Choose Lasting Wealth Over Temporary Comfort

Summary

The Ramsey Show – "Choose Lasting Wealth Over Temporary Comfort"

Date: June 23, 2026
Hosts: Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze
Overview:
This episode of The Ramsey Show focuses on the importance of prioritizing long-term financial stability and lasting wealth over momentary comfort. Listeners call in with real-life money questions about everything from financial independence for adult children to business loans, purchasing homes, debt, and windfall inheritances. Dave and Rachel stress practical, tough-love strategies, wielding repetition on core Ramsey principles—budgeting, living on less than you make, avoiding debt, and never risking long-term health for fleeting ease.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Encouraging Adult Children Toward Financial Independence

[00:43–08:26]

• Caller Charles wonders how to motivate his 19- and 21-year-olds to leave the nest and become self-sufficient.
• Dave’s Eagle Analogy: Parents should gradually make the "nest" less comfortable so young adults are encouraged to leave and soar.
• Quote (Dave, 04:43):

  "They would never soar as long as the nest is comfortable. And that's an act of love."

• Action Steps: Set a deadline, help them devise a plan—whether that involves work or school—and clarify that living under their parents’ roof is temporary.

Memorable Moment:
Rachel jokes at Charles’ progress:

"At least they're not 34. You're ahead of the game, Charles." (01:19)

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2. High-Yield Savings vs Money Market Accounts

[10:23–13:38]

• Caller Jeb (young and about to marry) asks whether a high-yield savings or a money market account is best for baby step savings.
• Rachel: Prefers a high-yield savings account for accessibility and slightly better rates, ideal for emergency funds.
• Dave: Notes that the distinction is less about rates and more about ease of access.
• Quote (Rachel, 12:29):

  "It's usually a little bit higher with high yield, but it's not that significant."

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3. When to Let Go—Handling Home & Divorce

[13:38–19:38]

• Caller Megan is trapped post-divorce in a home she can’t refinance due to her ex-husband’s arrears and significant foundation issues.
• Dave’s Advice: Sell the house as-is, rent nearby, stabilize finances and family, and use any proceeds to enforce owed support.
• Quote (Dave, 16:14):

  "Sell the stupid house. That house is no longer a blessing."

• Rachel highlights the value of a fresh start over clinging to a broken dream.

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4. The Rental House Dilemma When Buying Up

[22:27–24:50]

• Caller Jay wonders if he should keep his first house as a rental when moving up—while not paying cash for the new place.

• Dave: If you’re borrowing for the new home, don’t keep the old one as a rental; sell it and use the equity.

  • Justification: Borrowing to buy a rental indirectly by NOT paying off your new primary residence is a wash.

• Quote (Dave, 23:00):

  "If you’re not paying cash for the new home, sell it. You would not borrow money on the new home to buy a rental."

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5. Changing Jobs & Benefits—Is Health Insurance Worth a Pay Cut?

[25:59–29:55]

• Caller Daniel considers leaving a union job ($125k/year with benefits) for private sector work ($235–$245k/year, needs to buy own insurance).
• Dave: Even factoring insurance costs, the pay jump makes it a simple yes.
• Key Lesson: Don't let comfort or tradition outweigh a math-based decision.
• Quote (Dave, 27:00):

  "For $100,000 a year you can buy a dentist and have him stay in your home."

• Rachel: Growth and opportunity outweigh union-based 'safety nets.'

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6. Downsizing for Family Priorities

[34:06–41:44]

• Caller Matt: Struggling to afford intensive therapy for his autistic son, considering selling his home to become debt-free and live on one income.
• Dave: Prioritize family needs—even if it means a temporary lower standard of living. Selling the house and clearing debt gives breathing room during crisis.
• Quote (Dave, 39:46):

  "I want you to emotionally treat this as very temporary. You are not the worst or best thing that ever happened to you."

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7. Teaching Kids Money Lessons Through Unexpected Windfalls

[43:50–50:51]

• Caller Tiffany: Her 11-year-old son may sell a baseball card for $4,000; asks for advice on how to help him manage the windfall.
• Dave & Rachel: Use this as a teaching moment; split into giving, saving, enjoying, and, optionally, investing a portion for lessons—not to chase returns.
• Quote (Dave, 45:13):

  "The lessons he gets from it will be more valuable than the actual money."

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8. Should You Take Out a Business Loan to Accelerate Growth?

[53:48–62:26]

• Caller Hattie: Wants to expand her Montessori home daycare via a $25–$30k loan.

• Dave: Never borrow to grow small businesses—risk and reality rarely match projections. Instead, save, cut expenses, and cash flow the build, even if slower.

• Classic Daveism (55:07):

  "There are three rules of business: It takes twice as long as you think, it costs twice as much as you think, and you’re not the exception..."

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9. Budgeting When You're Overwhelmed & Behind

[76:15–86:02]

• Caller Jamie: Chaotic finances, debts in default, husband is a truck driver, struggling to budget and break out of the cycle.
• Rachel & Dave: Establish a written budget, use the EveryDollar app, focus on the Four Walls (food, shelter, utilities, transportation), and attack expenses methodically.
• Quote (Dave, 80:11):

  "It sounds like y'all are completely freaking clueless. You have no idea where your money’s going... But you can fix that."

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10. Should You Go Into Debt to Double Income?

[86:02–92:19]

• Caller Andrew: Dad offers to sell him a semi-truck that would double his pay if he finances or "rents" from Dad.
• Dave: Don’t borrow. Options: structure as a rent-to-own (reduce risk), or sell your personal vehicle to buy the truck outright—even if it means driving a beater car for a while.
• Quote (Dave, 89:57):

  "If the world falls apart, you don’t owe your dad $24,000."

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11. Big Windfall: Inheriting Money Wisely

[107:43–115:44]

• Caller Dave: Missionary in New York, age 40, will inherit $2 million; asks how to manage it.
• Dave & Rachel: Assemble a council—CPA, insurance broker, financial advisor (who teaches not sells), real estate agent. Consider yourself a manager (steward), not the owner. Segregate investment, giving, and use for support in emergencies only. Maintain donor-based living.
• Quote (Dave, 109:13):

  ”It’s lighter if you’re the manager. It’s heavier if you’re the owner.”

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12. Rapid Advice on Varied Topics

• Home as a Rental vs. Selling: Stick with cash and avoid rentals if mortgaging new properties (22:27–24:50)
• College Savings vs. Mortgage Prepayment: Don’t go to extremes—balance contributions, but prioritize debt and use scholarships/work for gaps (72:48–74:24)
• Buying Expensive Cars Young: [96:14–103:40] Never buy a new (especially luxury) car on debt after college—depreciation and payments are wealth killers, even with a “low” 2% interest rate.
  • "Middle class is car payments." (98:55, Rachel)
• Estate Planning & Wills: Get a will now; untangling after death is traumatic. Know how property is titled and what your actual wishes are (117:35–123:13)
• Fixer Upper Houses: If your home is a mess and you wouldn’t buy it again, sell—even at a loss. Don’t let "hope" trap you in a money pit (123:30–126:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “An eagle that fails to fly is called a turkey. That’s the way this works.” — Dave, 07:32
• “Union is not your source of provision. The negatives about a union is they brainwash you that the union is all-encompassing and they are your provider. And that's all bullcrap.” — Dave, 28:23
• “You are not the single worst thing or best thing that ever happens to you. Those are just milestones along the road.” — Dave, 39:46
• “If you didn't own it, would you buy it again? No? Sell!” — Dave, 123:44

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:43] – Motivating Adult Children
• [10:23] – High-Yield Savings vs Money Markets
• [13:38] – Divorce, Home Upside Down
• [22:27] – Keep or Sell Previous Home
• [25:59] – Pay Cut for Benefits?
• [34:06] – Selling Home to Care for Family
• [43:50] – Parenting/Teaching Money to Kids
• [53:48] – Is a Business Loan Ever "Safe"?
• [76:15] – Budgeting Amidst Chaos
• [86:02] – Taking on Debt to Double Income
• [96:14] – Should I Buy a New Tesla?
• [107:43] – $2 Million Inheritance: What Now?
• [117:35] – Wills/Estate Planning
• [123:30] – Fixer Upper Home: Sell or Stay?

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains the signature blend of tough love, humor, and practical, "no-BS" financial advice. Dave’s metaphors (“nest of thorns”) and directness are on full display, with Rachel adding empathy, encouragement, and detail, especially around family and emotional situations. Both emphasize accountability, communication, and that ultimately, “normal is broke.”

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Conclusion

Listeners are urged to reject fleeting comfort in favor of discipline and big-picture resilience—whatever their struggle. Whether coaching parents with adult kids at home, guiding first-generation wealth builders, or troubleshooting personal and business finance conundrums, Dave and Rachel reinforce the Ramsey pillars: have a plan, avoid debt, know your numbers, and make peace with going against "normal."

Dave’s final wisdom:

“There’s ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that’s to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.” (126:49)

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Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey network in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. Rachel Cruz Ramsey personality number one best selling author and Mike is my and my daughter is my co host. Today open phones here at Triple 882-55-5225. Charles is in Seattle. Hey Charles, how are you?

[Caller]

Good. How are you, Dave?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Just wanted to get your advice. A longtime listener. Really respect your stance on just about everything. And got two, two adults still living at home, not really sure you know what they want to do with their future. Trying to figure out the best way to stress to them the importance of financial independence. You know, especially if something happens to their mom and I, you know, how are they going to make it on their own?

[Rachel Cruze]

How old are they?

[Caller]

21 and 19.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. So young. At least they're not 34. You're ahead of the game, Charles.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So I mean there's a lot of things you can do. I think the thing I would do is just, I go back to my friend Andy Andrews. He used to say we're not raising our kids to be great kids. We're raising them to be great adults. We're training them how to be great adults. And so I would just have a conversation along that line that just says, hey, I'm your dad and I love you. And the way that the 30 year old version of you is going to like you the most is is if you get your crap together. And so I'm gonna help you by doing a couple things. One is I'm your biggest cheerleader. Cause I love you and I want you to win. Number two, you're going to develop a set of goals that has you as a standalone household living not here within a few years. And if that involves you going to school, we can help you with that. If it involves you getting a certification and a trade, we can help you with that. You're welcome to live here for a period, period of time as long as you behave by our rules while you do that. But we're going to set a target of what you want to do with your life and how long is it going to take to hit that target. And at that point you're leaving. Yeah. And just, you know, so let's sit down and work that out and you get to help me. You get to decide, you know, if you're 19 and you want to do two years or three years of school or four years of school, we can talk about that. That's not the end of again. As long as you're living by the value system of this household. But I just want you to have a target, hon, because living in your mother's basement at 34A is not gonna happen and B is not good for you.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And I wouldn't make it either. Feel that they have to figure out their whole life.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, just the next step.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, right. So what is something that you want

[Dave Ramsey]

to do that you make a living? Meaning you can live somewhere else. That's what make a living means. So what you gonna do with this next stage of your life? Not your whole life, but the next stage. What do you want to do? Set a goal. Have something you're aiming at. Are either one of them doing any education?

[Caller]

No, not right now. Just. Just working.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And. And so they're just comfortable.

[Caller]

Yes, that's a great word.

[Dave Ramsey]

And they're not bad kids. You're. Otherwise you'd have been throwing them out anyway.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

You just don't want them to be, you know, in their mother's basement when they're 34. And that's a good dad. Okay. So the always thing I think about is this. I always think about the picture of the eagle. The eagle builds its nest out of the most grotesque six inch long thorn bushes. The thorns are six inches long. And then it meticulously fills the nest full of down to where the baby eagles, when they're born, do not feel a single point off of the thorns. As the baby eagles are born and start to mature, the mother eagle systematically begins to remove the down from the nest. A little at a time.

[Rachel Cruze]

Is this true?

[Dave Ramsey]

This is true.

[Rachel Cruze]

This goes well with your analogy.

[Dave Ramsey]

A little at a time to make them uncomfortable to the point that there is a point and that they don't want to stay because it's a nest of thorns and they stand on the edge and they put their little wings out and they fall off the edge of the nest for hundreds of feet before they finally soar. But they would never soar as long as the nest is comfortable.

