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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. Merry Christmas, folks. We're so glad you're with us. Thanks for hanging out.

Jade Warshall, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. She is the author of our brand new Ramsey Quick Read, Money's Not a Math Problem, The Real Reason You're Roke and What to Do About It. And a whole 57 pages, you can jump through it at one setting and it's a great, these little quick reads we put out, I've got several of them on Entree Leadership to Subjects and I got one coming out on real estate. We got a couple of others running around. Dr. John Deloney did one on anxiety that did real well and

So we got a lot of these little, if you want to do quick little, it's basically a chapter, a good solid chapter of a book. 76 pages, Dave. Come on now. It's how much? 76 pages. Oh, 76. I called it 57. I brought you up. You got to give me my page numbers now, Dave. Brought you up short. Sorry about that. Don't bring her up short. Okay.

There's a lot of quality there in those other 20 pages I left out. Don't do that. So anyway, you can check all that out at RamseySolutions.com. This year, this will be – the next couple days will be our last live broadcast of this calendar year.

We don't work between Christmas and New Year's, so you guys get best ofs. That's how that works. And so this year we will have done 242 live shows. Wow. We will have taken over 3,200 callers this year.

And 184 debt-free screams totaling $36 million of debt-free yells on the air. Not bad. Pretty cool stuff. And yesterday we discovered that the Ramsey Show is the number one podcast in the entire world on Apple. All of Apple, not just one of the little nuanced corners, the whole thing.

Uh, so however many 3 million podcasts there are or something like that, you guys have spread the word. You guys have let your friends and neighbors know, and you've subscribed and shared and done all the appropriate five-star reviews and you got it for us. Thank you. Thank you for getting us to number one. We appreciate you very, very much. We appreciate how many of you that are out there and that we're here to serve. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Sarah is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I am wondering, my husband's employer, he has a job. He's a contract employee who works seasonally. And assuming that his job gets renewed for contract every year, his employer has to pay for his housing for April through September. And then we also own a home, but in a different state when he's not working his contract job. And so we're wondering at this point, we owe about...

a hundred thousand dollars on our home and it's worth about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if we were to sell it we're wondering if we should sell our home and rent from october through uh like february when he's not in employee housing and hope his contract keeps getting renewed or if we should continue to hang on to this home and just you know pay the mortgage so every year there's this three or four month gap

Yeah. Yeah, the off-season, if you will. What does he do? He plays baseball. Oh, okay. That makes sense. All right. Ding, ding. All right. Contract being renewed, just basically he's got to make the team again is what it amounts to, right? Yeah, he has to be re-signed, which hopefully he will be re-signed. But if he doesn't, he could be let go at any time. And then would he pick up another team in another location? Hopefully, yeah. How long has he been playing?

this will be the sixth year with the org that we're in so is triple a yes yes sir so um is the trajectory can do you have objectivity on his career or are you emotionally involved and don't know what's really going on i mean is it where's he where's he headed is he gonna make it to the big show

Well, everybody hopes they're going to make it to the big show. Well, I know. That's why I ask if you had objectivity. Six years. Yeah. Is their trajectory heading that way, or is he just kind of hanging out in the AAA? Let's see. Last year ended his first season in AAA. So we've been moving up. I mean, everybody hopes they make it to the bigs, but he's not like a top prospect at that. Okay. So he's had one year in AAA. The rest of them are in double.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Gosh, I don't... Basically, the answer to your question is, what do you think the probability is that you're going to need this house? And...

You don't know the answer to that question, and neither do I, listening to you. I can't make an intelligent guess because it just depends on how his seasons go and how well he plays and whether or not he continues an upward trajectory with his career. That's what it amounts to. Otherwise, he's out of baseball in two years, right? Well, then you're looking at the house and you're thinking, okay, well, let's say you did sell the house. Let's pretend that you decided to do what you're saying and you rent the house.

You sell this house. What's the down? Let's say this ends up being his last year. What's the downside of selling this house, letting the money sit in a high yield or wherever you put it for a year and a half? But you got to rent while in the off season. And what would be the difference between what you'd pay in rent and what you're paying in your mortgage? Our mortgage is about $750 a month. And rent in the area would probably be a little closer to $1,100. Yeah, yeah.

for the month that we rent. But then we'd only have to pay rent for, you know, less than half the year. So year over year it would be less. Okay, so what happens? You guys have had the conversation, what do you do after baseball? What's he going to do after baseball?

I currently have a job that I'll continue working, and he in the off-season works in town as a coach for a gym, and he could pick that up full-time when he's done. And that's in the town where the house is? Yes, sir. I'd keep the house. I'd keep the house because there's a probability, there's a high probability at some time in the next three or four years you're going to end up back there just based on normal professional careers. That's a good point. Okay? Okay.

Um, I hope he is in a smaller probability that he makes it to the bigs and everything goes big and you guys are cashing serious checks and you sell the house because, because you got you a place that's 80 times bigger and all that. I hope that happens. Um, but the, the vast majority of sports professionals are done, you know, and you know, at 30 years old. And so, um, and you're here, you're approaching that. So, um, yeah, if it,

Unless he's in the bigs, he's done in three or four years on average. Now, he might not be. He might play on out five or six years, but that would not be the normal statistical pattern of the pro athletes that we've worked with. Okay, so I'm just trying to think this through in a cold and calculated way, not really reflecting on your husband's talent because I have no idea how talented he is. I'm just listening to the story. I'm keeping the house because I think you guys, you need it four months a year and you might need it 12 months a year.

when baseball ends for him. And so, and you start your new life and you're going to start it in that town and you need it. Yeah, I'm going to keep it. We'll keep it in this case. And it's not super, super expensive either. It's a reasonable, modest home. It was an interesting discussion, Sarah. I sure hope he does great. Me too. Be cool to have you call me back someday and go, hey, you made the bigs. Now what do we do with all this money? That'd be great. This is The Ramsey Show.

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jade washall ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us today's question is brought to you by neighborly your hub for home services here at ramsey we believe in making home ownership a blessing not a burden so we recommend neighborly's nationwide network of service professionals to help repair maintain and improve your home find the help you need at neighborly.com slash ramsey today today's question comes from nate in ohio i

I'm learning about investing and I want your input on something. I hear how your guy, number one, can start at $20,000.

I hear how guy number one, there you go, can start at 20 years old and invest $100 a month compared to guy number two who starts at 30 and invests $200 a month. Guy number two will never catch up because of the compounding interest. If I have debt but also want to invest, can't I do both and benefit from the compounding interest?

I have over $100,000 in debt from college and I do not believe I can pay that off by the time I'm 30. But I don't want to wait until I'm 30 to start investing. What do you think? I love this question and I wish I knew what his income was because I would tell him, listen, the average person is getting out of debt in two years. And let me just add to that because this is just personal. This is me talking.

Even if it took you longer, my husband and I, when we paid off our debt, it took us seven and a half years to pay off the debt. Then we turned around and saved up our expenses. Then we turned around and bought a house. We were in our mid thirties before we started investing. And I'm telling you, we're going to be okay. And you're going to be okay too. So that's just put that on. You're not only going to be okay, you're going to be a millionaire. Listen, come on.

All right. Let's put that on the shelf. It really is. It is. I mean, it's the math. So, yeah. Here's the thing. Yeah.

What you are talking about in your life, Jade, what you and Sam did was you freed up your most powerful wealth building tool, which is your income. And compound interest is very important. And getting started early is the reason we put those charts out is to motivate you to get yourself out of debt so you can get started early. Right. But what you lost in compounding interest during the seven and a half years of you getting out of debt, you will more than make up.

that doing that because you're putting a whole lot more into investments instead of freaking four hundred sixty five thousand dollars of personal debt. That's exactly right. And that's what people forget about. They're they're investing up to the match or they're doing five or 10 percent. But the way we teach, you're doing 15 percent and beyond once you get past baby step six.

Not to mention, I think this is important to talk about too, Dave, when people kind of rearrange the steps, right? They're like, I don't want to save yet. I don't want to pay off debt. I want to make sure I'm getting that investing in.

We find that when you don't do this thing right, when you keep that debt around, right? Debt equals risk. So there's now more risk in your life. There's more that can go wrong. And if you don't take the time to build up that three to six months of savings, when you have an emergency, because you will, you will have to look to your investments, your 401k and all of that to cover your emergencies. And we're seeing that actually right now, more and more, more and more people are borrowing from their 401ks for hardship and they're pulling out 401ks

$5,000. And I'm thinking to myself, listen, if you had just followed the baby steps, you wouldn't have to pull out $5,000. You'd have it in baby step three. Exactly. And here's the thing. If the theory that you're espousing, sir, worked, we would find that in the data. As we talk to millionaires, we would find millionaires who are still paying off their debts and

but have become millionaires with the power of compound interest by starting before they paid off their debts. And we don't find that. And we don't find that. We find that the typical millionaire got clear of the debt and dumped money into investments. Pretty simple. It's a very simple primitive equation. But there's something that happens here. It's the loss of focus when you're trying to do two things at once and you end up sucking at both of them.

That's what it amounts to. Yeah. I mean, you're trying to do two different things at the same time, invest and get out of debt. And you're really not good at either one. And so the end result is not good.

the same probability of becoming a millionaire, the same probability of having a substantial net worth. So there's a, when you have gotten clear of permanently and never go back to debt, it's a big boost for your wealth building. It's the reason that we've taught it this way for 30 years. And then the reason has, has been borne out in the actual data as we've studied the millionaire. So yeah, if, um,

In other words, at the end of a 20-year story, seven and a half of which you were getting out of debt. Yes. Twelve and a half of which you will be building an emergency fund, buying a house, paying it off. That's right. And meanwhile, dumping 15% of your income into retirement. At the end of that 20-year story, you will have more money. Yes. Than you would have had, had you steadily invested a small amount while you stayed in debt for

For 17 years instead of seven. That's right. Not to mention, there's another piece to this, Dave. I mean, there's so many pieces to this. When you make the choice to pay off your debt and say, I'm not going into debt anymore. Let's pretend you didn't do that, right? And you did this guy's way. You have not said no to debt. So you're continuing to take on debt in different ways that have the ability to adversely affect...

