Financial Peace Starts With Personal Honesty

Summary

The Ramsey Show Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Financial Peace Starts With Personal Honesty
Air Date: March 19, 2026
Hosts: Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruze
Main Theme: How candid self-assessment and honest conversations catalyze lasting financial change—practical guidance on debt, business ownership, marriage and money, enabling callers to build wealth and regain control despite setbacks.

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OVERVIEW

This episode emphasizes the absolute necessity of honest, sometimes hard, self-reflection to achieve financial peace and long-term well-being. Dave Ramsey, Rachel Cruze, and guest personalities field live calls, offering blunt, actionable guidance on topics ranging from small business struggles and marital discord to debt paydown strategies and large family budgeting. Stories from listeners at wildly differing life stages underline a core message: Lasting financial success depends more on courageously facing reality and adjusting behavior than on quick-fix schemes or luck.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. The True Cost of Side Hustles and Overcommitting

[00:50–09:01]

• Caller: Logan from Grand Rapids
• Opened a gym plus a supplement shop a year ago, while working two data analyst jobs and just had a baby.
• Struggling with burnout, minimal business profit, and $80k business debt.
• Dave's advice: Don’t walk away just because it’s hard; only consider exiting when there is no hope for improvement in a “reasonable time.”
• Key Quote:

  "You exit a business not when it's hard, because 100% of the time you run a business, it's hard. You exit when you lose hope that in a reasonable period of time this is going to be profitable and all of my effort is going to be worth the trouble."
  — Dave Ramsey [01:24]

• Practical action: Get specific with your timeline and communicate proactively with your spouse instead of reacting in crisis.

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2. Money, Marriage, and Disrespect in Decision-Making

[09:57–19:17]

• Caller: Kate from Billings, married to a compulsive truck-flipper.
• Husband’s new business is lucrative, but he keeps impulsively trading vehicles without consulting her—she feels excluded and disrespected.
• Dave’s assessment: The real issue is relational and rooted in a lack of humility; financial wins can magnify bad habits, especially arrogance.
• Key Quote:

  "Entrepreneurs who do not listen to their wives don’t make it long term. You cannot out-earn that level of stupidity… The arrogance that is attached to this means he's also not listening to his key leaders."
  — Dave Ramsey [12:59]

• Advice: Insist on marriage counseling—it’s not about the trucks, it’s about a failure of partnership and respect; allow money to be a magnifier of virtue, not flaws.

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3. Small Business Chaos & Personal Debt Spiral

[22:02–26:17]

• Caller: Michael, age 20, burdened with $50k debt (car loan, business losses, medical debts), overwhelmed and disorganized.
• Recurring theme: awareness and honesty about the situation—not just “budgeting” but being relentless about tracking every creditor and transaction.
• Dave’s intervention: Immediate action—reverse recent bad spending decisions (like trading a Tesla for a truck on a $50k income), start cataloging ALL debts.
• Key Quote:

  "Please tell me that you want a better life than you have. You keep doing stupid stuff, you're gonna have a stupid life. That thing last night was absolute freaking brain damage."
  — Dave Ramsey [25:03]

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4. Career Path Choices vs Financial Reality

[26:26–30:24]

• Caller: Jordan, new veterinarian with $170k student debt.
• Considering a specialty residency (lower short-term pay for higher long-term income).
• Advice: Skip the residency for now—focus on maximizing DVM salary ($130k+), clear debt, then reassess further specialization later.
• Key Quote:

  "You went in debt to become a DVM. Now go be one, dude."
  — Dave Ramsey [27:24]

• Side tip: Liquidate single stocks to pay down student debt if possible. Earn more, live below means, and consider opening a practice down the line.

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5. Perseverance, Focus, and 'Sacrificing Fun' During Debt Payoff

[43:14–49:41]

• Caller: Rachel, wanting to attend a Backstreet Boys concert while $96k in debt.
• Hosts (humorously) wrestle with the struggle to stay committed—while acknowledging temptation and the need for some fun.
• Key Insight: Staying focused and committed is the key to crushing debt—the “biggest risk” is repeatedly breaking intensity for short-term pleasures.
• Quote (on power of focus):

  “The way you got the $78,000 paid off in that short period of time was focused intensity without any distractions… That level of focus created behavior change.”
  — Dave Ramsey [47:04]

• Outcome: Encouragement to delay treats—you'll later have bigger victories to celebrate.

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6. Family Dysfunction and Inheritance Troubles

[54:01–59:11]

• Caller: Jennifer, waiting 11+ years for an inheritance (her uncle executor is AWOL).
• Advice: Be assertive—call repeatedly, threaten legal action if needed.
• Honesty and Proactivity: Don’t let “not wanting to be a bother” cost you thousands; act quickly when responsible parties fail.
• Key Quote:

  "You need to be prepared to go to 100 in the next 30 days… if you want my money, I want my money."
  — Dave Ramsey [58:54]

• Mindset tip: The executor’s duty is legal; excuses about “being too young” are irrelevant.

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7. Debt-Free Stage: Inspiration and Extreme Sacrifice

[64:32–73:11] & [105:08–113:40]

• Featured Families:

  • Philip & Anita (Atlanta): Paid off $88K in 2 yrs 10 months, cash-flowed another $30K in “Murphy expenses.”
  • Jeff & Krista (Oklahoma): Paid off $210K over 17 years—while adopting six children (four internationally), private schooling, and launching a mission charity.

• Both families described selling nearly everything, taking on side hustles, turning hobbies into business, and active child involvement.

• Notable Quotes:

  "You won't imagine what you're capable of, how hard you can push yourself, knowing the harder you push, the faster you can achieve your goals."
  — Anita [70:47]

  "Sometimes it's just realizing you can live with a lot less than you think you can."
  — Jeff [111:20]

• Takeaway: Massive, courageous sacrifices bring familial unity, teach children resilience, and, ultimately, joy.

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8. Legacy Planning and Enabling Bad Behavior

[84:49–92:54]

• Caller: James, 70, facing inheritance decisions for two sons—one responsible, one troubled by gambling/addiction.
• Dave’s guidance:
  • Don’t “bless” someone with money that will magnify their self-destruction.
  • Make inheritance conditional, via a trust, on demonstrated personal growth.
  • Stop enabling: Set boundaries, require transparency.
• Key Quote:

  "Money magnifies the good parts of our life and the bad parts of our life… so far money that he's gotten has magnified the bad parts."
  — Dave Ramsey [87:48]

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9. Insurance & Investment Scams for Retirees

[116:11–121:24]

• Discussion on Indexed Universal Life (IUL) products—Dave explains why alleged tax-free “benefits” are misleading: you’re borrowing your own money and paying fees; stick with simple mutual funds or, if desperate for no taxes, muni bonds (with low returns).

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10. Entrepreneurship: Scaling Up vs. Staying Lean

[122:03–125:01]

• Caller: Bailey, age 24, built a profitable hat business in his laundry room, wants to buy out another print shop.
• Advice: Don’t complicate success—rent a little extra space, but don’t take on fixed overhead or dying business models.

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• On marital discord and money:

  “It’s not necessarily the transaction that’s bothersome. It’s the way the transaction’s going down and that you’re not being heard and you’re not being respected.”
  — Dave Ramsey [17:20]

• On debt payoff fatigue:

  “Getting out of debt is hard—just not as hard as spending your entire life being average, being mediocre, living paycheck to paycheck.”
  — Dave Ramsey [77:48]

• On enabling vs loving:

  “Enablers are nice people. They’re sweet people, but they’re not helpful people. They think they’re helping, but they’re not helping…”
  — Dave Ramsey [91:11]

• On legacy and children:

  “You guys are heroes. So you’ve changed your whole family tree with your actions as well as with the arithmetic.”
  — Dave Ramsey [72:13]

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HIGHLIGHTED TIMESTAMPS

• [01:24] – When to exit a business and why effort doesn’t always match results.
• [12:59] – The danger of arrogance in financial (and business) decision making.
• [25:03] – A young caller’s “absolute brain damage” spending mistake.
• [47:04] – The necessity of uncompromised focus in debt payoff.
• [58:54] – Confronting an executor who’s delaying or stealing inheritance.
• [70:47] – Inspiration from debt-free families: “the harder you push, the faster you achieve goals.”
• [87:48] – On inheritance and magnifying good vs. bad character.
• [111:20] – “You can live with a lot less than you think you can.”
• [121:24] – The truth about IUL and insurance schemes.

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CONCLUSION / THEMATIC THREAD

The glue across all stories in this episode is personal honesty: whether it’s business projections, relationship friction, spending habits, or generational decisions, self-honesty and candor with loved ones are the precursor to lasting change. Ramsey and team repeatedly call for unflinching focus, courage to sacrifice, and insistence on partnership, not secrecy. The episode inspires by showcasing ordinary people who transform their own lives through intentionality, grit, and upfront communication, hammering the principle: Common sense may feel rare, but practiced with discipline, it becomes a superpower.

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For further details or upcoming events, visit RamseySolutions.com.

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 and the Fair Winds Credit union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm your host Dave Ramsey. Rachel Cruz Ramsey personality number one best selling author, co host of the smart money happy hour on Ramsey Networks and my daughter is my co host today. Open phones here at Triple 882-55-5225. The call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Logan is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Hey Logan, what's up?

[Logan]

Hey, how you doing today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help, sir?

[Logan]

I started a business 18 months ago. I've been working 70 to 100 hours a week. Right now we're barely breaking two full time jobs and I have a seven week old at home. So I'm wondering at what point do you decide when to exit the business and if there's a good workflow for that. I guess just kind of a general question around that, what's what your thought would be?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well you exit a business not when it's hard because 100% of the time you run a business. It's hard.

[Rachel Cruz]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

You exit a business when you lose hope that in a reasonable period of time this is going to be profitable and all of my effort is going to be worth the trouble. We don't want to run a business for 10 years. It's not profitable. That's called a hobby and a bad one. Right. So. But you're a whole year in. When did you think you were going to be profitable?

[Logan]

Well, I didn't. I predicted about three years before we started. I started being able to take any money out of the business but I thought it would be self sustaining about where we're at right now. And it's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you thought it'd be breaking even?

[Logan]

Yeah, I thought it'd be. Let me rephrase. I thought I could pay somebody to run it part time. Oh by now and I actually have somebody running it part time. We have a. It's a slow bleed. It's not killing me unless I. Well with the. So it loses money to pay somebody to run it. Yes, for the first eight months we were open. I have, I work from home.

[Dave Ramsey]

I actually work. What do you do? What is the business?

[Logan]

The business is. It's a gym and then there's actually a second business which is a supplement shop within that business. So there's two of them.

[Dave Ramsey]

Technically you opened a gym.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

As a side hustle,

[Logan]

I guess.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Logan]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay.

[Ken]

And are either one of those profitable, the. The gym itself or the supplements business? Inside of the gym?

[Logan]

It's inside of the gym, yes. The gym is profitable. They together. The gym is profitable and then the supplements. I actually that's what I run my payroll out of and that has a slight loss every month. So they about break even with like maybe 100, $200 a month loss.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you can handle $100 a month. What is your income on your regular job?

[Logan]

Well, with. Between the two of them, I take home about.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you don't make any. You don't take anything home from the gym?

[Logan]

No, with. From the jobs. I.

[Dave Ramsey]

You have two other jobs?

[Landon]

Between the two jobs, you have two other jobs.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry, stop again. You have two jobs in addition to the gym?

[Logan]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so what is your main career?

[Logan]

I am a data analyst.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and what do you make as a data analyst?

[Logan]

I gross 200 with both jobs.

[Dave Ramsey]

And they're both data analyst jobs?

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Logan]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so is there one that is substantially more than the other or 100 each?

[Logan]

They're about 100. Each one has significantly better benefits. The other one's a contract position which is renewed every six months. So it's not guaranteed. I guess it's not guaranteed employment.

[Rachel Cruz]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And your. Your wife is at home with the baby?

[Logan]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you're making $200,000 a year. You have a business that's living, losing $100 a month.

[Logan]

Yes. I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the problem?

[Logan]

The problem is it's not, it's actually, it's in a. It's in a negative. I don't have the time right now. I don't have the time to put into the business because I have both jobs.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you would had that when you started the business.

[Logan]

Yeah, and we were doing. We were doing well. And then I got the second job to add somebody to run it, and then this person is running it part time. And it needs about 15 hours a week of my attention to, you know, it needs, it needs some overview. The day to day is taken care of, but it needs, you know that a growth trajectory.

[Dave Ramsey]

That didn't change though. That's what you signed up for a year ago.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so what you've added to your plate that is causing things to fall off of your plate is the contract job. It's not the gym.

[Logan]

Yes, but I need the contract job because the. I need to get out of debt. The. There's. I have at least. I need to pay off at least 20,000 in debt. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you have debt.

