years from now, and it's May. You're going to walk him. You're going to be standing there when he walks down and gets his high school diploma and is getting ready to head off to college, and you're paying for it, and you're going to be smiling. That's the picture you're working towards, okay? Yeah.

Hopefully. No, it's not hopefully. You're going to do it. You'll do it. We're going to show you how. Hold on. Got to set her up with a good church, get a couple of guys from the church department to hold her hand and hook her up with one of our coaches down there. They can help with that as well. This is The Ramsey Show. ♪

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So you ever find yourself trying to explain this whole Ramsey show thing or the baby steps to someone who's really struggling with money, but there's a lot to get across in one conversation. Well, we put together something to help you. It's called the Ramsey 101 playlist, free, easy to share playlist covers all the basics for somebody who's just brand new with Ramsey. What are the baby steps, how to pay off debt with the debt snowball, how to build an emergency fund and a lot more. There's clips on all this.

So click the link at the top of the show notes to open the Ramsey 101 playlist on YouTube. Text it, DM it, send it in a group chat. Just say, hey, thought this might help. If you're listening on radio, we've got the playlist featured at the top of our YouTube channel. So think of one person in your life and remember that one share could change everything for them.

And by the way, if you send that, don't send it with a condemnation message. That's right. You need this. This is for you. No shaming. You are broke. You should listen to this. That's not what we're talking about. It's like, this helped me. That's right. Maybe you would be interested. That's right. That's all you say. Talk about your experience, not how dumb they are. That never works. That's right. Buying or selling a home is a big deal. And between clickbait headlines and confusing data, it's tough to know what's actually going on in the housing market.

And we're here to make the latest trends easy to understand. By the way, home prices went up just a little bit last month. Now the median home price in America is $430,000.

And there are more homes on the market right now, nearly a million, the highest since 2019. Got a lot of inventory. The average 15-year fixed rate rose to 5.9 last month. It's still not 6. So it's a good time to buy and a good time to sell. If you need more help and you want to learn more about it, you want to just go to RamseySolutions.com slash market or click the link in the show notes for that, and we'll help you out with that as well.

Colin is in Phoenix. Hi, Colin. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade. How are you guys doing? Doing great. Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

Uh, I could, I mean, I'm doing all right. I'm about to, uh, move across the country. So, I mean, it could be better. It's always stressful. Um, but I got a quick question for you guys. Um, should my girlfriend take out student loans for grad school? Cause it seems like it would be a simpler transaction than dealing with her parents. No, is the answer to the first question. What does it mean to deal with her parents? Like borrow the money from her parents? Um,

So that's where it gets dicey. Generally speaking, I'm going to say no. I'm full with you guys. And my parents have always been in a position to help cash flow school for me. And that's what happened for my undergrad. And they're going to be doing that for me for my grad school as well. So, I mean, I'm obviously thankful for that. And my girlfriend was told to take out student loans for her undergrad. Mm-hmm.

And that's a financial burden now. And this was before she effectively discovered you guys. She'd heard of you guys. And I mean, when she grew up, it wasn't as big of a, as big of a thing. And then I came into her life and now we're kind of doing this and,

I was like, you need to save some money while we're not having to pay some loans. And now that they're, you know, they're coming, she's paying really aggressively, like over two times the amount that is minimum. How much does she have? She has, it's just hit 19. She just paid off the smallest. And how much does grad school cost? So grad school is going to cost us less than undergrad overall. There's not an us. You're not married. It costs her.

Right. That's true. It does cost her. What will it cost her? I'm going to say it's going to cost $75. What in the world is she studying? So it's interesting. We're both studying in the same field, just different emphasis. Okay. I'm going into stage automation, and she's doing costume design. You don't need a graduate degree in costume design. Where?

So, is that not a private school? Is it a private school? Where are you guys getting these degrees? It's not a private school, but it's not federally funded. It's state funded. Okay.

All right. Yeah, it's too expensive. So part of the conversation, let's back it up because I gave you a quick note about the student loans. But I want to kind of talk about the things that should inform the decision going forward, because it sounds like to your point, it sounds like her parents obviously did not plan to pay for undergrad or grad. And so she's got to look at what her options are. And the number one thing that's going to impact the school that she chooses is the price of the school.

Right. Because she doesn't have any money. So she's got to choose it. Let's put the design thing aside for a second. Costume design aside just for a second. If she chooses a school, she's got to choose something that there's a way and a path forward in which she could pay for it by working, by saving, by even maybe delaying it a year so she can stack up some money to make that happen. Is that fair enough?

