Your Financial Journey Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint
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Don't miss our virtual event happening tonight. I'm sharing my personal playbook for investing and real estate. Get your ticket at ramseysolutions.com slash events. 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, Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, co-host of the

Smart Money Happy Hour with Mr. George Camel on the Ramsey Networks and my daughter. She's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. LaTanya is with us in Michigan. Hey, LaTanya, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Rachel. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up?

I was calling to ask, me and my boyfriend have been together for about two years. He lives there in Springfield, Tennessee, and I live in Michigan. And we discussed getting married, and he has plans on relocating to Michigan, but he's not willing to relocate without security.

securing a job first. And he's been applying, but his lease ends in June. And I'm just wondering if you think it's a good idea to wait for him to secure a job to come to Michigan to find a place together, or if I should move out. I live with my dad. Me and my daughter moved in after I got divorced. And so I was just wondering what you both think.

So I'm a little bit confused. So do I think he ought to come to Michigan without a job? Is that the question? Well, no, he doesn't. Well, I'm asking if you think I should move out of my dad's house before he secures a job here, or if I should just wait until he does secure a job here and me and him move in somewhere together. Well, I think you're asking me, so I'm going to tell you. I would get married.

before I moved in together. Yes, our plan is to get married. Well, before you move in together. Yes, but once he comes. Are you engaged? No. Okay. He hasn't asked me. Okay. Well, we're getting these things out of order as far as I'm concerned. I'm an old school guy, so my daughter is sitting next to me. If my daughter called me like this, I'd be going, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to get these things in the right order. Okay. Okay.

And so we're going to say, okay, you said you have a daughter? Yes. Okay. You would not tell her to move in with a guy that she wasn't married to, would you? No, I would tell her to get married first, but that is our plan. It's just like I live with my dad. We're not engaged. Might be your plan. It ain't his.

Yeah. So I think what's... So to answer your question, just like point blank, and then maybe we can kind of backpedal and talk through more of the why. But no, I would stay... Are you paying rent with your dad or are you just living there? No. Okay. So I would live there with your daughter. He needs to come, move, rent somewhere, find a job. Once he's stable or feels...

you know, that well enough to be able to say, okay, yes, now we're going to get engaged. You guys have been dating for a long period of, you know, two years. You're both adults. You probably know. Yeah, we will. We can make this engagement faster. We don't be engaged for three years, right? We can have a wedding. It may not be an extravagant wedding, but we'll get married. And then the next step then would be, okay, now we have formed a family unit and

And we're going to live as that. And I think the problem is so often like we fast forward that process. And what's difficult too is we have found over and over and over and over and over again, and even more recent research has come out to show like even from not even from a financial perspective, but just a quality of life perspective, the happiness among couples is higher than

with those who actually didn't even live together before married, married and then live together than those that lived together even before. And so, you know, you just see all of this play out. And I think too, what's hard is we see the other end of that. We see, we get the calls of people that- Everything screwed up. Everything messed up. And you, you know, you move in together and then he can't find a job and it's been a year and you're starting to pay his bills. Like,

It just gets real messy real fast. And so from a relational and financial perspective, the cleaner those lines can be, honestly, it's just, it makes the process smoother. And it may not be like what everyone does or fill in the blank, but it does. It makes the process, again, from a relational and a financial perspective smoother. So no, I would not move out of your dad's place. I think you probably have a great setup there. If you wanted to move out with your daughter and rent somewhere on your own, you could.

But I would say, I would say, put, let him move here, figure out the job and the place to live. And then, um, and that could all happen in a short period of time. I mean, he could get a job, he could get a job, you could get engaged, you could get married and rent an apartment and move out. I mean, that could all happen in the next nine months, you know, it could happen in one month. It wasn't, I mean, he got the job and moved up there and got married. You know, that doesn't have, it doesn't require this lengthy process. but, but, but,

No, I would definitely not move out of your dad's place into an apartment with an unemployed guy who I'm not married to. No, that just, you know, as Rachel said, that sounds like no fun at all. There's nothing in there that sounds fun from an old dad perspective. You know, I mean, really, that's just like, no, daughter, don't do that.

So for your sake, for the sake of your kid, you just went through hell with a divorce. I mean, come on. So last thing we want to do is sign up. Let's just say, all right, get a job, get engaged, get married. And that can all happen in, you know, a 10-day period of time. I don't care. Get an apartment and move in. Let's just line the dominoes up and push them down. You know, that's – but, yeah, there's –

And I appreciate he doesn't want to come back there until he has something to come back to job-wise. Sure, absolutely. That's responsible on his part. So very, very good stuff. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. George Camel and I did the first night of the Investing Essentials last night, if you're listening to this live.

I heard it went great. I heard it was a great night. George did an amazing job. The other guy, I don't know. I don't know. He's still out. He's struggling. They'll put a survey out to the audience and let them grade. They will? Okay, good. I'll feel better when I don't look at that. I'm kidding.

Yeah. So last night was night one of our virtual event, investing essentials. We covered all investing principles. We went deep into the mutual fund discussion, talked about all the traps and the bad stuff tonight we're going to do. And it's primarily me tonight is going to do, I'm going to open my playbook on real estate. And, um, you know, here's how I decide to buy a piece of real estate. Here's what I want it to look like. And, um,

If you're wanting to learn how to invest in real estate, we're going to go into more detail than you would want. I'm going to nerd out. We're going to unpack all the math formulas. We're going to show you how it's really done in the big leagues and not on Tic Tac. And so the guys on Tic Tac. And I would say, if people didn't know a little insight, if you weren't doing what you're doing, you'd be in real estate full time. It's what you were doing before you were doing this. But real estate's your next love. You love all of this.

But your next love is, I mean, you love real estate. I've got a degree in real estate. I had an hour meeting with your husband who runs our real estate today. Winston's always like... We're looking at a piece of ground to develop right now. I mean, I had an hour meeting on it this morning. I love it. He'll say, my favorite Dave is real estate Dave. He just gets like real like...

He gets excited about it. You love it. And so you're one of the best teachers on the planet for it. So it's fantastic. And we actually do it. It's not theory. So we own about $600 million worth. So if you want to talk about real estate, we're going to do that tonight. Go to RamseySolutions.com. Tickets are $199 and slash events at RamseySolutions.com. Get your ticket. Join us this evening.

If you're late hearing this, there might be a way for you to do it anyway. I don't know. Figure all that out. But we're going to put the material out there so you guys can get helped. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.

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Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author is my co-host today. Shantae is in Atlanta. Hi, Shantae. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world?

Okay, sir. About a year ago, my daughter was killed in a murder-suicide by her husband. Whoa. I'm going to try to get through this. Oh, I'm so sorry. Wow. I have custody of my grandchildren. They left three children. One he had from a previous marriage, but I have two, which was theirs. Wow. Because of this, they have a house in Texas. Wow.