[Logan]

Yes. The Gym has about $80,000 in debt to start it up.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, Jesus, what a bad idea.

[Logan]

Yeah, I learned that the hard way.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, man, I'm catching on now. Okay. I just. I was looking at the income streams. I didn't think about that. I'm sorry. My bad.

[Rachel Cruz]

Okay.

[Logan]

The business.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are you?

[Logan]

29.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Can you cut the contract back to half the number of hours for 50,000?

[Logan]

I can ask. It's an hourly rate, so possibly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. To where you can breathe actual logistics on just time. Okay. Because you have a full time job plus a part time job then plus another part time job at the gym. Because we really just can't walk away from the $80,000 in one year in. When it's doing exactly what was projected to do. The only thing that changed is you just kept adding crap because you wanted to get the 80,000 paid off and you can't get it all done in a day. Essentially you stressed yourself out by adding stacks and stacks and stuff. Stuff to your plate. And the baby made you realize that.

[Logan]

Yeah, that was a. Yeah, that was the straw.

[Dave Ramsey]

That was the straw that broke the camel's back, you know, and that's okay. That's a great straw. Going to have one. That's the one to have. But the. Yeah. So you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to sit down and look at this. I'm going to talk to my wife and I say, all right, for four more months, six more months, two more months, eight more months. I'm going to keep the exact schedule I'm keeping right now so I can keep 200 coming in. And I'm going to knock X out of that 80,000. And it's going to cost us because I am burning the candle at both ends and in the middle. But I can't do that forever. I can do it for this amount of time. And we're prayerfully gonna, you know, you're gonna give me a lot of grace and you're not gonna expect super dad to be there every time the kid poops his diaper. I've gotta get this thing out of the ditch. Okay. And I started this business when Rachel was a baby and it was 80 hours a week. And Sharon and I agreed to that. And she never whined one time after we agreed to that. But we also said there's a limited amount of time a human being can do this without exploding. And so you need to decide what that is. You're sensing that things are on fire because they're on fire. So the way to survive that is to go as close to the fire as you can get without getting burned and go, okay, the most I can do is 90 more days and then I'm going to pull back to part time on the contract so that I can breathe again. But in the meantime, I'm going to pour the coals on and see how much of this debt I can knock out. So I've got better options. You don't have really good options right now.

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[Dave Ramsey]

Kate is in Billings, Montana. Hi Kate, how are you?

[Caller Female]

Hi.

[Rachel Cruz]

Good.

[Kate]

How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Kate]

I wanted to talk to you today about my husband. He loves new trucks and he has switched trucks about seven times in the last six years and he changed vehicles twice last year. And so he usually just text me when. When he's making this change. And I've tried to talk to him about how it's a bigger deal than that because we are are usually losing money on this transaction.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, every time.

[Caller Female]

Yes.

[Kate]

So I just wanted your thoughts.

[Ken]

How much do you guys make a year? Kate?

[Kate]

So he's actually making quite a bit of money now, but this is new for us. So he founded his own company doing logistics and it grossed about a million dollars last year.

[Dave Ramsey]

What did it net?

[Kate]

I think 1.4.

[Dave Ramsey]

It netted. You pay taxes on a million dollars?

[Michael]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Gross and net is different. You know that.

[Caller Female]

Okay.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Sorry.

[Kate]

I might be.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Ken]

What did you bring home? What? What hit your account? Your household income. What did he bring home?

[Kate]

Our household income was over 600. I know we owed a ton in taxes, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so he can afford to lose the money That's. But he's disrespecting his wife.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yes.

[Kate]

So we, we have three kids and he's my second husband. And so this is just all. I think it's just all. We're still going through growing pains of how do we manage money together.

[Dave Ramsey]

And a seven years. You ought to be able to figure it out. You can grow a company that makes 1.2 million, you'll be able to figure out how to manage money. Yeah, he just hasn't bothered. He's kind of running around, does whatever the flippy wants to do because he's making money and he doesn't, you know, and in the process is disrespecting you.

[Kate]

That's how I feel.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. No, that's. That's what is observable. It's not just a feeling.

[Ken]

Kate, what does he say when you text him or what's his response when you guys talk about it and you're frustrated? What does he say? Just like.

[Kate]

So it typically, it gets us into an argument because he kind of. I don't think he likes being told what to do or, you know, how to spend his money. But he denies that he's. He's disrespecting me or not, you know, consulting with me, but his idea of consulting with me is basically just telling you, texting me, telling me what he's gonna do. So that's kind of where we're in disagreement.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's going to fail as an entrepreneur. And the reason I know that is I coach 10,000 businesses through entree leadership. And entrepreneurs who do not listen to their wives don't make it long term. You cannot out earn that level of stupidity. I tried it. It doesn't work and it'll get you okay. So the arrogance that is attached to this means he's also not listening to his key leaders when they're speaking up and saying this is a dumb idea. He's not listening to anybody because he freaking thinks he's Superman and this is gonna lead to him hitting the wall. So I'm scared. I'm really, really afraid for him because right now this isn't a big enough problem that it's actually causing him any discomfort. But the root of this is very, very dangerous from a business perspective because leaders that don't have humility and take input from proper sources do not lead well. And it's pretty simple. And so, I mean, I've got key people on this team. Some of them have been with me 30 years and they're like brothers and sisters to Me. And they speak into the Ramsey thing. That happens. And believe you me, to the extent that she wants to, Sharon Ramsey speaks into this place. And what's going on? Do we do every single thing Sharon wants to do? No, but we don't do every single thing Dave wants to do either. But you guys have a breakdown in your relationship. And the power of the relationship, it's almost as if he has his life over to one side, and then he comes home and has a family.

[Ken]

Well, that's what feels always a little bit off.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's disjointed.

[Ken]

Yeah. And even when he uses, like. Well, I've been making a lot of money, so I get to go over here, right? It's like this. It's. It turns into this isolated instance where that's the opposite of marriage. Right. When you're married to someone and you're doing life with someone, it should be integrated.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Ken]

You're still gonna have your own thoughts and opinions. It's not that, but it. But it's that we make big decisions together. We talk about this. We are united in these things.

[Dave Ramsey]

So all of this to say that your.

[Rachel Cruz]

Your.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your frustration with this, I think, and Rachel thinks is accurate now, what to do about it is another thing. I'm afraid for him long term. Five years from today. This is not gonna be pretty is my prediction. And I coached again. We coach 10,000 businesses here at Ramsey. We work with small businesses every day. And I see them come and I see them go, and I watch what happens. So what I would say is that I think you guys have a marriage problem that has a deep, deep root to it. And I would say that I love you guys, and I want the two of you to get some healing in that. And so if I'm. If you're my little sister, I'm gonna say, hey, Kate, stir up some trouble, and let's get into the marriage counselor's office. Because he thinks this is okay, and you've let it go on, and you're gonna get what you tolerate and any

[Ken]

level of belittling what you're feeling and thinking, too. Right. They use the term gaslighting all the time. But genuinely, you start to feel crazy, Kate. Right. And until your voice and your opinion is heard and actually honored, like, that's going to start breaking down in other areas, not just buying a new truck every year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it's already breaking down. Stuff down at the office that you don't even know is happening. Promise you. And it could even be worse than that. I hope it's not. But these are symptoms that don't lead. Of core problems that don't lead to good places.

[Ken]

No. And it's a perfect example how money's a magnifying glass. It makes you more of what you are. But this was always a little bit of him. And then he goes and makes a million bucks, you know, and it just. It starts to magnify, and that's the danger that money can do. And when you win financially really quickly, like you guys have over, you know, one to two years, it's almost like you don't. He doesn't even have the emotional capacity to handle it. He's just still that little boy in him that's just being magnified. And he just wants to buy a new truck, you know, and so I

[Dave Ramsey]

want a Tonka truck.

[Ken]

Yeah, that's tough.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm four. I want a new Tonka truck. Mommy, don't tell me I can't have it.

[Ken]

That's the other thing, too, is I'm like, kate's a smart woman, and if you look at the numbers to your point, they can afford that. Like, if he wanted to go and do that. So it's fine.

[Dave Ramsey]

Honestly, he can afford to do it. It's just the process. He's usually.

[Ken]

That's what I'm saying is, like, it's not even that she would say no to it either.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm afraid he's scratching an itch that's not really there. So.

[Ken]

Chasing the newness of something.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love cars. I'm a car guy, and I like cool cars and fun cars, and I buy cars, but I don't have a. An emotional need to flip a truck every year. I'm perfectly happy with the one I got, you know, and so there's something in that, too. Yeah. I mean, you know, you just got to get there. There's something going on. So you guys, you really need to sit down with someone that forces him to hear that. It's not necessarily the transaction that's bothersome. It's the way the transaction's going down and that you're not being heard and you're not being respected and you're not. So you're not crazy. And I'm afraid that the stuff that's under this is gonna come to roost in a way y' all aren't gonna. Like, in the long term, I'm pretty sure it will.

[Ken]

Unless. Unless.

[Dave Ramsey]

Unless you don't. Unless you fix it.

[Ken]

Yeah. And unless he comes aware and you come. You know, all of it, and you guys Start a new process of life, of the way you look, look at things and think about things and process things, all of it out of healing.

[Dave Ramsey]

So if you're out there and you're running a small business and your spouse has no ide going on at the business, it's a problem, y'.

[Rachel Cruz]

All.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's what I'm telling you. You small business people, you can listen to me, okay? You bootstrap stuff, you fight. You scratch your claw. You're in a battle every day. You got the battle ax out and the sword out and three guns out, and you're fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting just to stay alive. And you finally start making some money. But in the middle of that, you become very, very lonely if you do not have people walking with you in leadership and who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain. You want no lack of gain? I want no lack of gain. I like that formula. Then trust a virtuous wife.

[Anita]

Hmm.

[Dave Ramsey]

In the multitude of counsel, there is safety. I bet you 10 rich friends get around him, none of them will tell him to buy a truck every stinking year. I promise you. Finally, mortgage rates have dropped. And you know what that means. People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window. But you've got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way. You need to contact Churchill Mortgage. Their home buyer edge program gives you peace of mind. In a wild market, you can cap your rate for 90 days. So if rates go up, you're protected. If rates go down, Churchill will drop yours automatically. And get this, Churchill will even back your offer with a $10,000 seller guarantee. So if your loan falls through due to financing, the seller still gets paid. That's how confident Churchill is. Plus, when you shop as a Churchill sell certified home buyer, it's stronger than pre approval. It makes you look like a cash buyer, which makes your offer rise to the top. So don't let this moment pass you by. Get ready now. Go to Churchill Mortgage.com to get started today. That's Churchill Mortgage.com this is a paid advertisement.

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[Dave Ramsey]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the Ramsey show Watching this show happen as we tape it right in front of you is going on tour next month in April. We're going to be in Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix and Anaheim. If you've never experienced the Ramsey show in person, then you've never seen it like this before. It's a perfect date night. One of you is a spender, one of you is a saver. Come out. Rachel, John, George, Jade, Ken will settle your money debates right there in front of all the people in the audience. Tickets are almost sold Al, but not quite. There's a few left and just a a couple of VIP seats remaining. Don't wait. Go to ramseysolutions.com events or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Michael's in green Bay. Hey, Michael, what's up?

[Michael]

Hey, Dave. It's nice talking to you. I listen to your show quite a bit and I am about 20 years old with about 50 grand in debt. 30 of that being a car loan, 3 of it being from a square loan from the business that I shut down here recently. And some of it's medical, like, just outstanding medical debt. Like, I mean, I was in motorcycle accident three years ago that I still haven't paid. I owe a friend of a fan or family friend about three grand. I owe like a tire shop almost two grand. Like, I guess my question that I want to ask you today is like, I don't know where to start with this because it feels like a lot. And I truthfully don't know where a lot of the debt is. Like, I owe a dermatology group, sorry, like 800 bucks. And I owe like other medical companies money. And I just don't know exactly where all that debt is, where the creditors are. Like every now and now and then I get calls.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, Michael, it's just. So how has your life been so chaotic in the last two or three years that this has happened? And because it sounds like you're just spiraling, man, sounds like chaos.

[Michael]

Yeah, I'd agree. Truthfully, it is. And two years ago, I started my own business with my best friend. We found a building to go into and truthfully, it just kind of took off like crazy.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then it didn't.

[Rachel Cruz]

Correct.

[Michael]

I had bought him out of the business, went solo. I got in some trouble, small trouble with my previous account. I even own my previous account, 800 bucks. And. And they did no work for me. They filed my taxes late for me. So I. I'm finally out of the tax debt. I had employee at the Time, I guess.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you. At the end of the day, you really weren't making a lot of money because all the bills weren't paid unless you were spending it on cocaine or something. Where did the money go?

[Rachel Cruz]

I'm gonna.

