Personal Finance Is 20% Knowledge, 80% Behavior
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What up, what up? Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, get out of debt, do work that they actually care about, and learn to have great relationships. I'm John Deloney, joined here by about-to-be best-selling author George Campbell.

And we're taking your calls on money, life, relationships, work, all of it. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. Hopefully it's lunch after the Monday after Thanksgiving. So hopefully your blood sugar has restabilized. Your head isn't just asleep on your desk.

And you are with us. I think you're talking to yourself, John. Let's be honest. I am talking to myself. Let's go out to Lonnie in Athens, Georgia. What's up, Lonnie? Hi, how are y'all? Could not be better. What's up? So our situation, I have a 23-year-old stepson that's on his second senior year, two more senior years left to go to get a general business degree. Okay.

And my husband pays tuition, rent, utilities, truck, everything for him. So when he does graduate, he has stated that he doesn't want to get a job. He doesn't want to be an adult. He doesn't want to do anything except for basically live off my husband. Lonnie, why in the world would he want to get a job? He has it made. He's got the perfect life.

Exactly. Well, that's what I tell my husband. I'm like, why would he? If you're going to pay for everything. Well, it's not the paying for everything. Some people are able to bless their kids. That's fine. It's the way in which that blessing is becoming a curse. That's what I'm thinking. There's no accountability with it. It's an ATM machine with an endless donor. Yes. And I'm on board with that.

paying for tuition for his school, I feel like after five years, we should stop. And if he needs two more years because he messed around and lived his best life for a few years, I feel like that should be on him, that we shouldn't be on the hook, you know, seven years for a general business bachelor's degree. Hey, Lonnie, your conversation is not with your stepson. Your conversation is with your husband. Yes, and he...

Is not on board. But here's what, hold on. Don't miss what I'm trying to say. Your anger and frustration should be with your husband and you are not, you're refusing to have that interaction. And so you're deflecting it on this 23 year old kid. It's not the 23 year old kid's fault. He's just been doing exactly what life has presented him.

As my friend Henry Cloud says, he needs some problems like rent and truck payments and insurance, but he's never had those because of your husband, not because of something that's wrong with your 23-year-old. Right. So how do I try to get my husband on board? Because I've had the discussion many times, and his response is, it's my money. I can do whatever I want.

You know, if we want to pay for his school. That's one problem. This idea that it's all my money and so you don't get a vote in what I do with my money. The other problem is it sounds like he's been trying to buy his son's love for a long time now. And if he doesn't have this anymore, the relationship will need some actual repair.

Yes, that is true. So that's what's lying underneath all of this that I can smell a mile away. But the conversation he needs to have with his son is, hey, I've been doing a really terrible job raising you into the man that I want you to be and that you need to be. And so this looks like new boundaries, new rules as for how this is going to happen. You're going to finish school in two years or else I'm not paying for it. You're going to now take over the truck payment and get a part-time job. And guess what? The son's not going to like that, is he? No. But that's between them at that point, isn't it?

Yes. You need to put the ball back in his court, and he needs to be a man and be a husband, and it needs to be our money, which means you get a vote. That's what he signed up for when he married you, isn't it? Yes, that is correct. So here's the conversation. It is not, I can't believe you're giving this kid money. I can't believe you're doing that. You know you're doing this. You know you're doing this. Because when you come at him with a bunch of accusations, he has to defend himself. That's just human nature.

He doesn't have to. He could curl up in a ball, but he's got to defend himself. And if you can look back at your series of actions, they haven't worked, have they? It's just nagging him about this working. No, it's not. So let's do something different. Let's take him out. How long have y'all been married? Two years. Okay. Let's take him out and say two years ago, we both said I do. And my money and my heart and my life became yours and your money and your life and your heart became mine.

And when you say things like, it's my money, I can do whatever I want, it scares me to death and I can't breathe because I feel like I'm hanging out here all by myself, like you're renting me. And it either has to be all of us or we have to have a much harder conversation because two years into marriage, this isn't a marriage. This is just a really sophisticated roommate situation. You see how one is you telling him how you feel, how scared you are.

how his actions affect you. And the other is you just nagging him and throwing things at him. One is an invitation to a conversation, a hard one. The other is I'm throwing stuff at you. Now I'm gonna throw stuff at you and I'm gonna throw stuff at you. And then you get mad and walk away. Third or fourth down the list, we'll get to talking about how he's funding his son's immaturity with no end in sight. But that's not the first conversation. The first conversation is your marriage is not as strong as you think it is. And let's be super honest.

There's other things going on besides this, isn't it? Isn't there? No, actually, we have a wonderful marriage. It's just this is the only thing that we argue about. You just described a way in which it's not wonderful. And that is he has his stuff and you've got yours, which means you'll have a wonderful living arrangement. You don't have a wonderful marriage because wonderful marriage says, who are we going to be together?

And how are we going to move forward completely united, getting closer with every step we take into the future? Not, this is my crap and that's your crap. See what I'm saying? Yes. That's the hard conversation to have. Do you have a good relationship with him, with the stepson? Not really. You're trying to ruin his life. Make him pay for his own truck.

No, we only see him when he wants money or needs something from my husband. No, really? Right? I think you try to invest in this relationship and you try to help him set some goals and dig in and make it more than just a transaction. I like that idea, George. Maybe you call him and take him to coffee. There's an option. Maybe you call him and say, hey, I just wanted to get to know you better. What if we started going to lunch together? I'll cover lunch. There you go. I'll pay for lunch.

Hey, marriage is not you do yours and I'll do mine. It's we will do ours, however complicated that is. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey good folks, the back-to-school madness is upon us. It's hitting us right now. We got travel and work and all these forms to fill out now and sports to travel to and on and on. My family's schedule is so packed and we haven't even begun talking about things like exercise and date nights and counseling and church and home projects. And those are the things that make our life even worth living.

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Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash D'Loni today for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash D'Loni. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. What do we got here? You know what day it is, John. What day is it? It's actually, this is one of my favorite days of the year. As a guy who loves a deal, Cyber Monday is my Super Bowl.

I don't know anything about sports, but I know a lot about Cyber Monday. And, you know, I know you want to make a joke, John. Make it. Nope, I'm keeping it. Shopping is considered a sport in my household. That's the state of America. There it is. That's where we're at. No, literally, on Thursday, my wife, she doesn't listen to this show. So she wanted a Roomba for Christmas. And so I ordered it on Thursday. And then I thought,

I wonder if they'll have like a special thing on Monday. Why didn't you just text me, John? I could get you the best deal on a Roomba. I have my ways. Yeah, see, I just, you know what? It wasn't worth, my time is valuable. Oh, I see. And it said like a Cyber Monday deal on Thursday or something like that. It always does.

But here's the good news. Ramsey has an actual, we've got an actual one day Cyber Monday sale on our site, ramsaysolutions.com slash store. And it is our lowest prices of the year today only. This isn't like Amazon where they just mark up the MSRP and it's like 70% off and it's the same price it always is. This is actually the best deal of the year is our Cyber Monday sale. So you can get great gifts for family and friends for as low as five bucks, including audio books,

And for the first time, Building a Non-Anxious Life, John's new audio book is $10 for the first time ever. Yeah, what are they doing there? $10. It's amazing. Supposed to sit for a year before they knew that. Yeah. Here we go. In Financial Peace University, our flagship money course is at the lowest price of the year at just $59.99. We've got the 2024 Ramsey Gold Planner, just $40 on sale. And we've got...

Dr. John Deloney's in there, Rachel Cruz, Jade Warshaw. They're going to help you work on faith relationships and finances through their monthly teachings. Rachel Cruz's new Navy wallet is on there. So you can go shop the one-day Cyber Monday sale, ramsaysolutions.com slash store. This is the time, John. This is the time. Don't miss it. You're not buying anything today, are you? I hadn't thought to, but- You already bought the Roomba. I'm going to-

I'm going to buy some stuff today in honor of George Camel. You should go to the RamseySolutions.com slash store and pre-order my new book, John. That would mean the world for you to support. I already have that tattooed on my arm. Honestly, you have worse tattoos, so that wouldn't shock me. Let's go up to Steve in Las Vegas and see. What's up, Steve? What's up, Steve? Hey, how you guys doing? We're partying, man. What's up?

I'm not at this time. I'm just calling in just because back in June, a month before my son was born, my mom passed away. I'm sorry, man.

Yeah, she left me a life insurance benefit. It was a lot more than what I expected. It was $143,000. I don't know what it was like. $40,000. But I do have some debt and I was just, I was kind of afraid to spend the money because of debt. I just, something, I don't know, psychologically is like so hard to do because I want to buy a house in the near future. And my credit's not up to par and I want to get it back up to where it was.

But I'm just afraid of using that money to pay it off because I know what, you know, for me, money is like, it feels like water. Like it just goes away so fast more than what I make. What's your full financial picture? What are you making right now? What's your income? Oh, well, I just got back to my job in March. This is my third time being at the same job. But I would say about $3,100 per month, but it depends on if the month's good, month before, if I...

The best month I had this year was like $6,000 for the month. Is this commissions, bonuses? Why did you say you're back for the third time?

Well, because in 2020, at the end of 2020, we got all let go because the company was in bankruptcy due to COVID. And then four months later, it came back when they reopened the store, got rehired. But then I stayed almost a year, and then I quit in December for another job because I was just tired of it, and it was inconsistent. What do you do? Car sales, but it's kind of a rental company that sells cars. Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So hourly and commission. Yeah, I think when you did, if you're in that business, you could be making way more money than that with more stability. And I encourage you to do that as part of this game plan. But how much debt do you have? About $52,000, including just a credit card for my wife. Okay. Does your wife work outside the home? She does not because she takes care of our child. Okay. And we have another daughter also. All right. What other debt do you have outside of the credit card?

So my credit card, I had three credit cards. They all got closed back in 2022. And because I got, when I switched to my other job, I just, you know, I wasn't able to pay them, got behind. And then I have my car loan, which I owe about 17.3. And then my personal loan for 12 grand and another one for 5,000. But they're all pretty much closed. The only thing that's open is my car loan. And what's in collections right now?

I believe it's the, I have two Chase credit cards and then a Wells Fargo credit card. I got a subpoena actually for that like a month after my baby was born. And so I settled with them recently. So I'm just trying to wait for them to send me paperwork to do that. But that's pretty much all of it there. Hey Steve, are you sick of this? Yes. Like, and not sick of debtors calling you. Are you sick of being a man who keeps defaulting on his word?

