The Most Loving Thing You Can Do Is Be Honest About Money
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

We're glad you guys are with us. We're here to help you. Jade is a Ramsey personality and best-selling author of the book Money's Not a Math Problem.

It's one of our Ramsey Quick Reads, which means it is 74 pages long. Is that right? Yeah, look at that. Pretty close. That's pretty good. 70 close. It is 74 pages long. Look at that. My memory is impeccable. Steel trap. That's it. That's it. Hey, thanks for being with us, guys. We're glad we can serve you. We want you to be here and, gosh, help you move to the next level in whatever you're doing. All right, Rochelle is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Rochelle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi, Jay. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I just wanted to get Dave's input on a situation. So my husband and I, we have four kids. We're a blended family. I have a daughter, he has a son, and then we have two boys together. His father died and he inherited some land from him. It's family land. And so when we are talking about inheritance for our children, he wants, and understandably so, the land to go to be split between the three boys.

Because he wants to keep it in his bloodline. And so I am fine with that. But where we disagree is on how to do inheritance for my daughter. He thinks the land should be not even taken into consideration when we do inheritance. So monetary value, et cetera, shouldn't matter. Yeah.

And so what we're kind of looking at is actually selling our current home and then using the money that we make to move to that land and then build on it, in which case we would live out the rest of our days there and put our money into it.

And I think that that also should be taken into consideration. But he thinks that the boys should get the land split between them, and then whatever else inheritance we have left should be split equally between all four kids. And so I just kind of wanted your opinion on that. Wow. Does it occur to him how hurtful it is when he says that? I don't think so. If you said that's hurtful, you're a butt?

I haven't said that. I try to talk very nicely to him. I know, but that's what my wife would have said. I'm just thinking. And it's very sentimental to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Cinderella has to go. The stepchild has to go and mop the floors while the three other ones go to the ball.

I lost you. All right. Are you there? Yeah, you cut out. I don't know what happened. Sorry. That's okay. Sorry. Like I said, I don't mind them getting the land. That's totally fine. How much land is involved? It's only about 33 acres right now. It was his grandmother's land. She sold it, and then his dad bought back this portion and was in one of...

remainder of it surrounding it and so my husband wants to buy back the remainder as well if we can the what the remainder is how much on top of the 33 i don't know how much more there is that he would want to buy what is your what is your personal income and what is his income um we he makes about 65 and i make about 55 right now but we both increase pretty regularly how old are you guys uh 36 okay all right um

Well, I don't know that our opinion really matters here, because Bubba's made his mind up. Yeah. So... I just kind of wanted to know if I was in the... No, I think that probably what you've got is a situation where you need to sit down with your pastor, marriage counselor, or somebody like that. I just...

It is a thing to require some thought, but after just listening to you... So here's what I've got, okay? You make half the money in the house, approximately. You guys are going to be married and living there probably 40 years, so more than three-quarters of your life, his life, is going to be spent doing things together here, including your daughter. And so...

I'm just calling BS. I think these four kids should be treated equally because your connection to it, because he's wanting you to use your income and help him buy a house on land he doesn't want to leave to your daughter after 40 years. How old are the kids? My daughter's 14, my stepson's 13, and then our twins are two. What a wedge.

Yeah. And that's thing one. Thing two is people and relationships trump stuff. This kid is more important than this piece of land. And he's her daddy now. And she lives with y'all, right? Yeah, she does currently, yes. Yeah. You know, his relationship to her is more important than 33 freaking acres in Texas. Okay. I just don't.

um you know i i would give him about a 20 part of the right answer here and about 80 wrong so he loses i feel like i feel like a different scenario would be you guys were 55 years old it was your second marriage and the kids are grown that feels different like that's a completely different situation with saying hey but you're contributing

You know, the vast majority, you're contributing half with the sale of the house and the building of the house and your income for 40 years from age 35 to age 65 to age 75, right? You're contributing half all the way through there. And so how your daughter doesn't get into that half is ridiculous. Okay. From a math standpoint, from a philosophical or spiritual standpoint, it's just a stupid piece of dirt.

I don't really care where it came from. I mean, I've got some dirt that I own that I really love, and I'd like to see my kids and grandkids playing on it. My great-grandkids, my great-great-great-grandkids, when I'm looking at them from heaven, I'd love to see them playing on that and enjoying that dirt, but I don't want it to form their life, and I don't want them to value that dirt over money.

Yeah. Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah. I just, I, I, I, so I don't buy off on the sentimental crap. You know, if you, I got, uh, um, you know, uh, some hand tools from my dad. Okay. That's sentimental. Okay. They're ancient antique hand tools. Right. And so those are sentimental, but, uh, but I'm certainly not going to let a wrench and a hammer stand between me and a kid that I'm raising, uh,

I just, you know, that's how I put this. That's the bucket I put this in. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. So if the stepkid wants the hammer, it's okay. That's fine. Give the other one the wrench. It's just stuff. Yeah, and I just, I don't want him. So I got to, I don't think he's thinking this through. I don't think he's a but. But it was kind of fun to say that. I kind of do. Yeah. In this moment. Yeah, I don't.

I don't think he's a hurtful person. Like, you know, I think that's what he's doing. Okay. He's not thought of it from all angles. But I just don't think he's thinking through the message he's sending to this teenage girl. And I don't like that message. Javier's with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Javier. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So overarching question is that my mom took out a bunch of loans in my name. She's making...

minimum payments, but I'm trying to kind of get this whole thing sorted out and out of my name. How would you suggest that I approach her, the situation as a whole? How old are you? I'm 27. When did all this happen, hon? It started back in 22, I want to say 21, 22. It was after my divorce. So I was kind of just starting caution to the wind and just saying yes to everything. Oh, so you agreed to her doing this?

Yes. It all started because the landlord wanted to sell the house that I grew up in, that she's currently living in. And she offered us a pretty good deal. And my brother and I, we bought the house together for my mom. And now she's struggling to make the payments. And I'm just waiting for the day that I get a call that, hey, your payment's due. And my wife and I, we can't afford the payment ourselves. So I just don't know what to do. Wow.

You bought the house together for your mom. And then she took out credit card loans in your name, all with your permission. Yes, sir. So whose name is on the mortgage? Yours? Yes, sir. But she's living in the house? Yes. Rent-free? And the property is titled to you as well, correct? Correct.