I've been paying on this house for almost a year. I'm trying to figure out if I should keep paying for it because it has to go through probate or continue to take care of myself and pay off my debt, which I have a student loan that is about $80,000. But I had to put that on pause in order to take care of this house. What is the house worth?

Well, according to a young man I had to go evaluate it, it has a little over $100,000 in equity. Why is the probate not clear a year later in Texas?

Well, I believe that's my fault because I'm living here in Atlanta and the house is in Texas. So I had to travel back and forth, of course, to take care of things there. The babies are with you now. It was hard to find a lawyer. The babies are with you now in Atlanta, right? Yes. Okay. It was hard to find a lawyer. Well, $100,000 is a great part-time job.

Sir? I said, making $100,000 for your new part-time job called getting this house probated and sold, that's a nice part-time job, $100,000. I'm already $20,000 in, and I'm getting nervous. You're missing my point. If you sell the house, you get $100,000 in your pockets, what you told me, right? Yes. Ain't nothing else you're doing going to pay you that.

So I'm going to make this a priority. But you're $20,000 in, meaning from lawyer fees, travel, all of that. That's what you're saying, and you're like, I'm nervous. You've been paying the payment. Taking care of the house, making sure it stays. Yeah, you need to go. Do you have any time off available from work, or have you used it all up with this tragedy? Okay. I'm also a caretaker for my mother-in-law, so I'm home. So you're married. Yes.

Yes, sir. Okay. Listen to me. If I wave a $100,000 check under your nose and say, go get it, that's where you're sitting. You need to go get the $100,000, which means you need to prioritize and say, someone else take care of mother-in-law for a week. I'm going to haul my butt over to Texas, get a lawyer, get this thing run through probate, get it on the market with a real estate agent, get it sold, put $100,000 in my pocket for the good of you, your family, and these babies.

Okay, may I say something else, sir? Sure. Okay, so when it goes through probate, a lot of the fees will eat into that. Am I correct? There's not any big fees in probate in Texas. Okay. No big deal. Okay.

It's a few hundred dollars to get a lawyer and get the thing before the judge. Tell the judge, tell the lawyer to tell the judge the story. This is a tragedy. These children, these babies are dependent upon this asset to take care of them with their granny who's taking them in. We need to fast track this thing right down the rails. Judge and the judge will go, oh, yeah, I'm going to take care of this one. This one ain't dragging out. Stamp, stamp, stamp. Boom. House is on the market and you're out of here.

Texas is not a difficult state. Okay. I mean, I've been called like 10 lawyers. Hopefully, I found one. Hopefully, I have not paid the fee. Okay, here's what I want you to do. Let's stop. Let me help you. I'll guide you through it. But what I need you to do is make this a huge priority. If I told you I would hire you for one week and pay you $100,000 and you had to go to Texas for one week, you would go do that.

Yes, sir. That's what's in front of you, okay? So I want you to go to RamseySolutions.com. I want you to find one of our smart, I mean, one of our ELPs for real estate, our Ramsey Trusted Real Estate ELPs. What city in Texas is this? It's a city called Temple, Texas. All right, and what's that outside of?

I believe, oh my gosh. What's it close to? Because I don't know that one. What? Austin. Austin. I mean, Austin is like an hour and a half away. Okay, all right. So I want you to get one of the Ramsey Trusted Real Estate agents, and I want you to get on the phone with them today. I want you to ask them to help you find a probate attorney. Tell them this story. They will help you run...

run this to ground. They can help you find an attorney. You can get on the phone with an attorney and the real estate agent will help you if you're going to list the house with them, right?

Yes. And they'll know somebody in the area, and they'll know an attorney that does probate work, and the probate attorneys know the judge in probate. They can pick up the phone and call the judge and go, look, here's what we got. We got these two babies in a murder-suicide horrible situation, and when these babies are about to lose their only asset if we don't get this done because, granted, he lives over in Atlanta and can't get this house sold. Judge, we need a little help. And boom, we're going to get this thing done, girl.

Well, thank you, Dave. I hope so. You're going to get it done. I'm saying you're going to lean into it. This is your new part-time job that pays $100,000. This is your part-time job that pays $100,000. And this is more important than taking care of your mother-in-law for the next week. Believe me, I've been there five times trying to get this done. Yeah, so I'm curious what you said. I've been trying. You've been down there five. What holdups are you finding?

Like, what are they telling you? Trying to find them. I believe I found a lawyer finally. I paid the fees. I haven't heard from them yet, unfortunately. I don't know what's been done. How long ago was this? About a month ago. Your jobs call them every day until they get their finger out of their ear.

Okay. Yeah, okay. This is like my 10th lawyer. I'm telling you, I've been trying. Okay, all right. You hang on, or you jump on Ramsey Solutions, I'm sorry, and get a hold of one of the real estate agents to see if you can get some help over there. Because the thing is, your job is put pressure, heavy pressure, on this whole situation so that it spits out a $100,000 check.

and you've kind of hit or miss well the lawyer didn't do it and well i did it a month ago and i hadn't followed up so you're not putting the pressure on i want you to put the pressure on be mama bear i want you to lean in and take care of this situation and um which too you've got to have to you too i mean this happened a year ago i'm like you're probably coming out of this fog i mean i can't even imagine i can't imagine how how much pain is involved i mean it's just yeah i'm like this there's so there's so much but i hope

I hope this call for you

you more of the confidence and the motivation to say, okay, I am doing the right thing and push forward. Because sometimes, and I could feel this, like you hear probate, I mean, it's a very intimidating idea. If you don't deal with lawyers and you don't deal with judges on a regular basis, right? I'm like, there's a level where this can feel very intimidating and you almost can outsource it, which I think is what she's done. She's yielded a lot to these lawyers, but what you're giving her the permission and the mandate is to be like,

You can you can not that you can quote unquote do more, but like you can step into this role with more aggression. And that's and you should. Most lawyers need desperately need someone to tell them what to do often, often. And that's like my goal in life is to tell lawyers what to do often. You need to boss them around. They're not used to it. And it's really good for them when somebody finally does it.

So, and it's good for you because this needs to get done. This needs to get done because you're paying a payment that thing's sitting there eating you alive instead of blessing you.

And it's eating these, you know, when it's eating you alive, it's affecting these babies instead of blessing them. This $100,000 will go a long way to take care of your family and therefore you being able to take care of these babies. I'm so sorry y'all been through this, Shantae. It's horrible. But get one of the real estate agents over in the area to help you run point on this. And then you lean into it.

Growl, mama bear. Go get them. There's a $100,000 check laying there. Don't let anybody keep you from it. Go get it. Go get it. Don't walk away from this. This is the Ramsey Show.

There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on. Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey Trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely.