Yeah. And we've, we've talked about those options. The difficulty is regardless, we do have to leave where we are now because in our city there's virtually no options in our direct field. That's, that's where I want to, that's where I want to interject because I think, I think I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to step on your feet. You have a relationship. I think part of the problem is it is a huge we, right?

And so you go where she goes, she goes where you go. But she might not be able to afford to go where you go. And that's something that I think could be a good idea to decouple from this thing, because you can afford to go to that grad school because your parents are paying for it. She can't. So you guys are loading up the truck and heading to Beverly Hills, that is. Swimming pools and movie stars. You're moving to L.A., aren't you? You're moving to L.A. and she's talking about UCLA. Yeah.

Well, it's in North Carolina. North Carolina? Now that makes even less sense. For costume design. You're telling me. I didn't think it was going to cost that much. No, no, wait a minute. North Carolina for costume design. Yeah. Help me understand. One of the best schools in the United States for it. Yeah. Okay. I'm thinking. All right. Let's stop a second. All right. What is her degree in currently?

Both of our degrees are in theater production with design and tech. What's she doing for a living now? She's working at the university we just graduated from, and she's on a part-time gig because they won't hire her full-time, and she's basically doing bookkeeping. Okay. So her theater degree got her a part-time bookkeeping gig so far.

Yeah, that's why we have to leave where we are. I mean, theater gigs aren't huge in North Carolina. Right. Well, true. True. That is true. It's not exactly a huge market. You're not moving to the theater market. I mean, we're talking L.A., we're talking sound stages in Atlanta that have blown up, and we're talking Nashville, and we're talking New York. Right. Maybe Chicago. But not North Carolina. Yeah.

So we're not going in for theater per se. We're going in for live entertainment. And the reason the school is as important to us as we believe it to be is because everyone there, they have created effectively a pipeline to the large organizations that we want to work for, that we dream to work for, for our entire lives.

And currently we are unable to get those jobs because of where we started. Jade and Sam own a cruise talent booking company.

They book people and have for years on Cruise Talent. So she can speak to this better than me, but I'm calling bullcrap. Yeah. It doesn't exist, this idea that if I go to this school, I 100% have the in and I 100% will be in. Networking exists. I will give you that. Networking exists. Forming relationships exists. But-

You can do that. There's a lot of that that you can do on your own because now you've admittedly said it's not about the education. It's about the network. It's about the pipeline. It's about getting indoors. Right. You said that. Right. And my thing is, if you move to a town, one of these towns that Dave said,

and you make it a point to get out there. You go to every live show, you go to every play, you sign up, you just go backstage and start meeting people. You can, in six months, create that same network, but you've got to do work. That's you going out every single night. That's you talking to every single person that you meet at these events. I think this is her parents saying, this is a bad idea for her. It's a bad idea. I think I agree with her parents, Colin.

No, she shouldn't do this. Education is rarely the route... I would not spend $75,000 on a graduate degree in costuming. No, I would not. And I'm in a town where people make a living doing costuming. I've never met someone with a degree in it, ever. ♪

Listen, guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now. You get the final say on what happens with your money. That's why you have to start telling your money where to go so you can stop wondering where it went.

So if you're going to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget. The easiest way to get started and stick to it is with the EveryDollar budget app. It'll help you make a plan for every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every single month. And guess what? It's free, so no excuses. Download EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play today.

By the way, Jade and I love North Carolina. Oh, yeah. We're just not of the opinion that it is a theater hotbed. It's not. Okay. Just clarifying for all you people that are getting ready to send hate mail and do a full Reddit page on Dave Ramsey hates North Carolina because he doesn't. I actually love North Carolina. My state, Tennessee, used to be part of it.

before 1794. So there you go. And, um, but yeah, it's, it's part of my soul. I love North Carolina, but it's not a theater hotbed and neither is, um, Chattanooga, Tennessee, um, and neither is Louisville, Kentucky. So, uh, you can just put this on a long list of places that are not a theater hotbed. And so nothing wrong with that. It's just not there. Sorry.

And just to be very, very clear, when tackling debt or building wealth, people can often forget about one important step to reaching those goals, and that's insurance. If you've got the right coverage, that's playing good defense while you're playing offense. If you've got the wrong coverage, they're taking your money. Don't let them take your money. Make sure you've got the right coverage. Take our free, that I mentioned is free, coverage checkup. It's a free online resource that creates a personalized insurance action plan for

and makes you know exactly for your situation what you need to do, what you need to get rid of, and what you need to get more of. Is it free? It's free. The whole thing's free. Good point, Jade. RamseySolutions.com slash checkup. That's how you get the coverage checkup or click the link in the description if you're listening on a podcast or YouTube or something like that. Oliver's in San Diego. Hey, Oliver, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

So I've been a longtime listener. I even took the FP University class five years ago, but I wanted to get your thoughts on taking advantage of a, and I know you're anti-credit card, but there's a card that accepts mortgage payments and daycare payments for bills you have to pay anyway. You pay it straight through your checking account and then they give you the

The 3,000, 4,000 points, and then you can use it, cash it out, use it for a trip, or even use it for your mortgage to pay it off faster. So it gives you 3,000 points. Well, depending on what your mortgage payment is. What are the points to? The points you can cash out for money. Or you can cash out for cash. Okay, so what is 3,000 points worth in money? I think it's, oh, yeah, it's.