Your net worth and offset what you might be putting away in retirement. Does that make sense? Because you're still taking out vehicles. You're still utilizing debt in a way that's negatively affecting you. Exactly. And here's the thing. Here's the problem. I just hit me. Here's the core issue in this email. I have over $100,000 in debt from college and I do not believe I can pay that off. There it is. So the reason you're wanting to do this is you don't have hope.

It's a lack of hope. Yeah. It's not that you really think the numbers are better. It's that you don't think you can do it. That's the thing. It's a hope thing here, honey. It's not a math thing.

So that you need to, it took me a second. It's down. It was down there in that sentence. Yeah. It was that, that, that, that hopelessness is there. It is. The power of hope is something else. When you believe you can run through a freaking brick wall, man. Yeah. There's no, you're the Hulk. There's nothing stopping you when you believe. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. It's good. That's good. It's good. Good stuff. All right. Patrick is with us in San Diego. Hey, Patrick, welcome to the Ramsey show.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. Real quick, 73 years old. We have a home that we bought in 97. We're in Encinitas, real close to the beach. Paid $274,000. Oh, God. It's been evaluated at $1.9. Wow. I would have guessed more. Wow.

Okay. Okay. Well, it's a townhouse. Good for you. Good for you. So anyway, it's free and clear. We've been listening to you for years. I've been self-employed clinical psychologist.

uh, retired my wife, special education teacher, um, retired. Uh, so what's your question? We have, we have no debt. We want to, uh, we're thinking about selling this house, uh, because, uh, the neighborhood has gotten, uh, you know, it's crazy at the beach. Uh, we want to know if we, and we want to downsize, um, should we, uh,

buy an overpriced house in California. We're staying here because our grandkids and our children are all in California. Um, that's unfortunate for us because we'd move someplace else. Um, and, uh, should we, we're kicking around. Should we buy or rent? You should buy because it stabilizes the last 20, 25 years of your life. I don't care where you buy, but you ought to buy. One thing you can consider, um,

You could buy a whole lot of Southwest Air tickets. That's what I'm thinking. For the difference in what you're going to pay for a house versus if you bought one in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah, of course. I go surfing every morning. Well, you're moving off the beach, you told me. Yeah, well, I'm going to move in one hand with it. So you're going to drive over and surf every morning?

You got it. Okay. All right. That's fun. Good for you. Good for you. Well done. Yeah, I would buy, though. The answer to your question is I would buy. So what's he going to get that's smaller than his townhome that's less than $1.9 million on the beach? He's getting off the beach. He's getting off the beach. He's going to move inland. If you move inland, the price goes down. So this is his only shot to move down. I don't know what the rest of your nest head looks like, Patrick, but if it's solid, I probably wouldn't sell.

I'll probably just sit right there, given what you told me. There's too many things that you like about this and only one thing you don't like about it. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Delaunay today for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Delaunay. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Isaac is in Atlanta. Hi, Isaac. How are you? Good afternoon, Dave. How are you doing today, sir? Better than we deserve. What's up?

Um, new listener just started listening about Monday of this week. Um, and I've known my financial situation was kind of in a mess for a while. Um, got about $40,000 in debt. Um, 23 of which is a new car I just bought last Saturday because I needed a vehicle to get back and forth to work. Um, um,

trying to get in a situation to provide for my wife and two kids, and we're expecting a third in May. Well, congratulations. Thank you, sir. So you're 27? I will be 27 January 1st. Almost like I've done this before. Okay. What's the other debt? You said you had $40,000. It's credit cards and personal loans. What do you do for a living, sir?

I work two jobs, seven days a week. I work five days a week at a heavy equipment dealership in the parts department, and then I work weekends for Advanced Auto Parts. Okay. All right. And your wife's home with the kids? Yes. One of them's in school, the other one, they're ages two and five. So what's your household income? About 50. Okay. All right. How can we best help you, sir?

Um, I really just am trying to get some pointers on how to get this all down. Um, get the, get the credit cards to zero, get rid of them. Um, and, and, and get to a point where I can buy a house and get out of my in-laws house. Oh, okay. That's a good plan. I like that one. What's your wife's car worth? Um, her car, maybe about three or $4,000. Okay. Um,

Okay, well, you know, you're new to the show. So I'm sure you've heard us talk a little about the baby steps. And I don't know if you've gone back and binge watched some shows. But the first thing you need is just to get $1,000 set aside before we start tackling this debt. Do you have any money saved?

No. Okay. So thing one is you're selling whatever you can get your hands on. You're looking at your wife and saying, listen, I know you're at home with the kids. Is there any work that you can pick up that's from home? And you guys are getting resourceful in order to get this thousand dollars saved. Now, just something to light a fire under you. Most people can get it in under 30 days. So let that be your goal.

A thousand dollars saved. That's first thing. Now, after you've got that, now we're working on this debt. So what I want you to do is list them out from smallest to largest. So you said you had the credit cards, you had the personal loan. Each one of those cards, list them individually. Same thing with the personal loan. What's your smallest debt?

Probably one of the credit cards. It's like two or $300. Cool. I love that because once you get that thousand dollars saved, you're going to be able to knock that out very quickly in one month. Right. And then you're going to take all that money that you would have put on payments to the next smallest debt. Right. So while we're doing this, we make the minimum payment on everything, but whatever money you have left,

that's what you put on that smallest debt. Okay. So that's why it's really important. $50,000, you know, that's a great income, but when you have $40,000 of debt, it's tough, right? It's, it's very, very tight. So you've got to find ways to get the income up. Have you and your wife thought about any ways that she can contribute in that area? We have, um, we've looked into it, just haven't found anything that fits just yet. Yeah. Take in another kid. Well, she's not even in her own house. It'd be tough to do that, but all right. So, um,

What we've discovered, Isaac, is the more radically you change what you've been doing, the faster you're going to see positive results moving away from where you are. Does that make sense?

It does. So you're a brand new listener, and I don't know if you can swallow this that I'm going to throw at you, but I'm going to throw it all at you anyway because it's what I would want somebody to do if the roles were reversed. I'd want somebody to love me enough to tell me the truth, okay? Absolutely. So the truth is that car you purchased is a serious dumb-butt decision.

I realized that. It's ridiculous. And when you say I needed a car to get back and forth to work, yeah, you needed a car to get back and forth to work. You needed a bicycle or a $3,000 car to get back and forth to work. You didn't need a $23,000 car when you live at your mother-in-law's. Oh, my God, you shot yourself in the foot. So I'm going to go back. It was a week ago. I'm going over to the dealership and say, guys, can I give you $1,000 to let me out of that deal and let me just undo it?

Just see if they'll tear the paperwork up and take the car back. Okay. You're not going to do it. It was painful. I can't even get it. I told you this was going to be hard. Because, dude, it's three quarters of your problem right now. Yeah. What's the payment on it? Mathematically. Payment is $637. Look, come on, man. God almighty.

Look, that's your. I would. Listen, it's worth a thousand dollars to get you to get to undo one of the dumbest things you've ever done in your life.

Okay. And that's the bad news. The good news is you got the rest of your life to never do something that dumb again. That's awesome. So I've done a lot dumber things than what I'm calling this. That's why I'm willing to call it dumb. I didn't say you're dumb. I said what you did was dumb and it was seriously dumb. Yeah. So it's going to set you back. It's going to keep you. It's going to add a year and a half to two years to you getting out of your mother-in-law's house. It ain't worth it.

You need a $3,000 car to limp over to work and the guys in the parts department make fun of you. And besides that, you probably know how to turn a wrench so you can keep a car running. You just got car fever and fell off the wagon into the dead gum poop. And you just, you got it all over you, man. So that's the first thing I would do. Second thing I would do is what Jade said. Let's do anything we can do to get our income up. Third thing I'm going to do is we're going to put scorched earth on the, uh,

on the old family here you guys are not a bunch of spending nuts once we get past the car but you guys are not doing a bunch of stupid things you don't have enough money to do a bunch of stupid things so i know you're not but even with that i don't want you eating out i don't want you going on vacation and i want you spending money on anything except getting these debts cleaned up because isaac if you had zero debt do you know how fast you could save money

I do. Wow. That's what I want for you, man. That's what I want for you. And hey, I went bankrupt when I was 28 with a brand new baby and a toddler because I was stupid on steroids.

millions of dollars of debt, not 23,000 on a bad car. So I got your stupid beat. I got, I was way more stupid than you. Okay. Or did way more stupid things than you did. Either way you want to look at it. So I'm not picking on you. I love you. And I want you to win, prove it. We're going to put you into financial peace university, which is our nine week class. And we're going to give you the every dollar app with the upgrade. So you guys can get on a hardcore budget. You and your wife start watching those videos tonight.

And before Christmas, get back over to that dealer because you're still inside of a week and that dealer may work with you. They might have mercy on you.

And you give them some amount of money to compensate them for the trouble of tearing up the paperwork and taking that stupid car back. And the 14 miles you put on it or whatever it's been in a week. So that's what I, man, because then you just do what Jade said and you tear through this stuff. We're going to give you all that as a gift.

For you, the new baby, I want you out of your mother-in-law's house. I want you renting something, saving up money, getting out of debt, having a life, and then work on your career and get your income up too. You don't want to be in the parts department when you're 38. It's okay when you're 27, but 11 years from today, who's Isaac going to be and how's he going to get there? So start aiming at something. Let's kick this up in gear because part of the problem, and it's not the whole problem, but part of the problem is you don't make any money.

You don't make enough money and you can go make some more. You're it's not, I'm not shaming you. I'm just saying, dude, if you made $70,000 a year, $80,000 a year, it changed this equation real fast. You didn't have this $23,000 car. It changes this equation real fast. And I'm about changing the equation fast. So you win. Look, I'm wondering if mom and dad can help out. Cause if they're living at mom and dad's house, then can mom and dad watch the two year old while mama goes to work? There you go. It's happened before. Stranger things have happened. That's all I'm saying.