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That's churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. An MLS ID 1591. An MLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. RentWin Tennessee 37027. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Our question of the day is brought to you by YRefi. Our defaulted...

private student loan payments dragging you down? YRefi can help you save thousands of dollars. Visit YRefi.com slash Ramsey. See how they can help. That's the letter. YRefi.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Okay, this is a funny one. I just read it. Today's question comes from Steve in Indiana.

Would your snowball plan help get America out of $36 trillion of debt, and how would you budget it? I wish Trump had you on the Doge team. Yeah, no, I don't fit in with people that do stuff. No, I don't fit in in anything in D.C. It is kind of fun to watch them take a machete to the ridiculous spending, but

And you don't have to be of any political ilk to think that, you know, machetes to the ridiculous spending is are necessary. This is out of control. Um,

For sure. I mean, it's a funny question, but the truth is that running a government of any size, the state of Tennessee, for instance, the governors, the last several governors I've been friends with, and it's a different endeavor to run something like that than to run a business or run your personal account. The principle of being debt-free still stands, and it's a good principle, and the principle of living on less than you make still stands, and the principle of good management or good

frugality still stands. So, I mean, I can give you an opinion, but it's probably worth exactly what you paid for it. I observed under, for instance, Bill Clinton was the last president that had a balanced budget, that we actually did not run. I mean, he did it.

Some say that he did some of that off of, I mean, the tax code that was in place at that point was put in place by Reagan. And so the lowered taxes were,

The Laffer Curve, Art Laffer, famous for. Was the Reagan stuff all the way through? Wasn't Bush one and then Clinton? Yeah, yeah. But the, it was. But I mean, it was HW, I mean, H, you know, was running the same camp, was running the same deal, except he raised taxes on one thing. Yeah. And that got him baked. But the, anyway, politically. But the point being that there's, there's,

Really good evidence the Laffer curve is true. Art Laffer is known for the theory of, to a certain degree, as you lower taxes, you

The economy heats up because the people that are making money are putting money back into their businesses and they make yet more money and they pay yet more taxes even though the rate is lower. Now, there's a point of diminishing returns on the curve. It is a curve. It's not a straight line. But if you lower taxes, it heats up the economy and you end up collecting more revenue. So if you want to increase the federal government's income from taxes, income tax, the

then you would, oddly enough, lower taxes. It seems oxymoronic, but it actually does work.

um and so as the as the tax you know so if you want to get out of debt one of the things we tell you to do is get an extra job right i mean increase your income to get out of debt so that would be part of the equation let's increase the income of the united states of america by increasing the revenues produced by the tax system by oddly enough lowering the tax rates to cause that to happen and stimulate the economy the um and that does work and i mean

People that have studied John Maynard Keynes and are socialists, which John Maynard Keynes was a socialist, Keynesian economics are taught in almost every economics class in professor land out there. But I'm not a believer.

I'm an Adam Smith guy. I'm a free market guy, and I really do understand this stuff. So anyway, all that to say, you would increase the income, and then, of course, you would do what Doge is doing. You'd cut the snot out of the expenses. So if you could ever get it right side up where there was more income than outgo, in other words, there is no deficit. Yeah. Not only is there no – because deficit means you're going in the hole every month.

And you got to turn that to get out of debt. Right. And then could you start to pay off the debt? Absolutely. You could. And, and what's weird is the way that stuff works on a governmental level, it would happen. It would be really quick because of the way the thing would feed on itself. Cause the other thing that's tied into this is there's, um, um,

what's called monetary policy, meaning that when the government takes a trillion dollars out of the economy by borrowing it,

by issuing bonds to cover the deficit, that trillion dollars is not out there running around in the economy to stimulate the economy. So when the government runs debt, it sucks the bone marrow out of the economy because it drops currency down. The amount of money that's moving around is shortened considerably. And when you start putting all that back or when you just stop bone marrow out,

And then on top of that, you start putting some back in the economy. You know, the thing could really heat up and the revenues could go through the roof. It could be, it could be rowdy. Um, and so that, that's one set of theories that gets you there. But, um, this is the first time in my lifetime that I've seen anyone that had the political, uh,

I didn't give a crap. The political don't give a crap in order to just walk in there with an ax and a machete and just start chopping down everything in sight. And it's I didn't know if I'd ever see it. It truly had to be somebody that didn't care.

Because it's so offensive. Because it can't be elected again. So if you don't like it, screw you. And it had to be somebody doing that. Because if anybody cares about being reelected, then every little person you piss off by cutting one of these programs is a voter. And you start worrying about being reelected or not. But when you truly reach the point of I don't give a crap, and apparently that's where this bunch is. I mean, it's interesting to watch. Yeah.

And by the way, that's also the thing that happens with individuals. You guys out there, when you guys get out of debt, you reach a point you don't care what your brother-in-law's opinion is about what you drive because he ain't paying the payments anyway.

And he doesn't get a vote. And so you're going to go do radical stuff to get your life back and get out of debt. And there is some correlation to this. Sure, sure. It's interesting. It's an interesting discussion. Sure has got people. Forty four days. Forty four days he's been office. This is wild. It's just wild. It's it's entertaining. It's the union ever last night. Francisco is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Francisco. How are you?

Hey, Mr. Ramsey, thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up?

Hey, so I have a question regarding a possible job change. So where I'm at, I currently make about $128,000 per year. I commute to work, so that translates to about $400 to $450 per month in gas, and my insurance is pretty expensive where I'm at right now. The job offer that I got is where I live in town, and I would be saving an additional $750 per month.

My question is, is that enough to, I guess, warrant the job change? Me and my wife are currently on baby step number three. You're making more money. If you're making more money and it's closer to home, what's the downside? The downside is, as an auto body tech, work is pretty inconsistent here in town. But where I'm at, it's like it's never dipped down. So that's the only thing that's kind of worrying me is like the –

the possible steady, ruining possible steady flow of income. So you get paid by the job by the hour, not by, so this might not be a raise. Actually, it is a $2 increase. I know, but if you get less work, the $2 doesn't matter.

Exactly. That's kind of my concern. Have you asked around what people are getting? I mean, do you have a ballpark of like, yeah, this seems realistic and there's going to be high months, then there's going to be low months, but do you have a middle ground at all from other people in the field? No, no, I don't really. How many people is this place you're talking about going to employ in your position?

There's two other techs there. Are they staying busy? For them, yes. When I talk to the general manager, they're looking for someone that kind of can put out more volume because the techs they have right now are kind of just... Yeah, but is he promising you you're going to stay busy? He promised me that I was going to stay busy. He just didn't say for how long. Yeah, just tell him that he has to guarantee you financially that if we're not busy, you're paying me anyway, and that takes the risk out of it.

negotiate a different deal with a potential employer. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It

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This month, start to build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Megan is with us in Orlando. Hi, Megan. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

Um, so I've kind of gotten myself or my life into a big mess and I stumbled across your show and, um, I'm trying to take steps to, um,

to get out of debt. Um, so I guess I would be in baby step two. Um, yes. Um, the problem I'm running into is before I came across your show, um, me and my fiance, I was, I was really big on trying to get us to kind of put our money together and kind of tackle this together. Um,

Now that I've kind of came across that, I learned it's a big no-no to put your money together before you are married. And I am the breadwinner of our house. We have 10 people in my home. So between we have five children and then I just adopted my nephew and I have his big brother at my house too. So I'm feeling all of this pressure. I work two full-time jobs and I'm just trying to get control. What does your fiance do?