It's not a lot. I think it's the one cent per point. One cent per point. So how much is your mortgage? So 3,000 cents. Yeah, my mortgage is about 35, but I pay my daycare and they give you three times points on daycare. Yeah, 3,000 cents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or let's say you add a daycare, 7,000 cents. Yes, so I pay both those and then I just put it towards my mortgage. Isn't that $70? Is that right? Mm-hmm, that's right. Yeah.

So $70. Yeah. And so here's the thing. When you play with snakes, you eventually will get bitten. And these are snakes. Credit card companies have one goal, and it's not to give you free money. You know that. Yeah. It's to get you in debt at 18% to 38%. We know that. There's $1 trillion worth of people who thought they were going to get points, and now you've converted $0.03,000.

into having a discussion about $30. What do you make a year? Between me and my wife, we're doing good above average, I think around $358,000. You're making $350,000 a year and you called me about $30. Oh, wow. Well, I mean, you should have used your time with a better. I could have helped you with something real.

Not $30. Well, I mean, it's like a bill you're going to pay anyway. Don't laugh. It's exactly what you called me about, $30. You're burning a lot of your brain calories that are very valuable on $30. Unless there's another reason you're not telling us. No, I was taking advantage of that card. You're not taking advantage of it. It's already used up more of your brain calories that you should have been using to make another $10,000 while you're screwing around with $30.

And now you're burning my brain calories. So here's the thing. We did study 10,167 millionaires. The number of them that said they became millionaires due to 3,000 cents is precisely zero.

The number of them that became millionaires because of their airline miles, because they manipulated a credit card company and got money out of them and used some system to their advantage that was designed to screw them. And they used that to become a millionaire is precisely zero. So the answer, Oliver, as you knew before you called.

Because you went through Financial Peace University and I spent an entire hour trashing the whole idea and you already knew that. So, no, we're not. I don't have any credit cards. I have four pieces of plastic in my wallet, two debit cards, one on my business, one on my personal. I have my driver's license and my handgun carry permit because I live in America. And that's it. That's all I got. I got nothing else in there. I got no points whatsoever.

I got no points. I got zero cents. 3,000 cents. I can't unhear that and unthink of it that way. Well, here's the thing. The way they get you with these things and the way they get you with these interest rate loan consolidation crap, same thing, is they start talking about the interest rate and the savings. We start talking about savings. And see, what they did was they didn't say $30. No. Brilliant marketing. They said 3,000 points. You get 3,000 somethings.

And it takes a minute to boil it down to 3,000 something. You got to go back to when you were a kid and you went to the skating rink.

And you got the tickets. Worse than that, Chuck E. Cheese. Chuck E. Cheese. And there was the wall of prizes, but you had to convert how many tickets and points. And it was 80,000. You're buried in tickets and you still got a half a penny piece of plastic something from China. Right. Out of the Chuck E. Cheese wall of fame cabinets. And your child is buried in tickets. That's right. They can't even see. They look like Cousin It with tickets. Right.

And they're just covered in them. And you get like a slime. It's the same thing. It's a scam. 3,000 cents. Wow. There you go. I mean, that's a lot of cents. There's just so many other ways you could get $30. If you convert some of these discussions to hard dollars, they stop you from screwing with it. Yeah. Yeah, they do. You make $350,000 a year. Don't screw with $30 problems. Yeah. You need to solve $10,000 problems, not $30 problems. Yeah. You make a lot of money. You're too smart for that. Don't fall for that crap.

Stupid people don't make $350,000. But you got sucked into having this mind game that somehow you were going to get something for nothing and just go make some money, man, and take care of the money you made. That'll get you there. Wow. Beautiful, beautiful call. So, Jade, you're not old enough, and you've got to be really old in our audience, but you guys can look it up. It's probably on the Internet. When I was a kid, they had a thing called green stamps.

You ever heard of that? I have not heard of that. So you would go to the grocery store, and when you're checking out, they had this little printout, and it would print out these little green stamps. It looked like a postage stamp, but it was a little sheet of them. And my mom had a little book.