Mama may be at work, but I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, I mean, there's some kind of help going on there. I can guarantee you. I'm talking about doing some radical butt stuff for a short period of time so I never have to again. Live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else. That's the plan, man. Hang on. Austin's going to pick up. We're going to gift you with everything. Merry Christmas and call back anytime you need abuse. We're here for you. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. She is the author of the brand new quick read. Money is not a math problem. We've got that book in the Ramsey store. We've also got Rachel Cruz's new book. I'm glad for what I have, a children's book about contentment. And it is, if I do say so myself, fabulous contentment.

Laura Gallegos. I can't pronounce her name. How do you say it? I think that's right. Anyway, she did the... Gallegos. She did the... I met her a couple times. She's a wonderful lady. Did the illustrations.

And this thing, it's a huge, it's a bestseller. Children's bestseller. Listen, I'm not surprised. We sold out. We had to get some more in. So they're just coming in. If you want some, we can ship them now. Check the bookstore. George's new book, Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. George, we had to develop a whole new font for his sarcasm. Okay.

We have a sarcasm font that we have now. No, I'm kidding, but not much. The guy is a snark king. It's a laugh out loud, ripping on the financial ripoffs. George is like the ultimate consumer advocate. And funny, fun, and you will learn a lot. This book is incredible. It comes out in January, and you can preorder it right now for $20. And guess what? You get about $100 worth of stuff when you do the preorder on it. Thank you for doing that, folks.

All of that stuff and a bunch of other things are on sale right this second at the Ramsey store. Obviously, we can't get it to you by Christmas. Sorry about that. But, hey, it's going to be there and we'll get it to you. And just in time to start the new year, you can do that. That way we can do it. All right. Cliff is with us in Raleigh. Hi, Cliff. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Thank you. And it's truly an honor to be on the air with you guys. You guys are amazing. Well, thank you. How can we help?

Okay, so I'll try to be brief here. I have been saving. I have two kids that are 19 and 23. My son is a rising sophomore at college, and my daughter is in graduate school. She has one more semester to go. And thanks to you and some other good advice, I've been saving in a 529 plan since they were babies. So I had plenty of money to pay for most of college.

the tuition, especially for my daughter because she got scholarships as well. But anyway, but now there's two years left of my son being in college and one more semester of my daughter in graduate school. And with my ex, I had it set up so that I paid half, like one full year was mine, the other full year was hers. But now she's saying that she doesn't have the money or she's telling my son that and

And so she's trying to force me to use all of my 529 savings, which is totally in my name. And in addition to that, my son who's worked for the past four summers, he saved about $10,000. She was trying to force him to use, to drain his entire savings to pay for this last semester.

So I feel kind of bad. Now we know why she's the ex. Very, very difficult. Most people you can talk to, but she didn't. It never was a conversation. It was always one way. So she's broke. Well, she makes over $100,000 a year. Yeah, she can still be broke. I've never made that much.

That's true. Okay, so we've got two issues. One, we've got an obstinate ex who's out of control, but that's not the real issue. You can't control the out-of-control obstinate ex. That's why she's the ex. So what are you going to do?

Well, I didn't tell her this, but I actually paid for my son's last semester fall semester. I told her that he used all his money so that she can't keep coming back to me to keep paying, you know. Because if I'd have told her that, then she would say, oh, well, your dad can pay for this semester coming up. You see what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So we've got to manipulate her because she's a manipulator. But aside from that, how much is in the 529? Total, there's about $28,000 between both 529 plans. Not enough to finish the school for all three? Correct. It's not enough? Correct. Okay. And then when it's out, if she doesn't pay, how are we getting out? That's my thing. I don't want them to be in debt. She can get loans. I don't want them to be in debt.

are either is anybody once again you're trying to control her but i keep reminding you she's the ex we can't control her we can only control what you do so if you think if you think telling her that she better meet her obligation by the court that she's supposed to pay because it's a part of the divorce decree right no no they're both 18 there's no agreement this is just

This is just you guys. Adults being adults. Exactly. Let's work this out. Some of us are adults. How much more are they going to need to finish? Well, it'll be about $40,000. Okay, so we're $12,000 off. What do you make? Right now, I make about $70,000, which in the past few years, I've made about half that. So I'm just now starting to make a little bit of money. And your son has how much?

Well, he had $10,000 saved, which he still has it, but I'm hiding it. Okay, but that's still good money. I'm trying to figure out what the reality is, not the manipulation of the ex. You're spending a lot of energy worrying about her. I'm trying to get you to quit doing that. Yeah, because if you stop, you got it. He's got 10. You got 28. That's 38. You need 40. You're done. You're done. It's not even a problem. You're done. Because here's the thing.

You pretty much know, I know, and I've only been talking to you for about 80 seconds, that she's not going to pay. She's not going to do it. So I just need to get my son to drain his savings. Is she going to do it? I don't know what she's going to do. I really don't. And hold on a second, because you're saying...

it's not bad if you're like, my son's going to drain his savings. He's paying for his education. And that's good if he's contributing a little bit. He shouldn't have to drain it because his mother wasn't a twerp. But that's the deal. That's besides the point at this point. Like you said, they can't control her. Right. And I don't, I truly don't. I would make a run at manipulating her and just saying, it's your turn. But I mean, I'd make a run at it. But you need to be prepared to start writing checks because I don't think this chick's coming through.

I did send her a certified letter about a month ago before I called you guys and laid out kind of basically what I'm telling you guys. It's a one-page, very businesslike, here's what I've paid, your half is there, you know, and I said that my son is basically broke now based on her plan. So that's all I've done. So is she going to pay then? I really don't know. I don't either. I hope so. I don't have much hope.

I think she has displayed her colors and they are very clear. So what I would do is make a run at getting her to pay, but be mathematically and emotionally prepared to start writing the checks out of the 28 and out of the 10. Okay, that's helpful. That's painful, but that is helpful. Well, listen, here's something you could also do. The other option is your kid goes in debt because his mother's an idiot.

Basically. No, and that's not okay. Yeah. Not when he's got 10 and you've got 28 and you need 40 to finish. You can do it. He can do it. Y'all can pull this off.

It's not okay. So we're not going to leave the third, the option of him going in debt because his mother goofed up is not on the plan. So he doesn't have to drain his savings. No, he uses his savings. Like Jade said, it's called an investment in your education. You're paying for college. Well, that's okay. I paid for part of my college. Most of it, as a matter of fact, I think almost all of it, but yeah, there you go. It's like, yeah. And I worked all the time. You start paying for college. You'll be more engaged than you've ever been.

Because you know where your money's going. Yeah, there's that too. So yeah, Cliff, I think you're looking for justice, and I don't blame you for that, but I don't think justice is going to occur here.

justice is she stands up and goes, oh, I am his mom. I should keep my word. I should pay my half. I'm going to be a grown-up, an adult, and take care of my part of the bargain. I'm going to have integrity. But nothing you described about this woman indicates she's actually going to do that.

If you have any hope of that, you have more hope than I do. Everything you described about her describes someone that's not going to follow through on this. So she might. And again, I'd give it a shot at jacking her up and getting her to do it. I don't care if she's mad. I mean, let's get her going. Let's get her going. The thing is, that woman, I can tell...

That woman drives him crazy And when she gets him wound up He's just spinning his wheels Trying to figure out why won't she do this She's the ex for a reason I'm like Stay far away Ex, ex, ex You know there's a reason Just get distance If we could put up with it crazy We'd still be married This is the Ramsey Show

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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jay Boshaw, Ramsey personality, and author of the new quick read, Money's Not a Math Problem. She's my co-host today at Open Phones at 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us. We're so glad you're here. Megan is with us. Megan is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Megan. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm in the parking lot of the dry cleaners. I just picked up my wedding dress. Yay! How fun! Thank you. I'm getting married on the 1st of January, and I'm so excited. You should be. Congratulations. Thank you so much. So my fiancé is amazing. He's incredible, but he's not that great with money, which is why I'm calling. Okay.

Sorry. So we've been together for a while, and over the course of the last maybe year, he revealed that he's in a lot of credit card debt, about $58,000 worth. Yikes.

Yeah. So in February of this year, I actually took out a home equity loan at prime rate. So what is that? 8.5, I think. Well, wait a second. You said he's not that great with money. You're taking out HELOCs. What are you taking out a HELOC for? Yeah. I mean, I knew where we were going. I knew we were forever. And I knew I wanted to just nip this in the bud. So he cut up his credit card and we put all of his money aside.

We consolidated all of his credit card debt into a HELOC, and he's been making steady payments since then to me to pay on that. Lord Jesus. Okay. So he commits to about $1,000 a month to paying that off, and we're predicting about a four-and-a-half-year to five-year payoff. Oh, no, no, no. What do you make?

Oh, I only make $60,000 a year and he makes $120,000. Okay, so you make $180,000. You have $58,000 in debt. We're not waiting six freaking years. You're doing this next year. Okay, okay. We have made some mistakes. He had a bunch of credit card debt and was overspending. Apparently he has stopped that, I hope it sounds like.

You made a mistake of financing someone that you weren't married to's debt. You're getting ready to fix that in about a week. Thank you, God. So you'll be safe at that point. And we don't want to spoil the wedding with too much of this talk. But as soon as you guys get home from the honeymoon, now it's we have $58,000 in debt, and we need to pay that off with our $180,000 income as fast as we can. And that means we ain't doing nothing until we get this mess cleaned up. Do either one of you have any money?

Yeah, so I actually have about $55,000 in stocks that I got as a bonus from a job I previously had that I've never touched. Oh, okay. After you're married, cash that out and pay this off. Great. Okay, that's what I was hoping you were going to say, but I wasn't sure if that's a wise decision. It's a wonderfully wise decision. Now, here's the trick. The two of you from this day forward,

are going to lock arms and not borrow money and be on a budget together and communicate a lot more about money than you have been. Yes. In other words, if his spending stays above his income and the credit cards grow back because the habits didn't change, then the advice we just gave you might not have been smart. Agreed? Yes, that makes sense. Did I hear you say it's a scary topic?

Yes, it's a little nerve-wracking to confront his weak links, the fact that he does like to spend a lot of money. It's you too, because he did rack up that credit card debt. But listen, it was not a smart choice to roll it into a HELOC. I'm not going to lie about that. So I think you both have some things to learn here. I think we should give him Financial Peace University. Yeah, if we give you the class, will you go through it together so you've got a book to work from?