He works a full-time job at the hospital working on hospital equipment. Okay. And what does he earn? He annually, probably about $50. And what do you earn? Last year, I made $160. Doing what now? What do you do? I'm an ultrasound technician. You're working a lot then. Yeah.

Yeah, I do full-time nights, and then I take call full-time days. So I pretty much do a 24-hour shift. So the two of you, and the two of you have five children? I had two from a previous marriage. Well, not marriage, just relationship. And then I put myself through school as a single mom, and then I got my career, and then I met him. And we got pregnant quickly. And then since then, we've been together for six years.

Okay. And you guys have three kids together? And he's your fiancé. We have three together. And when are you planning to get married? Well, at first we put it on hold because my father fell ill and I was his caretaker. And then we just haven't done it. One, finances. I felt like it was silly to spend money for a wedding. Let me ask you this. I'm just curious, and I'm not trying to be...

sarcastic or anything but you're you're functioning in every way almost um as if you're married now and have been for some time so what's the difference in that and getting married this weekend for fifty dollars um i'm scared because what are you scared of you already have children you live together you support him what is there to be scared of

My child from another relationship and my nephew that I just got custody of, they're not big fans of him. They're not what? Big fans of him. Yeah, like, I feel like there's red flags. They don't like him. They think I deserve better. Six years. Yeah. Two children. Too late to ask some child their opinion of this guy. Yeah. Yeah.

They don't get a vote. We're in therapy together working on some relational issues. Do you feel like you'll be with him long term? I mean, do you want to marry him? I mean, most of the time I do feel like that, but it's more like we go through the motions of raising our kids. So sometimes I wonder, like once the kids are grown up, the longevity, if that makes sense. Sometimes it feels like we're in this. You guys are fabulous can kickers.

You've kicked the can, kicked the can, kicked the can, kicked the can, put it off, kicked the can, put it off, all these reasons, and then still functioning as if you're married. And the reason I'm bringing all this up is it's not working for you. I'm listening to you, and there's no fun in your voice at all. I think there's just a lot of fear, and I tell a lot of pressure because he's coming to me now, and he's like, okay, let's put our money together. And I'm like, we're not married. No, we're going to get married. That's what we're going to do.

Or we're not going to put our money together. And also, you know, if I woke up in your shoes, what would I do? That's how I answer questions here, okay? So my friend Henry Cloud is a famous psychologist. And he wrote a book called Necessary Endings. And he says you end things.

any relationship, whether it's your job, whether it's contact with an extended family who's toxic, whether it's a situation like you're in, whatever the relationship is, you end it only when you lose hope that it can get better and be right. Does that make sense? And so I'm not going to be sitting here this time next year if I'm you saying,

in this exact same quandary wondering if this is going to be okay. We're going to get in there with this therapist and go, look, we're going to walk around this really, really hard for 90 days, and we're going to see some serious progress, or I'm going to call this. Yeah. That scares you even more, doesn't it? It scares me because of the children. I don't want a broken home just because we're not. But you need to decide, don't you? Painter get off the ladder, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Because you don't think the kids are suffering in this situation? Of course they're suffering. They're suffering from all this ambiguity. They don't know what the flip's going on because their mom doesn't know what the flip's going on, and their dad doesn't know what the flip's going on, and we're all just running around in circles trying to make enough money and throw it in the middle of a pot and run a little commune over here, and it's not working relationally. Am I missing something? I think I'm just afraid to get married, and then he's... You're afraid of not getting married. You're afraid of getting married. I'm...

Yeah, I just want to take care of my family. And I think financial-wise, it makes sense for us to get married. No, it doesn't. Not if you're not going to be married. Because divorce is, I mean, marriage is grand. Divorce is 50 grand. No, we don't want to go through that. But you guys relationally need to make a decision. Are we the two adults in the household going to join forces and then take care of the little people?

Or is it best for us and the little people to be separate? But if we're going to join forces, we need to get six years. And you guys are dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing. The other thing is you put all of your financial dreams and everything on hold in the process, too. It's very difficult to make progress mathematically in this situation.

Yes, and I'm struggling with that. That's what actually prompted your call, and then I got all Papa Dave on you. Yeah, I just downloaded the EveryDollarBudget app, which is tough for me because my income fluctuates, so I'm struggling with that. You'll be able to do that really, really easy when the two of you are married, and you can put $210,000 in that puppy and start crunching through this stuff.

And you and him are on the same page, and two grown-ups are running this house, not the kids. The kids don't get a vote. Yeah. Well, it's new for me because he's never wanted to put our money together before. It's always just been very separate. You don't want to put your money together until you're married, but you guys have got to make a decision about this marriage. You either...

Need to make a decision. We're going to start working very hard on the relationship. And by this point, and that's just for marriage to be the outcome. The marriage is the outcome or we're going to call this. We're going to break this thing up. We're going to drop a grenade in the middle of it because you what you're doing. You're telling us we're not telling you. You're telling us what you're doing. The way you're doing life right now doesn't work.

I'm afraid to get married. I'm afraid to break up the house. I'm afraid I can't get traction with the money. I can't get control. This is what you called us and started saying. I'm just repeating it back to you. And so you can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. That's the definition of insanity, right?

Yes. So that's what you're going to do. I'm going to beg you as my new friend that I love, for the sake of you, for the sake of him, for the sake of these kids, you two need to look at each other and look at this therapist and go, okay,

We're going to make a decision. And in the next 90 or 120 days, we're going to see such significant progress in this relationship that it's not perfect. There's always going to be some fear. Yeah. That's normal. But we're seeing progress to where we have hope enough that we can call this what it is. For the future. A marriage. Yeah. And then you put yourselves together and then you start managing those little people and you start managing those relationships.

and it all starts coming together in a much cleaner way. But this, you run around trying to mother hen everything from the outside with no connectivity, doesn't work. And no, you don't combine your money with him until you're married. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business?

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build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jim is with us in Houston, Texas. Hi, Jim. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello. I'm honored you're taking the time to help me and millions of others with our money questions. Well, thank you. Thank you. How can we help? I am a 40-year-old widower and ready to date again. However, my truck is 25 years old, and I perceive the ladies I want to date will judge me based on the vehicle I drive. It shouldn't matter, but as a guy of average height and average appearance, I don't have the charisma to overcome a poor first impression.