[Caller]

That makes sense.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's an act of love.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And to make it uncomfortable, Charles, could just be an end date and to be like, hey, nine months from today or whatever, you know, we're gonna have to make a plan for you guys to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I think it depends on the kid. It depends on their earning ability. It depends on what the plan is. If the plan involves some education and you want to let them stay there while they're going to school or something to make it affordable, yeah, that might be okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. But making it uncomfortable doesn't mean you have to like start being overly controlling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not being a jerk, but you're just, just reminding you that this is not how life works.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

And we're all going to come into agreement on that. And your wife aligned on this, Charles. Is she going to go along with this?

[Caller]

Yes. I think we just both want to do what's best for them without being brash.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, you don't have to be mean or rude, but it's just, this is the way it is. People grow up and they leave. And so we want to help you do that. And that's our last act of parenting. Because then I'll just be the parent of adults, which is the most difficult stage of parenting, by the way. Cause you can no longer tell them what to do. Now I just have to go. Now I just have to go along with whatever Rachel thinks she needs to do. So

[Rachel Cruze]

just look at me and smile. I'm just saying. That's great. Yeah. But nothing's on fire, Charles. Again, they're 19 and 21. I mean, I know it could be

[Dave Ramsey]

a two year plan, a three year plan.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It could be a six month plan.

[Rachel Cruze]

Nothing is on fire. And again, I think you know the end game of what's good for them. But you start those conversations and a system in place to help them. To help them get there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but the rent that you pay, if you want to stay here 10 minutes more as you start developing a plan that we all agree to, that's your rent. And you will develop that plan. Or your rent is you're going to be in default on your rent payment. And that means you're going to have to move for sure. So you're going to to develop a plan with an exit date. Because I love you. That simple. That's tough love. Oh God, I'm so tired of that phrase. It is not tough love. That is just love. Is the mother eagle being tough when she makes those thorns exposed? No. Because that eagle sitting in that nest for survival. Exactly.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

It can't stay. Four adult eagles can't stay in a nest. I mean, come on. Hello. Now turkeys. Turkeys can do that. An eagle that fails to fly is called a turkey. That's the way this works. So yeah, that's a great question, Charles. I appreciate your heart. Yeah. And we, we don't recommend being rude or mean or nasty or something like that. Some cultures are more abrupt about this

[Rachel Cruze]

than other cultures or the opposite. They're very much more, you know, I

[Dave Ramsey]

mean, you can be anywhere on the spectrum. You could be all the way over on one side of the spectrum, all the way over on the other. Yep. Some cultures are more abrupt, some are not. Some of them live together their whole lives. So. Yeah, but in an Anglo, Saxon, Saxon, North American culture, this is our normal way of operating and it's the normal way of functioning in this economy and functioning.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's good for them. You know, when there's a 24, 25 year old living on their own, paying their bills, all of it, you are more productive. There's a sense of. Yeah, there's a, there's a confidence there. Yep. That you're on your own. That's a good thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let me tell you what I get asked all the time, when should I get term life insurance? How much do I need? Is it affordable? Those are the right questions to be asking. So let's take a quick review. The fact is, term life isn't a baby step. So if anyone is dependent on your income, you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance now. And most people are surprised by how affordable term life really is, even if you're not in perfect health. Look, I understand the hesitation since most insurance companies make it more of a hassle than it needs to be. Not at Zander Insurance. They're not an insurance company. They're a broker that works for you. That means they'll shop and compare the top term life companies to find the most competitive options on the coverage for your family. For almost 30 years, I've recommended Zander for straight answers, competitive rates and coverage that actually protects your family. Call 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com for a quick and easy quote. That's zander.com. Jeb is with us in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Jeb. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing good. How about y'? All?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So I'm just starting to get into the Dave Ramsey stuff and I'm starting to build my do my baby step. Because I'm getting married in November, I'm starting the baby steps.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, congratulations.

[Caller]

Thank you. My question is do is a high yield savings better than a money market account or because I'm trying to get it where like my daddy has worked his whole life. He got into me is you got to work until you 55, then you, you enjoy life. And I don't want to do that. I won't be able to enjoy life as I go on get older and because I'm 24 years old and I love to go out and do stuff and enjoy life as I go on go through life.

[Rachel Cruze]

I can appreciate that, Jeb. As long as you pay cash for it. We're all about that.

[Dave Ramsey]

As long as you get out of debt and stay out of debt, you'll have the money to do that.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's right.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

But if you're financing that idea that you just laid out, then it would be a bad idea.

[Rachel Cruze]

But you're going to follow the baby steps you said. But to answer your question, I prefer a high yield savings account, Jeb. And this would be more for your emergency funds. So that thousand dollars on baby step one and then once you are debt free, all of your consumer debt is paid off, then you bump that up to three to six months of expenses. So I, yeah, we, we have a high yield savings account at Fair Winds Credit Union. Yeah, Fair Winds. And yeah, and I like it because you usually can get a higher rate of return. Slightly not significant, but it's there now. It does not have, most of them do not have the ability to have a debit card or write checks out of. So sometimes transferring money, you'd have to transfer it to a checking account if you needed to get to it. But if it's all within one system like Fairwinds and you have a checking account with them, it's fine. You can just move money from account to accounts. But yeah, but I, we've, we used to have a money market account back probably 15 years ago, but we just, we moved everything over to a high yield savings account.

[Dave Ramsey]

The biggest difference is not the rate. The biggest difference is usually your high yield savings is going to be with a bank and you've got those transfer capabilities. It's just easier to manage. But the rate might be not different at all. Might be not different at all.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's not that significant. It's usually a little bit higher with high yield.

[Dave Ramsey]

But a high yield savings account is probably a 5 or a 10 year old product. Money market accounts have been around for 50 years. And so you know, when we first started teaching this stuff, we're like, you know, don't put it in a stupid 1% or half a percent savings account. Passbook savings they call it at your bank. Don't do that. And don't put it in a cd because you get penalties if you withdraw it because your engine blew on your car. So use a money market account. And at that time, banks were starting to open these accounts they called money market accounts, but they were kind of mirroring the actual money markets is what they were doing. Most of those have been rebranded to high Yield Savings accounts now. And so it's basically CD rates that are fully accessible. And, you know, that's the reason Rachel's saying that. And she's exactly right.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, but, Jeb, seriously, go to Fairwinds.org Ramsey and there's the Smart bundle. And so you can get that all, you know, taken care of. And you can, you know, you're engaged, you'll have your wedding. Since you guys open up one for a High Yield Savings account for the wedding and put your names on it and start budgeting out of that. So you pay cash for the wedding.

[Dave Ramsey]

Megan is in Nashville. Hi, Megan. How are you?

[Caller]

Hi. I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Doing better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I guess we'll start with debt, obviously. That's why I'm calling. I'm 50 years old. I've been going through a divorce for about four years now. It was finalized two years ago, but I'm still kind of knee deep in it with financial stuff.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why are you still deep in it after it's finalized?

[Caller]

Because in the. Basically, in the decree I was to refinance or sell the house, I tried to assume the loan twice. We have a VA loan at 2.25%. That's in his name only.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't.

[Caller]

He would not allow me to do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, they won't allow you to do that.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Loans are not assumable.

[Caller]

Right. So I didn't qualify to refinance because the money that he's actually supposed to be paying me, he's $40,000 in arrears. So what's court ordered and what's actually going into my wallet are two different things. So I didn't qualify to refinance. So here we are, year and a half later, I'm still in the house, trying to figure out, like, if we leave this house, I don't know where me and the kids are going to go.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many kids? How many kids are there?

[Caller]

I have three. They're 13, 17, and 20.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's the house worth?

[Caller]

Well, without the problems, probably 500,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

What problems?

[Caller]

$70,000 in foundation work. Who said that's the main problem? Who said I've Had a. Well, there's cracks all over the house. I've had an inspection report. I've had a structural engineer come out. I've had an appraisal. Who? He. My appraisal was about $120,000 less than his appraisal because they didn't take into account the fix on the house. So if it does have to be sold, it's either going to have to be sold as is.

[Dave Ramsey]

So 500, but minus problems. Okay. And then what's owed against it?

[Caller]

Maybe 220.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. You're not going to like me. You're not going to like me. Are you ready?

[Caller]

I'm ready.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sell the stupid house.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

This house has problem, problem, problem, problem, problem. And you're trying to. Cause you're a good mom. You're trying to minimize the pain of the divorce by letting the kids stay in their neighborhood and in their schools. Sell a stupid house.

[Caller]

100%.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a good mom. But you're doing more harm than you're good by trying to hang on to a dream that has died. And your heart is broken and you're mad. And I don't blame you for any of that. That just means you're a regular person and I'm on your team.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

But that house is no longer a blessing.

[Caller]

Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Sell it as is. Get out of it, get your money and go rent something in the same school district for a minute and get yourself stabilized and set up your life. And that'll also give you the money to put him in jail if he doesn't keep the court order.

[Caller]

Well, he's trying to put me in jail. He has me in criminal contempt, actually. And that's what's coming on the house. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Yeah.

[Caller]

Well, because I haven't sold a refund, I'm trying to keep a roof over their head.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's that. Yeah. You need to put it on the market and you need to sell it not because of that, but because it's what's best for you. And then go ahead and have your attorney file on him for contempt for being $40,000 in arrears.

[Caller]

Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You need to. You need to put his head in a vise.

[Caller]

And I metaphorically making like, I make 25,000 a year working at their school. However, the schedule allows me to also go to school. I have. My oldest is in college. My daughter just graduated. She's starting college. And I just graduated with my associates, getting ready to start my bachelor's degree.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you were married 20 years.

[Caller]

23 years. And I barely got four years of alimony. So that ends. My daughter's child support ends in two months. My alimony ends in two years. But he's not paying it anyway.

[Dave Ramsey]

It doesn't end until he pays.

[Caller]

You get away with it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Doesn't end until he pays it. And we're going to make him pay it. We're going to use some of the proceeds from the house to make him pay it. I want to take all the teeth out of his case and put them all in your case. And this house does not represent the blessing that you were trying to create. The money from the house and the freedom from the foundation problems and the freedom from the refinance problems and the divorce problems is worth while way more to your family and your kids and you than the house is. Please let it go.

[Rachel Cruze]

And she can't assume the mortgage. But so from a legal perspective, she has. Has to sell it, right? If it's in the. If it's in the divorce decree.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, the divorce decree said she had to sell it. It's that simple. She's got to sell it. A refinance. She makes 25,000. She can't refinance it.

[Rachel Cruze]

She'll make money on the end y.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you don't refinance it on four years worth of alimony anyway. That's not. They're not going to count that on a mortgage app. So it's not enough alimony. If you're getting alimony for 20 years, you can count it. Child support for two years and alimony for four years is not going to count because the mortgage company is smart enough to know how you gonna pay the payment when that's done right. You can't. So I'm not sure.

[Rachel Cruze]

And they can go rent for a little bit. Stay in the same area.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just go rent somewhere.

[Rachel Cruze]

Go rent somewhere and. And then you can. And then. And you'll finish your degree. It's an advance start, a new career path for you. And yeah, it'll be a two year limbo, two or three years with all of that. But that's great. I mean, there's a part of me that I'm like, it's a fresh start. There's something to that that I think is great for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your kids are going to physically receive the message that their mom is a fighter and a survivor. And that's going to do them more good than this house.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you run a business, you already know this bad information leads to bad decisions. And right now AI is everywhere. But AI is only as good as the data behind it. The best AI is built on the best data. That's why I recommend NetSuite. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP and more than 43,000 businesses run on it, including us here at Ramsey Solutions. Their AI isn't bolted on, it's built in. And it connects everything that runs your business, accounting, inventory, customer data, all in one place. Because when your numbers are connected, AI actually works like it's supposed to. NetSuite's AI helps flag cash flow problems, spot inventory issues, close your books faster, and cut down on manual reporting. If your revenue is at least seven figures, go to netsuite.comramsey for a free product tour. That's netsuite.comramsey. Are you sick and tough? Tired of being sick and tired? Feel like a rat in a wheel? You ready to say I've had it? You're gonna change something. Normal is how I feel. And normal sucks. Are you ready? Well, you don't have to live that way. Our Every dollar budget app helps you find extra money every month and helps you build a personalized plan to get out of debt and build wealth. You wanna live like no one else. So later you can live like no one else will hold your hand and show you how in this app. And it moves people along. The baby steps super fast. In just 15 minutes, you're gonna find thousands of dollars in hidden margin. You're gonna feel like you got a raise, and then you can begin to attack the debt and then see the way to build wealth. Don't be normal. Start every dollar for free in the App store or Google Play. Jay is in Orlando. Hi, Jay.