I would love for him to have those resources and for me to be a part of that as well. I think that would be amazing. Let me help you. That's not how it works. Okay. He doesn't need the resources. We need to go through the class together. So we are doing this stuff together. Not Dave's going to school him up.

I understand. I completely understand. I'm just listening to your verbiage, kiddo. So, yeah. Okay. You hang on. We're going to give this to you as a wedding gift and a Christmas present. And since we abused you right before your wedding. I know. We just yelled at her right before the wedding. It's just that she's picking up her wedding dress, calls from the cleaners, and we yell at her. So, nobody yelled at her. We love her. We want her to win. That's true. But I kept telling her she was just as... Well, she is. She is. They both made the same... I won't say the S word. They both did silly things. They... Aw.

Silly. The S word. Oh, my gosh. They both did things, Dave. There you go. Come on. Own it. There we go. It's okay. We love her and she's going to win. She's smart. She makes good money. He makes good money. But listen, the thing is, what we want for you, this is the number one

and money issues are the number one stress point in marriage, Megan, and you're getting married. So we want you guys to have real clean, open, honest dialogue around this. Both of you, uh,

We don't want touchy subject. We don't want, you know, you're not shaming him. We both are looking at this and saying, okay, from this point forward, we're not using credit cards. From this point forward, we're going to agree on a budget, and we're going to stick to the budget that we both agreed to. It's a marital contract. From this point forward, we're going to save up and pay cash for things because you're dumping $60,000 of money that you brought into the marriage against his mistakes. Mm-hmm.

And so the two of you together need assurances that the two of you together are going to move forward in very clean stuff. The old wedding vows, most people know in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, the old wedding vows in the Book of Common Prayer say, unto thee all my worldly goods I pledge. Ooh.

And so that indicates this unity, this oneness in the marriage where we're sharing everything, not your debt, my debt, not your checking account, my checking out, not your income, my income. It's our, our, our, our, our, our. When you get married, you are French. Oui, oui, oui. It's

It's ours. Okay. That's what you're doing. And there's a oneness to that. And by the way, not only is that a beautiful and romantic and wonderful marriage thing where the communication is very high and the quality of the relationship is very high. The interesting part also is the data tells us from studying millionaires that it increases the probability of you becoming wealthy vastly. The number of people that become wealthy is

while dragging a misbehaving spouse is almost zero it's almost zero so this this idea that you work together it's like we're going to do this together we're going to raise kids together when you when you argue about what how to treat you know how to make the kids behave the kids are the only ones that lose

you know, and you argue about how to make the money behave, the money loses, you know, so you're getting on the same page is a big deal. And that's not just aimed at Megan. That's what I'm aimed at all of you out there. This time of year, some of you are home for Christmas. You got a little time on your hands. You need to sit down with each other and go, Hey, this is what's going on. This would be some confession is good for the soul time for some of you. Some of you got to come clean on. I'm kind of ashamed. I've been doing this and I'm

I'm really been doing some stuff I don't like, and I know you're not going to like it, and I don't even want to talk about it, but we're going to talk about it. You need to do some of that during the holidays, some of you. But hang on. Austin will get you signed up. Jade just gave her Financial Peace University and EveryDollar, the world's best budgeting app. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Sam is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Sam. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Appreciate you having me on. Sure. What's up?

Good for you. Awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, things are going really well for us. Had a lot of debt going into the marriage. But right now, kind of the question I have is our biggest debt is a truck that I bought about a year ago that I definitely shouldn't have. Safe to say it was before I had heard of you guys and kind of how you guys went about things with that. No, I need to sell it. But my biggest issue right now is I have it out on the private sale market and it's

still around, are looking at 33 to 36, and we owe 36.5 on it. My biggest issue right now is I'm having a lot of trouble selling it. Been out probably for about three or four months. I've been putting it on all the, you know, Marketplace, eBay, and all that stuff. What is your household income? Right around 100K. Okay, so you can pay the payment. This just accelerates the get-out-of-debt plan, and it...

It's kind of the admission that you made a mistake when you bought it, and that's the reason we're getting rid of it. So my point is there's no panic. It's okay if it takes a little while. Don't give the truck away. Okay. You don't have to give it away. Yeah, because you'd have to give it away if we were about to be repoed. Right. Right. Yeah, right now the dealership is they're offering it from $28,000 to $29,000. That's about $6,000 under. Yeah, so it's probably not worth $36,000.

Because you're not getting nibbles at that. It's probably worth $33,000. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm hoping to get, private sales, $33,000, $34,000, and make up the difference on the loan. Because right now the payment each month is about $600 a month. Yeah. What have you got it listed at? Right now I have it listed at, on Marketplace and on Craigslist, about $33,500. Okay, that's not bad. I think you'll probably get some nibbles. Unless somebody was buying it for a Christmas present, you're not getting anything in December on it.

So it's going to be January, and you're in Des Moines in January. Somebody's going to need a truck. Okay. I mean, it's okay. But don't panic. I mean, if it takes five more months, don't sell it for $28,000. Right. Just drive it and pay the payment. Okay. All right. That seems simple enough. Yeah, because you're not panicking. See, you don't have to discount a house $50,000 to sell it unless we really have to sell the house.

Yeah, that makes sense. It's the same thing here, right? Yeah, my view is, like you said, just kind of accelerate their process a little bit and everything. I want you to sell it. I want you to be realistic in your pricing so it sells, but I don't want you to give it away. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So just give yourself some permission for it to take a little while because it's a big old truck. I mean, selling a $20,000 truck is a lot different than selling a $40,000 truck.

That's true. It's a lot different marketplace for that. And, you know, the economy's bouncing around. Interest rates are bouncing around. People are deciding whether they're sitting on the bench or whether they're coming into the game. You know, they're jumping back and forth on real estate, on car purchases, everything else. It's not been a good season for car dealers. This last fall has not been like car dealer heaven. How long should he sit on it at that price point? How long would you sit on it? The thing is...

The only reason we're going to adjust the prices is that we're admitting that it's really not worth that. But we're not adjusting the price to motivate a buyer. That's the difference, okay? So if the truck's evidently not worth $36,000,

You got almost no activity in three months. So the range was 33 to 36. So let's get it on down to 33. And then, you know, we'll keep bumping it down a little bit at a time. Just a little bit at a time. Because we're trying to find the price. We're trying to find the actual value in the market. We're not trying to bring people to the table to get a deal. Right. That's different. And so it might take four or five months. It really might.

kyle is with us in greensboro north carolina hi kyle welcome to the ramsey show merry christmas yes sir i was wondering how to navigate staying debt-free while also having no credit well that's great it's kind of the same thing yeah yeah yeah absolutely um what are you trying to do specifically

So I was going to college in Asheville and I moved back in with my parents and you know I'm not going to live with my parents forever so eventually I have to be able to buy a home and all that sort of stuff. How old are you? I'm 23 years old. Okay what do you do for a living?

So I work for my dad's construction company. They call me a gopher when they ask me to go for them to do this and go for them to do that. Yeah, I got you. I've done that myself. It's not a bad job. So what do you make? I make anywhere. So I'm also a salesman. So I make anywhere between $35,000 and $40,000 depending on how productive the year is. And you don't have any debt and you've decided you're not borrowing money anymore.

Yes, ma'am. I've never borrowed any money. If I could help it, I bought my truck in cash. Yeah, so if you move out and make $40,000 a year and get an apartment, what's wrong with that? Well, so I've always, you know, I rented an apartment when I was going to college in Asheville, and it was so much money on something that felt temporary to me. Well, it is temporary. Yeah. So it's living with your mama. Yeah.

Oh, yes, sir, absolutely. But, I mean, I give them $150 for groceries in a month here, and so I'm just saving up as much money as I possibly can while I'm here. I just feel like kind of throwing away the $1,000 or $1,500 a month. It's not $1,000 or $1,500 to start with in Greensboro, North Carolina.

So you can find a one-bedroom a lot cheaper than that or get a roommate, and you'll be a lot cheaper than that. And there's no rush. But the next phase of your life is to be running your own household, being in control of your own house. Something happens inside your brain when you have to buy your own bread and wash your own towels. Oh, yes, sir. Like I said, I'm out. Yes, sir. Yeah, so I want you to go do that sometime in the next six months.

I want you to find a place to live. And then I'm going to just start building up cash. And there is no, back to your original question we picked up, Kyle, there is no mandate that you use debt. There is no mandate that you have credit. As a matter of fact, the people that are the wealthiest are the ones that don't.

And so staying away from payments like you have wisely done, you paid cash for a car. I kind of think you're a cheapskate. I like you. You don't want to spend money on rent. You know, it's cheaper to live at home. You like piling up the money. You didn't want a car payment. You saved up and paid for a truck. I like that. That's all good, wise decision-making. I think you're thinking the right way. And so just continue on down that path. Don't let some of your crazy friends or cousins or something convince you that you need to go get a

or go get a credit card or go get payments. You don't. Those that don't are the ones with the most money because they don't give banks money. When you quit handing banks money, you have some money as long as you make some. And you know how to work and make money if you're in the construction business. It's interesting how with this house project,

this housing market. I just think it's all the time how people are on such far extremes. It's like, you know, renting is horrible and you're throwing your money down the drain and you never rent. And then over here is Grant Cardone says, never buy a house and dah, dah, dah, dah. And I'm like, guys, why can't it just be in the middle? You rent for a little while until you can afford to buy a home. And then you buy a home. Like that's just, I mean, it makes sense. And it's logical when you rent, it's not for life. It's not forever. Yes. It's more expensive. Yeah.

at different stages of your life. There are times that you rent for a reason. And it's not a way of life. It's not a long-term thing. But owning a home is wise as a long-term play as a part of your financial thing. So, you know, people yelling and screaming on TikTok. It's like these extremities. It doesn't have to be like that. Who cares what they say? They're not real people. That's just avatars.

Well, there's real people behind those avatars. They're humans walking around acting like avatars. There you go. They're just extreme crazy. And so just use some common sense. Think about your grandma. Think about how this makes sense. When you first get married or you're first starting out of your mom and dad's house, renting something is normal. It takes you a little while to get your feet on the ground. Save up some money. Buy your first house. There's nothing wrong with that.