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I guess. Have you ever dated somebody, dated a woman who just kept cheating on you and you'd break up and then go back with her and then she'd cheat on you and you'd break up with her and go back with her? No, never in that situation. But you are with your professional life. Why do you keep doing that with your job? All this is painting a picture of a guy who kind of walks around life with his head down. And I would love to see a Steve who had his head held high.

It was a guy who honored his word, a guy who worked hard and expected an employer to be equally as integrous and loyal, and that they went and made a whole bunch of money together and helped a whole bunch of people at the same time. But I can't want that more than you want. Do you want that? Does that even sound right? Yeah, of course. I mean, I would like that, obviously. I mean, I've had some rough couple of years after COVID, especially my mom dying. Yeah. You've been hitting the mouth a bunch. And then all of a sudden, you got this gift. Yeah.

Yes. And so I don't want you to think of this as money. I want you to think of your mom's parting gift to you was freedom. Maybe for the first man in your family's generation, history, you're free. You can owe nobody anything. And you can quit this crap and quit working for a crappy place that treats you bad. You can go get a job as a salesman, which hopefully you're good at, and you can provide for your family a life of integrity. Yes. You ready for that, Steve? We'll lay out the game plan if you're ready.

I am. I know it's scary, but here's what this would look like. Let's say you have the $143,000, right, sitting in the bank? Mm-hmm. You paid off all $52,000 today. That leaves you with $91,000, correct? Yes. Now we're going to sock away three to six months of expenses. Let's go six months because your job is volatile and you're a single-income family. So what's six months of expenses for your house, ballpark? Six months, I would say about... $20,000? $20,000.

Yeah, I would say that. Okay, so let's say we put $20,000 aside in a high-yield savings account and we don't touch that money unless there's a true emergency. Now you're your own credit card, okay? See what we're doing? Think about where you're at right now. You have no debt payments and you've become your own bank. You have $20,000 sitting there ready to protect you and you still have $71,000 left over to become a homeowner and do it the right way and start that down payment fund.

Or we could let this money run like water through our hands, like you mentioned, and we can go buy some toys and emotionally spend and put our family behind instead of ahead. Yeah. And that's what John's saying. This is a gift. This is a life raft. This is a get out of jail free card. But I want you to use it wisely and think about the legacy that your mom left and go, what's the man I want to become? What kind of family do we want to have? What are what kind of where do we want to be five years from now, 10 years from now?

I want you to have a paid-for house and be investing for the future. That's what I want. And I want you to be working at a place that treats you with dignity and respect. That's what we want. So go settle these debts. Pay it all off this week, man. Be done with it. And stay on the line. We're going to hook you up with Financial Peace University, all nine lessons, and a year of EveryDollar app, the premium one. We're going to hook you up, okay? Thank you so much. If you don't use this...

Fooey on you, dude. We will come find you in Las Vegas. And that's me using my nice language. Okay? Honor your mother, pay off your debts, become a free man, and go make your legacy right. This is The Ramsey Show.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Welcome back. This is the Ramsey Show. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. We're taking your calls on money and life and work and relationships. I'm John Deloney joined by George Camel. Listen, if you are as frustrated as I am,

about the economic picture of the United States. It's a madhouse. And every time they keep releasing more and more statistics about, we're, oh, trillions of dollars in student loan debt, and we're over a trillion dollars in credit card debt, and you just keep thinking to yourself, how do people keep living like this? Honestly, we find a lot. Either A, people don't care, but more than that, people don't know. They don't know any different. They've just been taught this over and over and over and over again.

Got to care about your credit score. Got to get a car payment. You're always going to have a mortgage. All these things, it's just the air we breathe. And instead of sitting at home and screaming and yelling at the computer screen or clenching your fist so tight when you drive, you're going to snap your steering wheel in half. There is something you can do for your neighbors that costs you no dollars, nothing. It costs you about 10 seconds of your time.

And you might roll your eyes and think this is cheesy, but if you like or subscribe to the show, if you follow us on Instagram or on TikTok or on all the social media platforms, God help us all. If you subscribe to the show on YouTube, here's what it does. It puts the show up in the algorithm so that when somebody types, how do I improve my credit score?

a video of Dave Ramsey or George Camel or Jade Warshall talking about how ridiculous the credit score scam is. Or should I take out loans for my kid to go to college and Jade Warshall or George Camel or Rachel Cruz or Dave will pop up? How do I save my marriage? How do I talk to my spouse about money? A video from me and George might pop up.

It's free. You don't have to do anything. And it begins to circulate this information into the social media world. And it gets this information in front of people. We're bombarded by millions of people reaching out saying, we saw you on YouTube. We saw you on some social media platform.

It's because folks like you who like and subscribe to the show. It's a simple way to dump this stuff into the public sphere and it costs you nothing. You don't have to buy anything. So help us out and help out more importantly your neighbor by sharing the show, leaving a review, subscribing, all the things. All right, let's run out to Tulsa, Oklahoma and talk to Sky. What's up, Sky? I see what I did there. That was kind of funny. What's up, Sky? Hey, how are we doing, Sky? I'm good. How are you? Good. What's happening?

Yeah, so I just wanted to call in. I'm wanting help with my plan to pay off my debt faster, and I was also wondering if I should put less in my 401k while doing so. That's a brilliant idea, Skye. Are you new to our gang? Yeah. Awesome. Welcome. Welcome to the cult. George has the Kool-Aid for you. Let's do it. I got it. So, yeah, what's causing you to go, hmm, maybe I should pause investing for a little while?

Well, I've been listening to y'all for a little bit now, and I've heard one episode where you were telling them to stop putting in so much in their 401k while trying to pay off your debt. And I thought it might have been a good idea for me. I'm putting in 5% right now. What does that amount to, dollars-wise? Probably a month, like $160,000.

So if I told you, hey, what if I gave you an extra $2,000 to get rid of debt this year, would that help you?

Yeah, yeah.

everyone's broke. Everyone's in debt up to their eyeballs, wondering why they can't get ahead. And one of the reasons is they're doing too many things at once. They're not making traction in any of the areas. Gotcha. And so pausing for a short time, how soon will you be out of debt? If you pause? Probably way sooner. A few months at least? I have 43 right now, 43,000. And what do you make?

I make, my salary is like 51, but I probably take home, I waitress as well. So altogether, I probably take home 45. Okay. So the goal for you is to go, hey, I want to pay this off in two years. Is that a good goal? Yeah. So basic math says that's about 21,000 a year you have to pay down. So now we go, all right, how do I find a little under $2,000 a month in margin?

That might mean cutting expenses, cutting subscriptions, increasing income, more waitressing. All of that will help you find that margin. And as you pay off debt, you're going to free up payments, which increases the margin. You're going to throw out the next smallest debt using the debt snowball. And that really helps. That helped me pay off my 40,000 years ago.

This guy is when I made that goal and I went, all right, I need 2000. That's the magic number. How do I create $2,000 in margin every month? And then that was my next goal was side hustles, Ubering, lifting, consulting, freelancing, eating lean cuisines when they were on sale, five for $10 so that I wouldn't be tempted to go out to eat because I had food at home. It's those kinds of micro decisions that add up to that big margin.

Gotcha. So I've been like paying off my lowest account debt first because it's the highest interest. Do you think that's the best plan to do? Is that the snowball basically? The debt snowball ignores interest rates and it says, hey, just attack the smallest balance with a vengeance, make minimum payments on the rest because that's going to give you something called motivation, progress, momentum.

Gotcha. So as you do that, you'll free up a payment. You'll take that payment you freed up, apply it to the next debt and the next debt. And I'm going to gift you one year of Financial Peace University because this walks you through it beautifully and it helps dispel so many of the myths out there that might be holding you back while also motivating you to make some progress. So hang on the line. We'll gift you one year of that sky to give you all the info you need from our friends John, Dave, Rachel, and myself. All right, let's run up to Chicago and talk to Andrew.

Where is... We lost Andrew. Oh, we just lost Andrew. All right, let's roll out to Atlanta and talk to John. What's up, John? Hey, good afternoon. How are you? Great. How are you?

I'm trying to get off speakerphone here. Give me a sec. Come on. Phone is smaller than... There we go. I'm not there. I'm trying to be a good Christian man. My daughter, my youngest daughter, moved to Denver earlier this year, and I've been having to monthly kind of help her out to make her in meetings. Okay, can I pause real quick? Can I pause real quick? Sure. Let's change your language. You don't have to do anything. You've chosen to send her money and fund whatever world she's living in.

I'm correct. I'm helping fund her lifestyle. Okay. And I'm reaching a point where I'm, I'm, I fear, I know that personally, when I was in my mid twenties, I was going nowhere and I was in debt and I chose to change my life and I went back to school and then I had a really successful career after that. And now at 63, I've been able to retire really based on concepts that Dave preaches. Okay. Um,

But it's hard as a father to go, you know what? I know after she pays rent at the end of this week, she doesn't have money for food for the rest of the week. How old is she? And I start feeling guilty, but I feel like I'm enabling her at the same time. There you go. So I want you to tattoo this sentence on your chest. And it didn't originate with me. I think it originated with Brene Brown, but it comes from somebody smarter than me. When you're doing the right thing relationally,

And the right thing right now is not to fund somebody's further spiraling into the ground. I want you to choose guilt over resentment every time. Okay? I'm writing this down. Choose guilt over resentment. Just because you feel quote unquote bad doesn't mean it's not the right thing.

Just because you feel guilty when she calls and says, but dad, she's a grownup. She's choosing the job she has. She's choosing the apartment she lives in. She's choosing the state she lives. She's making a bunch of adult choices. And you feel guilty by not funding that. But here's what's happening. Every time she texts you, you're starting to resent it a little bit. You don't like her being an, you don't like being her ATM machine. You don't like the fact that you're projecting out because you know, 55 year olds and 60 year olds are,

who had everything paid for and then suddenly got cut off and you flew past them in the marketplace, didn't you? Yes. Yes. And so you're starting to feel the resentment build. The honorable thing here, I think, is to have a hard conversation with her and say, you got three months left. But dad, you got three months left. As my friend, Dr. Henry Cloud says, she needs some problems like rent, like insurance payments. She's going to have to learn to stand up on her own. You can scaffold for a while.

But she's going to have to become an adult. And adulting is hard. This is The Ramsey Show.

Fake it till you make it. It's popular career advice, but it doesn't work for very long. If you don't love what you do, you can't fake the enthusiasm and energy you need to win at work. You also can't fake your physical health and energy. Everybody knows we should eat more fruits and veggies, but fruit chews and veggie chips don't count. If you aren't winning physically, I promise you're limiting your opportunities to win professionally.