And you would post them in the book. And when you fill up a certain number of pages, then you had 3,000 cents, right? Okay. But we actually saved up after four years of grocery buying and diligently licking these stamps and putting them in these little books. And I think we got a really small 18-inch tabletop charcoal grill. Look at that. That today would cost probably...

I don't know, $28. Yeah. $28 or something at the sporting goods store, right? At Sports Academy, right? You get the little tabletop one for camping. It's the cheapest one in there. And so, but this would have been 1970 something. So that would have been a, a dollar and a half or $2 or whatever. I mean, it was the cheap, I mean, but we worked our little bony fingers off on those stupid green stamps to get this stupid grill. And it was like the lamp table, uh,

In Christmas. Yes. Yeah. Yes. The leg lamp. The fringe and the leg. The leg lamp with the fringe. Yeah. It was the same thing. It was a prized possession in the Ramsey household. Oh, boy. That we had this grill that we had licked our way into. That is, that story is gold. People have been falling for this since time began. Yeah. So quit looking for an easy way. The fastest way to get rich quick is get rich slow.

Live on less than you make. Put money in your investments. And then you'll have some money. Oh, this is a deep formula right here. But you work it. It'll work. I can tell you.

Listen, your home is your most expensive asset, and now you're ready to sell, fast and for a lot of money. But in this wackadoodle real estate market, one mistake could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. Here's the deal. This ain't amateur hour. You need a pro in your corner, someone who knows how to price your home right, market it well, and negotiate the best deal. That's where a Ramsey-trusted real estate agent comes in. To

To find one near you, go to ramseysolutions.com slash agent. That's ramseysolutions.com slash agent. Our scripture of the day, Luke 16, 10. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. And whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

Milton Friedman said, only the government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink, and make the combination worthless. Wow. Wow. That's great. All right. Nick is with us in St. Louis. Hi, Nick. How are you? Good. How are you guys? Better than we deserve. What's up?

so my question is can or is it a good idea to have my boss co-sign for a house for me wow how long have you been listening to this show nick um like three months okay what what are you what are your thoughts on the matter i mean i trust him i just don't know there's a lot of there's a lot that goes into it um

So, I mean, do you guys want the full details? There's strings attached, is what I could say. Well, what are the strings? So he wants... So he has... This is his friend's house currently. They are moving. So he wants somebody, and he currently rents their garage because he loves exotic vehicles. And he's got lifts and all kinds of stuff in their garage. So he rents their space in the garage. So he wants to do that with us. So he wants to pay...

When we did the numbers, it would be about half the mortgage to rent our garage space so he can put his vehicles in there. But we know that we can't get that big of a loan, so he would have to co-sign for us. Okay. How long have you worked there, hon? A little over a year. But I've known him for about three years. And you're 25? Yeah.

I am 23. Oh, okay. And you've been looking at houses a lot. Y'all really, really want a house bad, don't you? Well, I currently, I'm in one now. You own a home now? Yes. You and your fiancee own a home? Yes. Together? Yes. I know. When are you getting married? I know.

Next November. Okay. So let's play this out. So you explained what the perfect world situation is. Let me just throw out some ideas. What would happen? Let's say he co-signs with you. You guys do this deal. He pays half the mortgage. What happens if he decides he doesn't want to pay anymore? What happens if you get fired from your job?

He decides he doesn't want to pay anymore. What would happen? Because you said that you can't afford it on your own. Yeah, I mean, we would have to pretty much sell it. And what happens if... Yeah. And is it worth that? I mean, we could afford, like, we could afford a couple of months. But it's...

It's way bigger. I mean, it's twice the size of what we live in now. So is that what would so that's what it is. It's this giant house because I'm trying to what I'm on my side. I'm trying to think what would cause you to put yourself in such a precarious situation. He's able to get something that there's no other way he could get. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's, we live in, it's not a house. We live in like a townhouse, but we do own it. So we're kind of in a complex. So there's a lot of people. We don't have our own yard. We have a dog. We love for him to like, you're 23. You're 23. You're just getting started. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. So, okay. Here's the answer to your question. And then I will also tell you why. Okay. Never do a cosign deal.

under any circumstances ever. Okay. And the reason is, is that you're signing up for a deal that you know, and that the bank knows doesn't work unless everything goes perfectly. And honey, 100% of the time things don't go perfectly. Let me tell you, as soon as you close on the house, the competitor calls you up and offers you $10,000 more a year to go to change jobs.