Correct. She's paying the mortgage. It's just that her credit was too poor to actually take the loan out herself. So going back to the other debt, the other loan, how much money are we talking about on the credit cards? I'm shy of $20,000. And what does your mom make a year? She's self-employed. She won't really give me a straight answer. If you had to guess, what would you say? Not much. She doesn't work much. She sucks blood off of her sons. Okay. Okay.

She's a parasite. It's a horrible thing to say about your mother. I'm so sorry. Just an observation. What's your living situation? I am currently living in an apartment in Utah, and the house is in another state. Yeah. And your wife is not happy with this situation, I would assume. She is not, and I'm not either. Okay. Okay. And how old is mom? 55? Ballpark. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

So, and what is the house worth that she's living in? I would say $350,000 to $400,000. And what do you owe on it? I want to say $220,000, $250,000. I don't honestly know. Is your brother also on the mortgage? Yes, my brother's on the mortgage as well. And on the deed as well. Yeah. Okay. What's your brother saying about all this?

My brother wants to keep the house, and he's just happy to go along because he wants to keep it for sentimental value. I personally agree with your team, but it's just a house. We can get another one. Yeah, so what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? This is going to be what is called a difficult conversation, my friend. Your mom has gotten away with this misbehavior, underproducing, and un-

unbelievable asks of her grown sons rather than taking care of herself. A 55-year-old woman ought to be able to build a sustainable life without sucking the blood off of her children, okay?

or man, for that matter. So this is not positive. Your mom is not in a good situation mentally and spiritually, because otherwise she wouldn't have done this to her own kids. And, of course, you all aren't because you allowed it to happen. Oh, no, you straight up endorsed it. So what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would go, how long ago did you get married? My wife and I, we got married in...

A month ago. Okay. This is going to come down on your wife if you're not real careful from your mother. Your mother's going to blame her because she's the new thing on the scene, and about that time, you evict your mom. So she's going to end up blaming your wife if you're not real careful. So your wife does not need to be anywhere near this conversation.

nor do you quote her, nor do you even bring her up. She's not physically in the room. She's nowhere around because it's not her fault. Okay. So you need to travel with your brother and sit down with your mom and say, guys, I can't do this anymore.

I'm looking at the future, 10 years into the future, and all I see is pain and trouble. There's a problem here. You're ruining my credit. I'm waiting for the phone call when you don't pay the mortgage. And so what we're going to do is we're going to sell the house. We're going to pay all the debt off.

And we're going to pay the taxes associated with selling the house if there are any. There shouldn't. No, there will be because it's not a personal residence. You may have some capital gains on this. So you pay your taxes. And then you say, as for my half of what is left over equity, Mom, I'm going to give that to you as a parting gift. And you can go set yourself up a life with that. And I'm not going to do anything anymore in the future. That's it.

brother, you can do with your half whatever you choose to do. If you want to help mom get a house with that, that's fine. I'm done. We're selling the house. We're paying off the credit cards, and I'll give you my half of what's left over after that, after taxes. Do you anticipate your brother holding up that process, or do you think that he'll go along with it?

I think he would fold it up because he's not big on Ramsey. I found you guys because I found your book, Breaking Free Broke. Well, I mean, forget about the Ramsey part. Just the idea of you cleaning this up because it's very messy. It's nothing to do with Ramsey. It's got to do with your mother screwing her own kids over. Yeah. I honestly think he would not go along with it because he's seeing it as an investment on his... Then he can buy you out. He can buy you out. That's another option. But, honey, we're selling the house.

If he doesn't want to sell the house, then it's going to be a civil court action and the judge is going to demand that the partnership be dissolved by the selling of the house. We're selling the house. I'm not asking. We're telling you. This is what we're doing. Now, if you want to buy me out, that's okay. The way you need to think of this is this is saving your marriage, by the way. Yeah. Because your wife is not going to sit around and let your mom be the reason that she's not in her new house.

You guys are in an apartment. You've been married for a month. If this messes around and causes you guys the future that she's envisioned, you're going to have a much bigger problem on your hands. Yeah.

Mom, I love you, and I've done more for you than I should have, and I put myself and my future family in jeopardy because of you. And you continue to misbehave with this. My bills are not being paid. You're destroying my credit and my future. We're selling the house. Little brother, if you don't want to sell it, you can buy me out. You got 10 minutes. Ready, set, go. You're on the clock.

Okay. Cause your little brother's codependent like you were until something woke you up. And again, this has got nothing to do with Ramsey. Don't you blame it on your ex. Don't you blame it on your new wife and don't you blame it on Ramsey. It's not Ramsey. This is you stood up. I'm a 27 year old freaking man with a backbone and this is madness and the madness ends. It's not a sign of love to continue in codependency. This is not an act of love. There's no love in this discussion.

You can be kind, gentle. You don't have to be yelling and screaming, but we are selling the house. You can either do it voluntarily or I'll have a judge make you sell the house. We are selling the house. So y'all get your heads around that.

whatever flopping in the floor and foaming at the mouth you need to do. But get your heads around that. We are selling the house. It's not an option. The only other option is, brother, you buy me out, or mom, you all buy me out. Get me off the mortgage and pay off all the credit cards. And you've got to do that in 90 days. And you've got to ready, set, go. And if you're not going to do that, we are selling the house. The best thing for mom, by the way, is to sell the house.

Put some money in her pocket. Tell her to get a freaking job. Self-employed for her is code for I don't work much. That's what that is. That's code. As an investor and a person of faith, when your mutual funds and ETFs put your money into the dark side, you might feel a disturbance. Well,

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

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

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Listen, we're all better with help. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. Dave is with us and Dave is in Orlando. Hi, Dave. How are you? Hi, I'm good, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

Hi, so my wife and I, so we are foster parents, and we were taking care of a baby pretty much from a newborn until about eight months. The mom did great. She got her kids back after she went through some struggles. Long story short, her case has been closed. She has all her kids back, and she is struggling again. So with pretty much all aspects of life, but financially,

She made some poor decisions with a car, ended up breaking down and she had to junk it. And she contacted us just for some help financially. We haven't helped her with money before, but obviously we love her son very much. We want her to succeed. We know that giving her money is not a long-term solution to anything. So we're

We're really just trying to think about the best way to approach her, talk to her about what's going on, how her finances are, how she can get assistance, build a budget, etc. And she's a very, very shy, closed-off type person, so we don't want to scare her off, but obviously still wanting to help her. We're just looking for the best way to maybe approach that. Well, I mean...