Nothing out of line about that. But living at home until you're 28 and your mama doing your laundry? No, you need to get out on your own, young man, young lady. You need to get out there and be like a grown-up and stuff. Hey, let me just tell you, an eagle that fails to leave the nest is eventually known as a turkey. This is The Ramsey Show.

Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Dinah is in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. Hi, Dinah. How are you? Or Dina. I'm sorry. Hi.

Hi, Dave. Yeah, it's Dina. Merry Christmas to you and your team, and thank you so much for having me on. I've been listening for a lot of years. I just want to tell you that I certainly have been trained by my parents to pay off my home, and that's what I plan to do this year.

coming August. Yeah. I know. Uh, thank you. We owe about 41,000 and what I, I'm a school teacher. So what I plan to do is I have a tax sheltered annuity that I've had since 1995 and there's not a lot in there, but it's roughly around 28,000. So I was going to use that to pay off my house in August. Okay. And I've been doubling, thank you. And I've been doubling up on the payments to get it all cleared out. But here's my goal.

So Emma, I have plans. I have a home that's about 24 years old and it is in need of like renovations as far as it needs probably the siding removed and put new siding up or fiber cement or something like that is what I really want to do. And also possibly put a little sunroom on the back of the house. And we have no debt. My husband and I, we drive very old cars and,

Um, we don't eat out a lot. So we kind of want to do something, you know, to the, to the house like that. But I'm kind of scared as far as I want to retire at 60. Um, but I don't know if I can swing all this without, I don't know if I didn't have to get a HELOC or if I could use,

I know you're not going to pay off that house and then borrow against it again, right? I don't want to do that. You're not going to do that. Don't even say it out loud. Yeah, it's not even an option. You've been listening to this show. You knew not to say that here. I know. But think about what you were really saying. What's your household income?

Our household income is $158,000. Okay, $158,000, and you don't have a payment in the world starting in August. How much is the siding? Get a bid. How much is the sunroom? Get a bid. Save and do one, then save and do the other. Okay. If you can save to pay off a house, you can save to do these improvements. It's just going to take a little time.

Right. Well, what I was going to do is if I'm if I had to have paid off this August, I'll be fifty nine and a half. And then like I would still work the school year. So I could sock all that money away and at least do one of the improvements and pay cash to work two more years. You're just a baby. Work two more years.

Yeah, you don't have to retire at 59 and a half. One year for the sunroom, one year for the siding. You make $158,000 as long as you're working. I didn't get the quitting work part until just now. But, yeah, work a little bit more. Who cares? Well, I care, Dave. I'm pretty tired. You have to choose. You've got a choice. Do you want a Florida room or do you want to work a year? You're right. Okay, I've got another question real quick.

Can I? I don't have any. We don't have any heirs. Can I do a reverse mortgage? What are you saying? Where is that woman that called and said that she listened to the show? Where did you do with her? You didn't put her in a closet and lock her up, did you? I think you're playing games with us. Are you playing? No, I'm exploring options. Don't explore those. I can...

I can still. It's Christmas. We're supposed to be nice. You're making it hard. You're turning us into Grinch and Scrooge and everybody else. Okay. Okay. You know the answer. All right. So here's the deal. Here's the deal. Get the prices on the stuff and then sit down and look at that versus your income considering you have no payments starting in August. Okay. Right. And really, I mean, it's probably, how many square feet is your home?

It's roughly $1,800. Okay. All right. So $20,000 does the siting. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can have $20,000 and do the siting by this time next year. What are you putting towards your mortgage right now? Let's look at this. What are you putting towards the mortgage? You said you're making double payments. What is that? I pay $3,360 a month. Okay. That's $36,000 a year.

Yeah. So at $20,000, it leaves you $20,000. By this time next year at Christmas, you should be able to put siding on the house in cash. I should, yeah. You're right. And then by this time next summer, you'll have a Florida rent. Six more months, you've got a Florida rent.

And then you're done. Just plan it out. The problem is you've got these things floating around with no actual numbers attached to them, and they're floating around in your brain, in your emotions, rather than in your math brain. Use your math brain, and it'll calm you down.

Okay. Go get some actual bids and timeline this out in your actual budget like I just did and say, okay, based on being done in August, oh, wait a minute, we could be done in July or June. Oh, wait, well then, oh my, by February we've got a sunrise. Oh, okay. You know, and you start, when you actually get the actual bids,

and get two or three bids so that you're getting good contractors and um and you know quit entertaining these crazy butt ideas that you know are crazy but yeah oh my god reverse mortgage you've got to be kidding me but there is something about that that's worth speaking about you know you you make it all the way through baby step six you pay off your mortgage

There is still going to be things that come up that you have to save and possibly sacrifice in order to have. It doesn't take away. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you don't you never have enough money to not watch your money. Exactly. There's no such thing. There's going to be something you want to do and you're going to have to pull the purse strings in tighter and you're going to have to decide, OK, what do I want to what do I want to sacrifice or trade in order to get that over time? That part never goes away. It's it just may not be to the extremes necessarily.

That at once was right. Being debt free doesn't make it, you know, where you have no boundaries. Right. I do anything you want to do. It just makes you just freeze up the vast majority of your income when you focus it with great intentionality to do the next thing. John is in Philadelphia. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, Mr. Ramsey, Miss Warshaw. Hi, big fan. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. How can we help?

I have a whole life insurance policy. I'm sorry. I know you hate that. My mother took it out for me when I was a baby. How sweet. And it is now a cash value of about $13,000 and a death benefit of about $21,000. Wow. That's what you get when you get one as a baby. Wow. I'm sorry. Sorry. It was only worth $5,000 as a baby. It accumulated over the years. What's your opinion on what I should do with that? Cash it tomorrow.

Really? Wow. Put the $13,000 in something that will actually grow. Okay. Yeah. You've been making 1% or 2% your whole life on this thing. You've got $13,000 sitting in a horrible product, making almost no money. The net is, because by the way, they're going to keep the $13,000 if you die and write a check for 21. So you actually don't have 21 in insurance. What you actually have is an 8 in insurance.

Okay. 21 minus 13. So you put 13 in your pocket. If you need some life insurance, go get some life insurance, the proper amount in term to cover your kids, your mama, your family, your wife, whatever. Okay. But you don't, this is a joke. It's just a, it's a super small policy. Uh, B it's a horrible rate of return. See, when you die, they're going to keep the $13,000. It's just, you need to get it out of there.

before you die quickly like this week go ahead and turn it in and get your money and put the money in a good investment or pay it on wherever you are in the baby steps but yeah this is um uh i don't know if we'll ever get rid of all of those all the whole life plans yeah but

But, I mean, they did. I mean, he's probably, I'm going to guess and say he's 30 or 40 years old. Okay. So that was sold 25, 30 years ago. But most people now know that that's a horrible product. The vast majority of the public has a knowledge base that says whole life, life insurance, universal life sucks. It's horrible. It's the payday lender of the middle class. Most people know that. So people aren't running around buying $5,000 policies on their babies anymore much.

I mean, Gerber's still selling them. They still sell them. Gerber. When you're in the hospital. Which just blows my mind. Gerber. Okay, let's get this straight. You're buying financial investment programs for your children from a baby food company. Have you lost your mind? I mean, seriously. That's just straight up. It's like I'm going to the transmission store to buy cereal. Unbelievable. This is the Ramsey Show.

Jay Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas. Janice is with us in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hi, Janice. How are you?

Well, thank you. Thank you so much for taking my call. My husband and I have been married for seven years. I'm 59 years old. He's 61 years old. We have four children, a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old, 25-year-old, and 26-year-old. The older two are children from my husband's first marriage. My husband took out parent plus loans for the two older children that amount to about $130,000. Oh, my God.

And now we're in the process of trying to figure out how to pay that back while trying to make sure we provide for our younger children and look towards retirement. We've got a couple options that I don't really like, one of which is we sold our main home because I was temporarily on an assignment and we weren't in the house.

And we can use the proceeds from that sale of the home to pay off the loan, but that would make us without a real home. We have a second home that we're currently living in that he would prefer if we sold the second home. But I don't feel like, you know, some of this is being paid off of money that I saved or saved to be able to pay for the second home. So one, I want to know what my obligation is. And two, we're looking for the best option of how to pay off these loans.

This is interesting. Your obligation is the loans get paid. You married a guy who borrowed $130,000 to send his kids to school. And so that's what you married. And so the two of you got to clean. It's blocking the future, as you said, of your younger kids and the future of the two of you. So you got to clean it up. So what are the proceeds from the sale of the other house? How much money have you got?

It's now $230,000. It was $280,000, but now it's $230,000. And you got $130,000 in parent plus? Yes. Okay, so now you got $100,000. What else you got in debt? That's it. Our cars are paid off. Good. The mortgage is paid off. And the house that you're living in, you all don't want to live there?

It is my opinion that we should live here and save money and pay off the loan. My husband would prefer not to. It's close to the beach. There's nothing else around. He doesn't think he'd be happy to live in this home. Okay. What is the home that you're living in worth? We paid $205,000 for it. It's probably maybe, that was three years ago, it's probably maybe $240,000, $250,000 by now. And what do you owe on it?

Nothing. Oh, good. Okay, so if you sold that and you had $100,000 left over after paying off the loans, you'd have $350,000. Can you go buy something for $350,000 that you both like? Probably. You know, it would be tough, and I say that, but I feel as I've gotten older in life that I cannot live in a smaller, smaller home. It would be hard to do. The home that you're currently living in is not smaller, smaller?

It has three bedrooms and two and a half baths. It is a townhome. Our kids have a place to play. So it has all of the, I think the necessities. I would take something like this. So he doesn't, the only, the only issue is your husband doesn't want to live there. He really does prefer not to live in this area because he doesn't feel he would have enough things to do. And yeah. Okay. Well, here's the thing. What would I do if I woke up in your shoes? All right. I would write a check today and pay off the student loans.

That's done. Okay. Now you've got $100,000 in the bank and you've got a $250,000 paid for house. Then the two of you, you and your husband, need to sit down together. And what I'm now hearing is that you are not in agreement on where you want to live. You're fine with where you are. He's not. You're not fine with where $350,000 with these two sources would take you.

