Ep 1229 | How to Make Money in a Tough Economy | Ron Simmons

Summary

Podcast Summary: Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1229 | How to Make Money in a Tough Economy | Ron Simmons

Release Date: August 11, 2025
Host/Author: Blaze Podcast Network
Description: Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey offers an upbeat and in-depth analysis of the latest in culture, news, theology, and politics from a Christian, conservative perspective. In Episode 1229, guest Ron Simmons delves into strategies for financial stability and growth amidst economic challenges.

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1. Gerrymandering and Redistricting in Texas and Illinois

Timestamp: [00:30] - [16:00]

Ron Simmons, stepping in for Allie Beth Stuckey, initiates the episode by addressing the complexities of gerrymandering and redistricting, particularly focusing on Texas and Illinois. He explains that redistricting typically occurs every ten years following the census to adjust congressional seats based on population changes. However, midterm redistricting is currently unfolding in Texas due to legal challenges regarding the formation of majority-minority districts.

Key Points:

• Redistricting vs. Gerrymandering: Redistricting is the redrawing of electoral districts based on population data, while gerrymandering refers to manipulating district boundaries to favor a particular political party.
• Legal Challenges: The Texas GOP faces lawsuits claiming improper district formations that dilute minority voting power, leading to court-mandated revisions.
• Historical Context: The term "gerrymandering" dates back to 1812, originating from Governor Gerry of Massachusetts, where a district was infamously shaped like a salamander to benefit his party.

Notable Quotes:

• "Gerrymandering is legal for political purposes. It's not legal for race or for racial purposes." – [07:39] Ron Simmons
• "The maps in Texas have been challenged because they combined black and Hispanic minorities, which was deemed illegal coalition districting." – [06:15] Ron Simmons

2. Current Economic Climate and Stock Market Performance

Timestamp: [17:05] - [19:34]

Ron provides an overview of the current economic situation, emphasizing the stock market's performance as a barometer for economic health. He notes that the S&P 500 has risen by 8% for the year, slightly below its historical average but still indicative of growth. However, he expresses concerns over persistently high interest rates maintained by the Federal Reserve, which he believes are stifling economic expansion and making credit more expensive.

Key Points:

• Stock Market: An 8% increase in the S&P 500 suggests a resilient market despite economic headwinds.
• Interest Rates: High interest rates are limiting consumers' ability to purchase homes and businesses' capacity to expand.
• Federal Reserve Policy: Ron advocates for lowering interest rates to alleviate financial pressures on individuals and stimulate economic growth.

Notable Quotes:

• "The stock market's up 8% for the year. That's a very good return." – [17:05] Ron Simmons
• "The Federal Reserve should lower interest rates. It's hurting people from being able to buy their first home." – [18:27] Ron Simmons

3. Listener Financial Questions and Expert Advice

Timestamp: [20:33] - [55:20]

Ron and Bree tackle a series of listener-submitted questions, offering practical financial advice grounded in conservative Christian values. Topics range from budgeting for newlyweds and recent graduates to strategies for paying off student loans and preparing for retirement.

Key Topics Addressed:

• Post-College Financial Planning:

  • Focus on Employment: Secure a stable job that meets financial needs before pursuing passions.
  • Live Below Your Means: Spend less than you earn to build savings and reduce debt.

• Investing Strategies:

  • Self-Managed Investments: For those with under $250,000, investing in an S&P 500 index fund is recommended.
  • Professional Management: Individuals nearing retirement may benefit from hiring financial managers.

• Student Loans:

  • Refinancing Options: Explore federal loan refinancing with lower interest rates.
  • Payment Plans: Structured repayment based on income to alleviate financial burdens.

• Budgeting for Couples:

  • Crown Financial Recommendation: Emphasizes giving, saving, and spending wisely.
  • Tithing Goals: Encourage starting at a minimum of 10%, with flexibility based on personal circumstances.

Notable Quotes:

• "Always live on less than you make. Do not live on credit cards." – [22:36] Ron Simmons
• "You should give first. Maybe you can't give as much as you normally do, but giving needs to be a habit." – [35:54] Ron Simmons

4. Addressing Student Loan Debt and Educational Choices

Timestamp: [44:56] - [53:07]

The discussion shifts to the pervasive issue of student loan debt, exploring the high-interest rates associated with private loans and recent legislative changes aimed at alleviating the burden. Ron highlights the distinction between federal and private loans, advocating for federal options due to their lower interest rates and more flexible repayment plans.

Key Points:

• Private vs. Federal Loans: Private loans can carry exorbitant interest rates (up to 17%), whereas federal loans are more manageable.
• Legislative Changes: New policies cap borrowing amounts and extend repayment terms based on income, making higher education more accessible without overwhelming debt.
• Alternative Education Paths: Encouraging trade schools and community colleges as cost-effective alternatives to traditional four-year degrees.

Notable Quotes:

• "The student loans that I've been paying... have a 17% interest rate... that's just ridiculous." – [45:00] Anonymous Listener
• "If you make $30,000 or the loan is $30,000 or less, you only pay 1% to 2% of your income." – [52:00] Ron Simmons

5. Personal Financial Struggles and Resilience

Timestamp: [54:17] - [55:20]

Addressing a poignant listener concern about the financial hardships faced by younger generations compared to their parents, Ron empathizes while reiterating the importance of financial discipline and adaptability. He shares personal anecdotes about relocating and adjusting lifestyles to meet financial goals, emphasizing that perseverance and strategic planning can lead to financial recovery and stability.

Notable Quotes:

• "Make sure that you're living in a place that allows you to afford and also that we are truly looking at what we do on a day-to-day basis." – [55:00] Ron Simmons
• "If you put the effort in, you get the training or the education you need to make the type of income that you want to make, and you live below your means, your finances will turn around." – [55:10] Ron Simmons

6. Additional Listener Questions and Final Insights

Timestamp: [55:20] - End

Ron and Bree continue to provide tailored advice on various financial and personal life questions, including maintaining marital relationships during the "toddler season," finding a godly partner, and respectfully addressing parental conflicts. They conclude with inspirational insights drawn from Ron's book, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon, emphasizing the importance of family communication and spiritual wisdom.

Key Points:

• Maintaining Relationships: Prioritize quality time with spouses despite the demands of parenting.
• Finding a Partner: Leverage personal networks and community involvement to meet potential godly partners.
• Conflict Resolution: Approach confrontations with honor and direct communication to preserve familial respect.
• Family Communication: Implement regular family meetings to foster unity and mutual support.

Notable Quotes:

• "The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere." – [67:00] Ron Simmons
• "Always remember to date your spouse and keep the relationship strong." – [63:07] Bree

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Conclusion:

Episode 1229 of Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey offers a comprehensive discussion on navigating financial challenges in today's economy. Through Ron Simmons' expert advice and personal experiences, listeners gain valuable insights into effective budgeting, investing, debt management, and maintaining healthy personal relationships. The episode underscores the importance of living below one's means, strategic financial planning, and fostering strong family bonds rooted in Christian values.