[Michael]

So, honestly, I was really bad at saving, and I wish I did it better.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not saving, honey. I mean, you got these little $800 bills that aren't paid, so you probably weren't actually making any profit, were you?

[Michael]

Honestly, it sounds dumb, but I was. I was making.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, then where would you say the money went?

[Michael]

120.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where would you say the money went?

[Rachel Cruz]

Food.

[Michael]

Every day, food.

[Dave Ramsey]

$120,000 worth of food.

[Michael]

I wouldn't say it's all food, but, like, a lot of just really short, small spending that just leaked. I. I decided to get a German shepherd last year. I just. You're gonna kill me for this. I just traded in a 2023 Tesla Model 3 just last night for a truck. Because the Wisconsin winners, obviously an electric vehicle is not going to do last night.

[Ken]

Like, literally. Like, like 12 hours ago.

[Michael]

Yes, like, quite literally last night.

[Ken]

Michael. Michael. You said you've been listening to the show.

[Rachel Cruz]

I have been.

[Michael]

I know, I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm doing.

[Ken]

Michael, Michael. Michael. What are you doing right now? For a job. What are you doing?

[Michael]

I currently work for a automotive supplier. I make a base salary of 45 a year. After commission, give or take, it's about roughly 50.

[Ken]

Okay. And you just bought a $30,000 car?

[Logan]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, you need to call them back, honey, and tell them to cancel the transaction, that you're not going through with it as soon as you get off the phone, so.

[Michael]

But my thing is, is I traded in my old car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you going to argue with me about something that stupid? You're really not going to argue with me about something that's stupid, are you? Please tell me that you want a better life than you have. You keep doing stupid stuff, you're going to have a stupid life. Honey, that thing last night was absolute freaking brain damage. You understand that?

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, dude, really, I love you, but. Good God, that was dumb.

[Rachel Cruz]

So can I say my point of

[Michael]

view really quick on that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Not really. You can just call them back and cancel the transaction, or you can have a good life. All right. Jordan is in Kansas City. Hey, Jordan, how are you?

[Caller Female]

Hello.

[Rachel Cruz]

I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Rachel Cruz]

I was wondering if I should pay down my current student loan burden with single stocks that I hold.

[Dave Ramsey]

You could pay down your what?

[Rachel Cruz]

Student Loan debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, cool. How much student loan debt have you got?

[Rachel Cruz]

Just a little under $170,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Whoa. Are you a doctor or a lawyer?

[Michael]

Veterinarian.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, good. What do you make currently?

[Rachel Cruz]

I make about 78,000.

[Landon]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

You must have just got out.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah, I graduated a few years ago. Currently in internships. That kind of begs the next question. I'm actually gone into a program to help me specialize. But that program being a residency pays less actually than I make now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you got. You don't need to be in a residency program.

[Ken]

You're broke.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need to be making 130,000 as a veterinarian, not 70.

[Rachel Cruz]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And they go on market. Are you fully licensed DVM now?

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah, fully.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like, okay, you need to be making 130, not 70. And you don't need to go into a residency for specialization. You're broke, you went in debt to become a DVM. Now go B1, dude. And go back and do the. Go back and do your specialization in five years.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah. Okay, so even with the upside of making over 200 post residency.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, five years from now, I think that's a great idea. But you'll make a lot more than 200 as a DVM that owns his own practice too. So why don't you go be a dvm, clean up the debt, then open your own practice with some cash and you'll make more than 200 and then you can decide if you actually want to specialize. You do know this is true, right? I mean, we work with DVMs all over America. There are some of the people we coach. I know what the numbers look like. I mean, the typical one makes between 130 and 150 as a salary, working for someone else. And when you open your own practice and start running the actual business aspect of it, you generally are going to go 200 to a quarter of a million. Assuming some mix between small animal and large animal here. I'm not assuming just racehorses or something like that.

[Rachel Cruz]

We're doing just predominantly small animal, the racehorse industry.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because people spend money on their pets in America.

[Ken]

George Camel will employ you for George Campbell.

[Dave Ramsey]

Keep you, Keep you. He'll pay off your debt single handedly. Oh my God.

[Ken]

But Jordan. Yes, if you have single stocks, you can. Yes, cash those in.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would cash those in. But then you will immediately and pay down your debt.

[Ken]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I would be working on getting your income up immediate and try to

[Ken]

get this paid off in two to three years. Right. If you're making that Kind of money. So just live on nothing.

[Dave Ramsey]

So Jordan, look around the DVM world, okay? It is being corporate, it's being taken over by corporate America. And if you want to be an employee of corporate America, go get your specialization. If you want to be self employed and control your own destiny and own your business and own your own, but somebody else owns your butt, then you can not specialize. Use this stock to get this knocked down. Get your income up as an employee right now and then go with a four year plan, five year plan, opening your own thing. If you want to add specialization to that on the side. But I would not have it as my long term goal to be an employee with specialization as a dvm because you're going to end up working for corporate America and they're going to piss on you. And so welcome to the medical field. And so I work with these guys all the time. This is advice we give them. You can own a piece of your whole community when you own a DVM practice. The people that are loyal to you, they're more loyal to you than anything else. When it's their dog or their cat, they'll do anything for you. You're like part of their family. And that's a whole lot different than being an employee of corporate America.

[Rachel Cruz]

Sam.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Landon is with us in Memphis. Hi Landon. How are You.

[Landon]

Hey, Dave and Rachel. I appreciate y' all taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Landon]

So just the context behind this is, Dave, I had a call with you when I was 22 years old, and you told me that if I did exactly what she said that I would be a millionaire by the time I was 32. And we were able to accomplish that by coming. We're 28, so I just want to let you know that, you know, y' all mean the world to us, and my children's children will be grateful for y' all one day. So I really appreciate.

[Dave Ramsey]

Proud of you, man. Well done.

[Ken]

Landon, you should call the guy from the last segment. Talk to him.

[Landon]

So with that being said, this is probably gonna sound so stupid, but I'm so nervous to make a dumb decision after what we've worked so hard for that I just had to get Yalls advice on it. So we're worth right, at about a million one, maybe maybe a little bit less than that. And we have 15 acres of property that we want to build a house on. My house currently is paid for, and the issue is I just bought this house two years ago new. And then of we have a guy moving next door with his mom that just got out of prison after 20 years for child crimes. And it really freaking sucks that I can't let my kids in the backyard to play because he will watch them through the fence pickets.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not but once.

[Ken]

Jeez.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Landon]

So it really, really sucks. And so with that, we just want to go ahead and build this house on this property. But the problem is, is one, there's basically two to three options. Number one, we can take out a construction loan to go ahead and start once it's done, sell our house and pay off the construction loan. But the problem with that is we feel like we're violating what we've been so committed to for this many years that it's kind of heartbreaking to do it. That's number one. Number two is we can sell our house now and go rent something. But I really hate to make my wife move twice, have two babies in the process. Have to figure out the dog situation.

[Ken]

There's a creep living next door, though. Landon. Don't you guys want out?

[Dave Ramsey]

I, I, I agree.

[Landon]

I agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

I want to go rent to get away from the creepo because otherwise I'm going to end up in jail for murdering.

[Landon]

Okay, yeah, I agree. I agree.

[Rachel Cruz]

So you would, you would just go

[Landon]

ahead, sell it, rent, move twice, deal with the dog situation, the whole deal.

[Dave Ramsey]

The benefit of getting Away from the creepo is it also frees up the money to do the build.

[Landon]

But I agree, I do agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Landon]

I would, I would nothing more than to not do a construction loan on this.

[Rachel Cruz]

Stupid.

[Ken]

Yeah. And you guys will be somewhere 9 to 12 months and it won't be super fun. But you, you would look at. I mean, that just goes so fast time wise. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's going to be for, well, a quick time.

[Dave Ramsey]

So. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. You're a millionaire. Way to go. You're 28 years old. Way to go. What's your household income?

[Landon]

Last year I made 250, but my income varies on commission only.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you don't have a stinking debt in the world.

[Rachel Cruz]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

And the house will sell for how much?

[Landon]

I mean, I'm fully expecting to lose some money on it because I've got to pay an agent.

[Dave Ramsey]

And pay for how much?

[Landon]

Probably 470. I'll probably lose 20 there.

[Dave Ramsey]

What is it going to take to do the build?

[Landon]

500.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you've got the other money.

[Landon]

I've got 200 grand in liquid cash right now, not counting retirement.

[Dave Ramsey]

So here's what's going to be uncomfortable for you. But you're going to do it anyway if you follow my advice and you did last time.

[Landon]

So, yeah, I'll do it again.

[Dave Ramsey]

Rent something for one year. That's ridiculously nice.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that makes this adventure kind of fun.

[Landon]

Sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it's so nice that you put up an extra deposit and they don't mind your dogs in the backyard and your kids are away from creepazoid and your wife doesn't mind moving because she's moving up. Go rent an $800,000 house.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because it's not that much money out of the whole scope of your life. And it makes this move, it puts grease in the wheels to make this move happen properly. And so you can afford to do all of that. You make a good. You make. This is not a permanent decision. It's a temporary decision. And it's making a uncomfortable thing, a double move.

[Jeff]

Fun.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Landon]

So you would do that even though you're taking on a monthly payment that you haven't had for years now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Landon]

You're taking away from the other things you're doing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes. Because you don't have a monthly payment on a construction interest. Construction loan interest.

[Landon]

Sure, sure, sure. Okay. So there's no scenario in this where you're doing a construction loan after where we're at.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I. You could if you want to, but that would involve staying in the house and I'm. Yeah, you're. You weren't kidding. The guy's looking through the slats of the fence.

[Landon]

I'm dead serious.

[Rachel Cruz]

He will.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not kidding. I don't know how you didn't. I don't know how you didn't respond to that. Well, I'm sure he did.

[Landon]

I'm sure I spent $8,000 in cameras and equipment, and then I'm going to

[Dave Ramsey]

square out a warrant.

[Ken]

Well, the point is, you're just.

[Dave Ramsey]

You gotta get away from this.

[Ken]

Yeah. The point is, you will have more peace from the financial aspect because you already were just like, oh, I don't. I don't wanna do the construction loan again. You could, but you didn't feel good about that. And your current situation, you guys. I mean, if I was your wife and I had two little kids. Yeah. I mean, like, that's miserable. Go rent a home.

[Dave Ramsey]

How do you go rent?

[Ken]

I like when Dave likes to spend money. I like this because. Go rent like an abundant.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you've lived like no one else, and so now you can live. Don.

[Ken]

Live like a. A farm or something. Like something that you wouldn't need to

[Dave Ramsey]

get a nice pool in a big backyard with Cows. He's got 15 acres.

[Ken]

Well, they're going to move to a farm.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know.

[Ken]

Move to a fun. I don't know, just have fun for a year somewhere. I like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Pretend like you're doing it.

[Ken]

We had a friend do that, and she moved into, like a historic type home. And it was the coolest. But it was for a year. But it was beautiful. So fun. Yeah, I like that idea.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you've got the money.

[Ken]

That's right. That's the difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, totally.

[Dave Ramsey]

So let's not confuse this with somebody that's broke.

[Ken]

No, no, no, no.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's calling me up and going, I bought a Tesla last night.

[Ken]

I know that's usually people like all this show, so it's fun when people who are winning you might go spend. Yes. Enjoy your life.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And you're not having to violate the go back in debt thing. And more. Most importantly, though, I'm getting away from Creepazoid because I'm serious. I can't. I can't visualize going to work and leaving my wife and two little kids at home once this guy's got his eyeball.

[Logan]

No way.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm really afraid I would lose my mind and end up in Jail.

[Anita]

We know.

[Ken]

You've said that twice on this call.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know, I know, I know.

[Logan]

But it's just.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is. These people, man. Yeah. I mess with little kids. I mean, you know, this is not. This is not. This is not a good thing. So. Yeah, Landon, I think this is why you have worked so hard. The payoff for all of your sacrifice is you got choices. And I'm suggesting you make this an easiest possible process with those choices because it is a temporary thing where it's not a five year plan, it's a 12 month plan. And quickly get your plans drawn, select your builder, lay out a budget, a schedule and a blueprint and manage to those three things and get that house out of the ground and get it done as quick as you possibly can.

[Ken]

Just don't let a budget creep out of work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Stay on schedule and stay on blueprint. And don't not 19 change orders and stay on budget. Stay on blueprint, stay on schedule and you can get a house out of the ground. And you'll be your builder's favorite customer ever. Because most people can't stay on budget, stay on schedule and stay on blueprint. So if you'll do that, you can get the house out of the ground. 12 months, you'll be fine. You'll be on the farm. Da da da dun dun dun dun. And life is good. You got some distance between you and the neighbors, which is always a good thing.