all you can do that's reasonable is to coach her. And the only way you can coach her is to the extent she'll accept the coaching, right? Right. And, and I, yeah, I talked to her yesterday and she, you know, I, I asked her if she would be opening to open to having a financial conversation. Well, my, my wife and I are in, you know,

we're in good shape, we're very stable. And if she said she was open to having that conversation, she said she doesn't really understand debt and just finances in general. And on top of that, I mean, she has three kids now, she's not working.

has a baby who's now a year and her other two kids are nine and 10 and she just has absolutely no idea what to do. Um, she can't get daycare for her, for her baby because in order to get assistance through the state, she has to have two paychecks, uh, before they'll provide daycare assistance. So she is just going crazy and we feel like she's close to, you

you know, getting back to a point where she may make some poor decisions or drugs or something like that. And, and yeah. Um,

Well, obviously the financial situation is again, the symptom of all the things that have gone on in her life. Okay. And, um, so, but, but maybe you can coach some of the things in her life by using the financial door to go through. Um,

Having dealt with this a bunch of times over the years, the warning I would give you is I would tell you to be very, very clear up front because when you said financial conversation, you meant coaching. She might have heard money. You're going to have a conversation about how much money you're going to give me. Yes, I'll be happy to have that conversation. It's very clear to her that you're not going to give her money because you're not.

that then, because this is a messed up toxic situation if you start that, then she may cut you loose. So you need to be ready for that emotionally. And so I think what I would offer if I were in this situation with your wife present, I would just say in person, over a cup of coffee,

Look, we love the little boy and that means that we would love to help you and our help to you would be that as your older brother and older sister here that are successful in a lot of areas of life that you're not yet, we can show you a better path in a bunch of these areas.

And help her get plugged into a good church. They can help her with the daycare get started. Let someone do that. But if she starts to see this baby as a ticket to get money out of you, this is going to get really ugly fast. Right. Right.

Right, right, yeah. And so she did move two hours away from us when the case was finally closed. I guess that was about a month ago. And we did, at that time, give her $200 to help moving expenses and get a truck to go down there. So I'm hoping that she doesn't think that that door is already open.

She does. She does. She does. But you're just, the trick is, can you, can you make a trip down there, sit down, be very clear. We love you because we love this baby. We want to coach you and help you, but it's going to be, we're going to show you how to get on your feet. Not we're going to give you money to get on your feet. And she may give you the middle finger. Let me, it's a better than a 50% probability based on my experience.

But if she may have been just dying, it's sad, but sometimes folk in these situations will use a baby as a method of manipulation. Well, that's the thing I would probably caution against with David, just to be really careful, because obviously they love this little boy. And so there's probably a part in them that wants to try to control the situation, because in

in their minds. Like we have the means, like we understand money, we understand how to take care of this kid. And so I think that they have to really guard their hearts in this situation because like you said, it's,

Yeah, so sad. Yeah. But I think what she's got to have is she's got to have some mentors and some people in her life. That's why I said plug her into a good church. Let's get her started walking on a character path. It didn't let her get because obviously, based on what you said, she's been struggling with that. And you're afraid she's going to fall back off of that. And when she gets that character thing straightened out, then you can show her the mechanics of the money piece. But but she's going to have to go to work.

And she's got to feed three kids. And we're going to have to figure out a way to cause her to be able to do that with some community support. And that community will help her if she's heading in the right way. And you can probably line that up. And I think you're a wonderful person for investing into this. But just be very careful that you're not being manipulated because that sometimes is the only skill someone has.

and they're very skillful in some cases. I'm not saying that's true about her 100%, but it's just something I would personally be careful with if I was walking into this. I'd want my eyes wide open. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Royce is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Royce. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I am a finance, or I guess you say graduate finance student. I'm getting my MBA, my undergrad, and finance. Cool. And so you know how all of them are. Yep, I do. They teach you to go out and leverage and so on and so forth. The financial situation that I'm in is I'm completely debt-free. I have $100,000-ish something of assets.

invested money in Morgan Stanley and then I have some other stuff. There's a 401ks. I have $30 or 30,000 in on hand cash and I have an opportunity to buy a $50,000 house. Would you leverage some part of it? The renovations, would you buy it off cash? Because my whole thought pattern is if I leave that money working and do parts of it. So like finance 25 cash, 25 cash on the restoration, um,

It allows some of my money to still be working. Well, back when you had common sense before you got your MBA, you would have never done that. Right. So I agree with you on that partly. So my thing is, do you think that there's ever situations where that would come in? Because I know this is a question you got in. No, I do not borrow money, and I do not tell people to borrow money, especially for investment real estate. Pay cash for it or don't do it.

Because you increase your risk, and what they don't teach you in the MBA program is to mathematically factor in the risk. They act like with the formulas they teach you, the formulas that I learned, the same ones in getting a finance degree, are fairly simplistic in that they do not address the risk issue. And the more you borrow, the more risk you have. We know that.

And nowhere in anything you learned in that MBA program does it decrease the returns based on increased risk because of debt. There's not a formula that they have in that program that shows you that. And yet that is reality. So every time you borrow money, you increase risk. The more money you borrow, the more risk. The less money you borrow, the less risk. And risk does affect return over the scope of time.

And so don't do it. Don't do it. The borrower is slave to the lender. God is smarter than your MBA professor. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. If you've made student loan mistakes with zeros on the end, well, we're not judging you. We're here to help you, and we're saying you need to do something about it. Contact Y Refi if you have a defaulted private student loan. They'll reset the whole thing. It's unbelievable what they can do for you.

So go to Yrefy, that's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey, might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Brody in Maryland. He says, is it unfair for me to feel angry that my wife wants a bigger house?

We bought a 1400 square foot house last April. I sold all four of my investment properties that I worked very hard for to completely pay off our debt, including the new house. Our house is a three bedroom, two bath ranch with a backyard on a quiet street. And it's in a good school district.

So much sacrifice and saving went into making this happen. Now she wants a bigger house, even though she said she wanted this particular house before we put the offer in. I don't see how I can make this happen without going into debt again, and I will not go back into debt. Oh, this is juicy. Listen, here's the thing.