Transcript

[Allie Simmons]

What is the truth about gerrymandering? What is going on between Texas and Illinois? And how do young people navigate the financial difficulties of living in this economy? Today, my dad is here to tell you all about it. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com use code ALI at checkout. That's goodranchers.com code ALI.

[Ron Simmons]

Well, hello everybody. I know again you're probably prefer to see Allie, but she's on another assignment today and she asked me to step in for her. I'm Ron Simmons. I'm Allie's dad. As a lot of you know, if your first time watching, then come back when Allie's on. She'll be on tomorrow, so it'll be, it'll be even better tomorrow. But thank you all for taking the time to listen or watch this. Really appreciate that.

[Bree]

Before we get started, one thing I.

[Ron Simmons]

Want to talk about was the Share the Arrows conference coming up in October. If you haven't gotten your tickets and thousands of you already have, then please get your tickets. You know, I went last year and of course it's a women's conference, but I was kind of backstage helping out a little bit on some different things.

[Bree]

And when I walked in though in.

[Ron Simmons]

The back and saw all those ladies.

[Bree]

There and how they were praising Jesus and loving on each other, I tell you what, it was very moving to.

[Ron Simmons]

Me, partly because Allie, you know, was kind of behind the idea of getting.

[Bree]

It going, but also just the families that were represented and it gave me hope. It gave me hope that, you know.

[Ron Simmons]

All is not lost.

[Bree]

And the people that were there that are celebrating life, they're celebrating their faith.

[Ron Simmons]

It just was fantastic.

[Bree]

And it's going to be the same.

[Ron Simmons]

If not even better this year. I know that Ally and Timothy and.

[Bree]

Bri and all of them have been.

[Ron Simmons]

Working hard on this and I, you know, you're going to be really pleased with it.

[Bree]

So please, if you don't have your.

[Ron Simmons]

Tickets, go online right now and get your ticket. I know that you will not be disappointed.

[Bree]

And guys, let me tell you something, boys.

[Ron Simmons]

I know that's probably a big college.

[Bree]

Football weekend, but you need to man.

[Ron Simmons]

Up and make sure your wife can come to this. I don't care if that means you miss your game or you got to.

[Bree]

Get a babysitter to help you while.

[Ron Simmons]

You'Re watching the game so the kids, you know, aren't crazy or anything like.

[Bree]

That, but make sure that you honor.

[Ron Simmons]

Your wife or your significant other by sending them, allowing them Helping them get to this conference, you will not regret it for sure.

[Bree]

So anyway, that's in October, and I hope to see you around. If you see me and I'm walking around carrying boxes or something, please stop and say hello. Well, we got several different things that.

[Ron Simmons]

We'Re gonna talk about today, but what.

[Bree]

I wanna first talk about is this whole, I guess it's gone nationwide now about redistricting and what they call gerrymandering, and they kind of use those interchangeably. Redistricting is really when usually after the census, which happens every 10 years, each state will take a look at their new population numbers and determine how they're going to divide up the various areas for their congressional representation and their state House representation and what have you. Because what happens, we are limited to 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives. So those get jumbled around every 10 years. If a state like Texas, for example, which is growing in population, will usually get more seats of the 435, a state like Illinois, who's losing population, will usually have less seats of the 435. So that happens about, about every 10 years. It happened just after the last census in 2020, it happened in 2010 and what have you. Or right after that. However, there is occasion where there will be redistricting done, what they call midterm, or in the middle of the cycle. And that's what's going on right now in Texas. So when they redistrict or when they draw up congressional districts, which is really just geographical borderlines, they have to try to get, I think it's 850,000 people within one U.S. congressperson's district. And so to do that, it depends on generally, at least in Texas and in a lot of other states, which political party is in control, because they will try to have as many districts that they believe, they don't know for sure, but they believe will vote for that party in the, in the next elections, over the next decade. And what happened in Texas is that when they drew the lines after the 2020 census, they drew a few districts actually incorrectly. And that's what the White House is claiming. That's what the Texas GOP is reclaiming. And actually, when I looked at the research, I think it's true, way the law works is it says that you cannot discriminate based on race, you can discriminate based on political party. There's no protection that if you're a Democrat, you're always going to have a Democrat as your congressperson. Same way for Republicans. But what you can't do is say, okay, we're going to, you know, just try to either move all of the African Americans in one area or all of the Hispanics in another area to make sure that we dilute their ability to vote for someone and possibly elect someone that they believe would represent them the best. Well, what happened in 2020 is the people that drew up what we call the maps or the districts in Texas, they put a black minority and a Hispanic minority together, and together those actually represented more than 50% of a particular of the whole district. And this was a whole big controversy about this. In fact, there was a lawsuit, and it really wasn't to do with Congress at the time. It had to do with the local commissioners race. In Texas, we have county commissioners, which are kind of like the council, the town council, but it's for the whole county. And so they were the, they were sued by some, some Hispanic and some black voters that said, look, we have the majority. We're majority. We are what's called a majority minority district. So it's a majority of the people in the district were minorities. That went through the court system and it got to the 5th Circuit, which is an appeals court right under the Supreme Court. It's actually based in Texas and Louisiana and a couple other states. They said, wait a second, it's called the Pettaway case. They said, wait a second, you can't do that. Okay? You can't. What they do called coalition, you can't have a coalition minority. So you can't claim that you have the majority of people in the district because some of them are black and some of them are Hispanic. It doesn't work like that. That actually is against the law. And so they, in fact, couldn't say they had a majority minority district, although they together they had 51%. They would, in order to claim that, they would have had to have over 50% either black or 50% minority. So the Fifth Circuit said in these few districts, which there are five of them in Texas, those are illegally formed coalition districts. So that's where the redistricting is going on. They are changing those districts so that.

[Ron Simmons]

They will now comply with the, the Voting Act. And that's exactly what's happening now when we call gerrymandering. Let's think about that. You know, gerrymandering, this is interesting, has been around since 1812, and it was named after Governor Gerry in Massachusetts, which is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country, by the way. Trump got 40% of the vote up there, and there's zero Republican congressmen, which is kind of crazy. So. And they drew this district in Massachusetts that was long and skinny, Right. When you look at the geographical boundaries, and it looked like a salamander. So they took the last name of the governor and this animal, or whatever we call a salamander. Brie, you think salamander is an insect or is it a rep. What is a salamander?

[Timothy]

It's a lizard, isn't it?

[Ron Simmons]

Is it a part of the lizard family?

[Bree]

I think so.

[Ron Simmons]

Okay. Bree probably knows that. Anyway, the district looked like a salamander, so they called it gerrymandering, and that's what we've called it since then. And gerrymandering is legal for political purposes. It's not legal for race or for racial purposes. So that's what's going on. All right, so here's what's happening in Texas. The. In order to have a quorum, in other words, in order to do business, you have to have 2/3 of the House of Representatives, and this is the state House, because they're the ones that draw the lines. You have to have 2/3 of those to be in present at time. And so that's 100 out of the 150 have to be present because 150 state representatives. Well, at least 51, really. About 55 have left the state, or that shouldn't say all of them left the state. They have. They did not show up at the Capitol in Austin, and so they haven't had a quorum.

[Bree]

It's been going on now for a.

[Ron Simmons]

Couple of weeks, I think, and they.