[Logan]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

The world we live in.

[Ken]

Well. And I just love what he said though. Calling it 23 and said or he was 22.

[Dave Ramsey]

22. I told him by 32 he'd be a millionaire.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you did this, he made it by 28.

[Ken]

Yes, yes. So it does. Proud of it proves out. Well done, Landon.

[Dave Ramsey]

You. Do you follow this stuff? It works. I mean, I didn't invent any of it. I stole it all from God and your grandmother. Common sense is so rare in America though, that it's like having a superpower. And so. Yeah, so we have a wildly popular show that 30 million people tune into every week. Who knew? But that's it. That's why. Because this stuff works. And I'm so. And you are the hero, Landon. You did this. I appreciate you giving us credit, but you're the guy that did all the hard work for the last decade. Or six years in your case. It didn't take you a whole decade. Wow. From 22 to 20, 80 becomes a millionaire. And I just love Gen Z. Gen Z has got so much potential. There's so many things they can do. There's so much, so many things at their fingertips and they're so smart on how they use them when they're smart. But there's no middle ground. The dumbest person on the planet is a dumb Gen Z.

[Ken]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

The smartest person on the planet is a smart Gen Z. Oh my God. They're wonderful. And they and they're simultaneously aggravating.

[Ken]

If you're looking for a more budget friendly way to save on medical costs and stay true to your values, Christian Healthcare Ministries is a great option to think about. CHM is not health insurance. It's a health cost sharing ministry. A biblical community based way for Christians to share each other's medical bills. That means no enrollment deadlines and you can choose any doctor or hospital you want. That kind of freedom is big, especially if you're self employed between jobs or you just need something that fits your budget better. CHM has been around for decades faithfully serving the Christian community. And many members save hundreds of dollars a month compared to traditional health insurance. And that margin gives you breathing room when you're working the baby steps and trying to steward your money well. And right now CHM's offering new members a 50% credit towards their first month of membership. Get [e-mail] budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's chministries.org budget, budget and promo code Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz Ramsey, personality number one best selling author and my daughter is my co host. Today another Rachel is on the line. This one's in Indianapolis. Hi Rachel, how are you? I'm great.

[Rachel (Caller)]

How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Rachel (Caller)]

So it's awesome to speak with you. Thank you for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Rachel (Caller)]

The reason why I'm calling is my husband and I are in step two. We've made really good progress and paid off $78,942 worth of debt in October 2024 that's consisted of medical, car and student loan. My question is, is there ever a time in baby step two that it would be appropriate to cash flow like a life event or once in a lifetime experience?

[Ken]

What would that be?

[Rachel (Caller)]

So it would be to go see several good childhood friends of mine in Las Vegas named Kevin, Nick, Howie, A.J. and Brian the Sphere in August.

[Dave Ramsey]

The Backstreet Boys. Yes, their childhood friends.

[Ken]

Shoot. I'm so glad you called on this day, Rachel. There's any hope?

[Dave Ramsey]

You know Rachel's been twice.

[Rachel (Caller)]

I think so, yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Ken]

And it's so good.

[Caller Female]

Oh, my gosh.

[Rachel (Caller)]

And here's the thing. I'm, like, watching the videos and my husband yells from the other room to Dave, says no.

[Ken]

Oh,

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm just gonna see if Rachel's a hypocrite. That's all I'm gonna say. Because if your husband calls and wants to. Wants to buy a Mastercraft, I've got the same problem.

[Ken]

Backstreet Boy tickets are very different price point wise. Let's just. Let's just. Let's let's just continue being curious. Rachel, how much debt do y' all have left?

[Caller Female]

So we have.

[Rachel (Caller)]

I have it right here. We have just about 96,000. And I will admit that student loans. I'm in health care, and my husband is a teacher.

[Dave Ramsey]

And your household income is what?

[Rachel (Caller)]

I have an NDA with work, but we are able to put about $3,500 a month towards debt because I have a side hustle as adjunct faculty.

[Ken]

Oh, nice. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Set your household income. Oh, you can't. You can't say because you have an NDA. Is that what you mean?

[Rachel Cruz]

Mean?

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yeah, I have a non disclosure agreement. I work with the government, so.

[Ken]

Oh, okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Nobody knows who you are, but okay. Anyway, protect yourself. They probably actually do know who you are, but anyway.

[Ken]

Oh, man.

[Rachel (Caller)]

So we're able to put like 3, 500amonth towards debt, and we're at probably about 25 months away from having that all cleared.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I went to the Eagles at the Sphere, which would be my version of Backstreet Boys, because the chance of me seeing the Backstreet Boys is close to zero. But the Eagles at the Sphere was one of the best concert experiences of my life. So I'm. I can get. I can get there with you and Rachel on how difficult this is. We're kind of making fun of it a little bit, but it's also. It's also a very real possibility. It's a real. It's a real cool experience, and it's worth every penny if you want to. If you had the pennies, you don't. You're broke. You're $90,000 in debt.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yes.

[Ken]

So I. I'm gonna mute my mic. I just can't. I can't.

[Dave Ramsey]

She can't tell you. No. She's gonna make me do it.

[Ken]

I'm kidding.

[Dave Ramsey]

She can't do. Would be inconsistent with what we teach.

[Ken]

I know, I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the bottom line. As much as we understand and grasp, and we also know you're not gonna go bankrupt if you do it, and you're probably gonna be okay if you do it. But it's inconsistent with what we teach, because that loss of focus and that loss of. I give myself permission to take a minute off instead of staying on this. The way you got the 78,000 paid off in that short period of time was focused intensity without any distractions. You put the blinders on and said, nothing is as important as getting this debt clean. And that level of focus created behavior change in your household, created sacrifice in your household, and got you the progress. And that's how we've taught and been able to coach people to be successful all these years in this, to not get distracted with every shiny thing. And this one's particularly funny and fun because Rachel has actually done it twice.

[Ken]

It heals your inner child. I'm telling you, it is, like, the best.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, Jesus is not up there. It's the backstreet voice.

[Ken]

All of us millennials. It's takes you back to, like, seventh grade, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, so does the Eagles, but my inner child didn't need it, but my inner child died a long time ago.

[Ken]

He's in there, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

He grew up.

[Ken]

No, he's in there.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's in there. He's way down in there, but, yeah. This is so fun, Rachel. I'm sorry. I have to tell you the truth. And the truth is, everything we teach says don't do it.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Absolutely. Well, no, I really do appreciate it. And we listen to, like, the podcasts and stuff when I'm, like, on my way to teach on the weekends, so thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're fine. And you're a great sport.

[Ken]

You're working so hard, and you're doing a great job.

[Dave Ramsey]

And here's the thing. If you live like no one else, I promise you later there's gonna be better things than this would have been.

[Ken]

And I have on my prayer list that Britney Spears heals up as a human and she goes on Tour, and that NSync, that Justin Timberlake goes NSync

[Dave Ramsey]

just for your generation.

[Ken]

We will get millennial concerts in the future, Rachel. I really do believe it. I'm praying for it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, when they want money, they will, because all the ones from my generation are 80 and they're all on stage jumping around still, so. Because there's really good money in it right now.

[Ken]

There is. Well. And they keep releasing more dates.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Like, I mean, Don Henley just keeps going like the Ever Ready Bunny, so. But anyway, I know who he is.

[Ken]

Eagles.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah, it's understandable. And it makes for a fun thing because you actually, you know, you almost got Rachel on your side. But, yeah, we also have to step aside from all the giggling and the fun about it and say, while it is an incredible experience, I would not suggest it to someone in your situation. If you do it, we'll still be friends, but I would not suggest it.

[Ken]

That's a good point, Rachel. We would still be friends if you did it. There you go. That's a nice way of saying it. Just, you know, won't be mad at you. Just like we say, debt's not a sin, it's not a salvation. It's just not wise.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is not a biblical. It's not a biblical concept.

[Ken]

Stay focused, Rachel. Stay focused.

[Dave Ramsey]

The power focus is. It's hard to grasp in a culture that does not know how to focus in a culture where people check their phones 2,500 times a day.

[Ken]

And it's hard with. And this is a lot of people's journeys. But, you know, they paid off 78,

[Dave Ramsey]

and they made good progress in two, you know, 90 to go.

[Ken]

They still have 96. Like, that's a long. That's a long journey. So you guys, you're in the marathon. You've got it, Rachel And I kind

[Dave Ramsey]

of think in talking to her that she was pretty mature about.

[Ken]

No, she knows.

[Dave Ramsey]

Consideration. Yeah, she was kind of having fun with. Wasn't like a little spoiler.

[Ken]

No, no, no, no, no, no. She's. She's smart. She knows what.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's like a grown woman and stuff.

[Ken]

Oh, man. I just hate that you kind of lost the argument to the husband, too. When he yells from the other room,

[Dave Ramsey]

Dave says, you can't do it. Dave doesn't make the decisions at your house. He just gives you the guidance, and then you make the decisions at your house. But, yeah.

[Ken]

Oh, Rachel, So sorry. So sorry.

[Landon]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I was on when we started a thousand years ago, I was on CBS early show every two, every other Tuesday. And they got this couple for me to coach. And on the show, they revealed to me without telling me ahead of time that they had just come back from vacation after I've been coaching them for four months to get out of debt.

[Sponsor Voice]

Oh, geez.

[Dave Ramsey]

I made the woman cry on the air. When I finished with her, she was crying.

[Ken]

You're like, I can't believe it.

[Dave Ramsey]

They went to break with this woman crying.

[Ken]

I cannot.

[Dave Ramsey]

I just completely ripped her.

[Ken]

I believe you did. I believe that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Listen, identity theft doesn't just happen just because you're careless, you can do everything right and still become a victim. Whether your information is skimmed online, stolen through a scam, or exposed in a data breach, which happens every day. Then it becomes your problem. Your time, your money, your paperwork galore. That's why I've told people for years to have identity theft protection. And the only plan I've ever recommended is from Zander Insurance. Zander monitors for signs of fraud, even home title fraud. And they send alerts when something looks off. Most important, if something happens, you're not stuck spending hours on hold filing forms and arguing with companies trying to fix it. Zander's dedicated restoration team steps in and does the hard work to help restore your identity. You can even protect your kids for free on their family plan. Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282 to protect yourself today. Identity theft is everywhere. Zander is how you fight back. Zander.com. One of the best things to do for your finances is to have a really good tax pro in your corner that you can trust. They'll advise you on the best moves to make for your situation. Your small business. If you've had some big life changes in the past year, you bought a house, got married, had kids, got a divorce, whatever. RamseySolutions.com taxpro will hook you up with one of the CPAs or enrolled agents that are RAMs. Ramsey trusted RamseySolutions.com taxpro to find tax people that are Ramsey trusted to help you. Jennifer's in Boston. Hi Jennifer, how are you?

[Caller Female]

Hey.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm good.

[Caller Female]

This is so nerve wracking. I don't know how you guys do this every day.

[Dave Ramsey]

We've gotten used to it. How can we help?

[Caller Female]

Okay. Okay. So me and my husband, we had $146,000 of student debt debt. We've gotten it down to 65,000, so we've been kind of crushing it. But we do have like an inheritance from my father's estate. We kind of went down a rabbit hole and we found out that each kid is probably going to get around 70 to 90,000. The house sold a few years ago, but my uncle is the executor and he's just gone completely ghost. Like nothing in like a year and a half.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry, what do you mean ghost? He's not returning calls or you can't find him or what?

[Caller Female]

Nothing? No, like text, emails, calls.

[Dave Ramsey]

Did you go to his house?

[Rachel (Caller)]

Zero.

[Caller Female]

Well, we live in like different states. He's all the way across the country.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, for 70,000, I'm going to go to his house.

[Caller Female]

Yeah, I was talking to my husband about that. I'm like, is this, like, something we get, like, I don't know, the authorities involved? Because it kind of like, kills me that our debt could be gone tomorrow if I had, like, the estate. Like.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you've called. You've called his phone how many times?

[Caller Female]

Oh, gosh, a handful.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not like a ton of time.

[Caller Female]

Because I'm like, oh, okay, he has a life like, he has kids. But I'm starting to just get a little bit. A little peeved.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many times have you called him? Like, three times. Over how over how long?

[Caller Female]

I mean, since we've been getting serious about the debt. Probably a year because we. My husband was in PA school and then I was in college. We weren't really thinking about the estate at all. And now we're paying down the debt. Like, oh, my God.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long ago did your father die?

[Caller Female]

On the table in 2015.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Do you have a relationship of any kind with your uncle prior to this, good or bad?

[Caller Female]

Just after my dad passes, that side of the family just. We kind of just dissipated.

[Dave Ramsey]

So if you never spoke to him again, but you got your 70,000, your life wouldn't change much.

[Caller Female]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So jack him up.