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George Campbell has a brand new book coming out in January called Breaking Free From Broke. Pre-order today for only $20 and get $100 in free bonus items today.

including some special childhood drawings. George, I'm just kidding. You get George's newest talk. Show me the money, exclusive access to online private event and Q and a with George. I heard you're gonna be dancing at that event. We don't know. Oh, it's a secret. Yeah. I like that. Uh, audio book, ebook, everything. Plus every book includes a special offer to receive three months of the premium version of every dollar for free. George, give me a quick synopsis. You have to pitch this book in an elevator.

The financial system is designed to keep us broke. It's not all our fault, but it's our responsibility to take action. Not by our hand, but in our lap. Exactly. And you can rise above this broken system and opt out completely and live a life with more freedom, options, margin, and joy. So that's it. As what it appears is that the...

You know, we looked last year during the holiday spending and we saw holiday spending went up a little bit and credit cards went up too. Credit card balances. Oh yeah. We hit a trillion, John. And so it looked as though, oh, people aren't using credit cards for groceries. They're looking at it to prop up a lifestyle. And it looks like we are, that party's coming to an end or people are starting to go, uh oh.

Well, it's compounding because now auto loan debt is at an all-time high, surpassing student loans. The student loan debacle still hasn't been solved. The housing market's out of control. Nobody's wanting to pay off a mortgage because they have a low interest rate. Our pet's heads are falling off. We're taking out HELOCs because we have equity in our home and this is the solution to all of our problems. We're robbing our 401ks left and right. And then we're wondering why the guy in the White House ruined our life because it's all the inflation, John. The egg prices are out of control. Or we could go...

I'm going to take control of that guy in the mirror and he's going to get on a budget and he's going to get out of debt and he's going to change his family tree. And it's in my control and my power. That agency is like a superpower, John. It feels so good to just not have to wait for someone else to try to fix your life. I remember Jocko and I were doing an event together, the Navy SEAL. What a flex, by the way. But he was talking about, hey, back in the end, you know, I'll say the Middle Ages, the

You finished a war, not when your tour was over, but when the war was over and people left their family, particularly men would leave their families and go fight. And they came back when it was over, which might be years, right? It might be a long time. And I think about the sacrifices made so that my family would be okay. So my family's land that's been in my family for however many hundreds or thousands of years would remain in our, I'm going to go away and do whatever I have to do.

And when I fast forward to now and people are like, well, I don't want to take a second job or a third job because there's little league games. And because my shows are like, it becomes, we have to, we have to put ourselves in a historical perspective and say, yep, you might lose some memories for two or three years and you free everybody. Right. And your book is a roadmap to, to,

Here's a modern day heading out for war to get off this system and to reclaim your life, right? Reclaim margin, reclaim peace. And if you do it for two, three, four years...

And you don't owe anybody anything. Your kids don't know that kind of peace, right? Your marriage doesn't know that kind of peace. Well, and then there's a generational ripple effect. Right. Because you took care of your family and you got to take care of your kids. Yeah. Your kids got to take care of their kids. You got to leave an inheritance, leave a legacy. And so the book unpacks in the first two thirds just how disgusting the system is to make you want to take a shower. Yeah. It'll give you the ick enough to go, I'm going to try to cut up that credit card once and for all. I guess I don't need it.

Guess I don't need to keep up my credit score. Guess I am going to pay my student loans off because there's no white knight coming in on the horse to save me. Those kinds of decisions, I think, is what people need going into next year as they go. My life didn't change last year because of some guy in the White House or because of the housing market. I'm going to make some changes. And so this book lays out how I did it, how I went from broke to millionaire, how I broke free from the system. And I've seen so many people stand on our debt-free stage and say the same exact thing.

Well, dude, I'm proud of you. Thanks for putting this out into the world. Thank you. Into a world that desperately needs it. And I try to do it with humor as I do, John, and lots of research. You know me. Yeah. I got to have fun while I'm doing it. I trust the research part. The humor part, I don't know about that. There's a poison reference in there that was just for you. Aw. So see if you can spot it. I would have preferred a John Delaney reference, but that's cool. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash store. It's 20 bucks. Go ahead and get on the pre-order list right now. Let's go out to New Hampshire and talk to Annie. What's up, Annie? Hey.

Hi, how are you? We're doing all right. How are you? Good, thanks. Thanks for taking my call. You got it. What's up? Well, I found myself...

Um, it's been a hard few years. I have four kids and I'm going through a really bad divorce. And, um, I lose, it's okay. He left like completely. And, um, I don't know where he is. I am getting child support and alimony, but I like to stay at home mom. I'm 35 years old. I have about 20 grand in student loan debt and I'm

I'm not sure where to start. I have a two and a half year old and I'm home with her right now. So how are your other kids in school? Yeah, I have three kids in school. Eleven, ten, and seven. So you have a lot going on. What question can I help you with today?

So question, it's like, I mean, I did three and a half years of college, but it was like a theater communications degree. Should I finish my degree or should I, I mean, should I focus on like working with my child at like a preschool and just budgeting? Do you have enough, is your, does your alimony, is it, is it, um, does your alimony and child support, is it certified by a courtroom?

Yes. Okay. So the divorce is final? In March, it'll be final. Okay. But the payments have been locked in? Yes. Okay. It's not just some agreement that your husband just sent a check? What is that income every month? It's about $6,100. Okay. And that's enough to cover all the bills and more? Yeah. Well, he is covering all the house bills right now. I would have had higher alimony if...

He wasn't doing that. Does that make sense? Yeah. What other debt do you have outside of the $20,000 in student loans? Maybe like $30,000 in credit card debt. Okay. And how much money do you have in the bank? Maybe like $6,000. Okay, great. So what we're going to do is focus on this debt payoff because that's going to give you some breathing room here. If you free up those payments, that's going to give you at least a few hundred bucks extra every single month, correct? Correct.

Yes. And then that'll help us build a fully funded emergency fund. I want you to have six months of expenses. So add up what monthly expenses are to run your house and then multiply that by six. That's going to be your next goal after we get rid of this debt. Okay. And then we're going to focus on, do we go back to work? What do we do with childcare? And focus on those decisions after that. But I think you're going to have to go back to work to get this stuff back, right? I mean, to get this debt paid off. How much money do you have left over to throw at debt each month?

So this is kind of crazy. I just, I let him handle all the finances. Starting today, you handle it. And we're going to help you with that. Yeah. We're going to hook you up with a whole bunch of stuff, but you're going to have to use these tools. Here's what you need right now more than anything. A plan. Yes. Because you've been spinning out for a long time, haven't you? Your whole world blew up, right? Yep. Yeah.

So we're going to hook you up with a bunch of resources, including a financial coach that will help you build a budget from the floor up. Okay. Cause all this stuff's new. You've been letting somebody do this. We're going to get you taken care of, but I want you to follow this and listen, this is real important. You had four kids and the picture of your life that you had mapped out for the next, probably almost two decades was to be a stay at home mom. That world is probably over that picture.

That's okay. It's just going to be very different. You're going to have to grieve what was, and you're going to have to just build a new picture. And now you're going to be a working single mom with four kids. It's going to be busy. It's going to be chaotic. And we're going to give you some tools, and you're going to use some resources in your community, and you're going to knock this thing out of the park. Okay? We believe in you. Do you believe in you? Yeah.

Yeah, and you know what's so awesome? My kids have been listening to you guys all weekend, and my son, who's 11, he goes, Mom, why don't you call in, call in, call in? Well, I'm glad you did because we got you. All right, I'm going to send you Building a Non-Anxious Life. We're going to send you FPU. We're going to send you Every Dollar for a Year and some time, a couple of sessions with a financial coach. We've got you. Call anytime. We're so sorry this happened. It's the first hour in the books here on The Ramsey Show.

What's going on? Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, get out of debt, find and do work they love.

and actually learn how to be in relationships with one another. I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend George Camel, and we're taking your calls on money, life, work, relationships, all of it. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. Let's go out to the TOM to Tom in Peoria, Illinois. What's up, Tom?

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Just had a quick question for you. What's up? So my son is in fifth grade, and he's on the basketball team. He plays for the fifth, sixth, and seventh grade team and also the eighth grade team. Dude, is he a stud or is it a teeny tiny school? Not to boast, but he's pretty good. He plays on the travel team as well. But for his school team, he's a good player.

They're trying to buy sweatpants and a hoodie for all the kids so that way when they go to home games and away games, they look uniform as a team. Some parents are not able to afford...

um the sweatpants okay and so the the total amount is just under fourteen hundred dollars for 21 sets of sweatpants and sweatshirts um they're about nine hundred dollars short my wife and i are in baby steps four through six and we were just wondering i was wanting your guys's opinion is it okay for us to go ahead and just pay that difference i would

Okay. If we can afford it, George, you can win on the money side, but, and I would do it in a way that just says an anonymous donor came through. Exactly. And I wouldn't want to become like, I'm the parent who, but a, or just let the coach say, Hey, we were able to get the money together. It's awesome.

Right. And that can be a conversation between you and your son when he's a little bit older. And that'd be cool. So much generosity looks like. But yeah, I would. What do you think, George? Yeah, I was going to include that exact caveat is just do it in a way that doesn't feel like, hey, guys, I got this one. Tom's got this, which is a very nice thing to do. How have you guys currently raised those funds? The other 500 bucks?

The school's trying to do, they call it a hot shot. It's just a raffle during the halftime of the games. And so they've raised, you know, 30 bucks here, 40 bucks here. A couple other parents have been able to donate, you know, maybe 40, 60, 80 dollars. So you're going to finish this off with 900 bucks in the raffle? Because it's already anonymous, right? Correct. And you might win the raffle. You'll win like a gift basket. What is this?

You get to shoot four shots during halftime, and if you make a shot, you get something from the concession stand. I hope that's you, Tom. Well, and hey, Tom, so one of the things that is I learned from a group of college students. So this group of college students moved into a low-income part of the community not to save the community but to become a neighbor.

And it was one of the greatest privileges of my life working with college students who were so brilliant at solving some of these problems that adults overcomplicate. But here's what they did, and it was magic. They lived in an area where people couldn't afford Christmas presents for their kids. And so what they did, or multiple Christmas presents, what they did was they offered people opportunities to basically earn some sort of credit.

Clean up the park. Come help us with some of our weekly meals because they would serve all the kids in the neighborhood just a free meal. And what they allowed the parents to do is to retain their dignity. They may not have $20, but they sure had half an hour on a Saturday to go help clean up the park. And that translated into a toy because the college students did a great job raising funds to buy some of these toys.