I do think that some people's personalities, because you don't talk about any type of pay raise or situation where you guys' lifestyle has changed drastically. But I do think there's some people that the goalpost is constantly moving, right? It's like, if I just get this, I'll be happy. And then they get that thing and they're not happy. Or if I just get this, I'll be content. And then it happens and they're not content because things don't make you happy and things don't make you content.

you know, I think that they're fun, but they don't, they don't fill that void. And you can buy fun, but you can't buy happiness. Yeah. And you can't buy contentment. And if you're on social media, what she might be every single day, scrolling through and looking at what the influences are doing and looking at what their friends, you know, their friends houses, or she's spending all night watching HGTV. It is very difficult to,

for some people to kind of go, well, that's them and that's okay. My life is fine. And truly, I think that that's what this is. I think she's got a contentment issue. Exactly. Sidebar, what you stated there, I just saw an article the other day that the more hours you spend on social media, the typical, there's a direct correlation to the more credit card debt you have. Oh, really? I'd love to see that. I know there is. And the more overspending you do. Because, you know, I do it and I have the money.

But I'm like looking at some gun thing and I'm like, oh, I need one of those. Yeah. But if I had stayed off of that, I wouldn't have even known it was there. And, you know, but so I know other people do it and I teach this crap. So, you know what I mean? It's like, golly, if I'm doing it, it's got to be. So, okay. Yeah. Here's what happened, Brody. You guys need to reset your marriage relationship. This is not about a 1,400 square foot house and it's not about you being angry. You...

are acting like the daddy, and she's acting like daddy's little princess. Uh-oh. You know, I hear that now. And daddy sold everything and did everything and sacrificed and worked his fingers to the bone, and what did he get? Bony fingers. And he got a house, and he's real proud of the house, and now she walks in and goes, yeah, but there's a wallpaper. Yeah. And so we need to reset this, and instead let's be two, like, grown-ups. So the conversation I'm going to have is –

And actually, we had it at our house, but in a little different way when we were about Cheryl's age, probably. I'll tell you about ours in a second. But the conversation I'm going to have is, okay, we are going to get aligned on our goals. Yeah. My goal is not to perpetually make an unhappy person happy. I am not going to get on that treadmill. Mm-hmm.

We, you're a grown woman. I'm a grown man. We're going to sit down together, and here's one of mine, okay? I don't borrow money, period. Here's another one of mine. I like to provide nice things for my wife. Here's another one of mine. These are what you might say, Brody, okay? And she's saying, well, I want a house as nice as my friends. Okay, what can we do to get that? Mm-hmm.

You don't work. You could work. You don't work much. You could work more. You could quit coach bagging it, and we might save that money towards a house. I mean, what are we going to do as two grown-up people to responsibly, because I'm all in. I put all my chips on the table. I sold off everything I had to buy this house for us. Mm-hmm.

And what you did, though, was you did that without her. She was not aligned to that. She was giving you lip service, but this was not her idea. It was yours. Yeah. And now you're surprised that she's unhappy of your plan that did not include her. So this is like, I got to tell you, you know what? About 10 years, I've been married 43 years, about 10 years into marriage, I don't buy Sharon jewelry anymore that she hasn't seen.

Tell us why. Because I picked out ugly crap. I know. According to her. But I spent a lot of my beautiful money on her ugly crap. And then she didn't. She's like, oh, I wasn't about that. And I'm like, oh, geez. Well, let's just not do that again. So I don't mind if Sharon has. I mean, she's got earrings the size of a headlight. But she picked them out. And then she says they're heavy.

They're that big. Okay. And I'm like, that's ridiculous. It's a good problem to have, sure. Okay. Just get your little earlobes and do some earlobe lifts. Start doing some workouts there in the gym because you picked them out. So see, that's the difference. She, this girl's not involved in this.

Well, yeah, you can tell by the language, I sold all of my investment properties. So much sacrifice. Yeah. He's the only one. He feels like he's the only one sacrificing. You can tell by the language whether. But it's a paternal thing rather than an equal thing. Yeah. Yeah, you can hear it. I think we got to reset and go, we're not going anywhere from here. We're not making any major decisions without both of us involved.

And I learned that after I went broke because I made a lot of decisions that were stupid without talking to my wife. Proverbs 31 says, who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her. And here's my favorite part. He will have no lack of gain.

And it's not in the Bible, but it might be in one version like Second Hesitations. Yeah. Right after No Lack of Gain, she no longer says, I told you so. Oh, I kind of like being able to say that. She can't say that anymore. I like being able to say that, though. I know, but you can't say that when you're in on the decision. All you can say is, we together made a dumb butt decision. That's all you can say from this point forward. True that.

And that's it. You can't say you're an idiot. You can't do that anymore because now you have to use plural. It's change your pronouns. We are idiots. We did this, right? And so that's what's going on here, dude. You've got to reset this idea you have. Put your little Superman cape up of you're the papa and you're the provider and all this stuff. And she's just a little woman. And you're never going to make Scarlett O'Hara happy. It's not going to happen.

So she's going to get on the same page and be like a grown woman and stuff, and then she'll become happy. It's a weird balance of power. It's a big deal, man. It's a big deal. This alignment in marriage is one of the things we find all the time in people's ability to get out of debt. They succeed in their careers at a greater rate and their ability to build wealth because they're aligned on sacrificing, and they make decisions together.

The first time we did that after going broke was we finally saved up a little bit of money and I had $10,000. Sharon was driving a blue three-tone Astro van. You remember those? Oh, 100%. Completely ugly. The carpet was covered in toddler goldfish from the third kid and it was nasty. This was a bad car. It was an embarrassing vehicle.

When they first came out, they were all right. Well, this was not first come out. And she's like, I need a better car. We need to move up to a Suburban. And I had $10,000 or $15,000 saved at the company. I was getting ready to do this investment. We were going to buy this thing, and I was going to make $100,000 with this $15,000 down here. And she's like, we need to do a car. And you know what? We did both, but we did the car first. And then we did the company. And it turns out now all these years later, it was okay.

But in the moment, aligning on that with two grownups was a big deal. It's a big deal. Daniel is in Kansas City. Hey, Daniel, how are you? I've been better, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up in your world? My wife is about to pass away, and she hid debt from me. Oh, my. That I didn't know that she had pre-to-our-getting-married five years ago. Wow.

I'm so sorry. So what is her illness? She has cirrhosis of the liver, and it's not working, and she doesn't qualify for a transplant, and then it's starting to affect her other organs, and she's kind of going into a full shutdown. So you've been married five years? Yes, sir. I'm so sorry. How old is she?