[Caller Female]

Yeah. Like, call him a ton.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And go, hey, I want my stinking money. 2015. That's 11 years to settle an estate. I'm getting ready to call the cops. Cops. If I don't get a check, I'm calling the cops if you stole my money.

[Ken]

You think he stole it?

[Dave Ramsey]

He might have stolen. It's been 11 years. Oh, no.

[Caller Female]

Well, here's some tea. I just have a little bit of a feeling that he's holding it because he thinks we're, like, too young to manage it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I've got a little bit of a feeling that I'm about to jack him up.

[Caller Female]

Yeah. Yeah. See, I. Eleven years.

[Ken]

When did the house sell, though?

[Dave Ramsey]

More pissed than you I know.

[Caller Female]

Yeah. And I think that's the problem. I think I need a little kick in the butt. So I'm like, I'm just gonna call and just sit.

[Ken]

When did the house. Yeah, when did the house sell, Jennifer? How long ago?

[Caller Female]

A few years ago.

[Ken]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

This stuff should be wrapped up in six months. Okay, so he's ten and a half years too late.

[Ken]

Yes. Column and column. And call him twice a day.

[Caller Female]

Okay.

[Rachel (Caller)]

We're really wanting to move in August,

[Caller Female]

and I'm like, we're not moving unless we're out of debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller Female]

So I'm like, you need to.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's irrelevant to this discussion. Okay? Whether you move or not depends on if you're out of debt. And that depends on if you get out of debt with your money or you get some of this money that's due you. You may never see this money, but you need closure on this ridiculous estate situation. Ridiculous.

[Ken]

How many siblings do you have?

[Caller Female]

3.

[Ken]

And what are they saying?

[Caller Female]

Well, a little bit of strange at the moment. Not going to lie. Having a little bit of a family.

[Ken]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right, so I'm. I'm gonna let uncle know that he's got 10 days to send me the. To close out the estate and send me my money. And if he doesn't do that, I'm gonna hire an attorney, and I'm getting ready to jack his world up. I'm gonna reach down his throat and pull him inside out.

[Ken]

Dad.

[Dave Ramsey]

No. Really? 11 freaking years.

[Ken]

She's only called him three times in a year. So maybe we try the calling thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Call him and say, I want my money. And then if he says, I want my money, I want my money, then I'm gonna call again if you want my money.

[Rachel Cruz]

Money.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then I'm going to call again, and I'm going to go, hey, it's been 20 minutes. Where's my money? This is 11 years.

[Caller Female]

Definitely.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yes.

[Caller Female]

Rachel's correct that I haven't put my

[Rachel (Caller)]

foot, like, on the gas at all. But now that we're, like, going crazy

[Caller Female]

with the debt, I'm like, okay, they've

[Ken]

taken you from, like, taking you from

[Dave Ramsey]

0 to 100, but you need to go there.

[Ken]

You need to go middle. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you need to be prepared to go to 100 in the next 30 days, 30 seconds.

[Rachel (Caller)]

I'll do it as soon as I get off.

[Dave Ramsey]

You have to call him immediately. You can start nice. And then progressively over the next 30 days, you go from nice to, I don't care if you ever talk to me again, but I still want my money.

[Caller Female]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

This has gone on too long.

[Rachel Cruz]

Take it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's gone on too long, and I think he spent the money. I think you're screwed. That's what you're going to find out.

[Caller Female]

That's what I'm almost thinking. It's not even there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it's not legal at all.

[Ken]

No, I said, isn't that illegal?

[Anita]

Sure.

[Ken]

Yeah. So what happens then?

[Dave Ramsey]

He's a fiduciary. It's a civil matter. It's not a theft because it was never in her name. He's the Executor of estate. He did not function in his duties. Right, his fiduciary. His fiduciary duties. So you could sue him. But suing broke people with no morals is usually a waste of time. So you're probably screwed because you sat on this for so long. But I'm gonna go ahead and get psychological, emotional closure on this and then decide what I'm gonna do with the guy that stole my money. Now I'm just gonna forgive and walk away and forgive because I didn't follow up. Or am I going to lean on it? Or has he got some assets and I'm going to tap him? I don't know. I mean, you got to decide what you're going to do then. But I think you're going to find there's no money. That's what I think. And you bear part of the responsibility for that by letting this go on this long, by not managing the situation. Well, it's unhealthy for an estate to be open 11 years. It's not normal. Okay? He didn't do his job as the executor of the estate. And if he's sitting on the money, I'll give you a 10% chance. That's what it is. 90%. He spent that money. And he's got some whacked out, weird family justification bull crap in his mind for doing that. But he still stole your money, I'll betcha. We'll see. We'll see. You can call us back and tell us later.

[Ken]

Good luck.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So, gang, when you are due, when you are the heir to an estate, you are not in charge of the estate. The executor executes. Thus the word execute is in. The word executor executes the actual terms of the will. If the will states house to be sold, proceeds to be distributed to children, that has to happen in a reasonable period of time. 11 years is 10 years past reasonable. That's simple. Okay? That's an actual practical thing. And so as an heir, I. At the one year mark and periodically after six months, I'm going to be getting reports from the executor as to what the progress is and when. I expect to see the payout that my dad left in his will for me. And you're going to give me those reports as the executor or I'm going to drag your butt before the judge and he's going to make you give a report because that is your fiduciary responsibility, your job, your trust job as the Executor, you do not get to decide, oh, well, they're done with money, so I'm going to hold the money. That's not what the will said. The will said sell the house and distribute the money to the dumb people. That's what it said. And you have to do what the will said, even if it's uncomfortable, even if you don't agree with it. That's what you take on when you take on the job of executive. And if you've ever been the executor of an estate, you will promise to never do it again because it's a royal pain in the butt. And most of the time, unless it's a huge estate, you don't get paid for this privilege.

[Rachel Cruz]

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[Dave Ramsey]

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage. Philip and Anita are with us. Hey, guys. How are you?

[Anita]

Hi.

[Philip]

Hey, Dave. Hey, Rachel.

[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome. Where do you guys live?

[Philip]

We're in Atlanta, Georgia.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, fun. Well, welcome to Nashville.

[Ken]

Congratulations.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much debt have you paid off?

[Philip]

We paid off $88,100. And we cash flowed another 30,000 of Murphy expenses in the first 18 months of that.

[Ken]

Oh, gosh.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. How long did it take you to do the 88?

[Philip]

2 years and 10 months.

[Rachel Cruz]

Months.

[Dave Ramsey]

2 years and 10 months. Way to go. And your range of income during that time?

[Philip]

We started at 135,000. We finished at 145,000 with the highest year with side hustles at 191.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Way to go, guys. What kind of Debt was the 88,000?

[Philip]

It was personal loans, credit cards. We had some IRS tax in there as well and a H vac system, so very nice.

[Ken]

Normal. Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Normal humans. Very cool. What do y' all do for a living?

[Philip]

I'm a general manager for Big Box retail. And then Side Hustle was doordash.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you work outside the home, Anita?

[Anita]

Well, I'm a physical therapist, but when we moved to the usa, Covid started. So I stayed at home with my three children to help school them. That went on for a few years, and then we actually moved down to Atlanta center in Georgia. And that was when I turned my hobbies, which is photography and dogs, into work, where I began my photography business and my dog boarding business.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very good. Good for you. Good for you. So Australian.

[Anita]

We're from the uk.

[Ken]

Say English.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. I'm sorry. English. I'm sorry. I can't catch the accents. I'm sorry. I just knew there was one. Okay. What part of the UK where we're.

[Rachel Cruz]

You?

[Anita]

Devon. I'm from Devon.

[Philip]

And I'm from Devon.

[Dave Ramsey]

Close enough?

[Anita]

Yeah, close enough. Down. Down on the coast.

[Dave Ramsey]

Gotcha.

[Landon]

Wonderful.

[Ken]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, congratulations, you guys. So how did you run into this Ramsey stuff two years and ten months ago?

[Philip]

Well, I listened to the Total Money makeover audiobook in 2015, but I, of course, knew better, so I didn't do anything about it, didn't tell Anita anything about it. And then fast forward to October in 22. I was doing some yard work, lifting some trees, and my body had another idea, so I had to have some surgery. I was out of action for five weeks, and it nearly broke us financially. So after a week of Netflix and getting bored, started listening to your book again. This time I only heard you shouting and yelling at me. And after eight times, I was ready to kind of open up to Anita about what was happening financially.

[Rachel Cruz]

Wow.

[Ken]

Wow. So, Anita, you didn't really have the full picture in general?

[Anita]

No. We really didn't communicate very well with finances, and we communicated well otherwise. But I completely relied on him to manage the finances, and I didn't really know what was going on. And he was under a huge amount of stress, and it was impacting our marriage. But I didn't know what was causing the problem, why he was so stressed. But then he did open up to me once he started, you know, reading your books again and shared what his plans were. And I You know, I was surprised to find out how much debt we were in. I had no idea. But I was, I took it all very level headed. Surprisingly. I didn't get upset and I. I just got totally on board with helping him. In fact, it really did help us communicate and I feel like it saved our marriage, actually. So thank you. I mean, it has been an incredible journey, just the whole experience and following your plan, communicating better as a family and working together. So I'm really proud of him for getting on board and. And you guys for helping us do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Wow. Well, way to go. I'm proud of you guys. Well done. Very well done. So you had this event that puts you flat on your back and you're kind of forced to consume some things and you say, okay, I'm gonna do it this time. This time. I heard it this time. I'm tired of living like this. I'm gonna talk to Anita about it. We're gonna work together. We're gonna tear into this. What was the first big thing you did when you got in attack mode?

[Philip]

I went out and started doordashing.

[Anita]

You. You sold everything?

[Philip]

Oh, yeah, we sold everything. That was number one. Yeah. The kids really did think that they were next. Yeah, yeah. And then it was doordashing. About six months in, I actually lost my job, so I got laid off.

[Ken]

Oh, yeah.

[Philip]

But. But it was okay. I phoned Anita from the car park after the meeting. I literally went out doordashing, and I was actually earning. We were earning $1,500 a week. Week, doordashing. So that's what we did for a couple of months until I got the next position that I'm in now.

[Ken]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Never stopped. Just kept rolling.

[Anita]

Yeah, yeah.

[Philip]

We just went straight out. We're doing 80 hours a week.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Philip]

Anita was doing 80 hours a week.

[Anita]

Yeah. So then, then I started with my photography business, doing family photography, which actually didn't make most of the money. The money came from dog boarding. We do have dogs and we love animals, so that just seemed to come naturally to me.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think you can make more being a daycare for dogs than for kids.

[Anita]

Well, these dogs stayed with us. They slept in our home. They were family friendly dogs from local people.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Anita]

And yeah, it really did take off huge. And I think, you know, the people that let their dogs stay with us really saw how much we love dogs. The kids loved it at times. We had, you know, in the teens, like, 13 more dogs.

[Ken]

Oh, my goodness.

[Anita]

Christmas time was hysterical. Yeah, yeah.

[Philip]

The kids joined in as well. The eldest Actually lost his room, so the boys had to cozy up. And we. We got a tenant for a couple of years as well. So we. We really went all in. Yeah, we went for it.

[Ken]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dave Ramsey]

So now that you're free, was all that worth it?

[Anita]

Oh, my goodness, yes. I mean, if you're thinking about getting on board with the Ramsey, I would highly recommend it. I mean, it's changed our life completely. And you. You won't imagine what you're capable of, how. How hard you can push yourself, knowing that the harder you push, the faster you can achieve your goals.

[Dave Ramsey]

Amen. That's it right there.

[Anita]

I feel like our children have just learned so much from this experience.

[Ken]

That's what I was going to ask is some people are cautious when they have kids in the home to sacrifice lifestyle to get out of debt and do this because they're like, oh, I don't want my kids to feel like that, you know, that our life is changing for the worst. They see it as the worst, but what you just framed up is actual. Actually, it's the best thing for them.

[Anita]

It's taught them resilience and to not, you know, to be grateful for everything that they have. It's just been. To see them grow as little humans has just been a blessing to see how strong they've become because of this. And, you know, to go into the shops, they don't. You want everything they see. They know that, you know, we have to compromise that, you know, they've done. They've done a great job.

[Philip]

Yeah. Now, Eldis, he's 14. He's been inspired by it as well. So he's watched fpu, he's done that with us as a course, and he's now got his own business that he started last year. And he's doing really well with that. Doing what you're doing, Dave, which is lawns and jet washing, driveway. So he's really jumping on board.

[Ken]

Good for him.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. Well, yeah. Front row seat to watching mom and dad change their lives. You guys are heroes. So you've changed your whole family tree with your actions as well as with the arithmetic. So. So absolutely amazing. I'm so proud of you.

[Anita]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very well done.

[Ken]

Incredible.