[Bree]

Haven'T had 100 people show up. So under the rules of the Texas House, if they don't have a quorum.

[Ron Simmons]

The speaker can put a call on the House, meaning that you are required to come down.

[Bree]

It is a legislative duty for you to be there. And if you violate that duty, there.

[Ron Simmons]

Are fines that the House imposes upon its members. And they also put in some rules.

[Bree]

That says you can't use your campaign.

[Ron Simmons]

Money to flee the state.

[Bree]

You can't. You can't.

[Ron Simmons]

You can't be.

[Bree]

You can't be reimbursed for that camp for that, for leaving the state. And also, they just put a rule.

[Ron Simmons]

That if you want to come by.

[Bree]

And get your check for being a state rep, we're not going to send that electronically anymore. You got to come and pick it.

[Ron Simmons]

Up at the Capitol. Now, why would they do that?

[Bree]

Because once they get to the Capitol, then the local state police can require them through assistance to be on the House floor. And so that's another rule that they've put in.

[Ron Simmons]

Now, Governor Abbott, and I think he's.

[Bree]

Probably right on this, the courts will see what they say.

[Ron Simmons]

But Governor Abbott has actually filed a.

[Bree]

Petition with the Texas Supreme Court to.

[Ron Simmons]

Require them to be back in as.

[Bree]

They are, even though they're out of.

[Ron Simmons]

State, to be able to get some.

[Bree]

Type of jurisdiction to have those states make sure that they send them home.

[Ron Simmons]

And to actually ask for a rest. So we'll see what happens. They had 95 people there the other day.

[Bree]

Eventually, what's going to happen, just so you know, eventually they will have at least 100 show up and these redistricting maps will be approved by the House and the Senate now.

[Ron Simmons]

They'll be challenged in court and they'll all all come out because here's what happens.

[Bree]

These, these.

[Ron Simmons]

Special sessions which they're in.

[Bree]

Right now, special legislation, they last 30 days in Texas.

[Ron Simmons]

And, and that means that, you know, 30 days runs out.

[Bree]

All that means is that the governor.

[Ron Simmons]

Will just call another special session.

[Bree]

All right. So eventually they're going to have to.

[Ron Simmons]

Come because here's what's not happening is.

[Bree]

Also on the agenda is flood relief for all those poor victims, families and the businesses and all the things that happened in the flood of the Guadalupe River a few weeks ago, which all of you heard about actually a month or two ago now. So they're the Democrats are keeping that from happening. No question about it. If they want. Here's my message to you Democrat friends.

[Ron Simmons]

And I have a lot of you are my friends.

[Bree]

We served together, served well together. But if you want the maps not to pass, win more races. That's the key. This is an election system. So win more races and then you can have control. But until then, like you did, you controlled the Texas house for 100 years. And if you want to go back and look at how you gerrymandered during that time, we can go back and go over that if you want to, but I don't think you'll like the result of it. So they're going to end up coming back in, whether it's this week, next week, next session, it's going to happen. And all of these other states that keep complaining about, well, if you do that, then we're going to do that. The funniest thing was is that the governor of Massachusetts said, well, we're going to redistrict two.

[Ron Simmons]

We're going to.

[Bree]

Well, when you look at it we're going to say go ahead, because you know what? Massachusetts doesn't have any Republican congressmen, so how are you going to redistrict down to get to have less? It just makes no sense. In fact, there are 12 or 13. There's, I think that's 10. Here's the, here's the states that don't have any Republican congresspeople and the fact that, that Trump won somewhere between 38 and 48% of the vote. So you'd think they would have some Republican congresspeople. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii. Can you imagine that? No Republican congressman from any of those. Even though Trump won between 38 and 48%, there's no Republicans. And the other thing is, is that there are four more states that Trump won over 40% of the vote, but they have less than 25% of their congresspeople are Republicans. So if they really want to talk about gerrymandering, in fact, Illinois, that, what's that governor's name up there? Pritzker.

[Ron Simmons]

Pritzker.

[Bree]

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He, that Illinois is probably the worst. They only 17% of their representatives are Republican, yet Trump won over 40%. So it's just a, it's a joke. It really is a joke. And it's all going to come out okay. Let me tell you something. The White House did not go about doing this because they just said we're going to take a gamble.

[Ron Simmons]

I promise you.

[Bree]

They studied this, they analyzed it, and they know that no matter what happens, all right, even if some of the other states decide they're going to do some redistricting, no matter what happens, the Republicans will come out better because all of the other states, if they do do some gerrymandering, it's probably going to end up helping, not hurting the Republicans in the long run. So we'll see. We'll keep playing. I've still got several friends in the House. In fact, I talked to one last night. And, and, you know, he said that, you know, it's going to eventually happen. And some of the Democrats that are already there, in other words, they didn't run away. Those are Democrats. A lot of those are in what we call the Valley, down in and around McAllen and Laredo and those, and Trump won over 50% of the vote in many of those districts. So that's one of the reasons they're there, for sure. So anyway, that's the deal on redistricting. If you, if you want more information on that. More questions. Feel free to email me at [e-mail] But I think it'll all get taken care of, and I doubt anybody will go to jail. All right, I don't think that'll happen, but I do think they'll have them back in the house here in the next, next couple of weeks.

[Timothy]

All right, just a little note just to correct myself. Salamander is not a lizard. A salamander is an amphibian, like a frog.

[Ron Simmons]

Oh. So it can live in the water and out of the water. Okay, thank you. Somebody would have caught that. And I know busted us on that, so that's good. We all, we want the truth. This is all this show's about. Truth. Exactly. We're all about the truth. All right.

[Allie Simmons]

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[Ron Simmons]

All right, so let's talk a little bit about the economy. And in part of this, we're going to also answer some questions that came in from our great listeners. The economy is actually doing very well. I mean, the s and P500 is kind of how I base how business is going to. It's the stock market of the 500 largest companies, and their stock prices go up or down based on how they're doing. And that's a reflection of how the economy's doing. But the stock market's up 8% for the year. That's a very good return. The average return for the s and P500 per year over the last 40 or 50 years is somewhere around 10% per year. Obviously, some years it's better than others. Some is worse than others. But 8% through, you know, the last week or so, I mean, through up, through. I think the first part of August is pretty good. So got to be pleased with that. If you have Money in your 401k and other investments, those, those must, those should be doing very well. I will tell you one area, and there's still a concern about the tariffs. I get that. I do believe that they are continuing to make progress on that. I thought it would get all done by the end of the summer. I'm not sure they'll have everything done by then, but they've made some great progress. You know, they just announced the European Union and some others here recently.

[Bree]

But one thing that I do think is a problem, and we're seeing this.

[Ron Simmons]

Play out in real time, is interest rates. The Federal Reserve, in my opinion, should lower interest rates. I don't think there's any question that interest rates have remained stubbornly high and it's only because of the Fed policy. It's not because of any other reason other than that.

[Bree]

I suppose they're afraid that if they.

[Ron Simmons]

Lowered them, the economy might get too hot and sometimes that creates more inflation. But I think we're beyond that now. I think it's actually hurting people now from being able to buy their first home. I think it's hurting people from being able to expand their businesses and what.