[Caller]

Hey, Dave. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Awesome. Hey, I got a quick question in regards to. I just need a little bit of wisdom here. So my family and I were building what hopefully is a forever home. And we would like to know, or at least I would like to know, what we should do with our current home. Should we rent it or should we sell it?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, I can provide.

[Caller]

I can write a little bit more.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's okay. Are you paying cash for the new home?

[Caller]

No. No, we're not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Then sell it.

[Caller]

Going to be financed and sell it. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Because you would not borrow money on the new home to buy a rental. And that's the same thing. By not paying this off. It's the exact same thing.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much is the new house going to be, Jay?

[Caller]

It's going to be about 400,000 and we pay about 1200amonth for our current home, it's about $160,000 that we have left on it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And the new home is worth what are the old home is worth? What?

[Caller]

400.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh. What about the new home? How much is the new home?

[Caller]

The new home is 400,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh. How much is the old home

[Caller]

right now? 350. About 350. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not exactly moving up a lot.

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean I, I make a decent income. We're, we're expecting our third child, so we're trying to get extra room. Our current home.

[Dave Ramsey]

I said you're not moving. You're moving up $50,000 in value.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

It's the market here in Florida. It's insane to build a saying that's not most is cheaper. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Most of the time when people move up at home, they move up hundreds of thousands. That's why I was curious. Okay. I'm good.

[Caller]

I don't want to be house poor.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's good. I'm glad. I'm happy for you. Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

But if you apply all that equity to this new house, you guys, from a mortgage perspective, I mean, you're almost halfway.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You're gonna get that thing paid off fast, quick.

[Caller]

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. The only things that we were, we wanted to start like a art, like real estate, probably business to rent it out because we were looking at renting it out for $2500.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's what I would do that. I would do that. Only with a paid for property before.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, makes sense because it just gives you a lot more margin and a lot more room. And the only other comment I've got is, Jay, there's no such thing as a forever home until you get to heaven. Okay. Because it's just a stupid house. And you're going to move. The number of people that stay In a house 40 years in America today is almost zero. The average American moves every 5.6 years. So I always giggle when I hear forever home. Now what this is, is a very nice upgrade that your family needed and it's a good investment and I'm glad you're doing it. But if you. The problem is, folks, when you frame something as you justify all kinds of stupidity, if you say we're going to be there forever, it's like someone saying, I'm going to buy a new car, but I'm going to drive it for 26 years. And that makes buying a new car smart. No, it doesn't. It's still a dumb car. Okay. So you know, that doesn't change the numbers. So just don't use forever home to justify anything. Just say emotionally don't be ready financially to with wisdom buy a nicer home for our family. And you are by the way, Jay. And so congratulations. Daniel is in Boston. Hey Daniel, how are you?

[Caller]

Wonderful. How are you guys doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

[Caller]

That's good. Yeah. So I got a few questions for you guys. Hopefully you can answer me. So I am a local for a union operator. So I'm getting offered a significant amount more going private than unionized. So that means I'm not going to have health benefits. I'm not going to have health, dental and all that good stuff on this private company. But I'm going to make So I make 100-1500 and 25,000 a year being the union and the private company is going to pay me about 235 to

[Dave Ramsey]

45 in what is health insurance worth? A hundred thousand dollars?

[Caller]

That's my question.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not any world.

[Caller]

Yeah. So is this a no brainer to go to a private company for?

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a no brainer.

[Caller]

A hundred and something thousand dollars.

[Dave Ramsey]

You bet it's a no brainer.

[Caller]

I shouldn't be stressed out about no health care and dental.

[Dave Ramsey]

Go buy a health insurance policy. They don't furnish it at the new company.

[Caller]

They do, they offer it but you're

[Rachel Cruze]

have to pay for it. But that's fine, it'll come out of your paycheck.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is it?

[Caller]

Yeah, how much is it like? I think it's so right as of my local four.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean at your new company, how much does the health insurance cost?

[Caller]

100. So what is it like $17 a week or something?

[Dave Ramsey]

So that's at the new company if you take the $250,000 job.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then you have health insurance when you give them the $17 a week, right?

[Caller]

Yes, that's correct. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what's there to be stressed about?

[Caller]

I think that I'm not going to have it like dental health care.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just how many mouths do you have for $100,000 a year you can buy a dentist and have him stay in your home.

[Caller]

So this sounds like a no brainer to take this, take this opportunity and run.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Rachel Cruze]

And your growth opportunity is going to so much faster and larger in the,

[Dave Ramsey]

in the private sector. What you're learning Daniel is that the, that your source of provision is your ability to do electrical work. It is not the private company and it is not the union. It Is Daniel.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You are the secret sauce. And so if this private company turns up bankrupt in three years, you are still Daniel that knows how to do electrical work. And you're still worth $200,000 a year in the market. And so that's your source of provision. The union is not your source of provision. The negatives about a union is they teach you, they brainwash you, that the union is all encompassing and they are your provider. And that's all bullcrap. Okay. The union is really good at some things. And being in a union many times is a good thing. But not if you emotionally accept that somehow that it's worth that. You should take a hundred thousand dollar. Your pay cut for dental. They're not that good. There's nothing about a union that's that good. So. Nope. And here's the weird thing.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's more.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can actually go back.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you hate it eight years from now, if you want to go back, you could go back now. You won't have all the pension and all that crap, but I mean, in the meantime, you will have made an extra hundred thousand dollars a year. $8,333 a month. $2,000 a week more money. That's a lot of dental.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's a lot of dental. Well, I was gonna say. I feel like his struggle, it's. You have the fact. I mean, he knows the facts. He can run the numbers himself. I think it's just this comfortability of I've known something for so long that's to your point, giving me a safety net, all of that, and I have to step out of that. And that's. And that feels.

[Dave Ramsey]

But he's been told, like, union health insurance is like the thing, the bomb. Don't lose it, don't lose it, don't lose it, don't lose it. But, dudes, health insurance is health insurance. If they pay the doc when you're sick, it don't matter. That's all there is to it.

[Rachel Cruze]

And good for you, Daniel.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well done.

[Dave Ramsey]

Congratulations, man. I'm so proud for you,

[Caller]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're waiting for the perfect interest rate before you buy a home or refinance, that moment may never come. That's why people should talk to Churchill Mortgage. Because rates move every day. And when rates drop, buyers flood the market, which means more competition and higher home prices. Smart buyers know they can't time the market. They move with a strategy. Buy the home you can afford now and refinance later if rates improve. Churchill helps you understand what you can actually afford, not just what you qualify for. And with their certified home buyer program, you can get fully underwritten before you shop so you can make moves faster and make stronger offers. And right now, Churchill has a special offer offer only for the Ramsey audience. Go to ChurchillMortgage.com Ramsay offer to learn more. That's a special website. Remember this? Churchillmortgage.com Ramsay offer. This is a paid advertisement. The Churchill Certified Home Buyer program is available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only. NMLS ID 1591 nmlsconsumerexcess.org/housing lender 1749 Mallory

[Caller]

Lane, Suite 100, Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027.

[Dave Ramsey]

Reminder for everybody out there, this show that we do is Monday through Friday from 1 to 4 live. Every day it's on 640 talk radio stations across America, making us the second largest talk radio show in the land. My friend Sean Hannity is holding the spot of number one tightly. And then of course, we're on podcast and YouTube and everything else out there in the world. Every other platform you can think of, Spotify is huge and all of those things. But anyway, if you're ever around Nashville, we're in Franklin, just south of Nashville, and our campuses are open to the public. We've got a wonderful bookstore and coffee shop and all the coffee and the homemade chocolate chip cookies are all on us. They're complimentary to our guests. We want you to come in here and smell that chocolate chip cookies. Feel like your mama's kitchen. Hang out with us in the lobby. And we've usually got 50 to 200 folks or so somewhere around there watching the show on the glass every day for three hours. And you're more than welcome to stop by and see the debt free stage and see all the stuff that we do in here. And it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of stuff to do here on campus. So come by and see us. We'd love to have you anytime. We get to meet people from every corner of the nation and from just about every country these days, countries are stopping by and seeing us. So thank you for that. We appreciate it. We love coming out. We go out at the commercial breaks, sign books and take pictures. And that's what Rachel and I were just doing a minute ago. Matt is in San Antonio. Hi, Matt. How are you doing?

[Caller]

Well, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So I've kind of got. We're working the baby steps right now. We have about $105,000 in debt, but there's a lot of moving parts. My son was diagnosed with autism and he's just really having a bad time in school. A lot of behavioral issues. And so they recommended ABA therapy, which is about 30 hours a week. And so my wife, who works nights and doesn't like her job anyway, you know, is. Who's also the main carrier of insurance. We think that she's the one that should, you know, step back to be able to take him and do that. I'm a teacher and I make about $60,000 a year. And realistically, it just doesn't, as far as our budget is concerned, to make that happen. And so I was wondering. So our house is valued at about 580,000, and if we sold it, we'd probably get. We owe about 306, so we'd get around 250 after fees and all that. And then we could downsize and maybe pay for a house cash. And so I'm just kind of stuck. I don't know what the right move is.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how old is your son?

[Caller]

He's seven.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many kids you got?

[Caller]

I have two of a ten year old and a seven year old.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm sorry, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Y' all are against it, man. Wow.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do they know how long the therapy, how. How many years he'll be in that, that, that extensive per week? 30 hours. Do they give you a time frame at all?

[Caller]

It is 25 to 30 for at least six months and then they reevaluate from there.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And this is who recommending this?

[Caller]

His. His therapist. Okay. His doctor.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Because I'm just wondering if it's a decision, something this big like selling a home and a job change, you know what I mean? All of it. If this is more short term versus making long term decisions, financial decisions. But if you guys are feeling as I imagine you would as parents, I could only imagine just wanting to be present and just having one of us there, knowing that probably the next couple years is gonna just be a road in us and our presence is just important. Right. And if you feel that from that long term basis, then that probably would be something to think about.

[Dave Ramsey]

We make money to do that.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think that's not life to do money. And so you got life on you. And so I think your decision's wise. I would sell my home and I would pay off all the debt. And if you can buy another home with the remaining money or a good down payment on a smaller home with the remaining money, that will suffice. For a period of time. This decision is not permanent, it is not a forever decision. It's a two year decision. What'd you say your wife does for a living?

[Caller]

She's an operations manager for a freight company.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right. At night?

[Caller]

At night.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right. And is she got a four year degree in business or something?

[Caller]

She has a 44 year degree. It's an interdisciplinary studies.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, okay. All right.

[Rachel Cruze]

But just thinking it from a career track, if she can plug back in three or four years if she needs

[Dave Ramsey]

to, and so we might restart, so to speak, the house journey and the career journeys in a couple of years and they might look completely different then. And you might have taken a step back, you might have taken a lateral step because you cleared off all this $105,000 worth of miscellaneous CR. Now it is incumbent upon you, if you do this, that you make it work on a budget, no debt ever. And I don't want to hear any excuses about, oh, life is tough and I went into debt. You'll screw this whole thing up if you do that.

[Caller]

Yeah, definitely. I think so. One of the good things is, is about 45% or $45,000 of the debt is the solar panels on the house. So they would take over the lease on that. So that would get rid of that

[Dave Ramsey]

immediately and you would get rid of. And you got the other money in your hand to clear off all the debt. Now you've got no debt except whatever you do for housing. And I would just view the housing. This is not a 10 year decision, this is a two year decision. It's perfectly okay to rent for a short period of time, like two years or three years while you're figuring out what life's gonna look like. But at some point I'm guessing that your wife will plug back into some kind of. She'll produce some kind of revenue. Could be work from home, it could be a lot of different things. But it's not for. Not for now. For now we're going to take care of our baby.

[Caller]

Do you think that this is the wisest decision?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I would do it. And it's emotional. But here's what I'm guarding against. I'm trying to use certain language with you because I want you to guard against this. This is not a. A tornado didn't hit your house. This is a decision to sell one asset to clear the debts. And it's not a permanent decision. This is not a forever deal. This is a. This is, we're going camping in Europe for two Years you're not. But you know what I'm saying.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I want you to emotionally treat this very temporary because it can feel like, well, we sold the house after we got this diagnosis and that that's going to be for the next 45 years. It defines us emotionally. You are not the single worst thing or best thing that ever happens to you. You're not defined by that. Those are just milestones along the road. And so I really want you to guard against that. Because I meet people in these situations that are five, six, seven years later and they're going, well, you know, we got that diagnosis and we had to sell the house and everything's never been the same because they never recovered emotionally and never. And light back in their eyes about their future. Your future is very bright if you want it to be even inclusive of the things you're facing with this diagnosis. And so I want you to see that. But, yeah, in order to get to solid ground and get some of the chaos out of our life, get your wife off of nights, get the debt gone, have the money to take care of the child. Yeah, I'm moving down in house.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

We'll move into a Walmart tent for a short period of time. Right. But it is just that. It's just camping. It's just for a short period of time. And then you don't have to freak out about every little thing. Oh. Cause otherwise, everything that you dislike about the next house is going to be magnified by your emotions because of it. Yeah. Because it's going to be some. I mean, you get pissed off about this stuff. All of us do. And so that's what I want you to guard against.