She's 44. Oh, my goodness. How old are you? I'm 52. Okay. Oh, man. Okay. And you opened this with she's hidden debt from you during the five years that you were married. So she ran up debt in her name?

She ran up dead in her name pre-targeting married back when she was in college. This is the second marriage for both of us. I have one daughter with her, technically a stepdaughter, but I consider her my daughter. Totally.

Totally. And was saving money for her to go to college. And we were, I thought we were, anyway, debt-free except for our house. So the debt was rung up before you guys got married. You just didn't know about it.

I did not know about it. And how much debt? Her parents said she ran up $50,000, but I've only received a bill for $15,000. And it's on what kind of debt? Student loan debt. Federally insured?

I don't know. I just received it the other day. It's actually from a bill collection agency. I don't have it in front of me. I apologize. Is it only, and you might not know this, is it only in her name or did her parents sign for it too?

No, it's only in her name. Her parents offered to pay for her to go to school as long as she showed them the grades. And evidently she took the money, was in school for a hot minute. And I didn't know this because she's hidden a bunch of stuff from me and, uh, use the money to go travel and went to Europe and blew the money. All right. Um,

Well, let's talk through a couple of possibilities from a tactical standpoint. I'm sorry, Daniel. I know your heart's broken in about three different places. The deception, the loss, the illness, everything that's going on here that's just overwhelming. And all of that's just a tragedy. I'm so sorry. Student loan debt that is federally insured is forgiven when someone passes away. Okay. So if this is a federal student loan debt...

There's no issue. When she passes away, you will, or her parents for that matter, can send them a copy of the death certificate and the student loan just evaporates. It's that simple. And don't pay it. Okay. That's probably what we're dealing with. Okay. Let's go another route in case that's not it. Let's pretend this is,

private student loan debt that she borrowed it from the university rather than through FAFSA and all that, right? I believe she did. I'm sorry? I believe she did because her parents' income was too high for her to get FAFSA. Well, this is a student. There's not an income limit on getting a federally insured student loan. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm thinking this is a federally insured student loan. If it's not...

Let's discuss that. So do you own anything jointly with her? And both of your names on it? The only thing with both our names on it is one car. Okay. Her credit from her previous marriage was she's had two bankruptcies that she never told me about because I...

I had money issues in my first marriage and got that all paid off, and I got your book, The Total Money Makeover, and followed that to get out of debt. There's a mountain of deception here. Okay. All right, let's pretend that this is not federally insured. If it's not a federally insured student loan that is forgiven upon death,

then I would have you contact an attorney there in Kansas City on probate law in Kansas. In most states, when someone passes away, what they own stands good for what they owe, and nothing else does. Just because you're married to her in most states does not mean you're liable for her debts that have her name on it.

And so the car is hers, a portion of it. And if the car has any value above what is owed, that might be sold and paid towards this debt. But other than that, you don't have anything that is, she doesn't own anything. It doesn't sound like. No, sir. She does not. Okay. So let's pretend that she were single.

And she had a car and that was all. And she owed more on the car than it was worth. And you pass away with credit card debt and student loan debt. There's no assets to pay the debts. Those creditors get nothing when that person passes away with nothing.

Your kids aren't responsible. Your parents aren't responsible. And in most states, your husband is not responsible unless, especially in a situation like this where the debt occurred prior to the marriage. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm not an attorney in Kansas. I'm not an attorney, but I'm not an attorney in Kansas for sure. So I'd want you to check that out. You won't have to bother and do that.

If you can discover that these student loans are federally insured, and I'm giving you a high probability they are. If they're federally insured, it's no issue at all. You got no issue. You're not liable, period. No one's liable. No one pays anything. If someone becomes permanently disabled or passes away with a federally insured student loan, it's forgiven. It's gone. So you're okay, other than your broken heart.

Okay. And your broken heart from losing your wife and to liver cirrhosis, cirrhosis of the liver and your broken heart from all the deception that's gone on. Yeah. And both are legitimate pain, brother. I'm sorry you're facing all this. Yeah. He's got a, he's got a,

get in counseling and deal with that because he's got a lot going on. He's got the loss, but then it's tough to lose someone that you're angry at or frustrated at for something that's gone on. Right. Um, and so obviously she had a pattern of this in her life and, and now it's coming to a tragic conclusion. So tough. Wow. Ouch.

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

the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing. So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. But what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They

They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer. They're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service. And the deals that they're offering, the Ramsey Tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. And I love it. The things that we teach, they so line up with. And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. And I'm not kidding. It took less than five minutes. Yeah.

It was so user-friendly. Like, the step-by-step approach was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings, and it says Fairwinds on my phone. So I answered it and talked to someone there, and they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer. And so, again, they just really care about your experience. And I—

I so, so appreciate that. Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app. And you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs. Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general. And so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe.

You guys, it's incredible. Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey. Fairwinds is federally insured by NCUA. Okay, you guys, 54% of Americans say it's a challenge to save on groceries without sacrificing quality.

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at ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. That's ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. Emily is in Washington, D.C. Hi, Emily. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call today. Sure. What's up? We just have a quick question. My husband and I are wondering if we are being selfish with a family financial decision that we're making. I'm going to preface it by saying that we are in total agreement on this and he would be the one to have a conversation with his family. So the overall situation is that he has, um,

Many siblings. And we try to get together and go on vacations or just have family gatherings fairly often. However, his youngest sister does have a very different financial situation than the rest of us have. So we've covered her expenses anytime we get together and particularly going on vacation, usually not a big deal. It's just a few hundred extra bucks. However,

there has kind of been an expectation to pay and there is conversation around going overseas to where they are from originally, where the family is from originally for a bigger trip in 2025, which would, if we covered her expenses, it would cost us thousands of dollars. That's just not in our budget. It's not something we can do. It would already be kind of at the top of our budget to begin with. But again,

In kind of expressing this decision, not being able to cover her, her husband, and her five kids, it's really ripping apart our family because we're being told we're being selfish by not helping her out. Wait, sorry, it's her husband and her five kids? Yes. And who's telling you you're selfish? The other siblings. How much of it were they covering?

They were, we've always kind of split things fairly equally. And so if we split it three ways, it would still be a few thousand dollars for all of us. Can I ask why? Can I ask why? What's the situation that everybody is floating them?

Yeah, that's a great question. So some of it, I would say it's lifestyle choices, just in the fact that they live in a small town. Her husband doesn't have a big income, and then she's chosen to stay home and homeschool the kids, have a bigger family. The more you tell me, the more I'm laughing internally. Like, the more you tell me about this, the more I'm realizing how ridiculous this expectation is. Yeah, that's...