[Bree]

Have you because credit's too expensive.

[Ron Simmons]

And so I really encourage them to lower their interest rates.

[Bree]

You know, one thing I heard this.

[Ron Simmons]

Weekend I was reading some stuff about.

[Bree]

Is that the Federal Reserve, you know.

[Ron Simmons]

Is financed by banks that pay a fee.

[Bree]

And while it technically is an agency, it has very little oversight.

[Ron Simmons]

Congress can have oversight on it and.

[Bree]

They should do more than they're doing right now.

[Ron Simmons]

But in the past, it just has.

[Bree]

Had very little oversight. For example, they are remodeling some buildings.

[Ron Simmons]

Close to the Capitol that it's going to end up costing taxpayers, all right, $3 billion.

[Bree]

Can you imagine that?

[Ron Simmons]

$3 billion is what it's going to cost to remodel some old offices down close to the National Mall. And because they're putting in things like glass atriums, a rooftop garden, I'm not sure why people that are taking care of, you know, what interest rates should be, should have, should have all of that coming out of taxpayers money. So if you don't like that, and I don't, please contact your congressperson. They can do something about it.

[Bree]

They can restrict that budget and they can make sure, at least put enough political pressure on them.

[Ron Simmons]

That they do something about that?

[Bree]

Because that's ridiculous in my opinion. No, no way. But there's some questions that came in.

[Ron Simmons]

And so why don't we take a few of the questions. I'll try to get through as many as we can. I really appreciate you all participating in this. We have, as you can see on.

[Bree]

The deal here, we have just a whole page full of questions, and I may not get to all of them if I didn't get to yours. And you want still want the answer to that Again, feel free to email me. I'm happy to do it. All right, so the first one is, I just graduated from college and what are the main things I need to.

[Ron Simmons]

Focus on financially to set myself up for success?

[Bree]

Well, the first thing is a job.

[Ron Simmons]

That's what I. That's the first thing I would do.

[Bree]

Is make sure that you have a job. And while I do believe it's important that you're involved in something that you enjoy, I think that it's more important that you're involved in something that can make the financial where have the financial means to satisfy how you want to live. Now, if you're willing to sacrifice how you want to live in order to be able to do something you love that pays less money, that's fine, too. There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Some of you, for example, might want to be school teachers. That's what you're called to be.

[Ron Simmons]

My mom and dad were public school teachers.

[Bree]

Well, in order to do that, you're going to have. You're not going to be able to live in a $5 million house, right? Just not going to work that way, and that's fine. There's no reason for you to have to do that. You're going to have to, though, adjust your lifestyle desires to fall in line with what your ability to earn is. So make sure that when you're looking at the job that you are making sure that it covers how you want to live. And if it doesn't, you're going to have to live under what you make in order until you can get to where you want to be financially. So that's the second thing is you have to live on less than you make. All right? Do not live on credit cards. All right? Do not do that. Make sure. If you could start out, one way to start out right, is I would have one credit card for sure. I think you need that for emergency purposes, but I would make sure that.

[Ron Simmons]

I paid my credit card off every month.

[Bree]

It's just very, you know, Lisa and I didn't always do it. And we got behind more than one time when we were young, married, and man, that was a mistake. So much pressure was put on the relay, our own relationship. And then myself and Lisa individually. You know, because you're constantly. All you're doing is thinking about money. You know, the funny thing is people say that, well, people that are rich, all they do is think about money. Well, that's really not the way it works. People that don't have enough money, they spend all their time thinking about money because, hey, I don't have enough for this or I don't have enough for that.

[Ron Simmons]

So I would make sure they're focused on the job. Make sure you live on less than what you make, whatever that is, and also make sure that again, always say the first thing you do is you gotta think about giving. All right? Where are you gonna give? Whether it's to your church or to some type of charity, make sure that you're doing that. We need to be a generous people. Second thing you need to do is you need to save. All right, you need to save at least 10% of what you take home. And then you also. Then you live on the rest of that. But make sure you do those first two things first, in my opinion, all right, should I rush to pay my mortgage if my rate is lower than what I can make investing? Generally, the answer to that would be no if you want to continue, because you can also, even if you're. The good thing about mortgage rates, if your mortgage rate's 4% and you can make 6%, that's obviously better. But the 4% interest that you're taking is deductible. So if you're in a 20% tax bracket, it's even less than that. It's more like a 3% rate. So I wouldn't worry about it. Now, if you just have aversion to debt with which is like I do, you know, I try to get it paid off as fast as I can. You're always better not having debt. But if you can make investment returns that are better than what your mortgage interest rate is, then you should be better off over the long term. And it's okay to do that again. I recommend 15 year mortgages, not 30 year mortgage. We're going to talk about that in a minute too. I want to invest money. Should we do it on our own or hire someone to manage it?

[Bree]

It's according to where you are in.

[Ron Simmons]

Life and how much money you're talking about. If you have less than $250,000 to invest. My recommendation was that you put it in and you have a long term, you have more than a five year window. I would put it in just an s and P500 index fund, which you can get those through Schwab Fidelity Vanguard and you won't need somebody else to manage it. If you're at a retirement state and this is your entire nest egg, you. Yes, I would probably have an outside manager. In fact, I have an outside manager and I was in the investment business for over 30 years. So we. But I wanted to have that because I wanted to have a second set of eyes look at everything. And if something happened to me, investing wasn't one of Lisa's strong points. So having somebody there that can help take care of her financially with our investments is a plus to do that. Let's see here, advice for paying off student loans quickly. We're going to come back to that later. Okay, but I am going to talk about that because we have some things we're going to watch too for that. Let's see, what's the best way to get ready for retirement by age 30? Now if you're talking about you want to retire at age 30, my recommendation is to have wealthy parents that are going to let you do that. No, but seriously, if you're talking about how do I get ready, then what I would tell you is that by age 30 you need to have decided what you want to do in life. What I looked, I looked at different decades. In twenties, in my twenties, I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do. Okay, now I was working the whole time, but I wanted to make sure I was in the right career. In my 30s, I wanted to have picked that career and be working towards moving up the ladder, whatever that means. Whether you're a business owner and you want to increase your business or you work in a corporation, you want to get promotions so you can make more money. But in your 40s, you need to be able to determine in a sense how much money you're making by your productivity or, or by your value to the organization. In your 50s that needs to be able to grow exponentially so that in your 60s, which more people retire in their 60s, you'll be able to make those choices. Where to start budgeting for a newlywed couple? Well, first thing I would recommend, and I know a lot of you follow Dave Ramsey and he's really great, but I would really recommend Crown Financial and we can put some stuff in the show, notes about how to get in touch with them. But they are a faith based organization that really teaches great budgeting stewardship. The head of that organization, Chuck Bentley, is a good friend of mine also someone actually that helped Allie think about what career choice she would make. And there's a great story behind that that maybe she'll tell you sometime. And again, focus on giving, saving and spending. How much you're going to give, who you're going to give it to, how much you're going to save, how you're going to invest that and then spending. And you always have to spend less than what you make. I know that seems trite but, but a lot of if the consumer debt numbers are what people say they are, then a lot of people aren't doing that. They are spending more than they're making. And generally it's not for food and clothes. Generally it's for something else. Now they may actually be putting their food and clothes on that, but that's because they spent money somewhere else that they probably shouldn't have.