But the thing that they helped preserve in those neighborhood parents was their dignity. They got to work towards a thing, these gifts, even though it wasn't a money exchange, it was a time exchange, it was an expertise exchange, it was a support exchange. And so I say all that to say, it may be that you can have time, this may be time prohibitive, but maybe you've got time to set up one more thing

at a local church or a local something or other and all the parents who come and help, hey guys, I think we have an opportunity to raise a little bit more money, but we're going to all clean the church building at this local church and they're going to kick in some money. And then look at that. They kicked in $900. Okay. Right? And so the parents might not have the money, but they might have the time. And anyway, that's something I always keep in mind. Any way I can preserve somebody's dignity in doing something like this.

And when I say to preserve their dignity, they have an opportunity to work for towards something, put some skin in the game, even though that skin may not be money. That skin might be time. Skin might be, again, expertise. It might be they showed up to help even 20 minutes, 30 minutes between my three jobs. I can show up and do 15 minutes worth of whatever anything counts.

And then they are able to smile when their kids get that track suit. They don't hang their head as much as, yeah, I participated in that too. Again, you may be running out of time. This may be this Saturday, right? And so I would just go ahead and put the money out there. But anytime I could think long-term about this is –

including as many people as possible in this, I always think is a pretty great thing to do. 100%. Good call. I kind of want some of those matching sweats now, John. What do you think? Me and you on the court? I've been waiting for you to get us the matching sweats. Me and you and Coleman on the court? Well, you and Coleman would get bright white ones, and I just am not a white sweatsuit kind of guy. We could go kind of, I feel like you'd be all black. All black. Yeah. I'll be on that team. Really? Just me and you against Coleman. Well. Some alley-oops.

I don't even know what that is. All right. Hey, hold on. Before we... Yeah, I know what an alley-oop is. Do you know what an alley-oop is? What is it? It's when they throw the ball towards the guy who's already at the basket and he dunks it. Right, James? Yeah.

Yes. America, if you're not watching this, if you're listening, George, just Wikipedia Ali Oop. No, I watched a lot of Space Jam growing up, John. It's different. You were a Space Jam kind of guy. There it is. But I do love that. Generosity is rarely something you regret. You look back on like, shouldn't have given the 900 for those sweats. Right. Those entitled little kids. And so it's something where if you have that on your heart and you're in a financial place to do it, it's not setting you back. Right.

And he mentioned, hey, we're out of debt. We don't have this other, you know, goal on our monkey on our back we've got to get rid of. We did this so that we have the margin to be generous. That's exactly right. That's one of the main reasons we encourage people to follow these steps. Right. And I want, there is people who are in dire poverty who need help right now. Right. And so I'm not talking about that group of folks. Right.

I'm talking about there's a difference between walking into, I'll just say Waffle House, and you can pull one of the waiters outside and just say, hey, thinking about you, here's $500, right? The dollar amount would be the same. But if you go in with your family and it's late and you're tired and they do a great job and they make some jokes, the waiter does, and make sure your coffee is always refilled, right?

And you pull them aside and you say, hey, you gave me and my family something we haven't had in a long time. And that is focused time together. And you gave us peace. And I'm so grateful that you use your talents. I know you're exhausted. I know this probably isn't your career destination, right?

but you went out of your way to honor and serve my family. So here's $500. The dollar amounts the same, but what I gave in that moment is purpose and dignity. That guy will, that guy, that man or woman will walk eight feet tall, right? So it's finding ways to include people in whenever possible. Sometimes it's, that's prohibited. You can't do it. But if you can include people in the job they're doing in a task, they can support you.

and then you bless them on top of that, it just, it's a gasoline on a fire of generosity. Recognition plus the reward. That's nice. Yeah. Just telling a story. This is The Ramsey Show. So here's a quick math refresher. There are only 24 hours in a day, so your business needs to streamline tasks that are time suckers and focus on activities that make money. So to reduce headaches as they scale, smart businesses use NetSuite by Oracle. The

the number one cloud financial system. NetSuite helps you improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform. So join the more than 37,000 smart businesses like Ramsey Solutions that have done the math and graduated to NetSuite. And right now, you can download NetSuite's KPI checklist absolutely free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined here by George Camel, and we're taking your calls on money, work, life, relationships, your emotional, mental health, whatever you got going on, we got you, 888-825-5225.

All right, the question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Neighborly has local service providers who can repair, maintain, and improve your home. Their network of experts offers top quality work and customer service by trained, reliable service providers. Find the help you need at neighborly.com slash Ramsey today. Today's question comes from Jackie in Utah. Buckle up, John.

My husband and I are 47 years old and we're both impulsive spenders. Hey-o. I recently came across your podcast. Hold on. Can we start right there? Yeah. That's some self-awareness. I respect that. Okay. James, I know we've got to go through this question, but I just got to start right here. We'll get there eventually. We are both impulsive spenders. This is not a diagnostic label. Like, we are both 5'8", right? Just a fact. So we can't reach high things on our cabinet. That would be a logical sentence.

We are both impulsive spenders is not an empirical fact. The way this is laid out. This is actually my husband. I are 47 years old and we both act like children. There it is. We choose to be emotionally immature with our spending habits. And I haven't read the rest of this.

I'm just so sick of the way we have taken adjectives and nouns and created them as verbs. Like we've created them. I'm an impulsive spender. What can you do? What can you do? No! You're an impulsive child. All right. I will not interrupt again unless I have to. Go ahead. Thank you for that, John. That was a very helpful redefinition. Here we go. I recently came across your podcast and we're both fired up about getting out of debt.

I'm having some real fear and doubt about myself and whether if I'll be able to change my habits and control my spending. Growing up, my family didn't have very much money, so I have always had a scarcity mindset, and I know that's where my impulse spending comes from. My husband isn't as much of a spender as I am. He came from a financially stable home, but they never followed a budget. The person I don't trust to be able to make these financial changes is myself."

I've tried to change in the past. I get all fired up about something and start down the road of change. But before long, I revert back to old habits. I completely break trust with myself and end up feeling ashamed and defeated. I desperately want to make lasting changes with our finances, but I just don't have any faith in my ability to do this. How do I restore trust in myself? All right. So first, Jackie, I apologize for interrupting at the very beginning and throwing a temper tantrum because you're calling it out.

I am emotionally immature with my money and I don't know what to do. And I've got a lot of compassion and sympathy for that question. So when somebody says, how do I restore trust in myself? My instant response is always be trustworthy, be trustworthy. And so what does that mean? That means I have to begin to create a world where I do what I say I'm going to do. Now, sometimes we overlook, we step over dollars to pick up dimes when it comes to stuff like this.

So for instance, I am a person who will always follow a budget. How can I not follow a budget? If I spend money that's not in the budget, what do I have to have to spend money? I have to have my ATM card. I have to have cash. Cool. If I take away my ATM card, if I take away cash, if I get rid of Amazon Prime, then I cannot do those things.

similar. How can I stop drinking? Step one is get rid of the alcohol, get rid of the environments where there's alcohol. So how do I restore trust in myself? It's not this white knuckle event where you're going to be flexing. I'm going to put in significant hurdles in my way that make it almost impossible to fail when it comes to gaining trust in myself. Like for me, I'm

I struggled with getting up and going out to get in the car, letting the car warm up, driving across town to the gym. So seven or eight years ago, I just started slowly piecemealing the gym together in my house. Now it's right there, right? I've taken away all the friction. Now when I say I'm going to work out tomorrow, I just go downstairs and work out.

See what I'm saying? So, yeah, minimus. And there's been seasons when I gave my wife my ATM card. I was out of control. I was an emotionally immature spender. I gave my wife my ATM card. So I literally couldn't spend. And then I had to sit with that discomfort. What do I want to buy right now?

I don't really want to buy anything. I'm bored or I have a scary meeting coming up or I don't really want to go do this assignment or I have administrative tasks. I don't want to do. I had to deal with why I was feeling those things. I didn't have that emotional that that little scrolling thing that makes you feel so good. That's dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. I didn't have that anymore. Right. So how do you restore trust? Become trust.

What do you think, George? Yeah, I'm with that. I was just thinking there's this element of kind of making the bad habits more difficult and making the good habits easy. And part of that is I'm taking the apps off my home screen and putting just every dollar there. So anytime I open my phone, I see every dollar. It's a reminder. I'm going to put the every dollar sticker on my debit card so that I'm reminded to go check the app to make sure I have the money and make sure I budget for it.

It's things like that that you might sound silly, you might seem silly to other people, but if it keeps you on track, if that calendar where you have the red X because you did one more day of budgeting and you tracked it, that's a win. You don't want to break the chain now. That stuff matters psychologically. And so I don't know what that is for our friend Jackie, but she's got to figure out the root of that and where she's stumbling. And if that is Amazon, we're taking out our debit card information, we are deleting it, we are making it difficult, blocking that website on our computer, whatever we have to do in order to get those good habits in place.

I can't stress that enough that we over intellectualize behavior change sometimes and sit down with your husband and say hey it's really really important to me that every week we do a budget together

Every Sunday night, can we just put this on the calendar that we don't ever miss this? This is so important to me. It helps me feel safe and I'm trying to change my life. I want to change our tree. I want to change everything about our world. Will you just have this budget meeting with me on Sundays? Right? What husband's going to say no to that? And afterwards, we get to watch our favorite show. And we can't do that until we have the budget meeting. Yes. Or if you want to be more adventurous than...

And watch a show. But we'll do things together after that, right? But it's about bringing people together. And good for you, Jackie. Good for you. This kind of change is hard, but also, wow. And by the way, changing a scarcity mindset, begin to keep a gratitude journal. Write down five things a day that start with, I am grateful for. And begin to tip well.

Scarcity mindset cannot be in the presence of. - Can't survive. - That's right. It withers and dies on its own little thorny vine when you are insanely generous, right? Because then you realize, oh, I gave this guy, I overtipped this person 'cause they were so wonderful. I gave them their light bill or their water bill for the month. And that means I gotta make lunch for the next two days. That exchange is almost always worth it, right? Always, always. So good for you, Jackie. Great, great question.

We're going to run out of time to take a call. Let's talk about, let's run up here on Jade's new book. Oh, yes. Our friend Jade Warshaw has got a brand new quick read. It's her first one ever coming out on December 5th called Money's Not a Math Problem. And you can pre-order today for just $10. You'll also get access to a live online Q&A with Jade.

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And included in the book is a special offer to get three months of the premium version of every dollar totally free for new users only. So go check it out today at ramseysolutions.com slash store. While you're there, you'll notice we've got the Cyber Monday sale popping off, John, with tons of incredible deals. I mean, you could really stock up. I don't know. Is it going to be a very Ramsey Christmas under the tree for you guys? Who knows? I hope so. If you're tired of going into your kid's bedroom and you're just walking through family Christmases and there's just...