[Rachel Cruze]

But, yes, you will not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Mechanically, tactically, this is the thing to do.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. I was going to say you're not going to look up Matt in 10 years. Years during the season and regret selling a home versus taking care of your kid.

[Dave Ramsey]

Never.

[Rachel Cruze]

You may look back and be like, we worked our. We were not present. We were not there. We were exhausted. And he's. And he struggled for longer, probably because we didn't have the capability and the time to put into what he needed to start his journey and get his tools. Right. So I'm like, the trade off isn't even. Yeah. It's not even in question. It's just a house. It's just a house.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

But also to your point, not to be stuck in a loop of that. Debt will be my emergency fund. Debt will be the thing that catches me. If we need more, you know, What I mean, like, there has to be a hard stop or you'll dig yourselves back in a financial hole, which will then bring on more stress from the financial side. So this is kind of a ticket in a great way. It's a blessing to be able to even make this decision.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I meet people who are facing stuff like this on the air here who have used it to. To rationalize really dumb decisions. You're doing quite the opposite. Hey, guys, George Camel here. If you run a business, your phone is basically your cash register and every missed call is money you didn't know you lost. And missed calls slow replies customers who moved on before you got back to them. That's not a you problem. That's a system problem. That's where Quo comes in. A sponsor of today's show, Quo spelled Q U O is the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo helps you and your team share one business number so you can reply faster and stay on top of every customer conversation. Nothing gets missed and every customer gets a response. Because, look, you didn't start a business to spend your days playing phone tag and digging through text messages. You're the owner, the operator, and the closer. So you need a system that keeps up with you. Quo works from your phone or computer. It logs calls, summarizes conversations, and gives you next steps. It's like having an assistant who never asks for a raise. So try quo free plus get 20% off your first 6 months at quo.com Ramsey that's q-u.com Ramsey always say hello with Quo. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. In the Fair Winds Credit union studio. I'm Dave Ramsey. Rachel Cruz Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co host today. Tiffany is in Cincinnati. Hi, Tiffany, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey, I was calling to ask my son. He's 11 years old, came across a baseball card that he's thinking might be worth some money. And his first thought was that he would want to sell it and invest. And I don't know where to start with that and how to help him out.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, what's the card gonna be worth?

[Caller]

Well, he saw the same card sell for $4,000 online. Whether or not his gets sold for the same amount, we're not sure, but that's what he's hoping or looking at right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, like he was buying packs and one of the. And it just showed up in one of the packs?

[Caller]

Yeah, he bought an old box from an antique store actually, and found his

[Dave Ramsey]

garden yeah, this kid is fun. I like it.

[Caller]

He's a blast. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, Rachel and I wrote a book, and we'll send you a copy of it called. It was her first best seller called Smart Money, Smart Kids. In that book, we tell people to teach their kids to do four things. One is to work, and this is his work for the purposes of this discussion. He's very entrepreneurial. I love him. And two is to save, three is to give, and four is to enjoy. And all people should learn to do those four things with money. Work, give, save, and spend wisely. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so we would tell you to break this up however you guys want across those things. In other words, I would not invest at all. I would give some of it. I would enjoy some of it. He's 11. It's not going to change his life one way or the other. It's not $4 million, it's 4,000. And so the lessons he gets from it'll be more valuable than the actual money.

[Caller]

All right, great. Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

And break it down that way. Now, if you want to invest more than $1,000, you could sit down with a SmartVestor Pro, and there's some mutual funds that will allow you to open an account for $1,000 or less. I probably would. Or more. I mean, I probably would not do that. But if you want to, you can. And here's the reason I wouldn't. The only reason to do it is not the investment. It's to let him have the lesson of how mutual funds work. Have the experience of sitting down with an investment professional, because this kid's kind of got it on the ball. This is a sharp kid.

[Caller]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's the kind of kid that would enjoy sitting with a. An adult teacher.

[Rachel Cruze]

He just bought some baseball cards. And.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I mean, I'm just telling you,

[Rachel Cruze]

he's to look at some Excel sheets, and he's in.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's in an antique store digging through this. I'm just.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, I bet he's great. I'm like.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm giving him a hard time.

[Caller]

No, he. He. He keeps on top of our envelope system with me, and he's pretty on it. He's into this kind of thing.

[Rachel Cruze]

You know, it's great. We. I have a nephew on my husband's side of the family. We're actually just talking about this the other day, because even from an app perspective of, you know, looking at the S&P 500 and putting some money and watching it go up and down, and you're watching the I don't know. The whole correlation, I think, is. Is so good to learn around his age. So for him to have some, like, visual perspective of the money, if he does, you know, maybe you say, hey, for 1500 bucks, let's put it in an index fund or something, and we have an app and we can watch, you know, watch it grow and. And it loses, you know, $79 one day. And I don't know, it's just kind of. It's a.

[Dave Ramsey]

What happens when Trump bombs everyone?

[Rachel Cruze]

It's a. It's a fun exercise, guys, to, like, see reality. Right. And even though we teach investments for the long term and you're not going to, you know, obviously pull money out and that kind of thing because of what's happening, but for them to have some skin in the game and watching the market at a price like that, I think is great.

[Dave Ramsey]

But it's all about the lesson. It's not about 1500 is going to make him $8 million when he's 65.

[Rachel Cruze]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

It actually might, but it probably won't. Okay. That's not the reason.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, no.

[Dave Ramsey]

But that's some really good thoughts. That's a lot of parenting going on here, and she's a great mom. Hang on. We're going to send you a copy of that. The other thing that popped into my head was that actually what we did was two things about those subjects. One is we had your college funds and mutual funds, and so it wasn't your skin in the game, it was ours. But by the time you were that age, we would get out and show, okay, you have this many shares, and it's worth this much a share, and if you multiply those two numbers, you have the actual value of that mutual fund. And so I've got 100 shares at $100. That's 1,000. I mean, that's $10,000 worth. Okay. So you start to look at that and go, okay, $124 a share. And you start to, like you said, they get the lesson of, yeah, I see it.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then the next month, we would get the paper statement in those days, we would open it again and show you guys, again, this is the college fund that had the benefit of showing you how a mutual fund works. But also, also, we brainwashed you and said, it's your college fund. And so you just assumed you were going to college. So that was a good thing. We didn't have to have a discussion about that. You just always thought you were going, and so you went. It was amazing. And the second thing was we actually did not take any of your all's money and invest it in anything. Instead you guys had to buy your own car. And so you had your miscellaneous birthday money, children's savings account at the bank. If you worked a little bit in babysat, you put some money in. If you got a hit the lottery on a baseball card, you put some of that money in. And we matched, we had 401 Dave. We matched whatever you saved up to buy your first car. And so, you know, if I remember, you saved about $6,000 and $8,000. We got a $16,000 car. $16,000 car in those days was not a bad car at all. It was a great car. You got a nice little BMW that sent me. Yeah, little, little 323 BMW. And it was a great little car. And so. But that. So that money in Tiffany's question, if it was at the Ramsey Hospital, it would have gone in the car fund?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

There would not been mutual funds?

[Rachel Cruze]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wouldn't have done any of that.

[Rachel Cruze]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

But we had other ways. We were teaching you the market and

[Rachel Cruze]

to show it and to feel it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes. None of those are wrong answers.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're just some of the answers.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And I have an 11 year old and she's working some this summer. And actually we just opened. It was probably two weeks ago. With fair winds, you can get up to 10 high yield savings account. So under ours. So we opened up another one. I put a little seed money in just to kind of like, hey, just make it a little fun. And. Yeah, and we're paying her. She's done some babysitting. She's done a couple of things. She'll come here every now and then to help out. And we do. And I show her as we transfer money into that savings account. But we're talking about the card now. And she's 11. But I'm like, girl, you got. Yeah. I mean. And if you Want one at 15 with your permit to practice, you got four years to save. And so that jump start Tiffany for his car, honestly, that could be a. It's a nice jump start. Yeah, some of it there.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so moral of the story is, when they're 11, the Ramses, we send them to the salt mines and we crack the whip on child labor laws. They have to go to work. They bring them. We bring them to Ramsey and we work them like dogs.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, not.

[Caller]

No.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's a great environment. Everyone's been so kind. She's here today helping out doing some work. It's good. It's good.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's what I mean. This guy, this young guy, his initiative to go to the antique store to scratch around and his hobby is something he's passionate about and digs out this

[Rachel Cruze]

car and legitimately can get some great

[Dave Ramsey]

money doing that and then thinks he's got a $4,000 hit. That's awesomeness. It'll also make him go do it again and again and again and again in especially if you get to enjoy some of it and have the joy of giving some of it. And so give some away. Always give some away. Money's not much good if you keep it all.

[Rachel Cruze]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Hattie is in Denver. Hi, Hattie. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm good, thank God. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

My husband and I are wondering if there's ever a reason to take out a business loan if you feel that it would be paid back by the business in a succinct amount of time. We've fully paid for like we're debt free and we're working on paying off our house.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

And I run a small niche religious home daycare, and it's the only one of its kind in the state that's Montessori. And I can only take four children for legal reasons. But if we were able to do construction and finish the to code all the issues, I'd be able to take up to 12 children. Which could be, conservatively, $8,000 a month and higher if, you know, if I filled all those 12 spots. I currently have a wait list with nine kids on it. And so we're just wondering, if we took out the construction cost, sorry, is 25 to 30,000. So if we took out a loan for that, that could be paid off within three to six months, would that make sense for us?

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't borrow money, and I don't teach people to borrow money, especially in business, because it represents risk. The way you've outlined this makes it sound very, very reasonable. But you've only outlined it if it works. You didn't outline it. If it doesn't work, if the contractor's a crook and it gets delayed eight months and it takes forever, if you get ripped off, if you get sick, if one of the kids gets sick and you get sued. You haven't thought about any of the things that happen to all of us in business every day. There's three rules of business. One is it takes twice as long as you think it's going to. It costs twice as much as you think it's going to. And you're not the exception. Those are the three rules. And they happen to me, they happen to you, they happen to anybody that's in business. And so, you know, it could unfold the way you designed it, but I doubt it will. Not because I'm a pessimist, not because I'm cynical, but because I've run a business for 35 years and it never works exactly like I freaking think it's going to work ever. And so I. And I have a great idea in the shower every morning, and most of my ideas suck by the time I get them to market. I lose money on 90% of them, but I've made really good money on the other 10%. So it's all worked out. I want you to grow your business. I love your business. I like what you're doing. I think all of that's good. I just don't want you to put it in jeopardy. For $25,000, how much savings do you have?

[Caller]

Yeah, so, well, okay, so, yeah, we have about 25,000 in savings, which is our three to six months of expenses to use that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what is your household income now?

[Caller]

So we make about 9,700amonth. I do have. I took on a weekend job to try to make some more money that it brings in an extra thousand a month. We've started to save for the Construction.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how does it take to operate your household?

[Caller]

We're pretty close. We do send our kids to private school, a religious private school, and we don't want to cut the money there.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does it take to operate your household?

[Caller]

Yeah, we're about 9,500.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why? What's your house payment?

[Caller]

So I said the private school fees. Our mortgage is 3,100, which we don't think is so bad for our area. That matches even renting in this area. And. But our school fees are the biggest expense for our kids.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much are they?

[Caller]

It's about 2,000 a kid per month.

[Dave Ramsey]

$4,000 a month. $50,000.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a fine school. It's a very expensive.

[Caller]

Yeah, it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not just religious. It's expensive. There's lots of religious. Yeah, it's an expensive religious school. Very.

[Rachel Cruze]

Not very.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it is. Well, compared to Nashville a year.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, for two kids in private school, Nashville, that's. Yeah, that's what it runs.

[Dave Ramsey]

Anyway. Anyway, the. I'm not suggesting you take them out. I just. It's. It's more than your house payment. So you just need to. You really do value this.