[Allie Simmons]

Okay, all this might come as a little surprise to you, but I am not really a conference person person. I'm not someone who has attended a bunch of Christian women's conferences. It's not really my thing because honestly a lot of women's ministry just focuses on women's self esteem telling us how beautiful and perfect we are rather than giving us the hard hitting truth that the Bible teaches. But I want to be challenged. I want apologetics, I want deep theology. I want to know how to apply apply biblical truth to motherhood, to health, to different realms of my life. And that is why I created Share the Arrows for women who want truth, who want to be challenged, who want deep biblical teaching. That is what you are going to get at this Christian Women's Conference October 11 outside of Dallas, Texas. It's called Share the Arrows. It's amazing. Apologist Elisa Childers will be there. Katie Faust, one of your favorite guests, will will be speaking as well. We've got Ginger Dugger Volo giving her testimony and a call of encouragement and boldness. We've got a Biblical health panel. We've got a Biblical Motherhood panel. Franchesca Battistelli will be leading us in worship. It's just going to be amazing. Go to sharethe arrows.com get your ticket today. This year, Share the Arrows is brought to you by our friends at Carly Jean Los Angeles. And speaking of Carly Jean Los Angeles, let me just tell you about one of my favorite favorite companies of all time. They make some of my Very favorite pieces that I have hanging in my closet. Some of these pieces I have had for over five years and that is just how high quality CJLA is. These pieces are meant to last. They are meant to transcend the different styles that come and go, transcend all the seasons of life, seasons of of the year. They are so good. Their basics line is all made in the U.S. carly and her family are Christians. They love America. They love what they do. So it's a great company. Support to support and you will absolutely love their clothing. If you go to Carly Jean Los Angeles.com Use code ALI B. You will get a discount on your order when you do that. That is Carly Jean Los Angeles.com Code Ali B.

[Ron Simmons]

How do I prepare to afford my K to go to private Christian school because it's so expensive? Well, that's a great question. And it's something Lisa and I really struggled with when we were early on, you know, when Justin. We were only 27 when Justin started school. So we were very young and we made the decision. I wasn't making a lot of money then and we had had a second baby by then. So Lisa, she may have been working part time outside the home. She was off and on with that. But a lot of times it was single income. We just decided that no matter what, that was a priority of ours and.

[Bree]

We were going to do whatever we.

[Ron Simmons]

Had to to do that. If that meant we have to live in a smaller house, drive a less expensive car, or even if I had to get a second job, that's what we were going to do. That was really important to us. Now, since that time, a lot of states have approved this school choice initiative, which Texas just did, which you might be able to get some assistance with your private school, even if it's a private Christian school. So depending on what state you live in, make sure you check into that to see if you're eligible to receive any help with paying for the private Christian school. But you just have to decide if it's a priority. And if it's a priority, it's probably going to mean you have to sacrifice some other things. And so I hope that you come to that same decision at least. And I did. All right. My sister's husband left her. They're in massive debt, middle of a lease and no savings. How does she get herself in a good place financially? Well, I don't know again, the individual details of this, but the first thing she has to do is she has to, you know, make sure she has the best job that she can get. And that doesn't mean that she's necessarily going to be her most fun job. It may be a job where she can make the most money, even though it's not necessarily her passion. Because her passion right now should be to get financially stable. To get financially stable, you may have to do some things that you don't want to do. Now, obviously I'm talking about legally and morally. Okay, don't take that incorrectly. The other thing that you have to do is I think you have to be willing to pick up the phone and call, call the landlord, explain the situation. Maybe they'll help, maybe they won't. Okay, you may have to get some free legal advice. There are free legal advice organizations all over the country that would tell you what happens if I break my lease. Okay. In this particular state because you may have, you may be forced to do that. And then same way with credit card companies. If you're in debt with credit card companies, there are programs out there and Crown Financial can help you with this as well that will take a reduced payment and actually knock some off your bill if you set up a payment program. So that's what I would do. And the other thing to do is stop digging. If you're in massive debt, don't get in any more debt. It has to stop right now. 100% hard stop. Cannot continue to get in massive debt. The best thing, if you're worried about the hole getting too deep, quit digging. And it's the same way financially. And again, if you have any more questions, feel free to email me. Is it okay to go down to one income and pause investing for my wife to be a stay at home mom? Absolutely, 100%. Now the 22 year old Ron would have said, no way. Lisa, I do not want you to quit that teaching job because it's exactly what I told her. And she said, I am staying home with our baby and that's the way it is. And she was right, of course. And so we just, you know, we had to reduce some things we had to sacrifice. Certainly weren't making any investments at the time. We may have been saving a little bit of money. We didn't quit giving to the church. That was important to us because I do think it's important to give to charity. But absolutely, you'll never regret your wife staying home with the kids or if it's the dad, however, y' all do that. Okay. You'll never regret having a parent home with the kids, especially before they get started into school. You'll Never regret that. So I applaud you for doing that. What should our tithing goals be? I know Bree has some interesting thoughts on this, and should we pay off the debt before tithing? Well, let me answer the second question. The answer to that question is no. You should give first. All right? And you certainly should pay off your debt, but you should give first. Maybe you can't give as much as you normally do, but giving needs to be a habit. And your kids need to see you giving. They need to know that that's what you do, because that's setting an example for what they will know to be right in the long run. But, Bri, what's your thought, though, just on the whole tithing scenario?

[Timothy]

Yeah, I know that Israelites gave at least a tenth. That's what tithe means, tenth. But we are called to do more than that as God gives us resources. So I think that 10th is like a good starting point for some people who don't have capacity to give more than that. But I think that we as Christians should really be pushing ourselves to be as generous as. As possible. And more often than not, in America, that means more than 10%. So I don't think that 10 is like a hard and fast rule. I think it's. It can be a minimum to push yourself. But really, like, early Christians didn't limit themselves in how much they were giving to their fellow brethren and sending people. I feel very strongly that as Christians, we should always be either going or sending or sometimes both. And so I think that just needs to be built into our financial structures as well.

[Ron Simmons]

I can't add much to that. That's great. I agree with that 100%. But I will say that again, like Bree said, minimum 10%. And then it doesn't have to all go to one place, of course.

[Bree]

All right.

[Ron Simmons]

No matter what your church happens to say, it doesn't have to be that way. You give that as you feel God leading you. I will tell you what my friend John Maxwell told me is he said, rather than give a little to a lot of places is find three or four, pray about them, obviously, and then go deep into those. And that probably does mean giving and doing as well. Sometimes you might not be able to do, you know, may not be able to do anything, but you should get in those things that you're super interested in that advance the kingdom, glorify God and something that you have a passion for. But rather to have a few of those and deep than many of those and go wild on that would be My opinion on that.