But you're perfectly fine in this $250,000 house. So somewhere in there, you guys got to find something that the four of you can live in that you pay cash for that is $350,000 or under. And then you're set up to move into retirement well. But you got no debt at that point. You got your income. House was paid off. That's where I want you to end up. You don't go out and take out a mortgage because that's the same thing as borrowing on your house to pay off student loans then. We're not doing that.

You got $100,000 plus this, and you got to hold an emergency fund out, of course, if you don't have that separate already. And then you guys need to be investing in your retirement once you get the house purchase. But, you know, you guys need to talk about, okay, we have $350,000 to deal with. I'm comfortable here. You're not. So where is it that we can talk about going that both of us are going to be okay this $350,000 and under?

And y'all start looking and talking about that. And maybe that shuts him up and you stay where you are. Or maybe that you find something that fits that and does both.

Okay. I'm currently building a home in a neighborhood. I personally would have built a home on my farm, but my wife wouldn't live there. So I would be by myself. And so these are compromises you make when you're married. And so we're building a house where Sharon wants to build a house and I'll be okay with it. I'm okay with it, but it's not my first choice. It's my B choice. Yeah. Right. And so you do that sometimes and you guys got to look at that. So is this his B choice, but it's okay. Yeah.

but there's not a choice in this discussion that's $500,000 and you go in debt. That's not a choice. So you guys, I'd write a check today, pay off these debts, and the two of you then sit down and say, we've got $350,000, how are we going to live out the rest of our life real estate-wise? I'm wondering if there's a world where the stepkids are contributing to those student loans at all.

It depends on what they set up from the beginning, I guess. Yeah, I mean, they're not legally liable. They're not legally, but a lot of times they sign them. Yeah, because the kid can't sign anymore. I'm...

I'm kind of guessing there's zero chance of that just the way the conversation went, but I was a guess. I went with the assumption they weren't contributing. And they're not liable. They're not. No, it's in the parent's name. And Janice is like, what's my obligation? Freaking obligation. You married a guy, borrowed $130,000, you're going to pay it. That's your obligation. So yeah, when you hear words like that, that's when you know you got to, yeah, it's not. You have to pay it. Even though it was, that's what Parent Plus is. That's why it sucks so bad.

Parent plus should be called parent minus, but it's not. Brandon is in Philadelphia. Hi, Brandon. How are you? I'm good. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Um, so basically I started a new job and the new job offers a 401k and my old job offered a simple IRA and I'm not allowed to transfer my funds from the simple IRA into the 401k. So I'm just not sure what to do with the money that's in the simple IRA account. Uh, regulations allow you to, but maybe your 401k doesn't, but I wouldn't do it anyway. So it doesn't matter. You simply roll it to an IRA. Okay.

Just get with a SmartVestor Pro and sit down and open an IRA and do a direct transfer rollover. Is it a Roth or is it a traditional? The simple. From what I know, it's called the simple IRA. No, I mean, yeah, but they make simple Roth and they make simple regular. So it's probably a traditional. Whatever it is, you just do an IRA that's the same. If it's a Roth, you roll it to an IRA Roth. If it's not, you roll it to an IRA traditional. Either one's fine. And you set it up. How much money is in it?

I think around 12 grand. Oh, not a ton. Okay. Pick you out a couple of good growth stock mutual funds and drop it in there. Roll it over. A direct transfer means it goes straight from them to the mutual fund company with the SmartVestor Pro. You don't touch the check and 100% of the money moves in a zero tax due. Okay.

All right. Very easy to do. It's six or seven pieces of paper. Sit down, though. It's a good experience for you to pick out a good SmartVestor Pro. Click RamseySolutions.com. Find the people we endorse in those areas, and they'll sit down with you. And, Jade, you've done it. I've done it, right? I've done it. Yeah, it's worth it.

They'll help you through it. Yeah, because if you cash it out, I mean, they're going to take it. Government's going to take half of it. Exactly, because you would be doing so before retirement and you don't want that. So when you do it as a transfer, it never leaves the electronic space. Yeah, it never leaves the warmth of the retirement covering. There you go. It goes from one retirement covering to another directly, a direct transfer rollover.

goes straight from the old company to the new account, doesn't come to your house. See, if they send it to you, they have to withhold 20% on it, and yet you've got to put 100% in.

So you're not going to have but about $10,000, and you've got to put $12,000 in. So that's why you do a direct transfer. And the 20% withholding is not enough to cover the problem that you're going to create. So it's a weird dichotomy. So the direct transfer, and sit down with a smart investor pro. They'll show you how to do it. Good question, man. Merry Christmas. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the book. 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 Washall, Ramsey Personality, host of, well, host of, the author of the new book, Maths Not a Money Problem, a 76-page quick read.

Well, it's a major, major chapter and you'll be done. Yeah, act fast and you'll learn a lot about life and about money. She's my co-host today. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. As we draw near to the end of our live broadcast for the calendar year, update on the show for the year. We did 242 shows this year, live ones. We've talked to over 3,200 people on the air.

doing this show this year. We did 184 debt-free screams totaling $36,059,064.47. That's a ton. So we generally have about $40 million, $35 or $40 million worth of debt-free screams a year on the debt-free stage. And we've done that for many, many years. So if you want to add that up, that's like a lot.

I'm guessing we're over a billion in debt-free screams alone, not counting what everybody else did off camera, off mic, but pretty incredible. And what a great year. What a wonderful year. We're celebrating around here. We've

Yesterday hit number one on Apple Podcasts, so it's a big deal for us. Thank you. And literally, thank you, because you guys out there did that. I mean, you've been subscribing and sharing and leaving five-star reviews. Thank you for that. That makes a huge difference, and we really do appreciate you.

And that way, when somebody's sitting around during the holidays, bored, and they just open up their phone and go, I'm going to look at a podcast. Well, what's this number one? I wonder what this thing is. Well, they'll just stumble their little butt into here and learn about money and life. Who knew? And that's how that works. It's a great promotional item, and we appreciate it. Listen, beating those true crime podcasts is a big deal because that is huge. Well, they have a disadvantage because there's a bunch of them. Yeah, that's true. Well, there's only one of us.

That's true. But there's other money podcasts. Yeah, I know. But there are no, I don't think there's any in the top 10. Yes, exactly. I mean, there's some news stuff and the crime stuff. And my buddy Huberman, that's a great podcast. I love his. And I mean, there's a few others that bump in and out of there. And my wife listens. And Blake Thompson, our producer on the network, do a lot of those true crime. Do you do those? I can't. I need to sleep at night, Dave. That's like my worst nightmares. I can't be listening to that. Yeah.

I am such a wuss. I can't go to horror movies. Me either.

I won't. I have never gone to horror movies in my life. I get scared. I do, too. And I don't like being scared. And I feel sorry for the people. I'm going to pay for you to scare the pants off of me. Yeah. I don't get it. I'm a wuss. Me, too. I can't do it. No. Well, Merry Christmas to you, America. 888-825-5225. Lindsay's with us in Waco, Texas. Hi, Lindsay. How are you? I'm good. How are y'all? Better than we deserve. What's up? So, I'm in a little bit of a pickle.

My husband wants to buy a brand new side-by-side. So let me give you some context. Yesterday we closed in our house. We will take home a little over $33,000 on it. You sold your house? You sold your house. Okay. You got $30,000 in your pocket. Okay. Yes. Our current house that we're living in, our new house, is paid for. Cool. We're...

I convinced him to take $29,000 of that and pay off his truck, and now he wants to go buy a brand new side-by-side. And I'm like, but we have other things I need to pay for. And I keep telling him no, and he keeps saying, we have money now. I'm like, we don't have money. Well, not if he spends it on a side-by-side. You don't have any money. No, I don't have money. Let me stop a second. You don't have the money to buy a side-by-side, right?

No. Okay, so he's talking about this is the same man that yesterday paid off his truck and now he wants to go back in debt. So he's not really on the get out of debt plan. He's just kind of going along when you tell him to do something until he doesn't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So this is not a money problem. This is a husband problem. I agree. Okay. So how old are you two? We just both turned 37 on Sunday and Tuesday this week. What's he do for a living?

He is a heavy equipment mechanic by trade, but he just got into inside sales, which promoted him, like upgraded him on his hourly wages. Yeah, but he's a mechanic by trade. What do you do? I'm an occupational therapist assistant. And what other debts do you have now that his truck is paid off? We have a camper.

that we bought and we do use it we use it like almost i don't care what other debts have you got i know you don't care um i have a camper and student loans that's it how much is the camper debt uh 60 60 000 yes that wasn't my choice either yes it was you're a grown-up and you live there and you signed the papers

I didn't sign anything. How is he buying this? Like when this, when this goes down, what takes place? He goes over to the dealer on his own signs for it and says, honey, look, I bought us a camper. Is that what happens? What he does is he says, I'm going to go buy this. I'm like, no, I don't have to. I, I, I can't, I'm paying off other stuff. We're paying off other stuff. We can't. And he goes in and he does it. He goes and does it anyway.

He does. Okay. We have a side-by-side. It's paid for. I said you... You already have a paid-for side-by-side. What is it worth? Yes. $22,000, and it's used. Yeah. Okay. And how much student loan debt do you have, hon? $55,000. Oh. Okay. So you have $115,000 in debt, and a paid-for house, and your household income is what, $100,000?

It's 100, and this year I think it'll be 162. Oh, okay. That's excellent. All right. Well, I mean, you guys need to sit down and not have a side-by-side discussion. You need to sit down and have a marriage discussion. Yes, sir. And say, I love you, and I'm tired of being your mother. I don't want to be married to a little boy who has to ask his mommy to make decisions.

I want a man who stands beside me and looks into the future and says, how can we prosper as a family and puts his own little selfish desires to the side of the good of the family? I need a man. Would you please find me one? And I'm going to make a call out here. Here's just this is what I think.

I think that you guys started making a little bit of money and you started doing maybe just my guess a little better than some of the way maybe you grew up. And I think he thinks you guys are rich. And I think he thinks this is what people with money do.