[Rachel Cruze]

And she runs a daycare with it, so it's obviously a core part of their.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah. So what I'm trying to figure. What I'm trying to figure out is, is there a way I can take 15,000 of the 25 and add another 10 while construction's underway out of my cash flow?

[Caller]

So. Yeah, because we can add about a thousand a month. But we were saying by the time you wait a year and a half.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I'm thinking I want to wait a year and a half. I'm going to start construction. If I've got a way to get to the 10 by the time the construction is complete, how long does it. How long is the estimation on completing construction?

[Caller]

Six weeks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Six weeks.

[Caller]

It's not a big project. It's just. It's silly things like a. Emergency escape, window flooring, drywall. It's like, very.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many bids have you gotten on the construction?

[Caller]

I got three. So the lowest one was closer to 25. The highest was closer to 40. So I'm averaging 30 based on, like, you know, what everybody's doing. I don't think 25 would be realistic because, as you said, it always cost more than anything.

[Dave Ramsey]

What we would do at the Ramsey House is we would use some of the emergency money down maybe to 10, maybe 15 of it, and we would find the other 15 very, very quickly by Drastically cutting stuff in our monthly budget. Because we would want to do this, this. And we would not go out to eat, we would not go on vacation. We would sell some stuff that was laying around. We'd look up and go, I don't need that over there. I don't need that over there. And you're seven. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay. But I'm gonna do anything I can to get my income up and my out go down and cash flow it. And maybe it's gonna get this done. But no, I'm not gonna tell you to borrow money. I'm gonna beg you not to to. You're going to make many more mistakes when you borrow money. And we coach about 10,000 small businesses through entree leadership. And I always teach those men and women in those businesses that when you take your next idea and you borrow into it, you magnify the size of your mistake, you magnify the drama, you magnify everything. And it's so weird that when you're dealing with a contractor with money out of savings, you handle the contract. Different contractor, different than you handle it if you're using the bank's money. Because it's like real freaking money. It's very emotional. And so all of those are reasons to the borrower is slave the loan.

[Rachel Cruze]

Borrowing options are very different. When you're like, eh, is it like five or six grand more? That's fine with the loan perspective it's like, okay, maybe we can then five or six grand in this. It's like, heck no. We have a tightened up budget. Nope, get the cheaper floor.

[Caller]

Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

Like it limits your options in a good way and helps you make those decisions.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what of this can I do to get to the increased capacity? And then what of this was luxury?

[Rachel Cruze]

Like what do I really have to have?

[Dave Ramsey]

What portion of this rehab do I have to have to function?

[Rachel Cruze]

It sounds like she's done her work too.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm not questioning, I'm just saying that's the kind of stuff I'm gonna do. I'm gonna minimal functional.

[Rachel Cruze]

And also your business is daycare, which is always needed all the time. So if you, you know, if you couldn't get all of this done in the next six to nine months. Cause you're saving and moving it to cash. It's gonna be okay. Like, you know what I mean? You're gonna be able to recoup that money. Cause there will always be a market for daycare.

[Dave Ramsey]

You will always have a waiting list.

[Rachel Cruze]

And the fact that it is so so it's kind of a one of a kind type of daycare is the way you explained it with the. She mentioned the religious piece, the Montessori piece. All of that together is great. It makes you unique. You're not just another one out there. And I think that's awesome.

[Dave Ramsey]

You'll always have a waiting list. You'll always be able to do that. But I promise you, you will not regret going a little bit slower and doing this with real money. You won't regret it. It's harder, but it's easier. It's much easier in the long haul. It's much more sustainable. Your business will be open five years from now. You won't be taught calling me up, going, tell me some contractor story or something I don't want to hear. Sam.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

This show is sponsored by Better Help. Summer is here and whoa, everything changes

[Caller]

this time of year.

[Dave Ramsey]

The kids are out of school.

[Caller]

Routines are out the window. You're traveling more, probably sleeping less. And if you're not careful, you and

[Rachel Cruze]

your family can end up running on fumes.

[Caller]

I know I'm running on fumes right now. Now, if you don't take time to

[Rachel Cruze]

slow down and take care of yourself,

[Dave Ramsey]

all that stress is not just going to disappear.

[Caller]

It will show up in your body. It will show up in your relationships. It will show up in your work, in your patients, everywhere.

[Rachel Cruze]

This is why I'm a big fan of BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that

[Caller]

matches you with a licensed therapist based

[Dave Ramsey]

on your goals and preferences.

[Caller]

All of their therapists follow a strict code of conduct and you can message yours or schedule sessions right in the app. App.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if it's not the right fit,

[Caller]

you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost.

[Rachel Cruze]

Listen, you don't have to carry everything all by yourself this summer.

[Dave Ramsey]

Go to betterhelp.com Ramsey to get 10% off. That's better help.

[Caller]

H lp.com Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Buying or selling a home is for most people the largest transaction you do. So you better have somebody that's a pro in your corner. Not somebody got their license three weeks ago and placed bridge with your grandmother. No, you need an actual real estate agent that sells a lot of houses. A high octane, high protein. That's what we do at Ramsey Trusted. We connect you with vetted real estate agents who have the experience to guide you step by step to make smart decisions, not expensive mistakes. Because messing up on a house is no small mistake. Mistake. This is a big one. This is a big one. So that's why Ramsey Trusted connects you there. And Ramsey Trusted is just that. It's trusted by Ramsey. A Ramsey Trusted agent has your best interest at heart. It doesn't cost a thing to get connected with them. Go to ramseysolutions.com agent or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast.

[Rachel Cruze]

Have you. Have you switched your example of if they play bridge? Because mom plays bridge now. Is that what makes you think, Think, you know, mahong or bridge?

[Dave Ramsey]

I just. I've got these things stuck in my head from random locations.

[Rachel Cruze]

I was going to say mom goes

[Dave Ramsey]

on like Uncle Charlie goes to church with you or whoever it is.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, you added bridge. I was like. Is that. Is that a slight against Mom?

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a new.

[Rachel Cruze]

I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's just. Yeah, but you don't want to.

[Rachel Cruze]

She does tournaments.

[Dave Ramsey]

My wife's bridge partner is not how I pick a real estate agent. Not a chance.

[Rachel Cruze]

Or Mahjong.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're good with math, but that doesn't mean they need to be my real estate agent. All right. Jerry is in Atlanta. Hi, Jerry. How are you?

[Caller]

Hey, how are you doing? Good, good.

[Dave Ramsey]

How can we help?

[Caller]

Well, I am $55,000 in debt and I'm trying to figure out a way to get out of it, and I don't make enough to cover it.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much do you make

[Caller]

a month? Fluctuates between 1200 to 2200amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why? What do you do?

[Caller]

Right now? I work delivery gigs.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why won't you get a job?

[Caller]

I had a job. So I've been in the restaurant business for 12 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

You've been in the one business. I'm sorry, what business? Restaurant business.

[Caller]

Working restaurant.

[Dave Ramsey]

What were you doing at the restaurant?

[Caller]

I worked at Papa John's. I worked at Fellini.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know. What did you do at the restaurant?

[Caller]

Oh, chef, cook, dishwasher, front house, back house.

[Rachel Cruze]

How old are you, Jerry?

[Caller]

I am 36 years old.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So your problem is an income problem. I think you already knew that for your called. Right.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't make any money, you're at the poverty level. And that's not a put down. It's not. It's a mathematical observation. So what are we going to do to fix that? And then we fixed the other thing.

[Caller]

Well, the hope was to better my career. So I went into automotive and I became a certified part specialist. And so then I worked my way through there, six years of that, and I got a job working with U Haul. And that was Great. And I think it was like 24, 2500amonth. Just enough to pay my bills, pay my rent and everything. And then I was told there's other jobs out there that can make more $1,200 a week versus $650 a week. So he got in touch with me. So other people and I got in touch with them and they told me that they would have a job for me available as long as I had a truck available to use of my own. And that's what I did. I went ahead and pushed the gun for it and got a truck. And now I don't have either one of those jobs.

[Dave Ramsey]

So how did you recruited by somebody who promised you something that wasn't true,

[Caller]

Right? I think it was true. It's just the economy the way it is. Gas went up and as I last time I talked to him, he said he was having the make these deliveries himself. So he picks up motorcycles and sells them. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

He promised you something that wasn't true, honey. You didn't make them. You didn't make the money you were promised for whatever reason. Okay, so let's go back to where we started and say where can we land now after that mistake? Because that was a mistake. So now where do we get to go make 3,000, 4,000, $5,000 a month? What do we got to do? And you, so you're certified parts specialist. Does that set you up to work at Autozone or whatever?

[Caller]

It does.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what does that pay? $35 an hour?

[Caller]

Actually, Autozone doesn't pay that much here. Pays 16 to $17 an hour.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you can make more than that without a certification. At Target, $20 an hour is a going rated Target. Just working over there, moving boxes around, you know, so.

[Rachel Cruze]

Or UPS or something. I don't know. Jerry, is there just anything that you can just plug into?

[Dave Ramsey]

So what I want you to. The answer to your question is you have an income problem, not a debt problem. Your debt problem is the result of your income problem. And you're not making enough to even get by. And you've defaulted back into this for some reason and have accepted it. And I don't want you to accept it anymore. I want you to get mad and scratch and claw and go get six jobs where all you do is work all the time until you get your head above water. And then you try to get a good job out of those six jobs and you keep working and working and working until you move somewhere. And I want you to aim at something to where when you're 46, 10 years from now, you're making $7,000 a month minimum. Now what is that? What is the trek? What is the journey that takes you there step by step by step. You're probably not gonna jump from where you are to there in one leap. But you can begin the steps, the certifications, the thought process, I mean the

[Rachel Cruze]

auto industry in general, mechanic, all of that. I'm like, you can get a lot, do a of lot lot pays very in that sector.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah. And so. And it pays AutoZone. Whatever they pay pays more than your good. So that's not a bad step. But I don't know what a certified parts guy person is able to do. I don't know how that works. But I assume you work in a parts department at a Chevrolet dealership. You would make more than you're making now and maybe more than you would make at AutoZone. I don't know. But that's what I'm going to start looking at. And I'm going to start looking at that like every minute of every day. You don't have time to do anything else except that you are starving to death. And so go get you some food. That's what this comes down to. A healthy level of desperation, urgency. And then you know, and then once you land in something, be very careful when someone promises you the movement moon. Someone who delivers motorcycles promises you the moon.

[Rachel Cruze]

No. And my fear is when he said if you have a truck and I don't know if the 55,000 is a truck loan for the job that he had to have, but making sure you stay financially secure, Jerry, in these transitions is important too. So any certification or anything you cash flow.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you have a big truck loan like Rachel mentioned, sell it now. All right. Casey's with us in Pittsburgh. Hey Casey, what's up?

[Caller]

Hi. Thanks for having me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Caller]

So my question is my husband and I are on baby steps. Five and six.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

We got a little bit of a late start to saving for college. So we have two kids, they're 10 and 8 and we really just started. So we, we threw like 2,500 in each of their 529. But we currently are paying an extra $500 a month on our mortgage so we can Dr. From 30 years to 20 years. So I just wanted to get your take on how much. Should we be really throwing all of our extra money at our kids college to fund like a four year in state tuition or should we keep splitting it where we're putting an extra 500 on the house and throwing everything extra at the kids college.

[Rachel Cruze]

Have you guys mapped out tuition rates and what this 20$500 will be in eight to 10 years? Yeah.

[Caller]

So putting it into the calculator essentially to get to pay for four years of in state, in Pennsylvania we would have to put like 1500 in for each of them per month. Every single month.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Which isn't going to be realistic, right?

[Caller]

That's not realistic.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's right. So yeah, I mean what I would do is fund as much as you can with the reality of knowing you may slow down your house, paying it off fully just to get some more money in. But then also remember scholarships, grants, working through college cash flowing it maybe as they are in it as well are all the options.

[Dave Ramsey]

But and living at home and going to community college the first two years is an option too. Foreign.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay guys, let me ask you something. What would it take for you to switch your bank? Because if you're still earning next to nothing on your savings, you need to check out Fairwinds Credit Union. And I know what you're thinking. It might sound like a hassle. Moving your direct deposit, updating bills, getting a new debit card feels like a lot. But here's what most people don't realize. Staying where you are could be costing you hundreds of dollars every year, y'. All. The average savings account pays less than half a percent. So let's say for example, you got $20,000 saved. You might earn around $70 a year. But with a fair wins high yield Savings account earning 3% APY or more, that same money could earn you over $600. And that's real money that you can use towards the baby steps. So don't let temporary comfort keep you stuck. Check out the smart bundle from Fairwinds Credit Union. You get a high yield savings account, a no fee checking account and the Ramsey Beweird debit card. Go to Fairwinds.org Ramsey to learn more and make the switch today. That's Fairwinds.org Ramsey insured by the NCUA.