There's no obligation. Anything that you've done before, you kind of did set up maybe an expectation, but you did that out of the kindness of your heart as it sounds like the other siblings did. But just because someone is kind and decide that they want to give one time doesn't mean that they're obligated to give every time and at the whatever limit that other person decides. Right. Yeah.

If I were you, I would have no, when I tell you I would lose zero sleep over saying, I'm not going to fund this. It's too expensive, period. And you don't have to give a bunch of reasons. Just, hey, it was fun for us to be able to do that before with this trip. We're not going to be able to help out. And by the way, probably going forward, you know, we've decided that the faucet has turned off at this point. Especially with the way you folk have reacted. Yeah. Yeah. No gratefulness.

Gratitude turned into entitlement. And so the issue is this, what you're discovering, and it's sad, and I've run into this, everybody's run into this. Henry Cloud talks about this in his classic book, Boundaries, that when someone doesn't respect your boundaries, it means they feel entitled to walk in your yard.

Yeah.

you know, that's a boundary. In other words, then the people who have gotten used to treating your yard, like it's their yard. Um, and they go, Oh, but we're, but we like playing in your yard. And so, no, you can't play in my checkbook anymore. Um, there's not room for both of us. And so I'm going to declare it mine and I'm going to close the gate. The gate was open and now the gate's closed. And, and since you're bitching about it, I'm going to leave the gate closed forever. That kind of thing.

That kind of goes there too. So that's the way – I mean –

As far as the other siblings whining about it, it falls under the category of nunya. Nunya business. Go kick rocks. Exactly. And here's the thing. I thought you were going to lay out some hardship or something that was kind of outside the box, but truly it's choices. Yeah, choices. And so you chose not to be able to afford to go on this international vacation with your five children.

Which, by the way, most people – I never even saw the ocean until I was a teenager. So, I mean, I grew up in Tennessee. So, I mean, come on. I mean, it's like that's what people that don't have money do. So you don't get to do stuff that people with money get to do. It's how that works. And so, gosh, I'm sorry, though. I'm sorry it's bringing a pain to y'all. And I wish –

I wish I had something other than smart aleck things to say that would actually make this go away because it won't, but it won't go away. And so you're just going to have to smile and say, gosh, I'm so sorry y'all feel that way. I love y'all, but this is our decision. And you don't have to, I would not justify it. I wouldn't talk about the decisions they need to make different. I wouldn't talk about enabling. I wouldn't talk about entitlement or boundaries. I would just say this is our decision and

We love y'all. And gosh, I hope it doesn't. I hope you don't permanently cut us off. But if you do, then that's what you'll have to do. And gosh, I sure hope not. But we love y'all. And no. The good news is you and your spouse are on the same page about this. That's the only way. And you already prefaced it with he's going to handle his own family. Bless his heart. So, yeah, it's a thing, man. It's a thing. So.

Oh, wow. Yeah. I've had some of these conversations. I mean, when we went broke and lost everything. So Sharon has five brothers and sisters and there's 13 grandkids. Okay. Of which Daniel is the youngest. Okay. So Rachel's one of the youngest, in other words. And so that family, they've all done very well and they're wonderful people. And everybody gave everybody something at Christmas.

Well, I completely screwed that up because I went broke and I didn't have the money to give everybody, everybody something. And so we were there at Thanksgiving and they're talking about Christmas. And I said, guys, I'm, I'm sorry. I got bad news. I, I, we, we just can't do that. We, we just went bankrupt. We don't have any money. And so we're going to have to draw names.

And my suggestion also is the children under 12 get gifts from other people, but everybody else is treated as an adult and gets one gift from another adult, and we all just draw names. And no, to their credit, I'm bragging on my wife's family. They all said...

That's a really good idea because I think this other one sucked. It was getting out of control. And I'm glad you brought it up. But I was kind of sharing. Sharon's like, they're not going to like that. And I said, I know they're generous, sweet people. They're not going to like it. But we don't have any money. Oh, man. We can't.

play anymore we don't have the we can't pay the ticket to play in this yeah we can't get into this place anymore we can't pay the ticket and so this is the only thing we can do and so we love y'all but and they were instead they were all like well thank god somebody else said you know and so that that family that was uh 30 years ago we've drawn names ever since for 30 years now that's great so sometimes it's a good result but but it wasn't someone that felt entitled that's

That's right. In that conversation, instead of a mature, good, solid conversation,

people who respected the pain that we were in at the time and how embarrassing it was for us to have to say that out loud and all of that. I mean, do you imagine sitting at your in-laws Thanksgiving dinner and announcing? I have been there and my story didn't go as well, Dave. Oh no! Oh no! You know? You caused trouble with the in-laws, did you, Jade? You know, I said maybe we give names. Who knew, Sam? Maybe we draw names. I didn't know she was that way. I wouldn't have known it.

There you go. Well, here's the thing. We're still drawing names to this day. Oh, even though. There was some kicking and screaming to begin with, but it's all good now. It's a good thing. Well, you know how I feel. Adults don't need to buy other adults gifts. I heard Rachel and George talking about you the other day on their show, saying that. I like that. So there we go. Get your own blender. Learn to get your own blender, Aunt Gertie.

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Hayden is in Nashville. Hi, Hayden. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. Appreciate it. Appreciate everything you do. Thank you. So basically I'm calling about my mom. I'm very concerned for her. She has a bad track record for being financially smart. And recently she just got into a relationship. It's only been about six months and he has a lot of money. So she thinks that she wants to quit her job. And she,

live off of his money and then sell her house and then that's her retirement so i don't i just don't really know like how to give her advice and she has asked me for advice she did ask interesting she she did ask okay so the one thing that changes the whole discussion is the marriage date when are they getting married

That's exactly my point as well. Like, I'm telling her you need to get married before you decide to quit your job or decide to move in with him. But is there a day? Listen, if you quit your job and move in with somebody and sell your house that's rich, that's called a sugar daddy. We have a name for that. I've met the guy. He's a really good guy. I don't care. He's a sugar daddy. He might be a nice one.