Discarded. Stuff. Stuff. Just junk. The toy that instantly broke. Yeah, or just a dumb. That book looks like we don't need another vampire love story book. What if this year you bought presents that actually had the potential to teach in a fun way and change people's lives? Go to RamseySolutions.com slash store. We'll be right back.

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This is the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Richmond, Virginia and talk to the LIV. What's up, Liv? Hey, how are you guys? Thank you for taking my call. You bet. Thanks for calling. What's up?

Okay, so my question is, like, with the amount of debt that I'm facing, should I just go ahead and start paying my debt off or start the first step of the baby steps? I'm 25, and I have about, like, I want to say about $31,000 worth of debt. $20,000 of that is to the car that I just bought, and then $4,000 of that is towards a credit card that I actually, sorry to admit, I had to set a payment plan.

plan up for because I didn't want to go to judgment or anything like that. And I kind of made a lot of mistakes just being young, and I'm in the process of my life right now just trying to clean it up. But I work two jobs, and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck, and I'm just trying to figure it out right now. Well, thank you for your honesty. We're not here to judge you or beat you up. We want to help you with a plan that actually works because so far Liv's plan ain't cutting it.

Yeah, I remember being there. I was the same way. I think I was 23 when I got on this plan and I had $40,000 in consumer debt. So I remember that feeling going like, is this it? This is this like American dream thing that I've been chasing down my entire, you know, heading into my adult life. So we want to help you here. What's your income from these two jobs?

So for my first job, I would say a month, monthly growth. I make about $4,000. And then my second job is part-time. I probably make about $700 gross. A month.

Yeah. Okay. So you're making over well over 50K and you've got 31 in debt. This is a simple math equation of how do we pay this off very quickly to get rid of this debt in, let's say, 18 months or two years. Does that sound about right? Yeah. And so it's going to start with baby step one. There's a reason why these baby steps work. You've got to do them in order with focused intensity because when we try to do too many things at once, we tend to get nothing done. Okay. So how much money do you have in the bank right now?

Um, not a lot. Cause I'm a really bad spender. Just like the, the email just submitted. Like, and I'm not going to say impulsive. I'm an irresponsible spender. Hey, look at that live. You're going to be out of debt in no time. You know why? Cause you take responsibility. That's incredible. Good for you. So where are you tending to spend money?

Fast food and recreational, if you guys know what I mean. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, how about this? Can you put some restrictions in place to where you go, I'm going straight from work to home because I've got food at home? Yes. And even when it's inconvenient and I feel late, oh, remember I meal prep Sunday. I already prepped all the chicken and rice and broccoli for the week, so I don't really have an excuse to go eat out. Okay. Is that part of it? Is it just convenience? Yes.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I've stopped eating out as much because I was eating out, it came up to roughly about $5.50 a month. When you added it up?

Yeah. Yeah. That will definitely give you some sticker shock because people think, well, I probably spend, you know, 150 bucks on eating out. And then you actually go add up your bank statement and you go, oh, it's more like 550. Okay. Yeah. We were in the ballpark. So that's part one is really getting the spending under control. And part two is can we increase income even more? And when you do that, you'll create something called margin in your budget when you learn how to spend less and make more. And that's going to help you pay off this debt really quickly.

Okay. So that's what I was also wondering. If I picked up a third job, would that be burning myself out or am I just thinking lazy? I don't know that I like those options. Yeah, you gave yourself two crappy options. Do I want diarrhea or to throw up? How about neither of those? Let's pick two. Yeah, look at it as, okay, I can get four months of my life back if I pick up a few more hours.

Because I'll be out of debt faster and I can quit the side jobs faster. What are your jobs that you do right now? Okay, I'm an office admin for a pool company here in Virginia. And then part-time, I work at an adult novelty shop. Okay, what does your pool job pay you? About $15 an hour. And my second job is $12 an hour. So I drove by the other day.

In rural Tennessee, and there was a sign that said McDonald's was hiring for $20 an hour. Yeah, I would do it. What is it about the pool job? Is that the highest job, making $15 an hour? Honestly, it's my first quote-unquote big girl job, and I've never honestly been paid as much. So yeah, this is like the first job that I've been paid like this much ever. Okay, so I want you to hang on the line. I'm going to send you a couple of things. We're going to send you our friend Ken Coleman's book, From Paycheck to Purpose.

Okay. You're worth more financially than you think. And since this is the first time and you may not have family members that make a lot of money or make more than 15 bucks an hour, this makes it feel like a million bucks to you. I want you to know that if you're the kind of person who's working two jobs and willing to take on a third one, you're the kind of person I want working for me. That tells me you've got a good work ethic. That means you're worth more than $15 an hour. The second thing is we're going to send you his Get Clear Assessment.

that will point you into a direction of not a job. I don't want you playing the, oh, they're going to pay me 25 cents more an hour. This place will pay me 75 cents more an hour. And you go from a restaurant to a car dealership to a pool shop. I want you to start asking a question you may have never asked yourself ever, which is what could I actually do to contribute and make my community a little bit better and help people and make a great living at the same time?

Yeah. And this assessment will dig in and point you into a direction of, man, maybe if I went and got certified in this or I could go do this right now or there's this this right down the street or my buddy's dad works at this place. It can expand your horizons and make a whole bunch more money. You may not have to take a third job is what we're saying. If you increase your dollar amounts where you are now.

Okay. Liv, you said you were making $4,000 a month, but based on $15 an hour, it's not tracking with me. Plus $12 an hour in a second job. So my math may be off, but just to give you like a just straight up number, like my last take-home pay was about $1,011. Is that for every two weeks?

Yeah. Okay. So we're talking $50,000 an hour. You said $4,000 originally, and that made me think you were making almost $50,000. So that tells me you have way too much car for your income. This car is going to have to go. Yeah.

Yeah, it's the first car that I ever bought. And I was really struggling without a car. And I knew that I kind of was maybe making a bad decision with going with a $599 a month car note. Here's one way to tell. If you're focused on the monthly payment, you can't afford it. Yeah. If we're trying to get the payment lower to afford it. So here's what I would do if I was in your shoes, because this is going to help you get some financial foundation. If you sold this car, could you sell it for what you paid for it?

Yeah, I've only had it for about like eight months. Okay, that would be my goal. What you need to do in the meantime is save up some money to get you a beater car to get you from A to B. That's all we're doing right now. That might be a $5,000 car that you can pay for in cash that you found on Facebook Marketplace. You got it inspected at a local mechanic. They said it checks out. It'll get you a buy for two years. And Liv, people made fun of me and George for years and years and years for what we drove.

And you know what matters? Not at all. Our wives still like us most of the time. Our kids like us. They didn't marry us for our money. I'll tell you that much. They're depreciating assets. Nobody cares.

Yeah, no, I agree. It was just I was going through such a hard time previously before receiving this car that I was like, if I'm going to go get a car and get a note, I want to get something that is close to what I like, but I kind of feel like I made a mistake doing that. It's okay. Hey, I did the exact same thing out of college. I bought the biggest, dumbest truck I could find. Okay. Yeah, because I deserve it. I've been driving this crappy car. I deserve it.

It's just I fell into the traps that George writes about in his new book. Like, I just fell for it. Just hook, line, and sinker. You deserve freedom. Yeah. And that means driving this crappy, dumpy car that you paid cash for, and it doesn't have a $600 payment attached, and that helps you get rid of your credit card debt once and for all, helps you build an emergency fund so that you can be on this other side with no payments, money in the bank, investing for the future, and now you can focus on a job you actually want because you're not desperate for that next paycheck. Yeah.

Thank you guys so much. Doesn't that feel right? Hang on the line here. We'll hook you up. We're going to get you those things from Ken Coleman, and we're going to send you a year of FPU, Financial Peace University. I want you to watch all the lessons. Watch them all. Especially the one on wise spending that me and John do. That's right. We tag team back again a lesson on wise spending. Make sure you check that out. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour. We're taking your calls about money, life, relationships, whatever's on your mind, whatever's keeping you up at night. We want to talk about it. 888-825-5225. All right, let's go out to Gabe in Chitown, Chicago, Illinois. What's up, Gabe? Hi, thank you both for your time today. You got it, man. Thanks for calling. What's up? So my wife and I, we are on baby steps four, five, and six.

And as you know, we're currently living in Chicago, and we bought a condo last year. Super happy, but now we're thinking about moving to Florida. We're going to grow our family, want it to get closer to my parents and her parents. And so we're moving to Florida, and we're unsure what to do with our condo. Does it make sense to sell it? Should we rent it? Because we've only had it for about a year and a half.

There has been some appraisal value to it, but with agent fees, we're really not sure what to do here. What are you going to do in Florida? Are you going to buy a place there? Not originally. Our hope is to rent first to see if we like it, but we're not too sure yet.

What if you sold the Chicago condo and whatever you make from the proceeds, you may have to pay a little bit of capital gains taxes. It sounds, it sounds like, and you just park that money while renting for a year in Florida. What would the harm be there? No, no harm at all. Um, I, I, I,

There's a slight increase in terms of the appraisal value. So, you know, we're trying to break even. Hopefully that could happen. We're unsure if that's the right move. But with us being able to rent it, it could make sense that eventually down the line there could be more value in the place, more equity and equity.

And this sounds great on paper. Here's what the reality is. Napkin math. You live in Florida and the HVAC is busted. And now you're trying to deal with this as a long distance landlord with a property you can't even see or deal with. And that part worries me because the truth is, if you're living in Florida, you wouldn't go out and buy a condo in Chicago.

Mm-hmm. And so when you think of it in the reverse, when you reverse engineer it, you go, yeah, that doesn't make sense. This is a bad move. We're going to take the, we're going to break even. This is not going to be a money-making scheme. It was never meant to be. And renting this place out may not be the best thing for our financial future right now. Or let's take the HVAC off the table because that's when you can call an HVAC company. Let's say you get tenants and they're super trustworthy and then...

The husband goes over to his buddy's house and ends up in an essential oils pyramid scheme. And then he watches a video on all the mold in the house in Chicago.

And then suddenly he develops a cough and he calls you and says, my house is covered up in mold and we demand that you remediate the whole house. And I have to have a hotel for me and my wife or a rental house. And you're covering medical costs as well. And you're like, well, I need to go in there and see it. So now either you're hiring somebody to come out and do that who may have a vested interest in finding mold or you got to get on a plane. See how dumb this is to sell the house. Mm-hmm.