[Philip]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Great, inspiring couple. Very, very cool. All right, let's bring the kiddos up and introduce them their names and ages. Come on up, guys. What are their names and ages?

[Anita]

So this is Bethany. Bethany's 8 years old.

[Ken]

So beautiful.

[Anita]

Isaac. Isaac is 10 years old. And you, Ewan, is 14 years old.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right, very cool. All right, It's Philip and Anita. Ewan are e. Say it again. Yeah. Ewan, Isaac and Bethany from Atlanta, Georgia. 88,000 paid off in two years and 10 months, making 135 to 145 and selling everything in sight. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

[Philip]

Three, two, one.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're debt free.

[Caller Female]

Yay.

[Ken]

I love it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Man, they are inspiring. That is so fun.

[Ken]

I mean, just scorched earth for two years, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

They did it.

[Ken]

They just did it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you know her. It's so beautifully said that, you know, the more you turn it up, the more you turn up the heat, the faster you get up.

[Ken]

Keep going.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep.

[Rachel Cruz]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

RAMSEY SHOW Question of the day is brought to you by. Why refi defaulted private student loans don't fix themselves, but you can fix them. Why refi helps you refinance in a into a low fixed rate policy payment that fits your budget so you can get back on the baby steps and move forward. Go to yrefi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Ken]

Today's question comes from Nicole in Arkansas. She said, I'm working two jobs to pay off debts, but it feels like my progress is slowing with the rising gas prices because of the war, increasing grocery costs and higher interest rates rates. How can I maintain momentum and paying off my debt with all of this going on? Well, it's setting the lifestyle standard. I mean, there's some things that you can control, some things that you can't. And so to have gas in your car, you're going to have to have which means if it is a little bit more expensive, then you got to change the price point of your budget to say it's there. So what do I have to make up for and other places that I can sacrifice and or make more money, but it shouldn't be that significant of

[Dave Ramsey]

a. Yeah, you're just wrong, Nicole. You're worrying about stuff that is not in existence. You've been watching the news. Okay. There's no higher interest rates while you've been getting out of debt. Nothing. No debt that you have. The interest rate has not gone up a penny on any of it.

[Ken]

Yeah. Grocery store costs have been consistent.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, the gas thing, your gas might be costing you $10 more a month. Month. This month. The Iraqi bombing has been going on for three weeks.

[Ken]

Iran.

[Dave Ramsey]

Iran, Iranian bombing. Okay, three weeks and gas has gone up 40 cents a gallon. It's $10. So you don't have a You don't have a problem at $10 and you don't have higher interest rates and your grocery costs have not gone up in the last three weeks.

[Caller Female]

Weeks.

[Dave Ramsey]

So none of that is true. So you're creating a narrative, a drama in your head because you're tired because you've been working all the time. It feels like my progress is slowing. No, it's not. Unless you did something else to cause it to slow. Slowing because of the war. No, your progress is not slowing because of the war. Increasing grocery costs. No, not substantially. Not in the past five weeks. No big difference. And no, interest rates on your debt have not gone up a penny. Not a penny. So I don't know where. That's all stuff that somebody told you that you work with. It's in Debbie Downer or you're watching the news, which is the same thing as Debbie Downer. So how you maintain momentum is you ignore Debbie Downer and you kick the butt of the debt by working like a crazy person, selling everything in sight and eating beans and rice. Rice and beans. The cost of beans and rice has not gone up. And so. But what does happen, Nicole, honestly, that is valid and I will defend you on this after taking you to task. On the other is you do get tired. It gets old.

[Ken]

Yeah. And if it's been a two year journey for her, she is feeling working

[Dave Ramsey]

your butt off gets old. It gets old. It's hard. Getting out of debt is hard. It's just not as hard as spending your entire life being average, being mediocre, constantly living from paycheck to paycheck for your whole freaking life, having to work an extra job because you never get out of debt, because you never pay a price to push it over the. Push the rock over the head. But I will sympathize with you, empathize with you, that you do get tired. And it does get. I get sick and tired of this. And all I would encourage you to do is just take that and turn it into a righteous anger to push the paddle even harder to the floor to get out that much faster. Like the debt free screamer just said, like Anita just said on that debt free scream and use it as anger and also as anger to never go back. And I'm not gonna ever be the person I used to be be. I'm going to be transformed while I get out of debt as well. Because actually what ends up happening to these people, you guys listening, that have never done it, these people that go through these extreme journeys to get out of debt, they are changed more than their finances are changed. And they can never become the same person again because they're not the same person they used to be.

[Ken]

Yeah. Because the strength of doing something that you think is impossible, possible.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Ken]

Where they have 13 dogs living with them at Christmas and they're working extra. They're doing their door dashing. A thousand bucks a week. They're making $4000 a week. DoorDashing is what they said in that difficult. I mean, like, that. That. That feels impossible for people. I mean, it's just like there's no way I could do that. And when you do something you don't think you can do, the resilience on the back end comes out. And then you get to apply that to every area of your life. Like, it just. There's a level of strength there when you do what feels like the impossible.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you. Once you've stretched to a certain point, you can never retain. Return to the same shape. It's not possible. And so, yeah, that's how this goes. Wow.

[Rachel Cruz]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

So we'll be praying for your strength, kiddo. But do not get distracted by mythology from your Debbie Downer friends or mythology from the news because your gas tank is not that much more expensive. Expensive in the last three weeks. And if it is, it won't be for long. And your interest rates have not changed a thing. Unless you went and borrowed money in the last three weeks. You might have found a higher interest rate that way, but the interest rates on everything you had have not changed. Your credit card rates are not moved a penny. Not moved up or down. They never move up or down. They always are screwing you. You know, your car is a fixed rate. If you have a car debt, Your medical bills are a fixed rate. They're not charging you an interest rate. They're just trying to get their money. You know, whatever it is. The interest rates are all the same. Nothing has changed because nothing in your life has changed. That's my point. Now, there may have been some things in the marketplace have moved a little bit here or there, but guys, you really can't sit and watch the news and be anything but negative. They exist for fear points. Their whole job is to keep you upset. So you keep watching and you stay in the Fox News or the CNN news loop. And your particular side of the aisle is stimulated by anger at the other side of the aisle. That's all they do all day long. And we're on Fox all the time. We know those guys. We're not mad at them. Most of those Guys are friends of ours. But what they do all day long, the people that write those scripts that they read in those teleprompters, you know, it's got to. You do not have higher interest rates. You just don't. It's that simple. Jane is in Fort Myers, Florida. Hi, Jane, how are you?

[Caller Female]

Oh, I'm fine, Dave, thank you very much for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Caller Female]

My question concerns cars. Cars and a mortgage. My husband's 79, I'm 69. We currently have a. We've done it all. We've gotten grandma's car, grandpa's car. You know, we've bought new cars. We've been married 48 years. We bought new cars, seen them to the end. You know, anytime we bought a new car, of course had a payment, and once it was done, then we saw it to the end. So currently we got grandma's 2003 Buick La Saver and then we have a 2006 Explorer that my husband drives. And then we're snowbirds. So here in Florida we have a Siam. And because we're snowbirds, I tend to go north more often than he does. I'm getting nervous. Okay. It's like we got these old cars, you know, and he's pretty good. He's good. He knew stuff. He says now car will be fine.

[Dave Ramsey]

Before I run out of time. Ask your question, Jane.

[Caller Female]

Okay. Is it ever a good idea? I went and got a. A lease.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you didn't.

[Caller Female]

Yes. Listen, I kind of got strong armed. But it's a very nice car.

[Logan]

Car.

[Dave Ramsey]

But now I'm sure it is.

[Caller Female]

I mean, I could be easily impressed because I got old cars.

[Dave Ramsey]

So anyway, what do you want me to do about it? You got a lease.

[Caller Female]

Tell me, tell me it's a bad idea. My plan is to give up the lease in, in September.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller Female]

Turn it in.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller Female]

Okay. Because we gave our son money for a. Somewhere land. We still have the mortgage. So I'm thinking, okay, do the. We'll put that money toward. Drive the old cars, put the money toward the mortgage and then in. I turned 70 this year, so I'll get.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't mind you getting a nicer car. It sounds like you've got the money. Just pay cash for it. That's simple.

[Ken]

Yeah. And if.

[Dave Ramsey]

Whatever.

[Ken]

And if the two old cars are fine, then what you're saying, putting it toward the mortgage at 70 years old,

[Dave Ramsey]

you're driving across the country. You need a better car than an 06. Yeah, I'm fine with that. But pay cash for it. And quit trying to trick the system. Sounds like you've been tricking it for a long time and it hasn't worked. Just write a check, buy yourself a car and be careful what car you buy. And buy something that's very reasonable and that gets the job done where you feel safe. But don't lease stuff. No. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the fair Winds Credit Union Union studio Rachel Cruz Ramsey personality number one best selling author. My daughter is my co host. Today open phones at Triple 882-55-5225. James is in Indianapolis. Hi James, how are you?

[Rachel Cruz]

Hello. Hey, I'm doing fine. Thanks for taking my call. And hello to Rachel and to Mr. Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, thank you sir.

[Rachel Cruz]

Appreciate, I appreciate all the information you've given throughout the years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thank you, sir.

[Rachel Cruz]

I've got a little problem and I just need you to let me know the direction you would take with this.

[Dave Ramsey]

You got it?

[Rachel Cruz]

I've got, okay. I've got two sons. I'm 70, my wife is 70, she's in great health. I have cancer but I'm in remission at this time. So I'm good. But you know, time's going to be most likely shorter for me than her because her mom's in her 90s and her family has that longevity. But she's doing a great, great caregiver. Love that lady. But I had, have two sons, one 42, 138. And we're gonna have about a two million dollar inheritance for them. The 38, the 42 year old is great. He's got his life under control. Those things as he would expect people to do, you know, pays his bills, does this, that and the other, saves his money. And then I've got my other son, he's not very good with money and he's got triplets. He's divorced two years now and he's been living with us for two years. And that was to get him back on his feet. Plus they were two when he got divorced. And a single dad, he gets the kids half time so he's not in a position, you know, how do you take care of two girls if you're a single dad and you're working and he is working and that's the, that's the plus side of it. However, he, he's went through the equity on the home they sold which was about $60,000. I didn't know he had done that. And then we gave him about $30,000 from my mom's estate. We were dividing it in thirds between my wife Myself and my two boys. And he went through that. And I'm sure it's a gambling issue. I, I can't verify that because he's never said. But there's no physical evidence of spending $150,000, you know, so I'm going to spend all his wages as well during that time. And he has about $4,000 in the bank. After living with us for two years, the only thing he pays for is daycare. And it is expensive. It's 1250 or $250 a week for these three girls. And he pays for that. And we've set aside that 250. When he moves out, he will pay his rent. But anyway, I just want to know the inheritance piece of it. What do we do?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I don't think you're blessing him if you leave him a million dollars.

[Rachel Cruz]

No, and I don't want to leave it all at once either.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, you're going to. When you die. That's going to be. Yeah, you know, he's not, he's not been blessed by anything else. And so money magnifies the good parts of our life and the bad parts of our life. And so far, money that he's gotten has magnified the bad parts.

[Rachel Cruz]

Absolutely. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So why is he still living with you?

[Rachel Cruz]

Because you only have $4,000 in the bank and he's got these triplets and he gets them half time and he can't put a roof over his head at this point.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why? What's he made?

[Rachel Cruz]

He makes $22 an hour, which next summer or this coming summer, he may get to 25.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruz]

And then he has a chance of getting a 35. But that's going to be two or three years down there. And I won't. Was giving him the get out, you know, get out on the no longer than January of next year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, why does it say on my screen that he's under house arrest?

[Rachel Cruz]

What does that mean as a dui? And he has a bracelet on his ankle. So he goes to work, comes back here. I don't have to worry about him spending money because.

[Dave Ramsey]

But we still don't know where all his money's going. He's spending money somewhere.

[Rachel Cruz]

Well, he was spending on online gambling, of course. Yeah, that. And then.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what would I do? You asked me early in the conversation, what would I do if I woke up in your shoes. My son's about the same age.