But that's what he is. No, you don't do that, mom. How did you get to be mom and not know that? Trust me, I don't know. So what have you said to her so far about it? What have you told her so far? He wants to take care of her and he supports her in any decision she wants to do. If she doesn't want to work anymore, that's okay. She'll pay for all the bills and she wants to sell her car. She also has a

she has 20,000 on her car right now um 8,000 in credit cards you know she's not good with her money and I'm saying what have you told her about this have you told her anything yet I told her I told her that one she needs to get married if she wants to you know rely on his income did you tell her why most oh yeah um

For sure. It's hard for her to listen to me because I'm not married. Ah, okay. Another strand. Well, it's you're her kid. That's strand one. Yeah, and that's another thing too. Yes, and then you've not been in the type of relationship that she's been in. At least that's the way she's going to view it, which is true. So you're fighting a current 100%. Let me tell you what. If you ask your mom's dad, he's probably gone, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But if we were to ask him, they didn't have a good relationship. They didn't know. That's probably not a good example. If we were to ask her uncle, he would have said, no, I'll bonk him on the head. Oh, right. Or, I mean, even if you flip the script and put yourself in that situation, although I, I would love to think that she would tell you to do the opposite, but she might tell you to do the same thing that she's doing. So she would smell that one out. Um, I don't, you know, your question is how to convince her.

All three of us know that this is a bad idea. Okay? Yeah. So I guess the thing is this. Okay, here's the thing. Anytime, Mom, you're making a great, huge decision, and there's a series of great, huge decisions you're making here, you have to play out the decision, is it a happy, happy decision? Now, the way that works is this. You're happy if this works, and you're still happy if...

If this doesn't work, if it all works and you just play house and the sugar daddy takes care of you, it worked. You're happy. That's your plan. But what happens if he dumps you in the street for a 10 year younger version, trade you in on a new model, mom?

because he can do that pretty easily here by waving the exact same carrot he waved in front of you and be sugar daddy to somebody else. So when he puts you in the street with no house, no car, and no job, where are you going to be? So you don't make big decisions like this, Mom, when one of the possible outcomes is devastation.

Bad risk management. Lack of wisdom. Lack of wisdom. And I'm also just not in a position financially to help her. She's asked me in the past for money. That doesn't enter into how stupid this is.

Whether you give her money or not doesn't mean this is smart. And you're going to have to accept the fact that she's going to do, you could lay out the best argument in the world. Like perfectly, just eloquent, everything makes sense and she could still go and make this choice and it's going to be bad for her. And you're going to have

to just learn how to live with that and accept the fact that she's a grown woman and she's making a bad mistake and there's nothing in many ways there's nothing you can do about it and that's I think that that's the hardest part of being in a relationship with anyone that you really care about is they get to choose is there anyone in her life that's wise that she trusts her brother have him call her and scream at her um

I'm serious. He really likes the guy, so I haven't seen him acting really towards the person. I asked if he was wise.

Oh, yeah. If he's wise, he doesn't think this is a good idea. I'm not saying the guy's a horrible guy. I'm saying this is a horrible deal for your mom. Without putting a ring on it, buddy. Well, the guy probably thinks, if this is a, I'm going to say in air quotes, a good guy, this guy probably thinks he's offering your mom the world. So maybe somebody needs to get in his ear.

and make him see, hey, we like you. We think that you're probably trying to take care of our mom, but can you do this the right way? Because this way, the way that you're doing it now makes us nervous because if for some reason it doesn't work out, she's on her butt, right? So maybe that's the way to go at this is if there's somebody that has the right relationship to talk to him. If he is really the good guy that you guys say he is, that should give him a light bulb moment to go, oh, I get it. Yeah.

Right. I think my mom just needs a reality check, too. The problem is she's not looked at the downside. Anytime you're making a big decision, you have to look at the downside. What's the possible negative outcome from this? And it'll keep you from doing some stupid butt stuff if you don't only consider sunshine, rainbows, and skittles.

You know, it doesn't always turn out sunshine, rainbows, and skittles. Especially when the deal is set up poorly from the start. You're kind of asking for it. Yeah, that's true. You're asking to have your butt kicked. Life's going to come along and go, you was stupid. Here's your butt kicking. Ready? Here you go. And we all get to pay some stupid tax. We've all done some stupid butt stuff. And she's signing up for one here. This is a trip that's going to be harsh. Please don't do this, lady. Please don't do this. Put a ring on it or don't do it. It's pretty simple.

Because I got to tell you, it changes the chemistry. Well, I was going to say, there's no balance of power in this relationship. She sells everything she has. There's no way in the world she could live in a house probably that he lives in on her side. You know what I'm saying? She has no ability to keep up life. We need to bring back some of the vernacular from bygone eras. Let me hear it. A kept woman. You ever heard that one? Yes. That's very...

I don't want to say the word old, but. That's ancient. Yeah, ancient. That's a kept woman. She's being kept. Yeah. For use. Yes. Ooh. Yeah, I don't like it. Doesn't that give you a little chill? Gives me a little chill. I don't like it. My dad's stuff, my grandpa's stuff gets angry right then, so I just can't. Put a ring on it. Michael is in Charlotte. Hey, Michael, what's up? Hey, I'm good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

I had a question. My wife and I are in the process of buying a house. We were pre-approved, and our loan officer told us she doesn't advise 20% down payment. We're in North Carolina. She says the appreciation rate in North Carolina... I don't advise you using this loan officer. She's stupid. Okay.

Yeah, I figured you would say something along those lines. I have a hard time understanding how that works out. Well, her thing is that borrowed money has no risk, so borrow all you can. Okay. My thing is I've met people who are up to their eyeballs in a mortgage and can't get out. They're stuck because of some idiot loan officer like this. By the way, she gets paid on what? What's her percentage on the loan amount?

conflict of interest in this advice. Hello. I make more money if you don't put down so much. He needs to go to our real estate hub and find some folks who are going to actually help him. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate. There it is. That's easy. A whole bunch of stuff there that'll help you, Michael. Yeah. But she's getting paid on that. You do need a loan officer. This woman's not smart.

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. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Right?

Ramsey Trusted Agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey Trusted Agent near you at ramseysolutions.com slash agent. That's ramseysolutions.com slash agent. So let's do some Finance 101. All right. A couple of things. The first thing they teach you in finance class, one of the first things they teach you

what's called risk-return ratio. The more risk you take, the higher return you should get. So when you put your money in an FDIC-insured bank, no risk virtually, but they pay you almost nothing. Fair enough. Right? If you move it around a little bit, mess with it a little bit, you could put it in a good high-yield savings account.