[Allie Simmons]

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[Ron Simmons]

Tips for first time home buyers. Oh, I love this one. Don't buy a home you can't furnish. How many people buy more home than they can furnish? That is so stupid. Don't do that, okay? And don't buy a home you can't maintain. If you drive by these really nice neighborhoods and all that and somebody's yard has gone to pot, that means they probably got too much home because either they can't maintain it themselves or they can't hire somebody to maintain it. You always can move up in a house later. Okay? But make sure that you're buying a home that is easy for. Not easy, but it allows you to maintain. It allows you to furnish. It doesn't have to be the most expensive furnishings. But don't over buy in a house thinking that you'll always come out spending like a rose. It doesn't work like that. Okay? Lisa and I've had houses that we didn't make money off of when we, when we sold them. So, and you know, the economy changes, things are out of your control. Or maybe, you know, maybe we made some mad choices, bad choices and what have you. But make sure that you can maintain a house and furnish a house before you buy it. If you can't do those things, then buy less of a house. No question about that. Let's see here. Can I be putting too much money into retirement? I think that just depends. A good example is what we talked About a few minutes ago. If you would like for your kids to go to a Christian school but you can't afford it because you're trying to save everything you possibly can, then I don't think that's the right thing to do. I think you have to make sure what your priorities are. If you have the extra money, then no, you can never save too much because you don't know what's going to happen in the future. You don't know what your needs are going to be. Also, I believe we're called upon to leave an inheritance not only to our children, but our children's children. And I believe that's biblical. And so therefore we do need to be saving as much as we can for retirement, but not at a sacrifice of what we're supposed to be doing now for our current family. How do I know if I'm helping someone financially or enabling them financially? Man, Lisa, and I've made a lot of mistakes on this one. The only thing that I could say that might help you is if you help someone one time, all right, and let's say that they were in dire need, they couldn't pay their rent, so you helped them and they came back, you know, a few months later and says, I need your help again on paying rent, then you're probably enabling because you, if you especially haven't seen any changes occur in how they're doing things, you know, they're still going out to eat three times a week or whatever it is they're doing, then you're probably enabling them. I'd be very, very cautious about that. Again, should be happy to sit down with them and help them maybe figure out the problem. But I wouldn't spend my time simply just giving them money. We've done that and it's rarely worked out. In fact, Lisa and I were talking about this morning. I think it's worked out one time in our life where they've actually done what they said they were going to do. The best way to eliminate credit card debt is don't get into any more debt. And secondly, if you can't pay it off under the current payment schedule to where you're paying more than the minimum, then get with one of these credit cards companies that will help you do that. And I think there are some valuable ones out there. I'm sure that Dave Ramsey can recommend some. I know Crown Financial can as well. Okay, this is my last one on this one, but I think it's a pretty good one. Okay. Why get a 15 year mortgage which is what I've promoted. If I can get a 30 year mortgage and pay it off in 15 years. Now those seem to be the same thing. Bri, would you agree that if you get a 15 year mortgage versus a 30 year, but your 30 year, you pay off in 15 years, it seems like you would be okay, pay the same amount. But I have the option on the 30 year, I have a less monthly payment. So why wouldn't I do that and give myself some more options? Well, here's why you wouldn't, Bree, is because the way it works is that first of all, the 15 year mortgage rate's going to be less. Right now the 30 year mortgage rate is somewhere around 6.5% and the 15 year somewhere between 5.75. So your interest rate is going to be less and therefore you're going to be paying less interest per month on a 15 year mortgage. The other, the other reason it is is that because you're paying a higher interest rate and because less of your payment every month is principal versus interest. You know, principal is when you're taking, let's say you borrowed $300,000. If you pay off $1,000 principal, now you own 299,000, right? So your more interest is being charged every month on 300,000 at 6.5% than it is at 5.75. All right? And you're paying. And more of that is interest versus principal. In fact, on a $300,000 loan in 15 years, let's say you paid them both off in 15 years because you paid some extra principal on your 300,000, you would have paid $140,000 in interest on a 30 year loan paid off in 15 years, you would only have paid $103,000 interest on a 5.75% 15 year loan. If you paid it off in 15 years. Years. So you're, you're giving yourself some flexibility because your payment's not as high, but it's costing you $37,000 to do that. So I would not do that.

[Bree]

Now I know that would.

[Ron Simmons]

Now you know. Now, now we know. Now we know why.

[Allie Simmons]

Y'.

[Ron Simmons]

All.

[Allie Simmons]

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[Ron Simmons]

A couple other things financial related and we're going to go to one of the sites to talk about and this is all around. This ones are going to be around the student loan. Let's talk about the student loan first if we can.

[Unknown Speaker]

So as it turns out, the student loans that I've been paying $1,500 a month for, for two years have a 17% interest rate. So what I thought I'd been paying off for all this time. I'm actually like, I owe more than what I started off with. What the f? So, Jeff Bezos, this would be a really cool time to Venmo me, bro. Like, I owe $90,000 and I didn't even spend that much on school. Like any rich person, please tap in like Kourtney Kardashian. Like, you probably have eight houses. I'm never gonna be able to buy one because I went to college. I just signed up to be an egg donor. Guess what got approved? Who wants my kids? I can't afford them. So start admitting more. Just take arm. What do you want? My left arm too. Like, what the are we supposed to do?

[Ron Simmons]