And I'll say this, this is probably not the best on paper. Again, math is mostly a psychology issue. I mean, not math. Money is mostly a psychology issue. I've written a check on one house. I went to closing with several thousand dollars because we were when you factored in realtor fees, we were a little bit upside down, like three or four thousand bucks. I wrote a check because the long term long term financial benefit to me was in my favor.

And so on paper, you lost money on a house. Yep, I did. I lived in it less than 12 months. I wrote a check on it and then I was able to transform my family. So, I mean, I just that extra baggage of having a house, a bunch of states over just doesn't seem worth it to me. The other option is could you live in it six more months and hit that two year mark? Yeah. Why do you want to move all of a sudden?

Yeah, there's there's I guess that's another thing that's in our favor where there's no rush. We once again want to start a family. We want to get closer to our family. But there's we're both remote. So we don't have to leave right now. We can just be patient.

Great. But yeah, no immediate rush. I'd stick it out through the Chicago winter and just go, all right, Florida's on the other side, but right now we're going to hang tight. And you can have a baby in Chicago, I found out. They have like hospitals there and stuff. And I'll also tell you this, my wife and I had a bunch of plans. She went to grad school, then I went to grad school, then she got her tenure track job, and then I got my administrative job. And we had mapped it out, and now we're going to have a family.

And then we didn't get pregnant. And then another year went by. And then another year went by. And so...

the best laid plans, right? I mean, so you can have all the plans in the world. I wouldn't rush something just to rush it. You know what I mean? And I know you can feel the burden. Should we keep paying on this house, on this condo then if we're going to sell it someday? Yeah, maybe. But the number of times people call this show and they say, hey, I was doing something for six months and it's seven years later is regularly. Okay. It's just the way life works. So I would sell it when we moved and I wouldn't rush the move if you just absolutely don't have to. Yeah.

but that's just my two cents. Just two guys. That's right. All right, let's go out to Tampa where Gabe really wants to be living. Let's go out to Tampa and talk to Caden. What's up, Caden? Hey, can you hear me? Yeah, we got you, man. What's up? How's it going? Partying, dude. What are you up to?

Oh, I'll just call on it. I have a question for you guys. So I'm just turned 20 a few months ago. I just moved to Tampa also a few months ago and my first house here, but I wanted to get you guys's opinion on kind of what I should be doing with my money. So I'm a pretty high average income earner, I guess I would say. So I'm top 1% in, uh, from my age group. And I have a ton of cash sitting in my bank accounts that I don't know what to do. And I don't have really anyone in my life to talk to, uh,

that are high income earners, like in my family, or really even too many close friends. So I'm wondering what you guys think I should do with the money, because I'm kind of one of those guys that saves everything that I can, because I've been listening to you guys for years. And I feel wasteful just sitting in my bank account and not doing anything. All right, you got a pen? Yeah. All right, Venmo username at George. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Uh, Caden, we can tell you all day what you could do with the money. I feel like you have some goals in mind, don't you? Do you have a home? Yeah. So I just, my, so my brother and I run a business together, so it's just me and him living out here. Um, and we just bought a home, uh, about six months ago together. Yeah. So we live together and our mortgage is about 2,400 a month. And, uh, what were you renting last year was 3,500. So we are both on the deed.

Well, just technically he is. Oh, boy. No, that's actually a good thing. I'm glad y'all didn't buy a house together. Good. So you rent from your brother. I can go get my own first house. Yeah, basically. How does the equity work? He has 100% of the equity in this house. This house was only about $360,000. Okay, but you're just renting with your brother. Yeah.

Yeah, so we run our business here. So we have six bedrooms and we have our own office space and stuff, but we run the business together. So you have no financial interest in this house. Let's say you leave. He doesn't have to sell. He doesn't have to give you any portion. Technically, no. I just want to make it real clear because you may leave and go, well, I mean, I've been paying you rent. We kind of ran this thing together as a business, so I feel like I got some skin in the game. We've seen too much where things were supposed to go by the handshake agreement and then life happened. Exactly.

No, no, I feel you. We're twin brothers, and so we run our business. We're 50-50 in our business with equity and everything. Have you all written that down somewhere? Yeah, yeah. We have an S-Corp and everything as well, which is why I wanted to talk to you about. So like last year, we put $190,000 into our 401k. That's what we have in savings. Each? We have about $250,000.

Totally together. So about 90,000 each. Okay. All right. And then, um, but it's, we do it through, I'm sure you guys know what a deferred compensation plan is, right? So we have, so let's do our business as well. Um, so we have our own 401k and then with our business kind of matching it. And, um, basically it's like a pension plan. Does that make sense? So we contribute. So we're going to distribute again this year, another 200,000 into there. Wow.

What is your business, man? Y'all just print money? You hiring? Yeah, no. So basically I started a business with him when we were 17 in high school, like right after COVID. But we basically just do arbitrage. So it started with just reselling things online.

flipping it on eBay, Amazon, and then kind of grew into doing more of that as well as just consulting and stuff. So there's people that wanted to learn what we were doing. So we kind of have that and it all kind of just kind of runs together. If you don't have any debt to pay off, my next goal would be to be a homeowner and own an asset in that way like your brother does. And so that's what I would be doing. And you may want to live there and you may want to get an office instead of doing it out of the house. That's up to you guys. But I want to own my own place as

as my next financial goal and continue to invest. And also, spend some, give some. That's going to help you avoid a flat tire with your life. Hey, that's the second hour in the books. Thanks for joining us right here on The Ramsey Show. ♪ music playing ♪

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions in Nashville, Tennessee, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, get out of debt, do work that they actually contribute to and they love, and we help people create incredible relationships. I'm John Deloney, don't even know my own name, joined by George Campbell, and we're taking your calls on money, life, emotional and mental health,

Both of us have been walking alongside hurting people trying to figure out what's the next right step for years and years and years. And we're live talking to real people going through real challenging times. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. Let's go out to my hometown, H-Town, and talk to Christopher. What's up, Christopher? Hey, how's it going? We're doing good, man. What's up?

All right, dude. Congratulations.

I love engagement dilemmas. Bring it on. Oh, don't do it! Don't do it! No! Oh!

No. Dude. Does your girlfriend know about this past engagement? No. Oh, boy. Okay, number one, have that combo first. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. She knew I was engaged before. So do you not think her first question is going to be, wait, is that the ring from...

I know. I just don't want to spend extra money on it. Chris, Chris, Christopher. The moment you slide that ring on her finger, her finger will catch fire. Okay. Like it will just electrocute her and then by proxy you'll end up dead. That's just how this will work.

Dude, don't do this. You're going to pay, you're going to lose your, like, both butt cheeks when you resell this ring. You will lose your butt, and that's okay. Okay. It's called, it's called, it sucks tax, and just spend it, dude. Do not re-gift an engagement ring. Okay. It's just too much bad juju, and I'm not very, you know,

I'm not that guy, John. I don't do the whole astrology and all this stuff. And I'm like, well, I just feel like there's too much sentimental value tied up in this ring from a past relationship that fell apart, that didn't work out. You're going to be feeling that emotionally. She's going to be thinking that in the back of her head. And then it's going to spark a giant fight. And you're going to have to get a new ring anyways. And you better hope that relationship even survives that fight. Yeah.

I don't know how my, I don't think either of John and I's wives would react kindly if that was the situation. And I think that would be my wife's first question. It just kills me to spend more money, but okay. You know what's going to kill you also? Your fiance, when she finds out that you got that, got a ring, except she's going to kill you for real. What is, what's a new ring going to cost? Well, I guess I'll probably get another one for 2K to 3K. Does it have to be a 3K ring?

I think so. For it to look decent, I guess. I don't know, man. They've got some rings out there these days on Etsy that are gorgeous, and they're not a full-carat real diamond. It might be moissanite or something, but I think it's more about the thoughtfulness behind it versus— and especially not giving her a real diamond ring that was meant for a real past fiancé.

Okay. I'd take a fake ring any day over that. I'm just almost at the $50,000 mark at savings. And just to see that, I'd be going backwards. You have $50,000 in savings? I have $48,000. I'm almost at $50,000. Chris, why are you calling us?

Chris, what are you doing with your life, man? Is this this woman's future? She's going to be, can we go on the vacation? And you're like, I almost have $50,000 in savings, woman. Leave me alone. But I had this coupon left over from my last relationship. I know. Let's call my ex's father-in-law. He has a bedroom we can rent out. Like, for real, dude.

Man, I'd bite the bullet and get that new ring and sell the old one for what you can get for it. Hey, listen, this is just like a straight up, like I grew up in Houston. Do you not have some like buddies there that you could have run this question by that would have just knocked you upside the head? What would it be?

Well, I do, but they love to spend money, so I didn't really... That's fair. That's fair. I support that, then. Thanks for calling two wise guys. And ask any woman. That's also a good indicator. I'm pretty sure 99.9% would say, yeah, don't do that. I'm going to do a litmus test. There is one woman on the front row in the studio audience. Are we right?

Okay, she just two thumbs up. And she's got a ring on her finger, so she's got experience. Yes. Thank you, ma'am, for that. No matter what, don't... Oh, jeez, don't. Hey, George, this is awesome. Not only are we helping people get out of debt, we are now saving lives and preventing homicide. Yes, we're doing it. Preventing homicide was a stretch, but I like it. I like where you're going with it. I'm sweating even thinking about proposing to Whitney with a previous... Oh, my gosh.

I can't breathe, John. That's a lot for me. Let's go out to... James, can we take another call? Sure. Dad said yes. Let's go out to Dusty in Boise. What's up, Dusty? Hey, how are you? Phenomenal. What's up?

Okay, my question is, just last week for Thanksgiving, my dad gifted my husband and I a house mortgage-free. For Thanksgiving? Yes! Wow, not even Christmas yet. My dad gave me a FaceTime.

Wow. I know, I know. We were bawling our eyes like little babies, so it was pretty cool. But we're living in a house right now. We owe $200,000 on it still, but we're wondering if we should move into the mortgage-free house and rent this one out, or if we should sell this and with the profit we make, pay off our debt and then put the rest away in an account that accrues over years. We don't know what to do at all.

I like that plan because if you keep this mortgage, move into the mortgage-free house, you're still in debt. Doesn't really solve your debt problem. Yes. We have about $30,000 in debt. Okay. And what's your household income? It's about, so he is salary. After taxes, we bring home about $4,500 a month. Okay. Now being mortgage-free, you should be able to pay off this consumer debt fairly quickly, I imagine, with no mortgage, right? Yeah.