[Dave Ramsey]

Jamie is with us in Indianapolis. Hi Jamie, how are you?

[Caller]

Good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

I need massive help. Help on budgeting, how to get through it and how to keep from spending kind of out of control.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, is the, is the out of control spending because you can't stop or you feel like the life you guys have created or you've created is needing a higher dollar amount because of payments and all of it. Okay, how much do you guys make A month.

[Caller]

It's just my husband working. He's a truck driver. He makes roughly 5,000. 5,200.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. And that's what he brings home? That's what hits your account every month?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. What's your mortgage payment?

[Caller]

We don't own a house. We rent.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Caller]

I'm afraid to buy a house just yet.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. How much is your rent?

[Caller]

Twelve hundred.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Yeah, that's reasonable. What kind of debt do you guys have?

[Caller]

We have, like, four credit cards. We owe some stuff on, like, bills. Like, we, like, didn't pay, so we have to pay those. And then we owe to, like, Verizon. Then we have medical debt, and then I have student loans, and then, of course, car.

[Rachel Cruze]

How much does it all add up to?

[Caller]

Around 24,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is the car?

[Caller]

The car, it's 8,219, but it was from a couple years ago, so it's gotten repoed since then. Like, I haven't had it in a few years.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're.

[Caller]

You don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't have a car payment right now?

[Rachel Cruze]

You're paying it?

[Caller]

No. After I started listening to you guys, I. I will not do a car payment.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, you. But you don't have a payment now you have an $8,000 repo.

[Caller]

All right. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And okay, what are. How much is your student loans?

[Caller]

7,100.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you paying payments on those? Are they in default or they're in default?

[Caller]

They're in default. Probably like, a month or two ago. I tried calling and going on the website, and the girl kept telling me I had to wait because it wasn't in their system yet, so they couldn't tell me if they could bring them out of default or I could start making payments.

[Rachel Cruze]

What bills are you behind? You made a comment that there's still bills.

[Caller]

Oh, okay. So these are bills from, like, other, like, places we've lived. Right now, we're not necessarily behind on our bills, but, like, these are. We owe within. Debt is, like, progressive Duke, and I think that's it. Yeah. There's only two and Verizon.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, so it sounds like you got, like, eight or nine, ten bills floating around between all of that and the debt payments.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. How much a month is going to all of that.

[Caller]

To the debt payments? Mm. Okay. Right now, because we do have an active credit card, my husband is trying to pay that off, but the interest on it is so much, it, like, isn't hardly going down.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many kids have you got?

[Caller]

2.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you don't work Outside the home. No, I, how old are your kids?

[Caller]

One is about to turn seven. He is in school. The other one is, will turn 5 in December. But I'm trying to get him into an all day preschool next year or this year so that I can work. Yeah, I can work during the morning.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so let me tell you what I think I'm hearing and you can correct me if you want to, it won't hurt my feelings.

[Caller]

Okay. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

It sounds like you all are completely freaking clueless. You have no idea where your money's going. 5200 comes in. You aren't paying payments on the student loans. You aren't paying payments on the repo. You aren't paying payments on hardly anything except one tiny little Visa card. And you can't even seem to pull that off. You have no idea idea where your money's going. Does that sound accurate? It's very chaotic and very stressful. Does that sound accurate?

[Caller]

Yeah, you're about like 100% spot on.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so how does she build a budget from that? Rachel?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, well, Jamie, I would sit down and look at where, where your most, where the, the highest dollar amount of expenses is going. So you can look category wise, look back the last couple of months and just see food. Is it, is it, is it restaurants? Is it random, you know, moments of shopping? Is it Amazon? Like where is it all going? And then you have to make a realistic budget to say, hey, the way we've been living isn't working. Which you feel that, you feel the chaos. And then to say, okay, in order to have a level of control. And this piece that you're looking for is that detailed plan that's going to strip back a lot of. So I would go down the main categories. We'll get you every dollar for a year. The premium version that'll attach to your checking account. Jamie. But I want you guys to walk through these categories and really say, okay, if we had to limit it and we say beans and rice, rice and beans here at Ramsey or if it's ramen, whatever it is, but cheap, cheap groceries, no out to eat nothing. That's the food category. What can we barely scrape by to make sure we still have food? And then you just kind of go down the list and I, I bought lights and waters.

[Dave Ramsey]

Second.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, your four walls. Yeah, food, shelter, utilities, transportation, pay this reasonable rent, stay current on the bills.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then I, I see $2,000 will do all that.

[Rachel Cruze]

And I was say, I, I bet you will find 15 to $2,000 after you live on nothing. You delete Amazon, you do nothing. Literally. No spending money, no life.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, you're broke. And you, when you get real radical like that, you're smart enough, after talking to you, you're way too smart to be this broke. But you're just disorganized and chaotic and you can fix that. So you sit down with this. Every dollar budget, we're going to give it to you when you get off the phone. And then you send the link to your husband. Is he on the road?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or is he in town?

[Caller]

No, he's on the road.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Send the link to him. Download this. You and me are going to look at this. We're going to decide what we are going to do with $5,000 this coming month. And then we're, by God, going to stick to it. Because I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

[Caller]

The. Okay, that's one thing. So I started reading one of your books, the Complete Guide to Money, and I tried it, like, okay, it says in the book, don't bring up your name as like a. So I try not to because I've done that in the past and he didn't like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, what I don't like if I'm you is being broke. And so, Bubba, who's out there driving a truck, you're gonna freaking do this or your life's gonna be miserable. Cause I'm gonna make it miserable. I don't care what Dave Ramsey says. I'm tired of living like this. We're going to fix this.

[Caller]

Bubba.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is you talking, not Dave Ramsey says, or the book says, or there's an intellectual discussion here. I'm sick and tired of my sucky life. And we're going to fix it. And you're gonna quit spending like you're in Congress on the road. And I'm gonna quit spending like we're in Congress back home. And we're gonna get on in control like your life depended on it. Because it does. You gotta get. The two of you are gonna have to get passionate. I don't really give a crap what Dave Ramsey thinks. That doesn't even matter. It shouldn't even enter into the discussion. But you know, you guys have got to get upset enough about this to attack it, both of you. And as long as you just dance around and go, well, I can't figure out how to do this, you're going to not do nothing. There's always a reason to do nothing and be broke. Look around America. Everyone in America does nothing and is broke. And they're sitting on their thumbs. And meanwhile you can fix your life here. You can go do this. You're smart enough to do it. But you know, and Bubba's going to come along. He ain't got a choice. He gets out there bringing home the bacon, driving good. Grind those gears, man. Send me a check and quit spending it. We're about to do this, get it done. And you guys gotta start having a discussion with that kind of thing. Not where we're mad at each other, but where we're mad at this status quo, this mediocrity. And we're not gonna live in it anymore.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And it's gonna, and it's gonna build a whole new set of habits for you guys. Jamie. Cause you probably have been used to being like, well the kids need that. Just get it this or that, that. It's going to change completely. Which it should. You should have a 180 response to everything to get a completely different result of what you guys have been doing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Keep doing what you've been doing.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's going to feel different and it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard. But I tell you that hard is much easier to push through than the heart of sitting of what you've been doing and sitting in that stress. And so there is freedom on the other side of peace and control and margin. You just have to control that area income. And that means usually saying no to yourself.

[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. And Andrew is in Dayton, Ohio. Hi Andrew, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm well Dave, how are you? Thanks for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help?

[Caller]

So my question is, should I go into debt with my father to double my income?

[Dave Ramsey]

So how long you've been listening to this show?

[Caller]

A little over a year. And me and my wife are on baby step four now.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what are we going to say?

[Caller]

I know but it's, it's tough because. So I. Here's a little bit of backstory. Me and my dad work together and he owns semi trucks and I drive this truck. Currently it's worth about $64,000. And he told me that he would sell it to me on interest free payments of 2,000amonth for one year and that would double my income. So at a bit of a crossroads,

[Rachel Cruze]

why do you have to buy it from him? Can you not just rent it or use it?

[Caller]

Well, that's what I do now. But you know I would go from I make about 30% of every load right now to 72% if I actually own the truck myself.

[Rachel Cruze]

Gotcha.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why?

[Rachel Cruze]

Because he pays for it, probably.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Who's gonna, who's booking your loads?

[Caller]

Him.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is he going to continue to. After you buy the. The truck?

[Caller]

Yeah, that's why he gets that 28%. So I would make right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

So he gets it for booking it or for owning it?

[Caller]

Well, right. Right now I make 30%. So he gets that 70 for booking and owning the truck. If I own the truck, I would get 72% and then he would.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, 28% for booking it. I see.

[Caller]

Yeah. And using his trailer and stuff like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sounds like a no brainer till the thing blows. Those.

[Caller]

Yeah, that's. That's the other thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sounds like a no brainer until diesel doubles because the straight of her muse is shut down. It sounds like a no. A no brainer until Trump decides to bomb somebody else and screw up the oil supply. It sounds like a no brainer until. So you're projecting a perfect future and that's the only way this makes sense. Imperfect futures don't exist in business.

[Caller]

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's definitely fair, but.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, that's the truth. That's not just fair. That's the world you live in. The world I live in. Now the question is whether you're going to admit it or not.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, don't do it. No, don't do this. This is crazy. Crazier and crud. Don't do it. Your dad owns the truck, free and clear.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

I have a counter proposal.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

I will rent it from you for $2,000 month.

[Rachel Cruze]

That goes towards ownership.

[Dave Ramsey]

That goes towards ownership.

[Caller]

Well, that's, that's essentially what he would be doing.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is essentially different because if things go sideways, he still owns the truck and you don't. That's different if the dadgum engine blows, honey. And guess what? Engines blow in truck trucks. Brakes go bad in trucks. Transmissions go out in trucks. Y' all wear them out, man. You run the road with them. You've not accounted for any of those things in this scenario. So if you want to rent his truck and him sell it to you for a dollar after you've accumulated the. It's $2,000 a month for. Till it got to. What, how many thousand? 64,000 was it?

[Caller]

Well, that's what it's worth. But he said he would give it to me for 24. So one year of 2000 off.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I'll rent it to you for 2000. I'll rent it for $2000 a month for one year and you sell it to me for a dollar. Same thing to him, right?

[Caller]

Yeah. Fair enough.

[Dave Ramsey]

But the. But the truck is his. It's not your.

[Rachel Cruze]

Until that. Until the purchase price.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if the world falls apart, you don't owe your dad $24,000.

[Caller]

Yeah, that's the kind of second part of my question is us being on baby step four. I mean, I, I have the money to buy it free and clear with that 24,000, but basically it would leave me with really nothing left.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, so that's your emergency fund.

[Caller]

Yeah. Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

But how much do you make? How much do you make a month, Andrew?

[Caller]

About 6,000. But if I bought it, it would be around 12.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you married?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does she make?

[Caller]

She's a part time nurse. She makes about 3,000amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you've got kids?

[Caller]

Yes, three. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what do you drive during the day?

[Caller]

Like as my personal vehicle.

[Dave Ramsey]

Huh. Paid off truck worth What?

[Caller]

Probably about 10,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Reduce your emergency fund to 10,000. Sell your truck and pay your dad cash for the truck. I would do that.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

And then double your.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not going to do that. All of a sudden this idea doesn't sound so good. I just sold his truck.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, but if he does doubles his income like what he's saying, yeah, it's worth it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's worth it.

[Rachel Cruze]

10,000 bucks. 10,000 bucks in two months.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's worth it. Till I sold his truck. Drive a $500 truck because you're not driving it anyway. You're driving a semi, honey. And go pay cash for this sucker. Oh, but now, now we got down to it. See, borrowing is now a convenience in this discussion. Not the only way to expedite the idea. Idea. So you can either rent the truck for one year and buy it for a dollar. But I wouldn't. I'd pay cash for it and start making my money now. And I'd say I'd sell your truck. Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Be a one car family for three months.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'll get you a five hundred hooptie. Yeah, whatever. Well, I mean for one month and get you a five thousand dollar truck. I don't. Yeah, it's not gonna be much different, but yeah, the voice tone changed.