[Rachel Cruz]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

What I would do is the conditions for you to continue to live here are that you start Being responsible as a man. And that means you've got to stop spending everything you make on online gambling. So if you gamble one more time online, you have to leave our home. Right. And so I'm not. I'm not going to support you destroying your own life. I'm not going to buy you heroin when you're a heroin addict. I'm not going to give you shelter while you're misbehaving. I'm not blessing you. I'm enabling you when I do that. And I love you too much to participate willingly or unwillingly in your destruction

[Ken]

and to make sure that that's not happening, because, I mean, you can't really control that. If he has his own money, I would ask for a shared account with him first. I mean, there needs to be some.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm going to have visibility into his Internet access and treat him like he's an addict. Treat him like he was an addict because he's an addict. If he's unwilling to do that, then he needs to move out and figure out his own way. And your wife doesn't want him to do that. But your wife is wrong. He needs to be kicked out. It's the best thing that will happen to him because the path that he's on is a path of destruction. And it's not a loving act to assist in an act of destruction. It's called enabling. Enablers are nice people. They're sweet people, but they're not helpful people. They think they're helping, but they're not helping. And so when I do things like this or when you do things like this, we're enablers. And so I would stop that then. The second part of it is, as far as the estate goes, I would leave his portion into a trust that he has no access to until he proves to the trustee that he's cleaned up his land life and he's become responsible. Because I'm not leaving a million dollars to a gambling addict. DraftKings is going to get it all. And I don't want to leave a million dollars to draft kings. It's not. I didn't work all my life to do that. And it's not a blessing to the person that's being victimized by DraftKings or whoever else, you know, whatever else. I mean, we're seeing the sports gambling. It's just an epidemic among men under 40 years old, and it's just destroying men left and right and families left and right. It's evil. And everybody thinks it's cute to parlay I got your parlay be broke. That's what you're parlaying. So, no, I'm not going to participate in that. And I'm disgusted with it and I'm disgusted that he's been victimized by it. He's allowed himself to be victimized.

[Ken]

But if he ends up though for real not being able to support himself, then the girls end up with the mom, full time custody, I would assume.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, and you know, the courts, grandma and grandpa are standing there ready to help with the triplets, with the girls.

[Ken]

Yes. I was going to say, you know,

[Dave Ramsey]

if, when you're keeping the kids, if you want to bring them over, I'll help you keep the kids on your days on, you know, because you got two little girls and that's what grandma's doing right now. Yeah, she's bringing, how does a single dad deal with two little girls? Grandma's helping. That's what's happening. So just keep doing that. I'll help you and help you with the kids, but you can't live here. I'm not going to support you and I'm not going to give you money and I'm not going to give you money until you prove yourself to be, to be a, to where the money is going to be a blessing to you. It's not a punishment. It's I don't want to cause your ruin. You're on a path towards ruining your life and I don't want to add fuel to that fire.

[Rachel Cruz]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's ramseysolutions.com. Well, we wish we could get to every, every call and every question here on the show. If you have a money question and you want an answer for your situation but you couldn't get through, head on over to the website and use our tool, Ask Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is a free AI tool that's built and trained on proven principles. Like we dumped years and years and years of recalls from this show into it. All the books I've written into it, all that financial peace university lessons are into it. All the books Rachel wrote are into it and based on that, it'll give you an answer. So. So AI, when it has a good data set, can give you really good correct answers. And obviously Ask Ramsey is going to give you a Ramsey answer. You'll get an answer the same way as if we did it right here on the show. Ask your question [e-mail] or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Jackie is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Jackie, how are you?

[Caller Female]

Hi.

[Rachel (Caller)]

I am good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Rachel (Caller)]

Wow, I can't believe I'm speaking to you.

[Caller Female]

This is so cool.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Okay, so my question is a relational question and I'm hoping to get a third party objective viewpoint from you guys. So my dear fiance has some very frugal tendencies that border on being cheap. And I'm wondering if this means we are incompatible or if it should cause me to reassess our relationship.

[Ken]

Oh, man. Okay, so give me a couple of examples of what you consider cheap that concern you. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Borderline crazy or borderline crazy.

[Caller Female]

Okay, so it can be something small.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Like if I call him to say like, hey, can you pick up some avocados on the way home? I can hear him like his brain is short circuiting on the other end trying to think of like the cheapest grocery store to get avocados. So it could be something small like that or just bigger stuff like paying for dates and groceries and so. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You mean he wants you to pay for dates?

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yes. I should probably give you a little more context though. So he and I are engaged and we are living together. Please don't yell at me, Dave. And we also have a two year old son together. So we've kind of, we've gone through a lot in our relationship early on. Yes. He still pays for dates. I want to give him a say.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's not a date anymore. He's a shack up. So it's a completely different thing. I mean, he's the father. He's the baby daddy now. I mean, come on. So, yeah, I think it's too late to decide if you're going to marry the guy. I think you've already decided. You set your entire life up as if you're married already.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Oh, I agree. I think that's probably like the root cause of some of our fight. I would say that early on, like one of our disagreements was on living together. I wanted to wait until we were married until we lived together.

[Dave Ramsey]

So why aren't you married?

[Rachel (Caller)]

Well, I wanted to be early on. But he wanted to take things slow. But at the same time, I agree

[Dave Ramsey]

it's not exactly slow.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Kind of where. I agree, he taking things slow was basically, like, not marrying me, but he still wanted to live together.

[Caller Female]

And this is.

[Rachel (Caller)]

This is where, like, the frugal part comes up, because I think our, like, framework for making decisions is very different. It seems like the only thing he can make a decision around is saving money.

[Caller Female]

Money.

[Rachel (Caller)]

So, like, we. We had a big disagreement on living together. For me, I wanted to be married first and try to, like, do things back in the correct order. But for him, it all revolved around saving money and, like, the practical side of it. And so, like, that kind of created a big conflict.

[Ken]

Yeah. Which that would feel like he is choosing, quote, unquote, financial security or whatever he wants. Wants over you, who's the mother of his child. Yeah.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yeah. And so we did actually live separately because I needed that. And so by the time he proposed after that, he then wanted to move in together. And I felt like we just got to an impasse in our relationship where it was like, someone has to cave here. And so I did, and I allowed him to move in. But to be honest, I feel like that's, like, the root of our conflict. And so to your point, Dave, like, why aren't we married? I kind of agree with you, but I think the way he went about it made me hesitant on moving forward with marriage because it felt like we were just.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So I guess there's three options, right? You get married. You don't get married and stay shacked up in this exact situation, or you split up. Yeah, those are the three options.

[Ken]

And I feel like there's.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so I don't know how not getting married and staying in this situation solves your concern of him being cheap.

[Caller Female]

Mm.

[Dave Ramsey]

So if you are. So if you decide he's too cheap to marry. This is too dysfunctional for her to marry, then you're saying you're splitting up.

[Ken]

But I think it goes be. I think it goes beyond that for you, Jackie. I think it's. I don't think it's just that you think he's cheap. I think there's been other red flags. And what he. Well, just what he prioritizes. You don't feel chosen ever in this. He wanted to wait, but then he gets you still, even though he doesn't need the commitment. I mean, it's just. It feels like he's getting. He's choosing a lot of what he's wanting.

[Rachel (Caller)]

Yeah.

[Ken]

And. And it doesn't. And it's not you. You at the end of the day, Right. It's financial security. It's. Well, I want to be in a relationship, but I don't want to commit to marriage. You know, it's all of that. So I think a lot of. I would think some of that's brewing, even if it's subconscious, of like, am I going to be chosen at all in this? Over his nitpickiness on finances. So this is.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is way beyond. I have a college.

[Ken]

Yeah, I think this is. I do. So before you. I mean, before you walk down an aisle and commit yourself to him long term, I mean, you kind of already have. You guys have a kid together, so he's going to be part of your life forever. But before you guys get married, I would sit down with a great therapist, counselor, and really be working on something because, again, it's coming out like money. But always there's a root of what's going on underneath and getting to that point, of what's causing some of this conflict in you. It's gonna be really important for you guys, which I pray is a wonderful, flourishing marriage ahead of you. Right. Like, I want you guys to win.

[Dave Ramsey]

Can he grow past this? Yes. But basically, at the root of this is selfishness. This guy's selfish. It's what he gets and what he wants and what it's about him, which means that he's not a great man. Rather, now can he become a great man? Yeah, sure. But it's going to require some growth on his part, and it's probably going to require you doing something you've never done before, and that's drawing a line in the sand and demanding it. And so you guys are going to sit down with a good counselor and begin doing some hard work, both of you. And he's going to have to start saying, oh, my job here is to take care of this wonderful woman named Jackie and this baby I made with her and quit acting like a twerp over avocado. That's my job. I have a new job. It's called manhood. It's serving. Not what you can get, what you can give. And by the way, the odd thing is that happiness is in there. You find happiness when you learn how to serve. Selfishness seldom leads to happiness, doesn't lead to joy. Selfish people are seldom joyful people. They look like they were weaned on a pickle. And so that's the good news for him. He's got that as a possibility A choice that he can make here. But if you, you know, one of the things we talk about at Ramsey in leadership and we teach this to people in companies, on leadership, you get what you tolerate. And in this relationship, you've been tolerating a lot, and so you're getting what you've tolerated. And so my encouragement lovingly to you is to help him by not tolerating him anymore at this level and saying, we're going to get some help. Because I feel like you're here for what you can get rather than what you can give. And I'm tired of being the only one here giving. And so we're going to get some therapy and we're going to get in a good church, we're going to get plugged in, and we're going to move down the aisle in a proper way as a man and a woman, not a little boy and his needs.

[Rachel Cruz]

Sam,

[Ken]

When I talk to people on The Ramsey Show, 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing. Not having a plan. Plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money's going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. And, guys, that is so normal. But it doesn't have to be normal for you. And that's why I want you to go download our EveryDollar budget app. EveryDollar not only helps you tell your money where to go with a budget, it also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. And the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you call the show and it's right in your pocket. So don't keep living normal. Go download the EveryDollar app, answer a few questions, and get your plan. Today.

[Dave Ramsey]

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage. Jeff and Krista are with us. Hey, guys. How are you doing? Well, well, welcome. Where do y' all live?

[Jeff]

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off?

[Krista]

$210,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, my gosh. And how long did this take?

[Krista]

17 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, that'll work.

[Ken]

I love it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And your range of income during that time?

[Krista]

We started at 60,000 and we ended 110,000.

[Rachel Cruz]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

What do y' all do for a living?

[Krista]

I'm a college professor at a small

[Jeff]

Christian university in Oklahoma and I am a minister at a, I like to say a healthy church of 65.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, I'll go with That I like it.

[Ken]

What was the 210,000 thousand student loan,

[Krista]

car debt, and the house.

[Dave Ramsey]

You paid off your house. Looking at weirdos. How does it feel to be weird?

[Jeff]

It's pretty amazing. We paid it off on our anniversary this last year.

[Dave Ramsey]

So how long you been married? 28.

[Jeff]

Seven.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are we at?

[Krista]

We're at seven. Put me on seven and a half.

[Dave Ramsey]

27 and a half may make 28 if he figures this out.

[Jeff]

We're working, working on 28.

[Krista]

We are in the year 28.

[Ken]

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way to go, you guys. So 10 years into the marriage, at 17 years ago, you looked up and said, we're normal. This sucks. How did you get introduced to this whole Ramsey thing?

[Jeff]

Well, initially it was through a church. They were doing fpu and we kind of went through it, watched the videos. I was looking at your timeline over there. It was like the six month long whatever it was. And we didn't do any of that stuff for a number of years. It sounded pretty good. But as you say, I'm probably the one that held it back. More of this free spirit. She's the kind of nerd of the family. But we kind of got into our marriage and realized that we probably hadn't been taught very well on these kind of things. And I think the big thing was we were moving for jobs in ministry and we went to sell a house in about 2010. And the house that beat 2008, 2009, was worth about 30 grand less than we. We had borrowed on it at that point. And all of the stress that came with that, that we decided. Yeah, we needed to get out of all that anxiety.

[Ken]

Yeah.

[Krista]

And for us, I think, you know, when you say 17 years, it doesn't sound impressive, but I think what's really cool is all the things we cash flowed while we did that. So the Lord just asked us to do a whole lot of things and have a list. Okay. So we have adopted six kids.

[Dave Ramsey]

Whoa.

[Ken]

Oh, my gosh.

[Krista]

Four of them are international adoptions.

[Dave Ramsey]

That was cheap. Yeah, right, Exactly.

[Krista]

We have. Our three oldest kids have graduated college. Well, one's going to graduate this year debt free.

[Ken]

Look at all three of them. What a beautiful family.

[Krista]

The four younger ones are in private school, which we felt very strongly we needed to do. And for several reasons.

[Jeff]

All.

[Krista]

All six of the oldest kids have had 401 Dave matching cars.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow.

[Krista]

We've had several cars that we've purchased and sold through that time as well. We have a mission organization called Mission 1010 in Ethiopia that we were on the founding board for. And I go yearly for mission trips to Ethiopia.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's where you did the adoptions?

[Krista]

Yes, it is.

[Jeff]

Some of them are. And then some of them were domestically here, foster care.

[Dave Ramsey]

You adopted how many? Eight or six.

[Krista]

Six.

[Dave Ramsey]

Six. Wow.

[Krista]

And so we were trying to count

[Jeff]

up on our way here, number of health surgery incidents.

[Krista]

I think we've had 10 surgeries in our family in the past 17 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, that's. Yeah, that's logical.