The question is, should I spend $5,000 to $10,000 to buy a car for the sole purpose of dating to find my future wife? Wow. There's a lot going on here. Jim. Oh, my gosh. I cannot wait to talk about this. It's a great question. It's a great question. Okay. Jim, where are you at financially? No debt, no mortgage, no kids. No debt, no mortgage, no kids. What's your net worth? 1.3. What do you make?

uh, 132,000. Regardless of women, you should get a better car. Oh, okay. Your car sucks. You're a multimillionaire. Go get you a dadgum car, son. Oh, okay. And then the women is a different issue, but yeah, I mean, really, you got a million dollars. You don't drive a 25 year old pickup truck. I mean, you can, but there's no point in it.

And so I would go get a better car, but I would not ever purchase a car to attract a lady because you're trying to attract the wrong kind of woman at that point. You don't want a woman who comes to you for the car. Correct. Not a good connection. So, no, I mean, we want her to love the gym that Rachel and I already love.

Dude, you're a great guy. I just think you impressed one person. I just don't know who that is yet. No, it's okay. If you impress them with a car, it's the wrong woman. Have you had dates, Jim? That's called shallow woman. And you've gotten feedback about it? I'm just curious what's causing you to think it's shallow.

the truck i have been on a second date that was going i thought very well the conversation was good and when we walked out to the parking lot she said oh you're driving that and i never heard from her again but she doesn't know i try and i hide the truck on the other side of the parking lot i'll walk her to her car leave but hey listen that that's a good thing that you ran that one off

okay okay can i say this i mean seriously do you are you gonna marry do you want to marry somebody who is judges you by your no no no i'm not this is a shallow chick can i excuse me let the woman talk for a second have at it woman here's what i would say though jim not that it's shallow but you do you would wonder out of curiosity like oh my gosh am i gonna have to be the one that keeps this

afloat if it goes in the future. Like if she doesn't know your financial state, again, it's not a judgment on just like the car itself because there needs to be more conversation. But as a, I would think as a woman though, I'm like, I don't know. Am I going to have to be the breadwinner? You know what I mean? Like a level of

Are we going to be on food stamps because he drives this truck? That's the question. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, like, so the first impression thing, again, it's not for shallow purposes, but for her to know, like, no, you're responsible and you, you know, all of these line up. Oh, then I don't care what kind of car you drive. I just know the man that I'm marrying, I'm entering into a relationship with that I'm not having to be the one to, like, hold us up financially. So if you go to Branson, Missouri, and you were to visit the Walmart store,

museum on the square in Branson, Missouri. One of the things that's in there is Sam Walton's ancient pickup truck.

that the billionaire drove to work every week. Yes, which is great. And if you walk off from him because he drives that pickup truck, you would be known as a financial moron. I mean, seriously. I know. I mean, honestly. I'm not saying not to date someone that has a crappy car. It's not that. It's just to know that like, oh, yeah, you are a guy that can hold life on his own. And you really do, Jim, because of your –

because of where you are financially. I'm not saying to go buy a new truck for those purposes. I'm just giving another perspective to think, oh my gosh, is like,

Like, is he doing anything with his life, right? I'm not saying that you're not, Jim. Does that make sense to anyone? Am I making sense or am I sounding shallow? I'd rather have the opportunity to evaluate her character directly than she dismiss me based on a false perspective. 100%. And if she's willing to dismiss you without learning more about your character based on the truck, this is not marriage material. I agree. Send her back to the digital thing that she came from. That's all good.

You know, go away, chick. And that, honestly, you dodged a bullet. The digital thing she came from. Dodged a bullet. A dating app. You dodged a bullet. Okay. So, but all that, anyway, all that aside, I think you ought to go get a better car for you.

Okay. For you. And you can drive the pickup all you want to drive it, but I think you ought to have a better car in the driveway for you. You've earned it. You do not have to drive a piece of crap anymore. You live like no one else, and now you can live like no one else.

Right, with the status symbol of choice, a BMW. No, that's not the status symbol of choice. The status symbol of choice was a paid off mortgage. Is a paid off mortgage, which, Jim, you've done. Taken the place of the BMW. But go get a better car. I'm not saying you have to go spend $100,000 on a car. But you don't have to, Jim. You're driving a $1,500 truck. Jim can be very content. He may be fine.

He ought to get a better car. He's Sam Walton. I tell these people all the time, go get a better car. But I wouldn't do it. I would never do that to attract. The kind of woman you get, the kind of person, woman or man, if you're in a dating relationship that you attract based on your positions is not marriage material.

He looked at me again. I agree. I was arguing. I don't know what this whole other thing you did a while ago was. It was just to know, like, okay, I'm not having to be the breadwinner, right? I'm like, I don't know. I don't want to be on food stamps. I got that. I don't want someone that's like, yeah, that's like not worth it.

working but at least ask at least ask a question instead of saying see ya a hundred percent agree i know so you're driving this truck because you're a billionaire or you're driving this truck because you're poor and don't work much exactly well it's just the idea of like i don't know i don't have to like you could ask a question yeah i don't know it's 40 years old jim i'm rooting for you and i hope this call i'm gonna just pray this over the

over the internets that this call may be some ladies like jim i'm interested there you go if you are houston's a little town shouldn't be hard to find

Look for the old truck. Look for the old truck in Houston, Texas, Jim. Like there's no old trucks in Houston, Texas. There's not a chance you're going to find that. I just appreciate him. That's so cool. And I really do. And I'm sorry you're a widower too, whatever that story was. I hope nothing but the best, Jim. I'm cheering you on. Yeah, me too. I hope you find a great lady out there. Me too. We should do a Ramsey dating app. No. No. No.

It would end up like this call. Terrible advice. Bad advice from both of us. I think so. We flunked that one. That wasn't our best call, Meredith. Hey, it's worth what you pay for it, baby. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Are you staying on track with the baby steps? Do you even know what that is? If you take a quick quiz, I'll get it out in a minute, you can check your progress and receive a personalized plan for you. Simply head to the show notes, click the link titled, Are You On Track With The Baby Steps? Complete the quiz, we'll show you where you are and what the next step is to move forward with your money. Amy's in New York City. Hi, Amy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Thank you for taking my call, Mr. Ramsey. Sure. I am 55 years old in a divorce settlement. I got a simple IRA of $1.2 million. I cannot work due to some health issues.

My concern is I'm kind of, I'm concerned about my burn rate and ways to mitigate my tax, my taxes. I know I'm getting a 10% early withdrawal fee because of my age and, of course, income tax. I'm not sure what to do. You said you're not able to work because of your health? Yes, I have some cognitive issues that...

I'm not getting hired. Okay. And this is your only asset, your only source of income? Correct. I have no debts and I have no assets. Wow. Okay. And why New York City? Well, when I got the settlement, I decided to work on my bucket list. So I did a couple things like jump out of an airplane and move to New York City. Okay.