Which we'll sidebar on that for a second. We were talking about this off air a little bit. We'll come back to my risk-return ratio in a minute, but we'll just turn left for a second and park there. A high-yield savings account is exactly what it says it is. It is a savings account at a bank that pays a better rate. Ding, ding. Higher yield. That's it. Okay? A CD, a certificate of deposit, is a savings account at a bank. Mm-hmm.

And they give you a certificate. Yes. And you have to. Like perfect attendance. You remember that one? Yeah. But you can't touch that one. But you can touch it, but you won't get all of the high yield. Okay. The high yield savings accounts, fully liquid, pays more than CDs do right now. CDs have just about been run out of town by the sheriff. Okay. Ten years ago, we didn't call them high yield savings accounts at the bank. We had a savings account at the bank that the bank labeled wrong and

but they did it for marketing reasons. The bank called it a money market account at the bank. It was a savings account at the bank that paid a higher rate like a high-yield savings account does. Same exact thing. It's a savings account that paid a better rate that mimicked real money markets. But the bank did not sell money markets. They had a savings account called a money market account

that had an interest rate that was similar to a real money market account. A real money market account was only available through, and still is only available through, something like a mutual fund company. So you could go to Fidelity or American Funds or whatever and open an actual money market account. Now, you can have money market accounts with those that have check writing privileges, even a debit card attached to them and those kinds of things. But the high yield savings account has...

uh as a marketing methodology it's a better marketing actually than money market because it says i'm going to give you more money yeah high yield it says i'm going to higher interest savings account that's what it says it is what it says it is actually in the money market account was just a misnomer yeah but it was all for marketing it's all banks selling their wares so uh high yield savings account simple savings account a little better interest rate but almost no risk so back to the risk return ratio um

If you want to double your money, you know, you're pretty much going to leave investing and go to gambling or speculating. Now, some people call speculating investing, but it's really not. Speculating is where I want a short, quick return on my money. That's speculating. Day trading stocks is not investing.

That's buying and selling stocks on a daily basis or a weekly basis. That is speculating. When you build a, when a builder, a home builder builds a home that does not have a buyer, they're called spec houses. Speculating houses.

They're speculating. They're building an unsold piece of inventory they hope to sell now. They're not investing for 10 years when they build that house. They pray they're not investing for 10 years. They hope you're going to buy the house. So that's why they're called spec houses. They're speculating. The builders are speculating. That's not investing.

It's right next to gambling. And you can make a lot better money speculating, but you're taking the ultimate high risk. It's kind of an all or nothing play usually. It's why I don't buy commodities like gold and...

Wheat futures or whatever, because it's all speculating. It's short-term plays with a gain. It's why we don't do Bitcoin. It's a short-term play with a potential gain, and it's got no track record. The only track record it has is filled with fraud and go to jail, do not pass go, right? And so it's just a mess. So the whole marketplace is high, ultra-high risk, speculating. It's not even investing.

But along the spectrum of investing, the more risk you take, the more money you ought to make. So if you put money in mutual funds, I've got a mutual fund that opened in 1934. It has had like in that 80 or 90 years, it's had like, I don't know, 10 years it lost money.

Out of 80 or 90 years or something like that. Not consecutive. Not consecutive years, but in the entire time. Right. 10 different individual times, individual years. Right. Never back to back, not a single back to back. And they're always major occurrences, 9-11. Something, yeah. Something crazy. Since 1934. Yeah. Okay. And it's averaged 12.2% since 1934. Okay. Now, if I can make that investment by simply pushing enter on my computer, that's all I got to do, push a button. There's no...

I don't have any effort to go with it. Then if you're going to flip houses, that's speculating. You're hoping to make a quick buck. You dadgum better well make more than 12% on your money. You ought to make 20%, at least.

Ought to be your margin. It ought to be more, but at least a minimum of 20%. Otherwise, you're taking too much risk versus the 12 you could make with no... With a 1934 historical track record. Okay? Yeah. You got to...

The risk ratio on that is way different. And where does the effort play into it, too? Yeah, and effort. And the effort plays into it. And the worry. Because all speculating involves jumping in and out and involves a level of fretting over it and wringing your hands over it. Mental calories. Mental calories burning.

investing even in high risk things doesn't involve the same level of calorie burn that speculating does but where you guys mess up sometimes out there in the tick tock land of finance is they they confuse speculating with investing investing is always long term speculating is a quick gain and

but a much higher risk gain at best, and then past that is actual gambling. I mean, when you're speccing on a house, flipping a house, or you're speculating even on Bitcoin, it is not the same as playing the roulette wheel.

It's less risk than the roulette wheel. Because, you know, you're going to walk away from Vegas, the house wins 100%. Okay? House wins. Bellagio did not put those light fixtures in there. You know, they did not put those $10 million light fixtures in there with anybody's money but yours if you were in Bellagio. Okay? I mean, Vegas is built on the back of losers. Okay?

people who lose money. That's what I mean. And that's how the math works. So I'm not saying you physically, personally are a loser. I'm saying you lost your money there. Right. You're a loser. So yeah, you lost your money. So that's it. But that's the spectrum, okay? You go all the way from savings account with no risk, no effort, no calorie burn. To the roulette wheel. All the way to the roulette wheel. And the more risk you take, you should make more money. If you're not...

You're missing on the very basic tenet of Finance 101, risk-return ratio. More risk should always equal more return. If it doesn't, well, that's dumb. Don't do that. So our last caller doing the flips, she needs to be making 20%. And it didn't seem like she was. She don't know. She might be. She might have made 30%. She didn't know. That's true. She didn't know. She didn't even know. But you got to know, number one. And then number two, you need to be...

Making that. I mean, a good residential builder is going to make 20 plus percent most of the time, depending on what type of property they're doing, if they're doing specs. And if you're not, you're setting yourself up for problems because you're going to hit these slow times when it takes a little while to sell a speculative piece of real estate. You are speculating. You are a speculator. Look it up in the dictionary. So is this what we can expect from your investing? Yeah, I might go on the same rent. I might put it in there.

The investing live stream. Investment event? Yeah, I'm going to do that. What is it? May 21, 22. I'm doing two hours each night. Two hours of it will be on real estate. I'm going to go a whole lot deeper into real estate for sure. But I'll probably put this rant in there because I've kind of been noodling on it lately. That was good. I think it's a problem that people misidentify these things and they call speculating investing when it's not. This is The Ramsey Show.