That is a lot to unpack. I mean, first of all, it's a real scenario. So I want to make sure that people understand. I don't make light of that at all. People have gone into a lot of debt to go to college with the promise that things are going to be rosy afterwards. We had a scenario probably for, I don't know, 20, 30 years that everybody needs to go to college. And the universities were behind a lot of this because they knew that it was money for them. Right? And the government would loan you money. You could also get private student loans. And so they promote everybody go to college, which that's not always the case. And thank goodness there's been some change in that. In fact, in some of the work I'm doing with a couple of Think tanks really trying to promote, you know, trade schools and skills that people can learn and make very, very good living without having to go into debt to go to college. You know, when Lisa and I went to college, neither one of our parents had the money to send us to college. And Lisa had a small student loan. I mean we're talking about a couple $3,000. So we paid that off over time, of course. And the way I went to college is I spread it out. I squeezed four years of college into ten. Now bre, that's some college for you. Four years into ten. You got to be really smart to do that. But no, and the reason, one of the reasons we did it is I had to work and so I was going part time to college. And maybe that's what people need to do as well. But in this particular situation, and again, I don't know this lady. I mean she does have almost a million TikTok followers. So I don't, I don't know if her job is, you know, as a TikTok influence or not. If so, she probably is making quite a bit of money if she's got almost a million of those. But what it sounds like, and based on the research that I did, is that there are two types of loans. You can have a federal loan from the federal government essentially are backed by the federal government. You get it through a bank, but the government backs it up. Or you can have a private loan and the private loans are what's caused all the problem. And yes, those interest rates can be as high as 17%. And honestly I would agree with people that think, you know what, that's just user us. I mean that's just ridiculous. 17% should be more than it's allowed. It's kind of like the credit cards that have 25%. I don't agree with that either. I'm not exactly sure what the number should be. Somewhere in my mind it should be somewhere around maximum of 10%. But again, and that's generally the reason those are so high is because they prey on people that can't borrow the money anywhere else because maybe they have bad credit or they're brand, you know, for a young person, brand new credit don't have anybody co signing on their loan. So that's a real issue. And as far as this particular scenario, if you're in that scenario, what I would do again is there are firms out there that can help you work a deal with these companies to have a reduced payment to maybe lower the interest. And I would try to find one of those companies to do that. The other thing is there were some really big changes to the student loan program. I wrote them down in the big beautiful bill we talked about last time. I think they're positive changes. And I don't know if you already have a student loan, if you can go refinance it or not under these scenarios, but you should take a look at it and see because if so, I would highly recommend that for sure. Here's a couple of the changes that they made. First of all, there's a limit on how much you can borrow. And it didn't used to be that way. You could borrow whatever they'd loan you. You could borrow it now for an undergraduate degree, the maximum you can borrow is $65,000 over your undergraduate career. That's a really good deal. All right, because first of all, it's going to make universities think about lowering their price. And secondly, it's going to make sure that we go to colleges that we know that we can afford for a graduate degree. Let's say I wanted to get my MBA, the most I could borrow is 100 grand. If I wanted to get a postgraduate, like a doctor's degree, it would be 200,000. So that is a big change from what happened before. And I think. And again, these are federal loans. Okay, which would be the cheaper. Their interest rates are around 6% versus the 17% that this lady talked about. And in the past there were. Well, no, under the new bill, let's say that you, you go out and you get a job, but if that job is not paying that your or your major is not going to get you a job that pays more than what a high school graduate could make, then you can't get a loan for that particular major. I mean, some people say that. Well, there's a lot of social workers and stuff that have a passion for that and need a degree, but doesn't pay that much money. I get it, but here's the thing to do. Go to a community college to start with. Those things are very inexpensive and maybe have to spend your last two years in a four year college, but it'll be a lot less that you would have to borrow and probably would fall within the parameters that you would be allowed to borrow the money. But I think that's pretty cool. Why are we going to have you borrow the money if you can't make any more than you would if you're a high school graduate, you may get in. You might as well get in the workforce. Here's how you have to pay the money back. If, if the loan's under 25,000, you can pay it back over 10 years. Okay, if it's 25 to 50,000, you pay it back over 15 years. 50 to 100,000, you pay it back Over 20, over 100, you get 25 years to pay it back now. But it looks like this, it depends, some of it depends on how much money you make. If you make $30,000 or the loan is $30,000, the loan is 30,000 or less. You only pay 1% to 2% of your income. That's all you have to pay. And that grows up to 10% if you make over $100,000, which I think is pretty cool. The other thing that they've done, which has never been done before, is they're also adding grants, which are actually gifts. Grant is a gift, you don't have to pay that back. And loans to workforce training, meaning that if you wanted to go become be a welder or you wanted to go be a heating and air conditioning or plumber or something like that, you can actually now get one of these government backed loans or grants to be able to pay for the schooling to do that. And that's usually a, you know, one year type program. I think that's really cool. So it's really given people an opportunity to that maybe they get out of high school, don't have the money to go to college, don't really even have the money to pay for a trade school, that they can do that as well. So I think those are huge positives. And I would just, you know, again, this lady, I don't know her personally, it's really not about her, it's really about the whole situation. And I do believe that we borrow money, we need to pay it back. There's no question about that. But there are different ways that you can go about maybe getting some relief to do that. And I would look into all of those that you possibly can if you.

[Allie Simmons]

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[Ron Simmons]

The final thing is that we're going to talk about related to this is how much, you know, does it really take to live these days? And there are a lot of people that are saying, hey, I don't have enough money to live. Let's play that sot from this gentleman.

[Unknown Speaker]

They tell us to stop eating out and rent $2,000 a month. Oh, save for retirement. And yet you can barely save for next week.

Go buy a house.

Every house is half a million dollars, brother. I'm not asking for a handout, man. We're asking for a freaking fair shot at life. Our parents did not work harder than we work right now. They were simply just given a better chance. Their wages covered their lives, their bills, their hobbies, their passions. Our wages barely cover our freaking bills for the month, dude. No amount of budgeting can ever fix a system designed to keep us down. We're doing the best that we can, and yet it feels like the outcome has already been decided.

[Ron Simmons]

Honestly, if TikTok would have been around in 1981 or 1982, I could have made that same video. And it's nothing against this person. I believe what he says is true from the standpoint of what he's going through right now and what a lot of people are going through. It is just a fact that when you're getting started and when you're young and again, I don't know what financial decisions he's made. Let's say he's made all the right ones. And it's still a struggle. Lisa and I believe were pretty good stewards of our money, but it was a struggle, and it's going to be a struggle. We had to make some decisions when we moved to Dallas. I got a huge raise from what I was making back in Arkansas to Dallas. But you know what? I found out the same thing. He did my $30,000 house, okay, in Arkansas back in 1980 was a $90,000 house immediately as soon as I moved to Dallas. And not any Better house. So it's three times as much money. So you can relate that however you want to. And I was making maybe $30,000 a year, although I was making 20 when we left. So I thought, okay, I've made all this extra money. What we had to do, our sacrifice here was we had to move out further so that houses got less expensive. And so one, that may be one of the things that you have to do, there's no question about it because we live, we do live in a market based society. Meaning if there are more people wanting to buy houses in an area than there are people wanting to sell them, the price is going to go up, there's no question about that. And wages do not ever seem to go up as much as the inflation does or that prices do on things that are in high demand. Absolutely no question. The other thing that I would say about this is that, you know, we may have to, you know, I had to, I had a second job when I was, when I was young. I would referee and umpire sporting events to make some extra money. May have to do that. But I do believe that we have to adjust our lifestyle so that we can live on what we currently make. And then we have to be looking at ways how can we increase our income. That was always important to me was remember my number one goal was to get my, to stop the generations of financial mediocrity in my family. And so for me I was constantly looking at how, what is it that I can do to make the most money that fits my values and is legal to do so. It's a struggle, there's no question about it. And I feel bad for young families. We have those in our family, you know, in our extended family we have members that struggle and what have you. But I do believe that if you again make sure that you're living in a place that allows us to afford and also that we are truly looking at what we do on a day to day basis. We may have to have less car, we may have to have less house, we may have to have a second job. We may have to say no to some vacation. We don't, you know what? We don't deserve a vacation. We don't deserve, you know, for our kids to get designer clothes. We don't deserve to get a new car every few years. Those are things that we can have and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But until we have the income level that can match that, then we have to do something different. And I hope that you will make those hard decisions to do that. And it'll be okay in the long run, I promise you. You put the effort in, you get the training or the education you need to make the type of income that you want to make, and you live below your means, your finances will turn around. It happens. I've seen it happen time and time again over my lifetime. All of our family, I mean, all of our friends that we knew when we were first getting started, they were all just like us. We didn't have any rich friends. They were all just getting started. And for the most part, all of them have turned out to do very well financially. And I wouldn't say they're certainly not, you know, Jeff Bezos type rich or anything like that, but I would say that they. They've done their job of living below their means, they've saved their money, and they've been able to come out well on the other side. And I believe this gentleman can do that. And I know it's frustrating. There's been plenty of times where, you know, Lisa and I were both at tears over, you know, we couldn't do this or we couldn't do that, or we, you know, we. We thought it was important to be able to, you know, help somebody that we couldn't help, things like that. So. And that's frustrating. But I know you can come out the other side of it. There's no question about it. So I hope that he'll do that. And again, if you have any more questions on that, please feel free to email me last couple of things and then we're going to finish up. I kind of gone a little bit long today, so apologize to the team here for that. Questions from the audience on this one are, what's the advice for being in toddler season? Well, the only thing I'll tell you is it will pass. It will pass. Now you can control some of that. Okay, according to how many toddlers you're having. Right? But it will pass eventually. But the number one advice that I can give you on that is make sure that you're dating your spouse. Guys. Give your wife lots of leeway in that area. I wasn't as good as that as I should have been, for sure. But I know from looking back on it what I should have done, and that is give your wife a lot of leeway, but make sure you're dating your spouse and wives. I understand the kids wear you out every day. I really do. I've stayed with mine a limited amount of time by myself, and I'VE kept the grandkids some, so it wears you out. No question about it. But you still need to remember that you have a husband and allow him to take you out on a date. Allow him to treat you as the queen of the house that you are, okay? And don't forget that he's a part of this as well. And, guys, we can help out. We don't do things near as good as our wives do, but we can certainly help out. And I'd encourage you to do that. But make sure that y' all are going on a date at least once a month. I mean, that's a minimum. I hope you do it, you know, once every couple of weeks, but make sure y' all are getting a babysitter going on a date at least once a month. Secondly, how do I find a godly man? That's a good question. That's hard. I would say, and this sounds a little bit oversimplified, but it's all about your network. Okay. Who are the people that are close to you that you can network with? It's like a friend of mine tells me he asks people all the time, who do you know, that I should know? And that can work in any scenario, whether that's job related, relationship related. I just think you have to work your network and let them know what you're looking for. Obviously, going. Being part of a church, being part of a community with good values and whatever is something to do, but mainly it's working your own network. The people that know you best, just work that network the best you can. If I feel compelled to confront my dad about his behavior, which I assume is not good behavior, whatever that is, what's the respectful way to do that? Well, you have to still remember that we're called to honor our parents. Doesn't mean we can't have hard conversations or disagree with them, but we have to do it with honor. And so I would recommend that you sit down with him. You know, set up a time, sit down with him, just you and him privately, somewhere, away from everybody else. And you have to have the conversation like I like I tell people you have to build it like a sandwich. You have to have the soft and gooey stuff on the outside, like brie. Sourdough bread, which I'm sure is awesome. Is that true, Bri? I'm sure it is. Yeah.