And then I started looking at him like, actually, your bucket list is both, Dave likes to jump out of airplanes and I love New York City. So you check and check. So I'm living my life. I really do love it. And then I sort of went,

well, wait a minute, I need to make this last another 20, 30 years and then realize that's probably not going to happen the way I'm going through with my burn rate. The reason I asked is not because I hate New York City, but because it's one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, and we're worried about a burn rate. So those two things don't go together. That's what was running through my head. So...

You know, I'm probably going to locate somewhere near people I love and frequently visit New York City rather than try to live there. That would be probably half as expensive. You're quite right. That's an idea. Okay. That's going to affect your burn rate. There is, I don't know of a, I mean, do you have a good financial advisor in your corner? Um, no.

I have someone who's managing the IRA, but not a financial advisor. No. I feel like I want like a tax strategist. Well, there's not... Financial advisors... Go ahead. Go ahead. Financial advisors want to...

make me save enough money so I'll have 1.2 million when I'm 100 years old and in a nursing home and I don't want that. I have no one to save my money for. I want to be able to live my life now. I'm in. I'm with you on that. So a good

The way we define a good financial advisor is not someone that tells you what to do, but someone that teaches you and then you can make good decisions. So what you're calling us for is the same thing. You're calling us for good information. Is there some way I can get at this money and lower my burn rate? Because I did do a little math here and this is not working. And that's what, that's the essence of your question. So, um, I am not aware of,

With your cognitive stuff, there's no formal disability, is there? Like you've not applied for SSI or something, have you? I have, but with everything that's going on, they say it's probably going to take a year or two years before everything might check out. Okay. Well, you're talking about the upheaval with the Trump administration? No, this was even before. It doesn't take two years to get SSI approved.

Okay. Unless there's some, I mean, do you have medical, I mean, you have good doctor's opinions and so forth to submit to prove disability, correct? Yes, I do. Okay. There's just a long waiting period, I was told. There's no disability insurance anywhere in the whole mix of this discussion, right?

No, I have to pay for my insurance. Yeah, okay. All right. I didn't think so, but I'm just fishing here. Okay. So what I want you to do, I want you to go to Ramsey Solutions. I want you to check out the SmartVestor Pros, and these are –

investment advisors that we have vetted, they have to have the heart of a teacher or they don't become one of the people that we put in the SmartVestor program. They don't work for me and they don't work for you unless they teach you something and advise you rather than direct you. Yeah, I just had our meeting. My husband and I meet with ours once a year and we just had ours yesterday. And I'll tell you, a great financial planner or someone walking beside you, an investment professional,

So their job is to help you live the way you want to live, Amy, and how to do it responsibly. And they should have a basic knowledge, if not a pretty comprehensive knowledge, on taxes as well. They're going to see a holistic view of

of your life and so a good you know someone that's on your side is going to hear you where you're like you're not very risk averse you know you're kind of like yeah i want to i want to live and jump out of airplanes and like do it all but i don't want to die with that i need to get i need to get you to 59 and a half with the laws that i understand because that gets us past the uh 10 percent oh that's yes but you are going to get tack

taxes on whatever you pull out. Income tax, there's no avoiding that. No, but I'm just saying if a good financial planner is going to look at all of that, know the ins and outs of it, they're going to be able to run a pro forma and be able to say, okay, here's this, this, and this, and this throughout the years. I mean, you're going to get a detailed plan with this person, and that's what you need. Right now, you don't, right? I mean, it's a little bit kind of all up in the air. If you had a gross income of $130,000 a year minus taxes, could you live on that and do your dream?

Minus taxes, taxes, that would put me more than 22%. No, it puts you down about $75,000, $80,000 take-home pay.

It would be tight, but yes. Probably not New York City. So, yeah, probably not. Probably visiting New York City, but not living there. Okay, but see, that's once you get to 59 1⁄2, because if you can produce 10% on 1.2 in good mutual funds, which I know you can do, then that's $120,000 a year, okay, minus taxes. And it is taxable. You're not going to get away from that. This is a taxable event.

And then if you said also, okay, I'm going to plan out, I'm 55, I'm going to plan to be broke at 90, okay? And so I'm going to set up $120,000 minus taxes plus a burn rate to hit me at zero at 90, then there's a formula that you can put in a calculator and do that. But it sounds like, I don't know what this money is invested in, but if it's producing north of 10%,

you should be able, without even touching the nest egg, to bring that 10% out every year. You follow me? Yes. And that's the kind of thing I want to start looking at. And then I've got a 10% penalty from 55 to 59.5, and I've got my tax rate, and that's going to erode this nest egg a little bit at a time. But I think you've been spending $200 a year.

That's correct. Yeah. Okay. And you're right. I was guessing, but you're right. You can't do that mathematically because you're going to end up on Alpo at some point in the story. Nice beans, yes. Yeah. Well, no, dog food is what I was talking about. But yeah, we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that. So yeah, let's... Don't want to do that, yeah. I do think you've got a doable situation...

Um, because what happened, it sounds to me like is, you know, you went through this divorce and you've got these cognitive things that you're dealing with and you said, all right, I'm doing the bucket list, screw it. And you kind of got some of that in the last 18, 24 months in the rear view mirror. And now you're kind of going, okay, now I got to get real about this. Did I understand? Is that, is that what happened?

Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I think you're ready to sit down with somebody and not end up with $1.2 million when you die.

But also, you know, let's use some of it and hit the bucket list, but let's not have the burn rate, as you said. And if you can jump on that disability, too, and get some income coming in, that's helpful to it. If you can get that SSI through, and maybe a smart investor pro can help you run that SSI through. If you happen to run into somebody who's got a little bit of knowledge on that, that's helpful. So, anyway, hit the Ramsey Solutions website. Find somebody to sit down with that's got the heart of a teacher to help you, as Rachel said, live your proposed life, not theirs.

This is the Ramsey Show. Listen, guys, I've heard just about every excuse for why folks think they can't get ahead with money. So let's go ahead and settle this right now. You get the final say on what happens with your money. That's why you have to start telling your money where to go so you can stop wondering where it went. So if you're going to start winning with money, you have to get on a budget. The easiest way to get started and stick to it is with the EveryDollar Budget app. It

It'll help you make a plan for every single dollar coming in and every single dollar going out every single month. And guess what? It's free, so no excuses. Download EveryDollar in the App Store or Google Play today. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Phillip and Heidi are with us. Hey, Phillip and Heidi, how are you? Hi.

Good, how are you? Doing terrific. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Indianapolis. All right. Very fun. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $300,000. Whoa. A little change. There you go. How long did it take to pay off $300,000? A long six years. Yeah. Wow. And your range of income during that time? We started at right around $100,000 and then...