[Krista]

And every single appliance in our house has been replaced at least once. One summer, we replaced both of our heat and air units. So that was eight grand just right there in the store.

[Ken]

And your cash flow and all this. Right, Right.

[Kate]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're a professor of what. What do you do?

[Krista]

I'm a professor of mathematics.

[Dave Ramsey]

Mathematics.

[Krista]

And in fact, I teach a unit in. We call it Contemporary Mathematics on financial math at the very end. And we talk about this, and we talk about Murphy's Law and about all the things that can go wrong with purchasing a home before you're ready for it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I mentioned probability and statistics.

[Krista]

Yeah, yeah. And I mentioned about our AC units that one summer. And I mentioned about, you know, the surgeries that show up that you're not expecting and all the things that can happen when you're just not ready to buy a house and how buying a house is really not a good idea.

[Dave Ramsey]

So now you've gone through all of this and you're 100% debt free.

[Ken]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

How does that feel?

[Krista]

It's amazing.

[Jeff]

It's amazing. I was over there in, I think it was a John Deloney book that says, building an anxious Life.

[Ken]

A non Anxious life.

[Jeff]

Yeah, a non anxious life. And when you're, you know, raising adopted kids and foster kids, it's nice not to have the anxiety of finances of something else when you're doing all of that.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's enough.

[Jeff]

That just kind of resonated with me. Just. The anxiety level just drops. Amazing when you don't have to worry about just car payments, much less, you know, home payments.

[Krista]

Yeah. The first month that we didn't have a house payment, we got to the point where I would have normally checked to make sure that there was enough money at the right timing and the account, you know, and so forth. And I thought, oh, I need to check that. And I thought, no, I don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't need to check that.

[Ken]

It's all in there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, my gosh, that is so fun.

[Ken]

Y' all are amazing people. I mean, not only to do this journey, but what you've done.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, You've given your lives away.

[Ken]

I mean, 100%. 100%. Incredible.

[Jeff]

I think it's a. Honestly what you do and what. I mean, it's just biblical. We talk about. You talk about all that all the time. As a minister, I just preach all the time that the church needs to preach this stuff. Just the effectiveness of a debt free church. I just can't imagine what it would be like. And the more that we get on board with that, I just can't imagine what God would do if we were still good stewards of our finances.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It changes everything. And here you are with your house paid for and six adoptions. Oh, my gosh. Pretty incredible. That's a long journey. And there's a lot of claw and a lot of dirt under the fingernails to get that done. That's amazing.

[Krista]

It was one of those things like you want to go faster, but when you're trying to manage all the other things that the Lord's asking you to do at the same time, it just wasn't in the cards.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Jeff]

You talked about the hustle. Sometimes. Sometimes it's just realizing you can live with a lot less than you think you can.

[Krista]

Yeah. So along the way, Jeff actually had been working in corporate America as well in it, and he took a significant pay cut to become a pastor. And I remember our oldest son saying after that had happened that he didn't feel like there was a pay cut. He didn't feel it. And I think that's pretty incredible because he should have felt it. It was significant.

[Ken]

But you guys were living so below your means to work on this journey and for other things. Yeah, exactly. Y' all are amazing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well done, you guys. When someone asks what the key to getting out of debt is, House and everything, while living a life that that's this full, what do you tell them?

[Krista]

The key is budgeting, I think, making sure that you've got all the things taken care of.

[Jeff]

Yeah. I would say diligence and. Yeah. And I think one of the key things is find some fun. Right. It can't be at all. And so there's less expensive ways. I mean, we still go on ski trips, we still go to the lake. We still do those kinds of of things. And. And so I think having fun in the middle of it is still necessary too.

[Dave Ramsey]

Absolutely, absolutely. Well done, you guys. All right, bring the kiddos up and introduce them. Some of them are here anyway.

[Anita]

Yeah.

[Krista]

So this is jewel and she's 12, Buzay's 18. Camberley is 17, Eli is 18, and Abigail is 21.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right, very cool.

[Ken]

You'll have a bunch leaving the house soon. The ages. Yeah.

[Krista]

Getting close. Yeah.

[Ken]

Yes. Oh, that's.

[Jeff]

Yeah, that's a different praise note.

[Ken]

Beautiful.

[Dave Ramsey]

Family payroll's going down. Well, congratulations. We're proud of you guys. You're heroes. What, what you've chosen to do with your lives and give your lives away and in the process still manage to set yourself free. Very, very well done. A lot of diligence, a lot of pushing. All right, Jeff and Krista and the gang. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 210,000 paid off, house and everything. 17 years. Get this. Making 60 to a high of 110. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

[Jeff]

Three, two, one.

[Caller Female]

We're debt free.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah,

[Ken]

that's.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's how it's done. Well, we sometimes hear from people negatively that the Ramsay stuff does not work. God's ways of handling money does not work for large families. And then occasionally we get a super large family standing on the debt free stage with tears running down their face saying, it does work. We're free house and everything, baby.

[Ken]

Perseverance.

[Dave Ramsey]

Love it.

[Ken]

Incredible.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's that time again, folks. Tax season is here. I know some of you would rather bury your head in the sand until April 15, then face your taxes. But here's a better idea. If your tax situation is complicated, get in touch with a Ramsey trusted tax pro today. That way they can take the stress off your shoulders once those tax forms come in and teach you how to keep your tax bill as low as possible. But don't wait. Ramsey trusted pros can book up fast. Go to ramseysolutions.com taxpresspro to find one who serves your area with excellence. That's ramseysolutions.com taxpro. Our scripture of the day. Proverbs 11:14. Where there is no guidance, a people fall. But in an abundance of counselors, there is safety. Brian Tracy said, failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.

[Ken]

That's good.

[Dave Ramsey]

Barry is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Barry. How are you?

[Rachel Cruz]

Well, and you?

[Logan]

And thank you, Mr. Ramsey and staff for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Logan]

Well, I'm wondering. I have a small account in state teachers retirement system. Very small, maybe 20 or 25,000. And I've been since my almost full retirement now at 67. I've heard on the Internet that you could use something called an IUL, which is tax free. And I know strs does pretty good with a percentage that they earn. But I've heard that there's two ways to set up an iul. One is so that it pays a lot at your death, and the other one is so that you can earn interest without taxation. So I don't trust the Internet because I don't know where they're coming from. But I trust you because I know where your power comes from. So I call for advice.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the IUL is an indexed universal life. And in your case, it would be what's called a single premium, which means you pay 20,000 bucks up front. They would take their commissions out of that and they would put the rest of it into what's called cash value. The cash value earnings are taxable unless you borrow, borrow against your cash value. That's the only way that you can actually get your money out, is to borrow and pay interest. Borrow your money out and pay interest. But the earnings on an IUL are not tax free. That's not true.

[Logan]

Is there any way. Thank you for telling me that. Is there any way to roll that over into an iul?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I would not use an IUL because the fees are so stinking high and when you die, your money's gone. So instead I would just use something. If you want to lower your taxes on the 20,000 and you're not going to use the income off of the 20,000 today, do you want it to create income today?

[Logan]

Yeah, I thought from what I heard, from what I heard on the Internet, again, you never know. I thought that you could actually earn interest and that it was not taxed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, it is. You have to borrow the money and pay interest on your own money for it to be taxed. Not taxable, because borrowed money is never taxable. But if you actually just took the earnings straight off of the index universal, then yes, that is a taxable event. But they couch it that way because it's a sales technique. It's a twisted version of an old product that was simply called whole life life insurance. That's all it is. It's a newer version of screwing it. So no, I would not put a dime in it. I would stay completely away from it. And what I have done instead is a taxable event. But if you want something that will grow without any taxes while it grows, you can use what's called a low turnover mutual fund, which means a mutual fund that they don't sell the stocks inside of it very often. And so as it grows in value. So since it's just like a single Stock that goes up in value, you don't pay tax on it until you sell it. And so if you buy a share of Stock and it's $50 a share goes to $70 a share, you don't pay taxes on that gain until you sell it. And the same is true in a low turnover mutual fund. Now if you take the money out of there in a monthly income, you're going to pay taxes on it. And I don't know of a tax free thing except a tax free muni bottle bond, a municipal bond, which you could buy a muni bond fund if you wanted tax free income. But go ahead and spoiler alert, it's about 2% rate of return and so crummy rate of return. So I would rather make 10 or 12 and pay some taxes and net out 10 or 12 or net out 8 or 10, you know, out of tax after tax. And so that's what I have chosen to do. I haven't strained to get to tax free income. Now I've got a lot of tax deferred growth because I own real estate and as it goes up in value it doesn't get taxed and I own these low turnover mutual funds and as it goes up it doesn't get taxed until I cash out of it and then it creates a taxable event called a capital gain. But no, I would stay away from universal indexed life. And, and you're correct to be suspicious of anything on the Internet because it's all twisted and turned and it's a barrel of fish hooks.

[Ken]

And this guy, that's one of the things that you see is people taking out a whole life policy and living off that money because life insurance should be while you're alive and you're living off that money.

[Dave Ramsey]

The only way you're living off of it's borrowed though is when you're borrowed, you're borrowing your own money. So you could take that same block of money and put it in a CD and have that bank loan you money money. And that's not taxable because it's borrowed money. It's the exact same thing. So if you want to do something very similar but has less fees, just put your money in a CD and then borrow from it and then use that as collateral and borrow against the cd. And of course we're not going to tell you do that either. That's dumb. But it's the exact same principle.

[Ken]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then when you die, they're going to repay the loan with the cd. And so there's Nothing there. It's gone poof, just like that. And the same thing is true with the universal same thing. So, you know. But you know, Bar, it's always been humorous to me that these guys in the cash value life insurance world, it's tax free. It's borrowed money is never taxable, doofus. Of course it's tax free. You know, I mean, these guys, these tick tock guys are just. They're cute because they're like an old. It's like a new version of an old scam. Bailey is in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi, Bailey. How are you?

[Rachel Cruz]

Good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Rachel Cruz]

So I had a question about. So I can just give you the rundown. So my wife and I own a business and we make custom hats for a living out of our own laundry room. 23. I'm still in school. I got. I got married in 2023. We had our first child in 2024, and now we have another son on the way.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you and how much you're making on the hat business. Dude.

[Rachel Cruz]

So we just started up in 2024. I'm at about 40 grand that is in my pocket this year so far.

[Dave Ramsey]

In profit or in gross revenue news?

[Rachel Cruz]

In profit.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's after you bought the hats and paid for them, right?

[Rachel Cruz]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. And you did that in three months, you're making $10,000 a month on hats.

[Rachel Cruz]

No, I'm. I'm sorry, I meant, I meant to say last year, this. This year we.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, so in one year you made 40,000 with your side hustle out of the laundry room?

[Rachel Cruz]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's awesome, man. And you're how old?

[Rachel Cruz]

24, 23.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how do you make it your day job?

[Rachel Cruz]

So I. I was working for a guy that he was. He worked at a. He owned a print shop.

[Dave Ramsey]

And do you have a day job?

[Rachel Cruz]

Oh, no, I do not have a day job.

[Dave Ramsey]

So your only job is hats out of the laundry room?

[Rachel Cruz]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you.

[Anita]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. How can I help for. Run out of time.

[Rachel Cruz]

So I. I actually have an opportunity to purchase another printing business that would allow me to

[Dave Ramsey]

expand my business.

[Rachel Cruz]

He's. He's in a brick and mortar, but that is separate from the business.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would not do that. You have a good thing going. Why are you dumbing it down and getting into a business that's dying? Your hat business is blowing up. Printing business is tough right now.

[Rachel Cruz]

Well, so he's. He's kind of doing exactly what I'm doing, but he's doing screen printing.

[Landon]

I'm doing hat.

[Rachel Cruz]

That's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you don't have all the over,

[Rachel Cruz]

right? I don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why would you want overhead?

[Rachel Cruz]

Well, the only. The only purpose is for the location that the. The building is in. It's a great.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why do you need a location? Your laundry room's working great, right?

[Landon]

For sure.

[Rachel Cruz]

I'm just. I'm kind of running out of room as well.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, go. Go. Go rent something for $300 somewhere.

[Ken]

Don't go purchase something big.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do not go buy a building and buy a business. Because. Because your hat business is working out of your laundry room. No, no, no, no. These things are not connected. They're not connected. You are doing a great job. Take what you're doing and do more of it. Don't take on somebody else's problems.

[Rachel Cruz]

Okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

Because hat. Let me tell you, hat business. You're doing all this on the Internet. You're not. You're marketing. A brick and mortar location does not sell you hats. If it does, go to. That's got the brick and mortar location and rent 100 square feet of their front window from them. But don't take on the whole business and. No, no, no, no, no. Go do more hats. Bailey, hats are working. 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.