[Timothy]

I killed my sourdough starter, so.

[Ron Simmons]

Ouch.

[Timothy]

Not. Not at the moment.

[Ron Simmons]

Not the most coming back, though. I know.

[Timothy]

Yeah.

[Ron Simmons]

Okay, so. So. And then you put the meat on the Inside. And so you start out with something that you like about your dad or you respect him for, and then you say the things that are challenging. You try to say those not in a condescending way, but, hey, help me understand, help me understand. Maybe I'm misunderstanding about these particular actions that you're taking, maybe you're not, but that's the way to say it. And then you finish it up with something good at the end as well. But just make sure that when you do talk about the meat that you're direct. Do not leave any innuendos asking him to read into that. Because I tell you, most of us guys, we're not very good at reading innuendos. Just be direct and then start with good and end with good. And it may not get the initial result that you like, but over the long term, if your dad is a man of any type of honor, he'll have respected you for doing that. Let's see here. What would you do if your kids came out, if one of your kids came out as gay? Well, first of all, you're going to love your kids no matter what. And you probably already know that, and you're going to tell them that. But you also should tell them that we don't believe that's God's will. Doesn't mean that they don't have that attraction. Okay. There's a difference between same sex attraction and acting on it. And there's a lot of good podcasts and books on that. In fact, I would encourage you to listen to the Beckett Cook podcast. This is a gentleman who has same sex attraction but not acting on it. And I believe that he's following the godly thing to do on that. Or also some of you that have heard Rosaria Butterfield on Ali's podcast before. And Rosaria, I don't know exactly how to pronounce her name, but. And she was at the share of the arrows last year. She's got some great books out on that. All right. Because she struggled with this as well. So encourage you to reach out. Also find you a group of small group of friends that you can talk to about it, that you trust and can keep your confidence and that you can really lay it all on the light on the line for. And obviously you're praying about this, asking for God's wisdom on how to handle that. How did I meet Allie's mom? Well, we can talk about that. We met in a small community college or a junior college at the time we called them and we had gone to different high Schools, So I didn't know her before that, but we had two classes together. This is very interesting, so you need to write this down. We had biology together and psychology, and both of them worked at the end of the day. So that's how we met. And we started dating a few months into our freshman year and got married about a year and a half later. And for me, it's been all good. I don't know if Lisa was sitting here, she'd say that. For me, it's been all good. So, anyway, last two things, Wisdom from the wagon. That's what we're calling these when I'm on now, Wisdom from the Wagon. And it's about my book, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon, which if you haven't gotten, please do. And then one of the things, the wisdom coming out of that this time is one of the things that we do as a family. You know, Allie's got her family, My oldest son's got his family. They don't live in the same area we do. One of our sons, Daniel, with autism, lives with us, is every Sunday night, we do a family zoom call. And it's after the kids, all the young ones go to bed. We do a family zoom call, and we just go over what's been going on in the week, what's coming up in the next week, and what can we be praying for each other about. That has really, really been a good thing for us. We've enjoyed doing that. Does it mean we can make it happen every week?

[Bree]

No.

[Ron Simmons]

And to some people, not there every time. That's right. We don't get too, you know, strict on it, but it's just something that's really helped and it lets us know how we can be best praying for the people that we love the most. And I would encourage you if you don't, obviously if your kids are little, you can get together with your own family, or I wouldn't even encourage you to do it. If you got brothers and sisters that are living in different parts of the country, maybe do that once a month. If it's not every week, that's okay to do that. But that's what use technology for the benefit, not for all the bad things that happens on it. And then finally, the last thing I want to do is read one thing that's something that's really been speaking to me the last several months. And it's in James 3, 16, 17, and it says, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.

[Bree]

However.

[Ron Simmons]

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable gentleman, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. Read 17 again. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. That is what wisdom is all about, and that's what I need to be striving for and what I'm committing to try to be better at. And I hope that you'll take that and think about that as well. Thanks for joining us. We had a great time today and if you need me, please feel free to email me ronsimmons.com don't forget to buy Ali's book Toxic Empathy. It is just flashing off the shelves now. There's going to be one special feature. You're going to see an image come up. It's going to be an image of a belt I'm wearing today and the first person that tells me what golf club this represents will get three books. You'll get Allie's book, you'll get my book. And my wife has a book that she wrote years ago about our son. Daniel called. I would have said yes. We'll send you all of those autographed for the first person that can guess the symbol. Whoever has the answer to this very difficult question now, don't cheat, okay? Don't google it. You got to know it. You can ask your dad. Just Instagram message us at Relatable with abs Elatable with abs Thanks a lot.

[Unknown Speaker]

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