And you can't take the job because you feel loyal to the guy who has cars in your garage. And if you do take the job, he sues you because he thought you were going to stay with him forever. He thought you were going to stay with him. He thought he had bought a slave. He didn't think he did cosigning. So never do a cosign deal. There's not a single circumstance on the planet that this is a good idea. And yours is particularly bad.

Because there's about 9 million things that can go wrong and only one that can go right. The probability of this being a good idea 10 years from now is very close to zero. You're going to get screwed. You're going to be stressed. You're going to make wrong decisions for the wrong reasons because you painted yourself into the corner and you're going to get paint on your feet. Please don't do this deal.

He's trying to be helpful. He's not a bad guy. He's trying to be helpful. And you're trying to do a nice thing for your fiancé, soon-to-be wife. And you, with good reason, want a nice place. I don't blame you for any of that. But you're trying to do a good thing a bad way, and it's going to bite you in the butt. Does any of that make sense?

Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. We've been contemplating it. It sounded great on paper, but there were so many things that could go wrong so quickly. The likelihood of you still working there 10 years from today on average is zero.

for no reason at all, other than you get a better job, he goes broke, he gets mad and fires you, whatever. I mean, it just doesn't. The number of people that stay on a job 10 years, we celebrate 10-year Ramseyversary, people that have been here 10 years. And the number of people that are here

three years or four years or five years or six years. There's a lot of them. But the number of people here, 10 years, not that much. The number of people here, 20 years, almost none. And this doesn't go well. This doesn't end well. And by the way, you know, when you buy a house that's double the size, it's not just double the mortgage. It's double the problems and the things that you have to take care of with the property. Crap. Yes. You know what I'm saying? It's not just the mortgage. You got to take care of that. Yes. That's real. Yeah.

Chris is in Nashville. Hi, Chris. What's up? Not much. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? I guess I'm calling for a reality check or just some wisdom in when I can stop working. And it's not as much stop working. It's just figure out what I want to be when I grow up. When your nest egg is big enough to run perpetually.

Well, I got some rental property. I'm closing on a deal hopefully the end of this month, and I'll have about $8,500 a month passive income coming in. There's no such thing as passive income. You're talking about a real estate deal? Well, I'm talking about rental properties. Rental property is not passive. It's active. I get it. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. So you're going to have $8,000 a month net profit? Yes, sir. If everybody pays and if it's all full? Yes, sir.

Correct. So in the real world, you probably got $6,000. Well... Because it's never all full, and not everybody always pays. Correct. Okay. I got a bunch of rental property, okay? I mean, I know how this works, right? Yeah. So you got about $6,000 you can count on there. And what's it take for you to live, dude? I got no bills, no mortgage, no car payment. What's it take for you to live? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Run a budget. Yeah, I mean, what is the...

How do you – it's also, like, even if I don't quit what I'm doing, like, I just want to take a year off. Am I selfish for that? Is that insane? It might be. Mathematically, it might be impossible. Yeah, it's not impossible. If you need $16,000 a month to live and you're going to try to do it on $6,000 because you want to take a year off, well, get me some cheese with this wine. Yeah, yeah, no, sir. No, that's – my expenses are nothing. Okay. I mean, literally. Are you single? Yeah. Yeah.

No. Married, two kids. All right. So what does it take to operate your house? Can you do that on $6,000? If you can, then you're okay. If you can't, then you're not. You need to run a budget.

Got it. You and your wife need to sit down and go, this is the price we're going to pay. We're used to spending $10,000 because we go on all these trips and stuff. This year we're going to take off and we're going to live on $6,000 and we're not going to go on the trips or whatever it is. I don't care. But deal with your own reality. That's right. That's right. Pull up your actual numbers and don't count on 100% occupancy and 100% of the tenants paying. That's an illusion.

And it ain't passive. Ever. Passive with a tenant? You got no tenant. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. ♪

Hey, you guys, I was shocked to learn that 88% of you out there are sharing the Ramsey show. I mean, that is so incredible. Thank you so much. And I want to tell you that we're making it even easier to share. So this June, we have pulled together the brand new Ramsey 101 YouTube playlist, a

a quick start collection of how to get started walking the Ramsey Plan. Now, this playlist is perfect for that one person in your life who needs help winning with money and just doesn't know where to start. So here's what's inside. What the baby steps are and why they actually work, how the debt snowball helps you pay off debt fast, and how to build wealth and invest for the future, and so much more.

So here's what you need to do. Click the link at the top of the show notes. It'll take you straight to the YouTube playlist. Copy it. Text it. Send it in a group chat. Just say, hey, I thought this might help. Because one playlist shared at the right time could be the turning point. One share. One playlist.

One step could change everything for that one person in your life. So click the link, share The Ramsey Show, and let's help someone out there start winning with money.