Yes. So I would crunch the numbers. And if you wanted to keep this house as a rental, you just have one mortgage hanging around, I would still want to aggressively pay that off because I don't like investment property that has mortgages attached. But that's one option. I think the option that will give you more freedom and more peace right now would be to sell it and move into this home. Okay. Are there any tax implications with moving into this home? I would do that instantly. I'm so sorry. Say that one more time. Are there tax implications of inheriting this home while he's still alive?

Nope. I would just want to make sure of that because there's, you may have to pay the capital gains on that. And I would talk to a tax pro. You can connect with one at Ramsey solutions.com just to make sure your I's are dotted and T's are crossed on this financial transaction. And sometimes gifts are incredible and they're life changing and they're not what's best for our family. So make sure before you just go running to move into this house, it's, it works for you and your family for a season. Um,

But yeah, I'd sell my house, take the equity, pay off all my debts, be completely free of everything. This is the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Camel. Let's go out to Milwaukee and talk to Tony. Tony, Tony. What's up, Tony? Hey, how are you? So good. How are you?

Good. You? I mean, you are as joyful as we are. What's up? Well, I'll see if my tone doesn't change. Uh-oh. No, I don't think it's too big of a deal, but I do. It's been, I've been like, you know, thinking about it and all that. So I thought I'd give you guys a call. So here's the... Hey, Tony, do me a huge favor. Talk directly into your phone for me.

Oh, he was telling me to do that. Can you hear me now? Yes, perfect. Okay, cool. So here's kind of the background. So we got married a few months ago, and we grew up in different financial philosophies. My parents were older than his and whatnot. So he has some debt. I don't have any debt.

per se, besides a mortgage. So I have some savings. So I have two questions going on. So one is a money thing, but another one is kind of like a career choice type of thing. So the first thing with the money is, so I have money in the bank and I could easily pay

for his debt. And I know you guys always say, Oh, you guys are married. You know, now your finances are together and everything like that. But I kind of have like, Oh, he had this before. I don't want to pay for it. And then it happens again. And it's just like, it's a whole big cycle type of thing. So I was kind of wondering, like, should I kind of help him pay for it or just,

let him deal with it how he wants. Tony, why did you get married? Why? Yeah. Because I wanted to? I mean, why did you want to? What benefit was marriage going to bring to you? How was it going to enhance and improve your life? Oh my gosh, I don't know. That's throwing me back. I don't know. It was unhappy. You're not asking a money question. You're not.

You think you are, but you're not. You're asking a marriage question. And the way you framed it, and you can go back and watch it on YouTube whenever it posts or listen to the podcast. The way you ask the question is very similar to a caller we had in the first hour who was concerned about her stepson getting too much stuff from her new husband. You spoke about your new husband as though you're his mom and you're considering teaching him a lesson. And this is your husband saying,

For better or worse, sickness and in health, in good times and in bad times. He doesn't have a financial trajectory separate and apart from your financial trajectory. He doesn't have a life separate and apart from your life. Y'all opted in together in front of your parents, in front of God, in front of each other and said, I do till death, till one of us dies. And that means ride or die. Mm-hmm.

And so that starts at a bare minimum with, hey, I got a whole bunch of money in this account. We're going to start on the same financial footing. But deeper than that is the thought of you doing this again and committing financial infidelity scares me so bad. Will you take this class with me so we can become on the same page? Well, what do you mean? Like how? Well,

Like, I want us to be on the same footing, so I don't know if that's what I should do, like help him out. But he doesn't want me to pay for his debt, which I totally get. Well, here's what it looks like, Tony. It's you guys setting new goals together. One of those goals is how cool would it be to start this marriage off completely debt-free? So our goal is debt freedom. This is now our money. We're going to combine bank accounts. Right now you're treating him like you're the health care company and he's coming in with a preexisting condition. And you're like, nope, that's on him. He came into the marriage with that.

I mean, nobody wants to be treated like that. And by the way, you talking to him as though you're a parent. This weekend, I was out hunting with my son and I forgot something out in the field. And my son was like, oh, dad, here, you can just use mine. And he was trying to make me feel better. And during your courtship, while y'all were dating and then, you know, in your early part of your marriage, I'm sure your husband's gotten loud and clear that he married someone who's kind of like his mom. And so he's like, no, no, I'll take care of the debt. I'll take care of it, mom. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it.

And sometimes people do that to preserve peace. And so if you look out 10 years from now and you could wave a magic wand financially for your family, what would it look like? We're taking some trips. We're money happy, you know, having some money in the bank and saving for retirement. That sounds exactly like conversation with my seven-year-old daughter. Be specific. 10 years from now, what does your financial picture look like?

Some unicorns, some wolves with wings. Be specific. What do you want? Just having some money for retirement, and we can take some traveling for experiences. I'm older, so if kids are in the picture, great. And we don't have to worry about any money. Are you paying for those vacations, or is he paying for the vacation?

There you go. The ones that we've taken, we've split it. Like, you pay for a part of it, and then I pay for a part of it. So we've split it in the past. That's what me and George do when we go to Chick-fil-A. Sometimes John even pays for me, which I think is very chivalrous. Sometimes.

You see what we're saying, Tony? Marriages are either growing together or they're growing apart. And if you start to say, well, it's his debt. He's got to run his own race. I'm going to do my thing. You're going to grow apart. You're running in two different directions. When you're both in the same direction, you're going to grow together and you're going to have shared goals, shared common language around money. And that's going to not only grow your finances and your wealth, but it's going to grow your relationship. And that's what we found time and time again when people get over that big hurdle of combining finances.

It's not about, well, I don't trust him with money. It's about what are we building together? Because what we can build separately is fine. What we can build together is monumentally greater. And you kept mentioning retirement. It sounds like your chief concern might be one of safety. And if you married somebody like my wife did, who's kind of immature and silly and goofy and runs around and is kind of like, oh, it's all going to be OK.

You may be looking down the road and say, hey, I need to make sure that I am preparing for our security, right? For our retirement. Yeah. I was blessed when my wife brought me into that conversation. And it was something along the lines of, I'm so terrified that we're not going to have anything with the way you spend money. And I remember thinking, not, all right, I got to figure out this budget thing with Dave Ramsey. No, no. I remember thinking, I never want my wife to feel terrified with me.

And she wasn't in protection. She wasn't in a, I'm always going to work hard, but she was in how I was not saving money and how I still had debt. So we worked together and that's how we changed stuff. And now she's got more security than she could have dreamt of. And I do too. You see what I'm saying? Like, it's just, it's just a matter of working together. If I send you the financial peace course, will you and him watch it together? And y'all imagine a future where y'all work together and not apart?

I believe I would, but I don't know if he would. I think if I really pushed him to, he would. How about instead of pushing him, again, like a parent, you invite him. It would mean the world to me. I would feel loved and safe inside my own home and inside my own new marriage if you would watch these nine videos. And you can roll your eyes through all of them. You can just go, oh my goodness, this is so ridiculous. Whatever. But will you just watch them with me? Please? It would mean the world to me.

Invite him in. And if he says, I ain't doing that, then here's the hard truth. Your marriage is on way shakier ground than you imagine. Y'all need to deal with that because that's respect and dignity and love. That's not a money conversation. That's way deeper. But invite him in. Stand in the line. We're going to hook you up with a year of Financial Peace University and the EveryDollar app that you and your husband can do together. Y'all can grow together, like George said, and not apart. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. And it is one of my favorite days of the year. I'm not going to call it a holiday, but I do get a little pep in my step on Cyber Monday. And Ramsey's getting in on it with our one-day Cyber Monday sale. And it's our lowest prices of the year today only.

That's not a joke. We don't make stuff up. That is truly the lowest prices you're going to see on some awesome gifts for your family and friends. As low as $5. We got some audiobooks starting at just $5. My friend Dr. John Deloney's new audiobook, Building a Non-Anxious Life, is $10 for the first time ever.

Financial Peace University, just $59.99, our lowest price of the year there. We've got the 2024 Ramsey Goal Planner on sale, down to $40 right now. Rachel Cruz has got a new Navy wallet and a new kids book on sale. I've got a new book called Breaking Free from Broke on pre-order. Jade Warshaw's got a new quick read called Money's Not a Math Problem. Everything is there. What are you waiting for? Just go shop at ramseysolutions.com slash store. You can tell them George sent you. It won't matter. You won't get an extra deal, but it'll make me feel good.

Actually, you're really going to confuse everybody. Hey, George said to tell it. No, you don't have to tell anyone. I did that the other day at the grocery store at Starbucks. It didn't work. George sent me a wink, and then he called security. All right, let's go out to Cincinnati, Ohio, and talk to Kathleen. What's up, Kathleen? Thank you for taking my call. First of all, both my husband and I are retired. We're totally debt-free, and the question that we have is,

I hope you're still there. We're listening intently. Okay. The question that we have is we're going to have to put a new roof on the house. We've got our six months of emergency fund or whatever, but we're wondering, do we need to take that to pay for the roof, or should we go ahead and take a withdrawal from our retirement? Yeah. What's the roof going to cost? Oh, between $20,000 and $25,000?

And you're sure that this is not covered in any way, shape or form? Oh, yeah. No, we've been in the house since 99 or since 03. So it's over 20 years old. OK, so it's time. Is this how much of an emergency is this? Is it falling in? Do we need to do this tomorrow? Well, no, we got to do it within the by next year for sure. OK. And do you have the money right now in the emergency fund?

Yes. Okay. I'm just going to use that. And if you want to build a little savings account until the roof is there, start doing that. Are you guys in a good financial spot to do that? Oh, I guess we could. It's just that we feel uncomfortable draining the emergency fund. Just what if a washer, refrigerator, whatever has to go? Okay. Well, you're retired, so you can pull from your retirement accounts. Do you guys have a giant nest egg where this would barely touch it? Wouldn't make a dent?

Unfortunately, no. We're very simple. Got like, I think, $350,000 in retirement. Our savings, that's about it. What's in the emergency fund? About $50,000 a year. We've got $20,000 in the emergency fund. Okay. And our Social Security is around $50,000. Okay. Are you guys just making money from Social Security? You're not touching the retirement account? Exactly.

Sorry, you broke up with us, Kathleen. Are you still with us? Yes. Okay. Exactly. So just Social Security, you haven't touched the retirement account, but there's only $350,000 in there. Right. And you guys are how old? 66. Okay. So you could have a nice long retirement and I want to protect that nest egg as much as we can. So I would rather tap into the emergency fund and then replenish it versus drain 10% of my entire nest egg to cover this one repair.

That's what we were thinking, but one of the other opinions are already good. And John has a third option, which is probably even better. Well, it may not be better. Just another thing to consider. My mom is 73, 74, recently retired from her job as a professor, and she is looking for a part-time job.