Am I right? And especially yesterday after we closed on the house, he's like, we don't have a house payment anymore. I said, no, because that's going to go to something else. Yeah. Now you make $160,000 and you got a stupid butt $60,000 camper and $55,000 worth of student loan debt to clean up. And then you can go build some wealth and then you can buy a side-by-side if you want to upgrade your side-by-side with cash.

when you're not in debt anymore. But that's what men do, what grown-up women do, not little boys and little girls who buy toys that they can't afford. And this is the discussion the two of you need to have. Hey, I've got a side-by-side. Nothing wrong with them. But quit buying crap you can't afford. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We appreciate you being here.

Charles is with us in Evansville, Indiana. Hi, Charles. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas. You too. How are you guys? Better than we deserve, man. What's up? So, I am... I have school student debt, $16,500 in medical debt, and a couple bills. I'm 23 years old. I'm a

I kind of just need like a plan on how to tackle this. All right. So let's talk a little bit about what you have coming in. So you've got this debt. What's your income? So right now I am probably making on average like five, six hundred dollars a week. OK. Doing what? I'm actually on my I'm a drop very technician. I'm very cable.

Okay. I'm on my two-week notice actually right now. What happened? Just me and the manager, button heads, just every single day. It just kind of felt like it was just escalating. So what are you going to do now for money? I have a few places that I'm going to an interview with. One is Aerotech. All right. On the maintenance side and –

The other one is for a golf course. Okay. First rule is from now on, we're not going to quit a job until we have another one lined up. So let's remember that for future use because you've got to keep money coming in. I just felt like I was about to get fired, really. That's what kind of made me. Well, so you fired yourself and put yourself in a pickle. You need a dadgum job. Jades are still right.

So what are these jobs you applied for? What do they pay? I hope they pay a little bit better, right? Are you trying to move up? Yes, I want to. What's the golf course pay? The golf course is $45 a year. And the Aerotech one, the maintenance position, is $24 an hour starting now. Okay, I'll show about $45. Okay. Both of those are arranged then. Good. When will you know?

Well, I know. If you got them. I go to an interview for both of them this week. Okay. Friday. Friday.

Good. Okay, good. Tomorrow. Okay, good, good, good. All right. In the meantime, I still want you looking into something that you can do in the, I mean, you can go on your phone and start applying for DoorDash. I want you to have a lot of irons in the fire right now in case something doesn't pan out. It's the holidays. People are about to check out here in the next couple of days and you might not hear back. Do you know what I'm saying? There's the propensity for a big delay here and I don't want you to lose two or even three weeks waiting for these jobs and not having money coming in. So I want you to start

Keep what you got, but also it's DoorDash, it's Uber. It's looking into some of that. What can you start doing quickly to bring in money? Because at the end of the day, you can't pay off debt if you don't have any money coming in. All right? You're living at home? Yes. And so that's what this is. The first thing is get money coming in. And then you've got two debts. Did you say 500 of medical debt? A thousand. A thousand. Okay. So that's going to be your very first...

debt barring i'm just assuming these student loans is it one big are you paying payments on the student loans uh no so that's my biggest problem um back in may i talked to a lady from ed financial at least i thought it was and uh we never set up like a payment plan or anything but uh like this last month whenever it started coming out yeah uh

They, I guess they just set me up for 120 payments at like 140, 150 bucks. Okay. So have you been making those payments? No, no, I didn't even know they were due. So from May all the way to October, me and my mom, we couldn't get a hold of them because she was trying to do it too. I guess because so many people were calling in from the whole Biden thing. And there's nothing online that you can log into? No. Okay.

No. And they, uh, well, that doesn't sound right. They told me that that lady that I talked to never worked there and that they had no idea who I was talking to, but I received stuff in the mail from them saying I'm like past due $400. And then if I don't make like a payment by the end of December, uh,

How? OK, so collections when it's time to. It sounds like she enrolled you in a plan and you just didn't understand the details because it sounds like you haven't paid and now it's due. When you look at that bill, where do you have to go to pay it? It lets you pay it online, right? There's somewhere where you're logging in. You can see your balance or phone number and pay it from there. I understand that. But I'm talking about you with your own eyeballs being able to log into your account.

see the balance, see what's due, see the interest rate, right? Because you've got to be able to see that. No, I can't see that, no. I have all that stuff on paper that they sent me. They didn't send you a website link with a collections notice?

No. So what happens when you... Ah, you need to go look again. Bull crap. I'm confused. You need to get the paperwork back out. There's a website on it. Yeah, it's 2023. It's edloans.com or whatever it is. It's somewhere on there. You can't get in front of this if you don't look at it. And there's part of me that kind of feels like you don't want to see it, right? So...

Do your research. I'm confused because I talked to him on the phone. Okay. On the paper, it says... I'm not confused. You haven't paid any money to them and they want some money.

It's not confusing. Can you guys explain to me the interest bill? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You owe $16,500. You need to get online, get your account set up, and start paying them $1,000, $2,000 a month right quick. As soon as you get some income coming in, you're living at home, you don't have any bills, let's get these people paid off by August. Get them paid off by August. But what Dave is saying is you're going to pay this so fast, you're not going to care about the interest. Interest rate doesn't matter. You're going to pay $2,000 a month and be done in eight months.

in interest two thousand dollars a month and you're done in eight months okay you hear me sixteen thousand bucks right it's sixteen five okay so you're done in nine months you're saying it went up to 26 did i just hear that

Yeah, they're telling me that I'm going to owe $11,000 in interest to time my payment things up. Yeah, by the time you pay 120 payments, but you're not going to pay 120 payments. You're going to pay it off by September. That's right.

And so your interest is probably about 7% on it somewhere like that. But you've got to get online and start having an interaction with this account because the idiots on the phone you have discovered are absolute. Their parents are cousins over there, man. This is the dumbest operation on the

planet you've got to get interfaced with the website because it's the only possible way you're going to get ahead of this and then make a place where you can make a payment and you can log the payment and you can keep up with the payment and start sending them two thousand dollars a month i'm not worried about you being in collections you get a job you're making forty thousand dollars a year you put twenty thousand dollars towards this you're done in nine months

That's it. That's it. It's it. You're done. Quit, but don't screw around with it and sit and wait on, you know, your mother to call them and fix this. Get your budding gear and get in there and get this solved. Run headlong into it like your hair is on fire.

Quit waiting on somebody else to fix it. Because I'm telling you, the people you're dealing with are dumber than a rock. And that's the thing. And they don't care. And they don't know. Like, they're not your financial advisor. People call into the student loan companies and want them to tell you. Like, you tell me what should I do. The student loan companies have one goal. Keep you in debt. Exactly. They don't want you to pay it off. Yeah, don't ask them what you should do. They want to make it difficult to pay off. What I want to do is get a knife and stick it right straight in the middle of this account and let the air out of this thing. Right now. Get after it.

This is an extreme level of proactivity. Like it matters because it does. A little bit of energy on your voice there, man. Get a little fired up about it. Like these people are freaking stealing your money and they're getting ready to mess you up for the next decade of your life if you don't quit screwing with them. Go punch them in the face, man. Get after it. Get you some money coming in and attack this thing with a vengeance.

This stuff has a high rate of resurrection. It doesn't go away because you talked to a mystery lady last summer on the phone. You got to get your butt in there and give them money. Lots of it quickly so they go away. That's how this works. You got to find a way to do that. Best way to do it is online because you're not having to deal with an idiot human on the other end that doesn't want you out of debt anyway.

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And that's a cool thing, too. Check all of that out at RamseySolutions.com or EveryDollar.com, either way. And for those of you that have Mint or know someone that has Mint, it's a very large and popular budgeting app. It is closing in a week. They're shutting it down. Yeah. And we're one of the other largest budgeting apps online.

We've always thought ours was better. Now we're sure it is because it's open. So inviting all you mint people to come over and come out of the dark side. Come over to our side. Come to the light. That's right. Come to the light. We will help you out. We promise you. And spread the word, guys. You can go to everydollar.com slash jade.

And you can get a deal. I think it's $15 off you can get. I gotta get me a Slash Dave. I know. Or, I'm gonna give these folks some options because I need them to get into every dollar. Or check this out.

If you buy the book, Money's Not a Math Problem, the book's $10, but you get three months free of every dollar premium because there's a little QR code in the book. So these are cheap codes, guys. Now we're getting fancy schmancy. Yes. Yeah. All right. There's ways. There's methods to get this. Yeah. So Slash Jade gets you a few dollars off, but $10 for the book gets you the book. And you can do that at Ramsey Solutions. And boom, there you are. You get three months free.

Hey, that's a good deal. We've got options here. Lots of things, lots of things. Riley is not there on that line. Riley would be on this line in Iowa City. Hi, Riley, what's up? Hi, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I'm in a bit of a pickle right now. So me and my wife, we worked together for a few years and then got married this year in August and

Now we're, I'm in the surge of getting a divorce. You've been married six months? Yeah. What in the world, son? What's going on? So, yeah, we were together for three years, and we were, it felt like we were creating something. We had our own place. It was an apartment.

Um, we were working towards getting a house and stuff. And we eventually had our daughter, uh, who is currently one year old. Um, and then we got married and just a few days ago, um, I found out she cheated on me. Um, and I don't know, I'm just like kind of just stuck right now. I just, I'm not a hundred percent sure what to do. I'm sorry. That's terrible. What a horrible thing. Um, her and I like have talked about it and she's willing to,

definitely do like 50-50 with our daughter. I just don't know how I'm going to financially recover from this because I've never had the best work ethic. I always had trouble keeping a job. I was always just kind of just battling my mental health and stuff. And I haven't been now that I have my daughter. And I just...

How old are you? I'm 22. Okay. Do you have any debt, hon? No. Okay. I don't have any debt. That's good news. Okay. So what you have is a broken heart and a little baby involved, and you're going to be forced to stiffen your backbone and start having a manly career going forward and putting your life together, aren't you?

Yeah. But you don't feel real strong right now, but you're going to have to be anyway. I don't. I mean, luckily, like, I have family. Your family's not going to do it. You're going to do it. You're 22 years old. You're going to throw your shoulders back, and you're going to get through this. I know it hurts, but this is your time. This is your moment when you decide everything's going to be different for you from today forward. You're going to step up, and, you know, because here's the thing. Work ethic is a choice.