[Rachel Cruze]

Like what?

[Caller]

Awesome.

[Rachel Cruze]

What?

[Dave Ramsey]

Jack is with us. Jackson, Jacksonville. How are you, Jack?

[Caller]

Good. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey, so I've got a question about my retirement. I got to make a decision which direction I want to go with it. So I'm currently on a 401A plan. I work in public safety and that plan, they're matching 25% into it and I have to contribute a mandatory 10. So 35% of what I make goes in set the 401 A. The option I have to go to starting next year would be a state retirement which is more defined benefit versus contribution. Retirement age is about the same. I already have five years on the state retirement from a previous job. So I'm trying to figure out which way to go. I think I can retire okay both ways, but I don't want to make a million dollar mistake.

[Dave Ramsey]

It would be about that. So you stay with the 401A. Why won't they have. Why don't they have 401K as well?

[Caller]

Most states to it just because of the. Since I worked for a city, they had a city pension and they switched it to 401A. And then they give everybody a one time chance to go to state retirement next year or. Yeah, stay on the floor.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you put 500,000 or a million dollars in this or you put some money in it and it grows to 500,000 or a million dollars and you die, your heirs get the money. If you go all state retirement, nobody gets the money but the state when you do.

[Caller]

Okay, yeah, but right now it's got 163,000 in it in five years and

[Dave Ramsey]

that's all gone when you die. If you put it in the state. If you put it in the state. So I do the 401A. I also would look into personal Roth IRAs and see how much of this I can roll and how quickly I can roll it to Roths and let it grow from here. But we always take a private plan over a pension because when you die, you lose the pension and the private plan, the million dollars or half million dollars or whatever you've gotten in there by then. You don't lose it when you die. And it makes more in the open market than it than it does with a pension. You should not feel uncertain about investing and you don't have to. That's why we created Investing Essentials, a two night virtual event where George Camel and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll simplify everything from 401ks and mutual funds to passing on wealth so you can invest with confidence. Tickets start at $199. Get yours today at ramseysolutions.com events or click the link in the show. Not. Our question of the day is sponsored by Yrefi if missed, private student loan payments are keeping you from making progress toward your goals. Why Refi may be able to help you. You explore refinancing with a low fixed rate and a payment you can manage. Visit yrefi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Rachel Cruze]

Today's question comes from Ava in Massachusetts. She said I'm 23 years old and have just graduated from College. I have $25,000 in stocks and $3,000 in cash. I have no debt and will start a job job this fall where I'm going to make $130,000 a year with a potential of $30,000 in bonuses. I would like to finance a new Tesla Model Y Dave's favorite car. Side note, just kidding out the door. The car is going to be $53,000. I was giving a rate of 2% APR if I put down $23,000 and the monthly payment will be $442 for 72 months. Obviously the smarter decision is to buy a used Tesla with cash than to ball the buy the Model Y in a few years. But I've been obsessing about this for several months now and I want to get in if I can. How stupid is this decision?

[Dave Ramsey]

Really? Extremely.

[Rachel Cruze]

Is it because it's a Tesla, Dave or the way she's going about.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's the whole thing. The whole idea is stupid. I know number one mistake people make when they graduate from college. Buy a new car. I've been driving my high school college car and it's a hooptie and now I make big money and so I'm going to prove I'm a graduated adult and you go buy a stupid brand new car. A new car loses 75% of its value in the first four years. Teslas are worse than that. Go look at a four or five year old Tesla and figure and look at how much they've gone go down in value.

[Rachel Cruze]

Buy that. That by the four and five year old.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, don't.

[Rachel Cruze]

What?

[Dave Ramsey]

The technology is a disaster.

[Caller]

No, it's not. I. I have a.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't even. You can't even reboot them. No.

[Rachel Cruze]

What are you talking about? No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Anyway, don't buy no a.

[Rachel Cruze]

Listen, I am a Tesla owner.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know. George just gave that car away to get rid of it.

[Rachel Cruze]

He did not. What are you talking about?

[Caller]

God.

[Rachel Cruze]

That is not true. Dave just hates electric car.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I hate the value.

[Rachel Cruze]

He hates electric cars. Yeah, the value.

[Dave Ramsey]

I do hate electric cars. But I hate the value.

[Rachel Cruze]

Drop so if you're gonna. Yeah, so if you're gonna go buy one, go buy a used one so

[Dave Ramsey]

you don't take the hit on any car.

[Rachel Cruze]

On any car.

[Dave Ramsey]

And don't finance it. If you have to finance it, you can't buy it. And it shouldn't be more than half your annual income. And if you can't pay cash, don't buy it and buy a used car unless you have at least a million dollar net worth and quit obsessing over new cars. That's gonna make you broke the life.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. Yeah, the what, what, what's the. You say the phrase all the time. Car payments is what keeps you middle class.

[Dave Ramsey]

Middle class 100%.

[Rachel Cruze]

Because if you invest, the car payment really is. It's the borrowing. Paying interest on something that's going down in value. All really for a status type of life is really what you're, what you're trying to buy. You want the comfort and the, and the look of it and how it makes you feel. And if you invested that car payment over the course of your life, it means millions of dollars that you're giving to the bank or the car dealer versus you. And so the financing of the cars. Not smart. And our millionaire study what the top five brands of cars that the average millionaire drives. Ford, Toyota, Honda, Chevy and Lexus. That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I miss Tesla.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, I missed a rap. So I'm sorry, that's a Ford or a.

[Dave Ramsey]

Whatever you drive.

[Rachel Cruze]

Whatever you drive.

[Dave Ramsey]

I got two Ford, cash, I paid cash.

[Rachel Cruze]

And a Chevy, I paid cash. No, but for real though, the, the car, it is. That's where people get in the most trouble from a financial perspective. So yeah, I would. Ava, I'm sorry, girl. You can get it eventually, but save up and pay cash. Pay used and buy used until you have a million dollar net worth worth. Then you financially can take the hit of a new car if that's what you choose to do. So we're not against new and nice cars. We're not against those. But you have to be smart about it and you can't.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need to have a million dollar network.

[Rachel Cruze]

You have to be able to afford it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, because they go down in value too fast. $442 from age 23 to age 65 in a decent growth stock mutual fund is $4.7 million.

[Rachel Cruze]

And that's not. Dave. Matthew. It really is.

[Dave Ramsey]

You just pulled. No, I just used the calculator.

[Caller]

I know, I know.

[Rachel Cruze]

I just.

[Dave Ramsey]

Clarifying the financial calculator on Ramsey.com. okay. Ramsey Solutions.com. so yeah, so $5 million, that's what that Tesla decision is going to cost you. That's what I meant by earlier when I said extremely stupid. Yeah, don't do it, don't do it. Pay cash for whatever you buy and don't buy a new car unless you have a million dollar net worth. And all the things you own with wheels and, or motors and or batteries added up in value together should not equal more than half your annual income. And please go look at the 5 year old version of whatever it is you're thinking about and watch how much they went down in value, particularly items that are a new model of any kind, including Tesla. But so if, if, if Ford comes out with a new body style.

[Rachel Cruze]

Wagoneers with Jeep did the same thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, exactly.

[Rachel Cruze]

That whole thing. I mean those went down.

[Dave Ramsey]

They suck.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, real bad in value.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wagoneer is one of the worst on depreciation. It even beat Tesla. And so it's horrible. And so just go look at how much they go down. I mean it's just ridiculous. And the reason is that an 8 year old Tesla people are worried about whether they have to buy a $10,000 battery and the car is not worth $10,000. And that's the truth.

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

That's, that's why George had trouble moving that car. He almost got stuck in it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, but you just said he gave it away for free.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, he didn't give it away for free, but he had trouble getting rid of an ancient Tesla. Antique Teslas are not going to be running around. I have an antique Corvette, but there won't be any antique Teslas. Okay? They won't survive that long. So it won't make it. So the battery won't last that long. It's going to be sitting over there in a flower being a flower box.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm telling you, in 15 years, you never know what's going to happen.

[Dave Ramsey]

We'll see. We'll see. Maybe they'll invent a technology to revive them and reboot them, but that would be great. But in the meantime time, old ones aren't doing well on the market. Regardless of whether we, whether we have a, whether we have a discussion about whether I like them or not doesn't matter. But they're not doing well in the market, so. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Number one mistake people make when they come out of college.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, I'll see you at the gas.

[Dave Ramsey]

Brand new car on payments. Don't do it.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'll see you at the gas Station Dave. Oh, wait, I don't have to gas.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's fine. That's cuz you're plugging in on my building and getting free fuel.

[Rachel Cruze]

I am? That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

I still don't understand that I don't have any gas tanks here at Ramsey Solutions. That all of us that drive gas cars don't get free gas. But all you people that get electric cars get to plug into my building for free.

[Rachel Cruze]

And we thank you for that.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that way you get to go home later. And I paid for that fuel, but I didn't pay for all the other team members fuel.

[Rachel Cruze]

You own the building.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's. Yeah, I think. Do they make little things where you have to charge, you have to pay? Yes, I bet they do. I need to put pay down. Let people pay for their own.

[Rachel Cruze]

Stop that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, I have to pay for my own gas. Kelly's got to pay for her own gas. Joe pays for his own gas.

[Rachel Cruze]

Y' all, come on now.

[Dave Ramsey]

What is this?

[Rachel Cruze]

Social 2026. 2026. That's what it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, yeah. No, I miss the equity in this. I'm just losing it. Too funny, y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Dave Ramsey]

Too fun. So we have me driving a truck and Deloney driving a truck. And Rachel and George driving. Tess and Jade just got a new really nice car. I won't disclose it because it's not my story to tell. That would be unfair. But she just did really well. But it's not electric, so us gas eaters, us gas burners. Got you three to two right now.

[Rachel Cruze]

Me and George, you and George, kindred spirits. That's why we do smart money happy hour together. We get each other.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's it. That's it.

[Rachel Cruze]

We get each other.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, I don't care. I actually. The truth is we joke about this so much that I've gotten so much hate mail on it. It's hilarious.

[Caller]

But.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I actually do think. I think the Tesla is a phenomenal piece of a technology. I really. It's a lot of fun. I'm just not an early adopter on cars, and I'm still waiting on them to come out with the app with the loud muffler. Because I need a loud muffler. I'm a redneck, so.

[Rachel Cruze]

Redneck.

[Dave Ramsey]

Redneck Needs a loud muffler. I need a loud muffler.

[Rachel Cruze]

Can't take that Southern out of them.

[Dave Ramsey]

I need a cam that goes.

[Rachel Cruze]

Need a big, big truck to feel. Feel good.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's it. That's it. Whatever. Compensating. Whatever it is. I Don't know. Whatever it is, I'm still doing it all. I still love the it's still the best. You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options so you never have to invest in anything you don't understand. Head to ramseysolutions.com smartvestor to get connected. Ramsey Solutions is a paid non client promoter of participating pros. Learn [e-mail] smarter smartvestor. People ask me how we made millions in investing and so we created a two night virtual event to walk you through through how I have done it, what my playbook is in real estate and in mutual funds and how I chose not to put money in X, Y or Z. All of the other things that are out there floating around that people ask about. So we're going to unpack what not to do and what I have done if you're interested in that. We've only done this two times and it's called Investing Essentials. It's George Camel and I, we're going to be doing Another one September, September 1st and 2nd and it's the only place I go through this playbook. All the nerding out and everything on the wealth planning. And we're also going to add some new content this time on reducing taxes on high net worth individuals and navigating wills and how to build a lasting legacy and dealing with wealth in the family. All of that will be woven into Investing Essentials. Tickets start at 199. That's $199. Get yours [e-mail] events or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on the podcast or on YouTube. Dave is in New York. Hi Dave. How are you?

[Caller]

Blessed by the best and yourself?

[Dave Ramsey]

Just the same. How can we help?

[Caller]

I am about to inherit $2 million and, and I don't really know what to do. Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are you?

[Caller]

So 40.

[Rachel Cruze]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. What's your net worth today?

[Caller]

About 150,000. Good.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's your, and what's your income today?

[Caller]

My wife and I, we make about 90,000 a year. We are missionary. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well that's a good framework on the way to view it. And it'll help you. It's helped me a lot as my wealth has built over the years. And it'll help you too. And that's the framework is looking at this through a spiritual lens. And so in the Christian world, we often call the management of God's money stewardship. You've heard that, I'm sure.