And it might be, it'll be, it'll be adjacent. So it might be editing dissertations or editing manuscripts, or she's an extraordinary editor. Who knows what she can be doing, but is there a possibility that your husband is retired or you, you'll head back and take two part-time jobs. And with just the, just the intent of we're going to earn this money.

We can work through the holiday season. We can work into the fall. It's going to be freezing cold anyway, so we're in Ohio, so we need to be inside anyway. We're just going to make some extra money, and we're just going to do this together, and we're not going to do anything strenuous, and we're going to earn this money and pay the roof with cash. Well, yeah, that's an option.

You don't sound too thrilled by that one. Boo, John wants me to go to work. Boo. No, I totally get it. No, no, no, no, no. I do Medicare insurance, so I'm in the annual enrollment period right now. Okay.

So I'm going nuts, but I will have, you know, some extra leeway come January because that's when they pay us. Okay. So, you know, that will help. My husband is getting ready. We see an orthopedic surgeon for back surgery. Okay.

So he's not going to be in a position to do that. Okay. Well, just something to consider if money's tight. Sort of soften the blow. Yeah, there you go. And maybe you're not draining the entire emergency fund, but maybe you can earn $10,000 between the two of you over the next six months. And that's working at Home Depot. That's working online. That is finding some sort of part-time gig, whatever that looks like.

And maybe you're only pulling $10,000 from your emergency fund and the other $10,000 you're paying with cash for the roof, whatever that looks like. But that's just a third option. Just an idea. But it's better than going into debt, either of these options. Absolutely. All right, let's go out to Sabrina in Honolulu. Hey, Sabrina. Aloha. Aloha. What's up? Hi. What's up? The cost of living. Yeah, for real. Hey, how can we help? Yeah.

Well, I have been blessed to be able to go to the Financial Peace University classes, and thankfully I am debt-free. But I want to know how I have a lot of family and friends and even church members. I'm a leader in the church, and I just want to know how I can help them do the same. I mean, I don't have the means to buy everybody a Financial Peace University ticket,

you know, class. So how would I be able to help people in my life to also become debt-free and get this, you know, fulfill the baby steps? Hello? Yeah, we're here. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm just thinking through it. I mean, that's a fascinating question. I think the first thing I would do is invite them into a conversation in your home.

And the struggle is some people have no interest in getting out of debt. They don't even understand a world outside of a credit score and a car payment and a mortgage. That's not something that's ever even occurred to them. And so sometimes you're looking at people being like, hey, you want to move to Mars? And they're just like, no, I'm good here on Earth. And so sometimes they're going to see the fruit in your life over the next few years. And they're going to say, why are you always smiling, Sabrina? Yeah.

Why do you tip so generously? Like, cause I can, right? So that's number one. But I'd invite them over to your house and ask them if they're interested. And with the limited resources you have, you might be able to talk them through it, point them to the show,

decide you're going to serve as a reference point. And if you hang on the line here, we can put you in touch with our Financial Peace University team that actually has a division that works with churches and where you could start a class at your local church and teach your family members and your local parishioners, people who attend your church, if they're interested.

George, what do you think? Yeah, I think your life is the best kind of financial testimony to get people excited about it. But John's right in that they need to want to make a change. And you can be there for them when that happens. And, you know, it doesn't have to be Financial Peace University. Like John said, we pretty much do everything for free. If you want to grab a bunch of books, the Total Money Makeover is on sale right now for just 10 bucks. You could get, you know, 10 of those, maybe start a book study at the house and say, hey,

I've got financial goals for next year. I know you guys probably do too. Let's all get together and just encourage each other and just kind of create this little community of people who are growing. Yeah, when I was in my early 20s, Sabrina, I didn't have money to pay for it. And I had a group of people that I cared about. So I bought everybody a copy of Total Money Makeover and I got online and printed off the free budget template and I put it in a binder. So everybody for Christmas got a binder full of 12...

monthly budgets and everybody got a copy of Total Money Makeover and that was I didn't have enough money for everybody but that's what I bought and that's the best I could do and then have been available for conversations and questions ever since and so but thank you so much for your heart for feeling this sense of freedom and this sense of light and you want everyone in your life to share in it with you what a generous generous spirit hang on the line and Austin can direct you to our FBU team this is the Ramsey Show we'll be right back

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Today's scripture is from Proverbs 16, 16. How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver. The great Muhammad Ali said, a man who views the world at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. What an amazing, amazing athlete and a great quote. I love it. I love it. All right, real quick, George, let's talk about this episode.

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All right, let's go out to Washington, D.C., and talk to the great Will. Hey, Will, what's up, man? Hey, how we doing today? Outstanding. How are you, good man?

Doing amazing. And I just wanted to call in and thank you guys for giving away financial priests and every dollar for vets. I was listening to the show right before Veterans Day and Marine Corps Reservist. I've been in for 20 years and I went in and put my name in the hat to get one of those, the every dollar signed up and me and my wife down and we've,

put our budget back together. We're currently working through baby step four. And we started getting the transactions coming in every couple days later. And we're going through all the spending and found out that there was a bunch of Uber charges and Chipotle on our account. And we didn't know what it was. Did George Campbell steal your credit card? My bad, dude.

I think, yeah, I think that's a George Campbell move right there. That dude loves Chipotle and Uber. And we don't, so we knew it wasn't ours. That's one way to find out. About $200. Somebody had gotten some free rides and some free Chipotle on us. Oh, so it was your card stolen, huh? Yep, it was stolen. And it's the card number? Yep, card number, yep. Man, I'm sorry to hear that.

Well, it also showed us that we're spending about a thousand dollars on eating out. So you were robbing yourself right there. I was wondering how to get through baby step four. And I think we found it. We were eating our retirement. Wow. What a great, what a great awakening. We're eating our retirement.

Yep. Wow.

Get the card shut down? Yep, contact the bank. Yep, and we don't have credit cards. And just like you guys said, full protection on that debit card. They returned the money. It was great. So just wanted to call and thank you for that gift to veterans. I liked it, shared it, texted to every vet I knew. So hopefully a bunch of them got in there and got the same gift from Ransy that I got.

So just wanted to call and say thank you guys. Love what you're doing. Sharing and telling everybody about it that I can. Ramsey and Jesus, man. That's all we got to keep talking about. Well, thank you, Will. We're honored that you called in, and thank you for your service and sacrifice. Yeah, man. It's a small sacrifice.

small price to pay. Would we give out $10,000? $10,000 free Financial Peace Universities and every dollar to our veterans. And we ran out of them, which is amazing. I was excited that we actually got 10,000 people to go to the site, fill out the form, and people were sharing this all over the country saying they have veterans in their life, they want to take advantage of this, and they did it. Yeah, I saw this inside the student loan industry when I was working in higher ed at how many

universities for profit and otherwise prey on veterans. And so this idea that we're going to give them a tool is really, I'm glad to be associated with a team that does that, but let's not put the spotlight on the wrong thing. It is much easier to give out a

the greatest budgeting app on the planet. It's much easier to give out an app than it is to tell your family for 20 or 30 years, I'm going to go serve something way bigger than myself. I'm going to go serve people that I don't even know. So on behalf of me and George and our wives and our kids, thank you. Thank you to will. And thank you for, to the 10,000 veterans and to the thousands and thousands of countless others who continually, um,

raise their hand when everyone else is staring at their shoes they raise their hand and they say i will i'm in thank you so much well i'm grateful for you brother let's go out to rihanna in palm springs what's up how are we doing hey guys how are you good we're up against the clock so get right to your question

Yes, yes. I have a really quick question regarding baby step three. I'm in baby step two. I have a unique living situation. I don't have any rent or any real expenses, so I'm not sure how much I should be saving for my baby step three. And also because I live in Southern California and our home prices are outrageous and my age, I'm 46. Like, what can I do? Where do I know when to start saving for the home and how much to start saving or how much to have for?

have for my three to six months living expenses. How much more debt do you have? I'm only in about $20,000 worth of debt. It's just like lingering. Only? That's a lot of debt to me. I'd want to be out. It is. It is. I'm doing my best. I'm in baby step two. I'm motivated. I have financial peace university. Like I'm into it. Awesome. What's your income?

My income is $52,000 a year. Okay. And with very little expenses, how quickly can you pay this $20,000 off if you get aggressive? I'm looking at summer of 2024, if not earlier. Okay. So we're talking eight months or so?

Yeah, because I've already paused my 401k contributions as well. Oh, wonderful. Okay, so you're going to be throwing, you know, two or three grand at this debt, making 52 with no rent. Okay. And your question is, what do I save up for the emergency fund? You're going, are you going to have rent in the foreseeable future? Yeah, where do you live?

Well, I live in Southern California. I live in Palm Springs. So I do live in a resort community. So everything is really expensive here. I do want to buy here, though. This is where I want to make my home. But where are you living physically right now? Oh, where I'm living, I live with my boyfriend. His parents, they own a condo here, and they're really generous. They like us to live here because they like having somebody here. So it's really given me a great opportunity to just...

to just save, save, save, save, and pay off, pay off, pay off. But I do want my home place eventually. Yes. This is one of those gravy trains that ends suddenly. Yes. Yes. And I don't want to take it, you know, I don't want to be here forever. I want my own home. Okay. What do homes around there cost that you would want? Let's say a condo for you, if we're going to be realistic. A condo, um,

Probably, I would say well over $200,000, if not inching towards $300,000. Okay. So let's say you have a goal of $300,000.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Let's say you could save 15 grand for five years or 20 grand for three or four years. That will help you get there faster if you can increase that income and keep your expenses down. Okay. But that's a great goal. Once you have your emergency fund and you have no debt, that's the time to start saving up for that house.

Now, does my age play into that? Because I am 46. I just turned 46, and I know it can be different when you're at my age in life, like doing the, is it going to impact my future? That's kind of... No, the only reason age would play a factor is you may want to be investing for retirement while you save up for the down payment. So that might slow down your down payment, but it'll also help you retire with dignity. Yeah, so... I balance those. Yeah, and...

I know this is frustrating for some folks, but my mom didn't start her second wing until she was 53 and ended up with a whole back-end career that was amazing. So keep after it. I want to thank everybody in the booth for helping the show, even you, Zach Hinden. George, great job as always. Good stuff, John. And congratulations on continuing to pre-sell an amazing book. Thank you. And thank you, America, for joining us in a world-gone match whose freedom...

Choose to live debt-free and choose compassion. We'll see you next time.

Hey folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind. And that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to ramseysolutions.com slash EveryDollar and download the app today. That's ramseysolutions.com slash EveryDollar.