You can just decide today. I'm going to be a different guy today. I'm going to have work ethic today. I'm going to show up today. I'm going to have energy today. I'm going to have initiative today. I'm going to pour into my career and I'm going to turn and put the, this horrible heartbreak in the rear view mirror. And I'm going to go make something in my life. You're only 22. You got the rest of your life to go be an incredible man.

I feel like that's just one issue I have with myself is I feel like I'm already out of time. You're 22. I know. I got socks older than that. You're not out of time. You're not out of time because if you're out of time, then Dave and I are screwed. Ha ha ha.

Dave might be out of time, but you are not out of time. No, we're good. I'm not out of time. I got a lot of time left. Life is good. Have at it. So you too, man. So listen, the problem with something like this is a broken heart steals your confidence. And I'm trying to tell you, you need that confidence and work ethic. These are decisions, and it's very difficult during a time of high trauma to

high stress to throw your shoulders back and just get, get after it. But it's the best medicine for where you are. It's the best healing you'll have. Go lose your work in some 80 hour weeks. Go lose your life in some 80 hour weeks and see how big a pile of money you happen to pile up while you're recovering from this mess in this broken heart. And you move on. Okay. Man, it's what I would tell my little brother, tell my son if he called me and it was in a situation.

Yes, it hurts, but get some of your best. Have you got some good friends, some good man friends? I do, yes. Are they studs or are they wimps? They're studs. Okay. Then tell them to come around you, and you need somebody to walk with you right now. You're hurting.

Yeah. I've been there myself where I'm hurting. I need some guys by me. I need my, I need my family by me. Tell me it's going to be okay. And pushing me and saying, go get it, go get it, go get it. Cause otherwise what a human nature is. And I've been there. I was 28 years old, lost everything. I was sitting in the corner, sucking my thumb, whining about how bad life was. And one of my buddies goes, you need to get your butt up and get moving. That's what he told me. He said, you got enough lemons here. You ought to go make some lemonade. And that, and I did. I didn't,

I've been working. I've been keeping up with the bills and stuff. It's just because I really like this job. Riley, what do you make? I make about $17 an hour. Okay. I want you to go make $100,000. Quit limping along. Go get it. Go get it. You're just 22. Go get it.

You made a mistake in this relationship. You chose poorly. She broke your heart. Now go get you a life. Get it. It's the only thing you can do. It's the best possible reaction to this horrible tragedy. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day is Psalm 3721. The wicked borrows and does not pay back, but the righteous is gracious and gives. The great Milton Friedman said, Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own.

Wow, that's good. That's true. It's also true of the government. Yes, okay. Kevin's in Austin, Texas. Hi, Kevin. How are you? Dave, Jade. Good to talk to you guys. You too. Merry Christmas.

Hey, Merry Christmas. Absolutely. I got a quick question for you. So I'm 27, single. I live in Austin, Texas. The home prices out here are astronomical. I'm in Baby Step 3B. I've saved up about $50,000 for that down payment, and I have about $10,000 in an emergency fund. You're in good shape. Well done. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

My question is, is that I'm still single, and my good buddy Roy has been saying for a long time, Kevin, ain't no one is going to want to date you when you're driving that old Honda Accord. You need to get you a sports car. What? Your good buddy Roy is an idiot. Oh, man. I love Roy. I really do. I do, too, but Roy don't know how to pick a woman. If a woman is going to come to you because of the car you drive, you're not going to get much of a woman.

Awesome, man. That's the word. I pretty much agree with you. Wisdom in a multitude of couples, I'm going around. Dude, I was on my third date with my wife in a 1974 Monte Carlo, and I was telling her that I had $2 to my name, and I was telling her someday I'm going to be a millionaire, and we went across the railroad tracks, and the muffler fell off my car. We've been married 43 years. Wow. Wow.

She's been through bankruptcy and been a millionaire twice riding around with that guy with no muffler on his car. Yep, absolutely. Tell Roy not to give any more women advice. Oh, man. I agree with you on that, I do. But I also have a little bit of a bug. I'd love to have this stuff in my car. Okay, now we're getting to it. Anything to do with women or Roy? He was blaming it on Roy. You have a bug. He eggs it on.

Okay, now we got it. I'm a stickler, and I don't spend the money on myself like that. Okay. So what are you trying to buy? What you got the fever for? What you got the fever for, Kevin? Well, I'd like to get me 2016 Camaros. Oh, sweet. I might have some miles on it, you know, something fun. Sweet. What's it cost? I was thinking about pulling about $30,000 out of the down payment and taking that to go get me a toy is what I'm doing. Well, what do you earn annually?

120. All right. So? And you're single. Yeah, we've established that. You're looking for a woman. Yeah, okay, that's right. Um...

All right. So listen, if you make $120,000 a year, you have $50,000 in cash, and you want to delay, as a single guy, I don't want to buy a house right now. We're going to delay buying a house, and we're buying a car that is used and is way less than 50% of my take-home pay. That fits the Ramsey guidelines. Yeah, I'm locking in my vote. I like that. Now, you don't think it would be, because I earmarked that money. I put it in for a down payment. Well, that's why you earmark it, so it makes you stop and think.

You are trading two years of buying a house for the Camaro. Okay. That's what this earmarking does. It makes you make that decision. And you put both of those on the scale. Two years on one side of the scale, Camaro on the other side of the scale. But what you're describing is not an out-of-control purchase. No. Unless you're buying it to get a girl.

Yeah, I know. Which we've established is a bad plan. But the car is a sweet car. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a good car. I love the car. But the, you know, and, you know,

It's not going to make you happy. It's a reasonable vehicle purchase in your situation. It is going to delay. What you're saying is I'm trading two years of my purchase on my home goal for this purchase of this car. What are you driving now? It's a 2014 Honda. There's nothing wrong with it mechanically. What's it worth? It's just a mom car, about $10,000. Okay, so you only really need $20,000.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be true. Oh, that's good. Look, I'm excited for you. Enjoy the car. Okay. All right. I appreciate you guys. I got to pray about it. Wisdom in a multitude of campuses, y'all are warned. But don't buy it to get chicks. You'll get the wrong chick. You're right. You'll get one you don't want. You got it. Shallow women are not handy. Shallow men are not handy. And people who pick dates out based on cars are the definition of shallow. Look, it's not going to hurt him, though. Let's be honest, Dave. Okay.

Oh, shallow co-hosts. I'm just saying it's not hurting his case. It doesn't necessarily help his case, but it's definitely not hurting his case. That's all I'm saying. Women, weigh in. Please. Weigh in in those comments. It's not hurting him. Please do not pick a date based on the car they drive. The car doesn't make the man. Please. The man makes the car. Please. God help us all.

I'm just saying, the same guy, if he rolls up and, you know, his Honda Accord wasn't bad. I don't know why he thought that that was bad. That's a Jesus car. Jesus said they're all in one Accord. You just can't argue with this. If he wanted to buy a Tesla, you wouldn't have been on board, though. If he wanted to buy a Tesla, but a Tesla is not a chick car. Not even close. A Camaro might be.

Not a 2016. Yes, it is. It's a boss car. Well, then I stand my claim. He is not hurting his case. He's not hurting his case. But don't let that be your motivation. It's a bad thing. Right.

It's a really bad idea. If people are impressed by what you drive instead of who you are, you have the wrong crowd you're running with, especially the wrong woman you're dating. So just, you got to get, listen, when you reach the point that you're driving a car because you want the car, that's when you're making proper car purchases. When you're trying to impress somebody at a stoplight you'll never meet, that's when you do stupid butt stuff with cars. Mm-hmm.

You think everybody else is looking at you. Oh, come on. Nobody gives a crap. I know. Nobody's looking. Really? Nobody. And if she's looking, I don't want her. I'm just saying that's how that works.

And that's official dad jokes right there, all wrapped into one. Official boomer, boomer insights into dating. Boomer insights. Boomer dating insights. That's what that is. We're going to have a new segment on the show, Jane, next year. Boomer insights on dating. I'm sure we could get a sponsor like Depends. Okay, Dave. All right. Jasmine in Denver, help us. How can we help you?

Jasmine in Denver. Are you there? Yes, hi. Hi, how can we help right quick before we run out of time? We can hear you. So I was in a car accident in April, and it was really horrible. We got a new car. Are you okay? Yes, I'm fine now, thank goodness. We got a settlement. We got $38,000 from that, and...

Me and my husband, we had some credit card bills, but the first thing I did, paid it all off. No credit card debt anymore. We used to owe $12,000, and now we're all gone. And we have a little bit of money left. I still owe my car $23,000.

And after that, I still owe like some furniture about $5,000. I want to pay that off as well. I've been listening to you guys only for like about a month or so. So I just like by listening on the radio, I was like, all right, so maybe this is like the stuff that I need to be done, but I don't know what to do next. And then also like I want to make more income. So I've been working at a restaurant as a waitress. I've been moved to the company. The company's been nice to me, but they said that they –

They're thinking about promoting me to be a manager, but it hasn't happened yet. And the talk has been like, should I move to a new restaurant, a higher restaurant that pays me more, or should I stick with this one hoping that I get promoted to be a manager and make more money? What's wrong with going to the one that's going to pay you more? What's the downside? They might also promote you to a manager if they're willing to pay you more. So that was easy. Yeah, that was easy. And then list those debts from smallest to largest. And if you have any money from the settlement...

Put $1,000 aside, keep it. Get after those debts. Yeah. And you sound like you started that process, but let's finish it up now and then make all you can make and throw it all at those debts and work them off in that direction. Well, Merry Christmas, America. I feel like we really got after some people today. That wasn't the Christmas spirit I was expecting. Well, the Grinch is here. What can I say?

Oh, man. Wow. January will be better. That's fun. Kevin's buddy, Roy. Bless his heart. Roy's been hanging out with Uncle Boo Boo. That's true. That puts this hour 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.

Dr. John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life, but they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney Show is here to help. It's a collar-driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more.

Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You were never meant to do life alone, and that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app. Remember, you're worth being well.