We had the numbers there for 23, and it was like 219 at the end of 23, and then I finally did the taxes last week. We made it over 250. All right. Wow. What do you all do for a living? I'm a physician assistant. I'm a nurse practitioner. Ah, okay. A couple of medical folks. I was going to say $300,000 might be a mortgage, but it could be student loans. It is exactly student loans. It's all student loans. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. You had a mortgage worth of student loans. We had a mortgage. Wow. Yeah, more in student loans than we do on the house. Very much. Wow. But you're out. We're out. You're done. We're done. And now you're making a quarter million a year between the two of you. So hello. That's great. That's a good thing. Wow. Congratulations. All right. What started this whole journey? Tell us about six years ago.

So six years ago, we actually went through Financial Peace University with one of our older churches, and then we moved to the Indianapolis area and got involved with our church now and decided that after Phil was done with school, that we were just going to pay it off and just get it done and be rid of it.

And through lots and lots of hard work, we started with the envelope system and then went to the EveryDollar app. Yeah. So we just, little bit by little bit, we got it done. Well, congratulations. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, this is like a lot of money. Yeah. Wow. I mean, when you sat down and looked at that and you went $300,000 in student loan debt, you had to have an oh crap moment. Yes.

We started off with little thermometers that we made because, you know, I was raised by two teachers. So I need very visual aid kind of person. And so we started having these thermometers of like coloring in. And after six pages of thermometers, we stopped that. It was a little, it was a little overwhelming. So much, so much going on. Yeah.

Oh, man. Okay. So during this time, because six years, I mean, that's a marathon, right? I mean, we, you know, two years is usually kind of average with consumer debt. So people that do mostly student loans, we see that it's kind of the long game, right? So what was the hardest part in six years? I know you guys are, we're probably tired. I mean, I know you probably hit a wall at certain points thinking, oh, my gosh, we're still in this.

I feel like we hit two walls. We have two kids. Oh, so we hit two walls. We hit two walls. Thing one and thing two. Thing one and thing two. And, you know, it was funny. Like our oldest is six, surprisingly. We started hanging off. It's like, oh, hey, we're pregnant. Yeah. Our oldest is six and our youngest is three. And both of them started out lives with a little bit of medical debt. You know, just they're great now. Everything's wonderful. But...

you know, keeping tithing, keeping everything, saving, but also paying off debt as fast as we could, making sure they were okay. Those were some hard times of making sure that we stayed within budget, but still were able to connect with the boys, but also connect each other and pay off debt as fast as we could was a huge priority. So the two walls were amazing. We love the walls, but- We love them, but they came. They came in strong. Yes.

Yeah, I mean, that's a big deal, though, for real. I mean, like anyone that has a baby, like you're like, it's a life-changing event, let alone two happening during a process like this. So kudos to you guys. That's great. So great. So which of the six years did you make the most progress? Yeah.

The most progress? Probably the single biggest year was last year in 24. Just because the income went up? Income went up and there were some changes with some pay time off with work and all that that they ended up cashing out both of ours. So we had like two extra months worth of income just come in PTO and they switched over to a different plan. So

didn't lose out on any available time off for us so that was a big one because yeah our final payment was like 46 000 and change that we just did all at once that was a really rough two weeks of just like no one can get sick no one can get injured everyone has to be very cool for these two weeks until we get hold your breath hold your breath hold your breath here we go yeah yeah the uh i i i

Definitely see the math part of that. I'm wondering, was your intensity up because you could see the finish line? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we were saying for the last couple of years, this is finally going to be the year, but there is something different coming into 24. Like this is finally going to be time for this to happen. And I knew I was going to have to cash out some PTO to make it.

that goal by the end of 24, but I didn't know if it was going to take all of my PTO and all of hers at the same time. But it ended up being that with the workings that everything else with work that if I had done it earlier in the year, it wouldn't have worked out. We had to wait on them to make the changes that...

we weren't in the place for them to even make those changes. So God really worked it out for us to make this come together at the end because when it all came in to the checking account, it was less than $200 that was in the checking account more than what we had left to pay. It was a total God thing. And we're done. We can be done tonight, but then we have $200 for the next two weeks. That's right, everybody. And Merry Christmas. Literally, hold your breath. And Merry Christmas, by the way. Exactly.

thing one and thing two we're out of debt yeah wow congratulations you guys so there's a um a 24 year old couple listening right now or a 26 year old couple listening and they just looked up and saw they've got three hundred thousand dollars in debt talk to them tell them if it can be done what they should do it can always be done so i mean what what can't be done

I think the other thing to remember is, you know, you, the, the phrase live like no one else. You can live like no one else. And knowing that this is temporary, you know, $300,000 is overwhelming when you look at it on six different paper, paperworks of thermometers, but that little bit by a little bit, keeping each one that's slowly paid off, slowly paid off. It, it really does build that momentum of, Oh,

oh, we're so close. And, you know, like it sounds silly, but even going under a hundred thousand, we're like, oh, we're under a hundred thousand. That's, we're so close. It's not silly at all. Almost like, you know, a half marathon or when they're like, mile 10, you're almost done. You're like, no, I'm not. And

So it was like that under that 100,000 mark was is definitely a huge moment of, oh, we can. Oh, we're so close. We are so close. So, yeah, I think just knowing that building little momentums and having those little victories. And we have such a great support system with our families and our friends. And, you know, just the ton of support was huge with us. So what was the hardest part?

Probably just the length it took. Yeah. Just staying focused for that long. Yeah. And just how little progress was being made early on. Yeah. Just knowing, no, just got to keep with it. Keep going. Was it worth it? Absolutely. We laugh. We're like, we've been out of the my nervous phase for a month of not everyone can breathe again. And our three-year-old can be absolutely feral again and break any bone he wants. But it's...

It's one of those things where, you know, someone else like, what are you going to do now? It's like, breathe. We're just going to breathe for a minute knowing that we can be done and start dreaming fun things again. So, yeah. And then now looking at our mortgage, it's like, oh yeah, we can do that. Yeah.

Because it was less than three months. That's crazy. Look at that little thing. Look at that little mortgage. That's great. It's all about perspective. That's awesome. Well done, you guys. Thank you. Very proud of you. That's a lot. And you did it.

Thank you. Amazing. Good stuff. You changed your family tree. We did. Absolutely. You changed yourselves in the process. The work that God did inside of you while you were doing this is pretty incredible. Absolutely. Yeah. You're different people than you were six years ago. That is definitely true. Are the boys here? They are not. No. They would be running around the studio probably hitting every corner that they could find. So especially our three-year-old. Yeah.

It's going to be a peaceful, a peaceful debt-free scream for you. It is funny. Our six-year-old will say, you know, like, do we have, do we have the, do we have, we call it the fun money, you know, like, do we have the fun money this month to be able to do this? Cause we would still do little things, but yeah, he would be like, do we have the fun money this month? It's like maybe next month. That's right.