[Caller]

Yeah. And we are Christian.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And you said missionary, so I assumed. And so if I am a steward, that's not technically a Christian term. It's technically an old English term that means manager. You're a manager of $2 million. That's different than I became an owner of $2 million. It sits on your heart a different way.

[Caller]

Way totally.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's lighter for one thing. Not as heavy. It's heavier if you're the owner. It's lighter if you're the manager. And then it also keeps my perspective on I have a job to do. And that is I'm not up to speed. Which is why you're calling, because you're very wise. I'm not up to speed on how to handle, how to manage this much money. I've never done it before. I'm a newbie. Be a rookie. And so what does a rookie do? Well, they get the playbook and they start trying to figure out what to do. And that's what you're doing. So good. The Bible also says in the multitude of counsel, there's safety. And so you're gathering counsel by calling here and I will tell you to put together your council. Your council needs a CPA in it that does taxes. Your council needs a good insurance person, a broker that not selling you investment life insurance, but that just has all of your things that you need to have insured. Insured properly. You probably need a real estate person in your corner. You definitely need a financial advisor. Smartvestorprosamseysolutions.com I recommend the tax advisors that are Ramsey Trusted at Ramsey Solutions. I recommend. But in each of these cases, you put together a group of people in these different parts of money and they all need to have the heart of a teacher because God did not give them the $2 million to manage. He gave it to you. And it's your job to learn from them. The good news is it's not rocket science. You can learn. You can learn it. Okay. It's going to be very basic understanding of some of these investments. And then you're going to invest some of God's money. You're going to give some of God's money. You're going to enjoy some of God's money. These are all biblical things to do. You can invest some of it in generosity into the kingdom, which is what you've spent your life doing. And so that part will be easy for you. But even if you were like at the Ramsey Family foundation, when we're picking a ministry to financially support, we vet them for how wise they're doing. How wise they're operating the ministry.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because we're investing God's money into that ministry. And so if we're investing money into a company, we vet the company to see how well it's run. Same thing with this. And so you're gonna do all of that.

[Rachel Cruze]

I have a question for your, like your just day to day life. What does that look like? Are you guys renters or do you have kids? Are they in school? Like, kind of. What's your rhythm right now with life?

[Caller]

Yeah. So no kids. We're both 40 and we are currently ren from family members. Currently. We do have a heart to buy a home. And currently, apart from the $2 million that is coming up, we are currently underfunded living in New York. It's extremely expensive. And you know, missions wise, what we do, we are roughly around 2 to $3,000 a month short. Now. We. The way we've done that is we've done like end of year fundraising. So in our organization, we actually do have a little bit of a nest egg and we draw from that each month.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. Continue to do that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would pretend like you didn't have this.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's what I was gonna say. There's something about, for you guys putting this away, I think is going to be most of it. Now, the housing thing, are you guys going to be in this area for a while, for the foreseeable future, do you think? Or is there like.

[Caller]

Yes. So that's a great question, actually, what the Lord has done very recently. We don't have an exact timeline, but anywhere between the next six months and potentially 18 months, the Lord is moving us to a third world country. So actually our. Our expenses will decrease.

[Dave Ramsey]

And don't buy a house if you're leaving.

[Rachel Cruze]

So I was going to say yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caller]

That's the plan.

[Rachel Cruze]

I would be. I'd be giving some of this, a majority of it. I would just put it. I would invest it. I mean index funds, mutual funds, I would put it away. And if you guys needed a little bit, I just don't want this to drip. Disappear over.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Rachel Cruze]

You know What I mean five to six years when you start to like there's something about living within your means still that I think is really wise. And like you said, you guys will be moving to a different country so your expenses are totally different.

[Dave Ramsey]

But don't, don't also do not back to what I was saying earlier, do not sign up a financial person or an insurance person or anybody who's telling you what to do. Their job is to teach you.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because

[Caller]

so I do have maybe another two part question that goes off of what you guys are asking is one, we do currently have a financial advisor. They are through Primerica. So I do have term life and we do have a Roth IRA that we are maxing out each year. Now that isn't a part of the question that I was going to ask. You were actually just getting to that. In regards to if we need a little bit of extra money, my heart is 100% to do everything that you guys just shared in regards to generosity and living below our means. We currently still do. Now we've already done our budget for the new location and we are still going to be looking at around 1500amonth short. Is there a way to, you know I've heard about like dividend funds or there a way to collect some sort of income.

[Dave Ramsey]

Any mutual fund can pay you an income. Any mutual fund you can just take a systematic withdrawal. A certain amount per month or a certain percentage, either one. Any mutual fund, it doesn't require it to. The funds or the stocks inside don't have to be dividend funds to do that. You could do that with a simple

[Rachel Cruze]

S and P. And would you recommend he do that? And they could live off a thousand bucks.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'd recommend you go back to fundraising and raise your money and not touch this money. If you got a $1,500 a month drip, take it out like you're doing now out of your comp, out of the missions budget that you put together with your retained earnings. Inside that. Dave Ramsey here. For more than 30 years I've been talking to folks on the air and I can tell you that most people are broke not because they don't make enough money, but because they don't have a plan. You need to give every dollar you earn a job because when you do that, something changes. You stop guessing, you stop worrying, you stop stressing. Our every dollar budgeting app will show you how to find extra cash, pay off debt and finally start winning with money. But most people won't do it. They'll keep Living paycheck to paycheck. Keep hoping things will change without making a change. It's time to say enough is enough. It's time to take control of your money. It's time to start your every dollar budget for free today. Go download it in the App Store or Google play. Our scripture of the day. Psalm 62, 8. Trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for he is our refuge. Sam Levinson said, don't watch the clock, do what it does. Keep going. Ooh, like that. All right, up next is going to be Beth in Los Angeles. Hi, Beth, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. How about you, Dave? Hi, Rachel.

[Rachel Cruze]

Hi, Beth. Thanks for calling in.

[Caller]

I have. I share two teenage daughters with my husband. He currently owns a home. It's under the property taxes, under his name and his sister's name. The mortgage is just under his name. Lately he's been experiencing some health concerns. So I want to know, is there anything, is there something, a legal thing that I can do? So that way, in case something does happen to him, my two teenage daughters do get a portion of that home.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, you said the property tax. Property. There's a deed, the title to the home. Who is the home titled to?

[Caller]

I'm not sure that would be the

[Dave Ramsey]

essential part of information. Information. Okay, and then the second question is there are several types of things you can do with two individuals that aren't married. Tenants in common. Tenants entirety. There's several different things you can do. And until we know California law and we know how it's titled, we don't know how big a concern you have. Okay, but is your husband, is he still able to do business?

[Caller]

Yes. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, then you all start talking about this tonight and get to the bottom. How is it titled and how do we ensure that your portion of the ownership goes to your. Is it your daughters? Is that what you're wanting?

[Caller]

Yes, that's correct. My daughters.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, number one, you need a will. Does he have a will?

[Caller]

No, he doesn't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, he needs to get a will. Everybody that's breathing this over 18 years old needs to a will. So how complicated is your all's estate? Other than this house, how many other things are there?

[Caller]

He has his, like, stocks and investments and I also have my own home as well and also some little investments. But.

[Dave Ramsey]

So this is a second marriage?

[Caller]

No, no, no. It's. It's our only marriage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why do we have. Why do we. I have my own home. What's that mean?

[Caller]

Oh, because I had, I had purchased A home before I met him. Okay. And then he had this home before he met me. And then we joined forces and that's, you know, that's how it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how old are you?

[Caller]

He's in his late 40s, I'm in my early 40s. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need a will. If you want to do a simple one. Both of you need one. Do a simple one. You can go to mama bear legal forums.com and that you can do one overnight. It's very easy. It's really not complicated. It just means you have to deal with the fact that you're gonna die someday. Welcome to the emotions of that. But if you want to get complicated, obviously you can go to an attorney. But don't drag this out two years. Get it done now. And wills need to be state specific and they need to be in California. Okay. If you're a resident of California, you go by California law, not by Tennessee law law. And California law is different in so many ways. But yeah. But anyway, you want to make sure that your will lines up with that. And then while you're doing that, you need to jump on the phone and learn about. With an attorney, probably learn about his portion of this house and how to ensure under California law that his portion of ownership goes to his sister. It might be. Or goes to his daughters, not to his sister. And some. There's one type of deed that you can do in some states that when you die, his portion would automatically go to his sister. You want to make sure you don't have that. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that California doesn't allow that. And I don't know the answer to that because we don't know how this is titled and I don't know California law that well. All of that to say we just want to. If we need to change the deed, if we need to ensure. Put the deed in a trust. If we need to put it in just. It may be as simple as he states in the will that his portion goes to his daughters. It's probably that simple.

[Caller]

Got it.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you want to double check because you don't want to have to fight with a sister in law after death.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Do you guys have a good relationship? Because I'm sure she has to sign off if you change the deed and do a couple of things. Right. Would she have to. She'd probably have to sign off.

[Dave Ramsey]

He could sign off his portion with quitclaim into a trust in any state. He can do that. Okay.

[Caller]

So yeah, we're very friendly. It's.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you Needed something from her, like a signature. It's not like a big thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're very wise to be concerned now because you can't fix. You can't buy fire insurance after the house burns down. You can't fix estate deals after somebody dies. So you need to do it now, tonight. Don't. Yeah. Not because 40 year old people, things happen to them all the time. 30 year old people, things happen to them all the time. Everyone needs a will and it's just to protect your family. And it's what do I will, what do I want to have happen? And if you don't write that down, that's your last will. What is my will? What is my will? Want. My last want. And here I'm going to testify to that. My last will and testament.

[Rachel Cruze]

And it just makes it sound complicated for the people that you leave. You're done, you're gone. But man, for everyone else, everybody untangling a mess is not fun during grief.

[Dave Ramsey]

So get wills and do a little bit of research on what happens to his half in California. And the way that's titled Matthew is in San Antonio. Hey, Matthew, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

We have a lot of house problems we are looking to for council, whether we should sell the house and start over and hope to break even or invest and then to possibly gain or if we should just.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you didn't own it, would you buy it again? No, no, right?

[Caller]

No, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. If you didn't own it, knowing what you know now, it's not romantic to buy a fixer upper. It's a pain in the butt. And that's what you discovered, right?

[Caller]

Yes, sir, very much.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Those people that do it on television, you know, they have crews and editors and it makes it look like it happened in one hour and it didn't. It happened over weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and everything that can go wrong goes wrong. And those television shows are full of, of crap. And so that's not how life works. And you discovered that. Sell it, man. It's no fun for you.

[Rachel Cruze]

Did you guys do it because you wanted to fix it up or is it what you could afford?

[Caller]

It was what we could afford. That's what's hard before. Sorry.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, no, no, no. I was affirming that. Yes. That's what we're seeing more and more is because of the market. You're buying things that are not. It's not new. Right. And so you're going to have to do what. What's Going on with it. What are the problems?

[Caller]

Major problem is the sewage drain is broken inside the house underneath the foundation. Average pricing we've been receiving to fix it has been 20. 20,000 has been like the lowest on average.

[Rachel Cruze]

How long have y' all had it for?

[Caller]

Less than three years. We're going, going on, going on into our third year, but it's really been a little over two.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, how much, how much is it worth?

[Caller]

We received the loan for 135,000 now. I mean, without it, the plumbing being fixed, I'm sure, dropped dramatically. We still owe 130,000 on it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Can you get out of it

[Caller]

within. Within 10 months? We can within 10 months because we got first time home buyers. No doubt. I forgot what the loan was called, but like no down payment. Basically like, so we have a minimum of.

[Dave Ramsey]

We have to function. How are you living in it?

[Caller]

Thank you, Lord. There was an unfinished bathroom. It was sold as a three bedroom, one bath. There was an unfinished bathroom in the garage that, that pipes around the house and taps into the yard. So that's how we, we use the restroom. And then we wash dishes with, with five gallon buckets. It's like. Like that. Yeah. And we have two young kids. And I have not been like, I'm on top of it, husband. This is just something that has been like, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

What happens if you sell it earlier than 10 months?

[Caller]

We owe the money back that. For that, for the down payment.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much was that?

[Caller]

I could be wrong. I believe it was 5,000, but I could be wrong.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income? Income

[Caller]

without overtime? 3,300. With overtime, a little over 4,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

Wonder if you can scrape together 5,000 bucks and get out of it and go rent somewhere.

[Dave Ramsey]

I wouldn't live in a place with five gallon buckets, man. I'd get out of there.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.