So great, you guys. Congratulations. Way to go, you guys. Phillip and Heidi, Indianapolis, Indiana, $300,000 in student loans in six years, making, wow, $100,000 to $250,000. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. One, two, three. We're debt-free! Yeah! Oh, yeah, baby! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! No feeling like freedom.

Wow. This is the Ramsey Show. It's the last call for our two-night virtual event, Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials. It's set for May 21 and 22, and you do not want to miss this. I'll unpack my personal playbook on investing and real estate and show you how you can feel confident in your investments too. Tickets are $199. Snag a VIP ticket and you'll get two sessions with Dave Ramsey.

with a Ramsey Preferred Coach. You can join from anywhere. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events and get your ticket today. Running a business is hard. If you've ever known someone that runs a business, you've ever run a business, you know that to be a fact. Running a business is hard. I've done it for almost 40 years. We grew Ramsey from a card table in my living room to where it is today.

And, guys, it's doable. We also coached about 10,000 small businesses over the last decade or so and continue to coach small businesses in Entree Leadership all the time. Some days the challenges pile up, but we have put in place a system now where we know the five stages of business and the six drivers that drive a business through the five stages. Those two things working together essentially become the baby steps for small businesses.

It's very well done, and it works. The system that we're teaching works.

I just wrote a new book called Build a Business You Love, where I am teaching the system, the five stages of business, mastering them, and the six drivers. The book comes out in April, and it is on presale right now for $29.99, and you get over $350 in free bonus items if you sign up now early, including instant access to our hiring program.

and Firing Playbook from Entree Leadership. Really good stuff. Early access to the e-book and the enhanced audio book. The audio book on this thing is absolutely killer. It's wonderful. So check it all out at ramseysolutions.com. Build a business you love. If you're not in business but you know someone that is or wants to be, pick this up for them. They will be happy you did. Georgia is in Birmingham, Alabama. Hi, Georgia. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. How are y'all? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? Um, well, I was actually calling because, um, my husband is very obsessed with you in a good way. Um,

Big on living like no one else, so later we can live like no one else. I've always admired and appreciated the dedication, but lately it's kind of taken an extreme turn and seems to be taking a toll on his mental health and quite honestly, mine as well lately. So my question is, how do you suggest finding a balance between financial responsibility and unhealthy fixation?

Well, we need Dr. John Deloney, I think. I don't think I'm qualified for this. I don't know. I mean, what in the world? How is his mental health slipping because he's in...

extremely focused on a goal that usually it has the opposite effect of not mental health problems i understand exactly so it just seems to be the only thing that he can really think about and it seems like he sees that we're in in his mind he thinks that our financial situation is like

way worse or we're not where we should be in life right now, even though, in my opinion, I think that we're, you know, in a good place. Okay. How long have y'all been working on this? Probably recently, like the last two or three years. So for three years, he's been super intense. Pretty intense. And what about you? She's tired. Yeah. It has really been...

Like, I don't want to seem like I'm, like, ungrateful for his dedication and all the effort that he put into it, but it starts to kind of make me feel like, should I be worried, even though I don't feel like we should be. Okay, so the two of you sit down and do a budget following our stuff, right? Yeah, we are on the every dollar budget. Okay, so when you guys sit down and do that, it's not a hopeful, yay, rah, we're making progress. Instead, it's a doom scroll.

It's more of like we should be doing more. He feels like he's not doing enough. Give me an example. He feels like you're like, I want to buy some food. And he's like, no, you can't have food. Well, not to that extreme. But if we do want to go out to dinner, it is still like, oh, we've got to tighten up. Yeah.

We don't have any car payments. We don't have any credit card debt. We don't have any student loans. We've got over $100,000 in retirement. What is it you're – let me start. Do you know what baby step you're on? I do not. Okay. So you're really not plugged into all this stuff. You're just watching him do it. Yeah. It's gotten to the point where it's like I kind of dread talking about it. So are y'all out of debt except your house?

Yes. Do you have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses? We do. Okay. Then that puts you on baby steps, what we call four, five, and six, which means you should move from, we teach that you, and if he listens this intently, he should know this, that you should move from intense to intentionality and

In baby steps four, five, and six. Four is we're putting 15% of our income away for retirement. Five is we're addressing kids' college. And six is if we have any other money after we live our life, then we put that towards the mortgage because we want to get the mortgage paid off in the next five to ten years. And that is not intense. We teach in live like no one else, don't go out to eat, don't go on vacation in the first three baby steps. Right.

And that's getting out of debt and having an emergency fund, not counting the house. And you're past that. You should have moved from not going out to eat to going out to eat in your budget with no guilt. Yeah. That's our teaching. Okay. So what we're saying is, is he, you guys got past the emergency stuff of getting out of debt and the emergency fund, and he refuses to take his foot off the gas.

Yes. Okay. And he's obsessing over every little thing and it's spinning him out is what it's doing. It really is. It's stressing him out more than giving him freedom. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Which is such an interesting, we talked about this on another show last week together, how money becomes an idol for so many people. And some people it's the chase of more, more, more nicer, nicer, nicer.

But on the flip side, it becomes an idol in this case where you're so obsessed with it in a negative way that it's like literally eating into the quality of your life because it's all you're thinking about. And that's not how it should be. There should be a lot more freedom. And so there's something in him. Yeah, at the baby step that you're on, he's doing it wrong.

If he's that obsessed with our show and with what Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz teaches, we don't teach what he's doing. We tell you to be intentional. I don't want you being wasteful on this, but it's not intense. Okay? The intensity is no going out to eat beans and rice, rice and beans, no vacation until you get yourself out of debt and accept the house, baby step two, and finish your emergency fund. You told me you've done that, right? Right.

Correct. Okay. So now we're just saving for retirement, kids college, and we're working to get the house paid off. And that is intentional. That's the stage you move up in car with cash. That's the stage you buy a new couch if you need one with cash. That's the stage you go on a decent vacation with cash. That's the stage that you go out to eat.

in your every dollar budget. All of those things should be in your every dollar budget, and there should be room for them. What's your household income, Georgia? Around $150,000 together, combined. Yeah, so you make plenty of money to become millionaires and to change your family tree and do the things I just said in that last series of sentences. I agree. Okay, so...

What we want you to reach for, and him too, him is who I'm talking to, I guess, is financial peace. There's no peace in this discussion. It's that, as Deloney says, let your shoulders drop and exhale. And he's never done that yet.

Yeah. And, I mean, he's 25, so if it's this intense here in this part of life, I can only imagine that if we don't do something about it, it's just going to get a lot more intense. I think you guys need to sit down maybe with a good marriage counselor or maybe with your pastor because this is kind of a spiritual thing at this stage.

It's an emotional and spiritual thing. You just got to learn to enjoy the ride now. You've done a great job, and you need to enjoy the fruits of your labor. My guess is this is an intense dude, period, that he probably is this way about a lot of things. I don't know anybody like that, but it could happen. This is The Ramsey Show.

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