Learn When To Move From Intensity To Intentionality

Summary

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The Ramsey Show – March 31, 2026

Episode Title: Learn When To Move From Intensity To Intentionality
Hosts: Dave Ramsey & Ken Coleman

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Dave Ramsey and Ken Coleman field heartfelt, candid listener questions on topics spanning marital money secrecy, moving from intensity to intentionality on your financial journey, and making family wealth-building decisions. Calls range from navigating debt shame and marital disconnect to achieving early mortgage payoff, with practical, no-nonsense Ramsey guidance throughout.

The episode's central theme encourages listeners to recognize when to move from an intense, all-out approach in paying off debt (gazelle intensity) to a more sustainable, intentional prosperity-minded rhythm once financial stability is achieved.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Marital Money Secrets and Communication

• Several callers struggle with marital secrecy around finances, hiding debt, or managing money separately.
• Dave’s Consistent Guidance: Marriage is a full financial partnership; transparency and joint budgeting are mandatory for trust and family health.

Notable Callers:

• Rachel from Nashville ([00:52]–[06:23])

  • Husband secretly racks up $30k+ in credit card debt, damaging her credit.
  • Dave: “You do not refinance credit card debt into your mortgage ever, unless it’s to avoid bankruptcy and you’re not bankrupt. … The debt is a symptom, not the problem.” (03:03)
  • The bigger issue is trust and honesty in the marriage; recommends joint counseling and full financial transparency.

• Maria from Orlando ([54:24]–[62:30])

  • She’s hidden $18k in credit card debt for years from her husband out of shame.
  • Dave: “Please do not let the sun go down with a secret. It’s eating you up, my little sister. Let it go. … Just say: I need your help, I need to work together with you on money from now on. The way we’ve been doing it for 16 years is not working.” (59:22–61:28)
  • Both hosts emphasize the emotional weight of secrets and urge full disclosure for personal and relational freedom.

• Sandra from Chicago ([22:33]–[31:13])

  • “Should I disregard [getting married] and not care about marriage?” In a long-term relationship, two children, financially dependent, partner won’t commit.
  • Dave: “If he up and dies or up and leaves, you’re screwed.… It’s an undercurrent in your house that you’re not valuable enough to marry, but you’re valuable enough to have kids with.” (24:06)
  • Ken: Anxiety is legitimate, but it lessens when you have a plan to create your own independence; do the hard work necessary.
  • Dave presents research: unmarried women have 10% the net worth of married counterparts, and huge relational/health advantages accrue to marriage.

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2. Baby Steps, Intensity, and Intentionality

• The Transition from Intensity to Intentionality

  • Lori from Canada ([33:03]–[39:01])
    • After working two jobs, on track to finish Baby Steps 2 and 3, anxious about slowing down.
    • Dave: “When you’re running wide open and you cross the finish line, you don’t suddenly stop… By the time you get out there a hundred yards after the finish line, you’ll be back to a normal pace again. It takes a minute to slow down.” (34:16)
    • Ken: “You’ve been intense, super intense. Now let’s move from intensity to intentionality.” (36:03)

• Nick from Portland ([07:49]–[14:51])

  • Debt free, house paid off, saving for an emergency fund, unsure about when to invest.
  • Dave: Advises aiming for a $10,000 emergency fund (not $20,000, which is too large for his income) and then start investing in mutual funds through a Roth IRA/SmartVestor.
  • Ken: The gazelle intensity of Baby Step 2 should push right into Step 3, but after your foundation is built, focus shifts to wealth-building and intentional life planning.

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3. Handling Financial Crisis and Recovery

• House Fire Recovery ([14:55]–[19:47])
  • Daniel from Columbus, OH: Home is a total loss to fire, working with a public insurance adjuster.
  • Dave: “A public adjuster’s job is to make sure the insurance company pays every stinkin’ dime they’re supposed to pay.”
  • Advice: Carefully vet the adjuster, don’t rush. Emotional trauma is fresh—take time to make clear-headed decisions.

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4. Listener Success: Young Couple Pays Off House Early

• Addison & Autumn's Debt-Free Scream (Lancaster, PA) ([65:17]–[74:42])
  • Paid off $184,000 (entire mortgage!) in 32 months by age 26+27.
  • Both raised by Ramsey/Financial Peace parents—lived below their means, cash-lowed cars and college.
  • “Contentment. … Just keeping your eyes fixed on the goal that you have as a couple or as a family.” —Addison ([73:28])
  • Both describe being on the same page from the start as critical. “We made the budget together, and we were both okay with it. We still did so many fun things, too.” —Autumn

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5. Navigating Unique Spending Disagreements in Marriage

• D from El Paso: “Futility Seeds” ([85:39]–[93:24])

  • Husband spends landscaping budget trying to grow grass in the desert; wife wants the money for a shade structure.
  • Dave: “It still leaves your budget… If you take it out of his hobby… You’re still spending $250 on futility, regardless of what you label it.”
  • Advice: Negotiate and compromise—maybe cut somewhere else so both partners’ joys are respected.

• Josh from Chicago: Country Club Conundrum ([106:44]–[112:11])

  • Family considering pausing expensive country club membership with a looming price jump if they ever rejoin.
  • “Don’t pay for a membership you don’t use. … If today’s actual usage justifies [it], keep it. But sunset it when you stop using it.” —Dave

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6. Other Notable Callers & Issues

• Logan from Illinois: Overwhelmed by $26k of (mostly consumer) debt as a single father, trying to win custody.

  • Dave: “The interest rates are bothering you, but interest rates aren’t your problem… You’ve been focused entirely on custody — now, for just one year, focus completely on getting out of debt.” ([122:38])

• London from Atlanta: Last debt is credit card, just lost 0% APR, getting married soon.

  • Dave: Avoid a consolidation loan—get a 0% balance transfer, but mostly, get aggressive with side work and pay it off fast.

• Susan from Tulsa: Second home, costly repairs, considering whether to fix/flip or sell as-is.

  • Dave: Don’t put in $80k of repairs for a so-so house; sell as-is and move on.

• Vincent from Raleigh: Owns a rare car worth $105k with $65k owed, in debt elsewhere, hoping car appreciates.

  • Dave: Sell car, eliminate debt. “It’s a fabulously cool car. I love the car. But dude, you’re broke. You don’t need me driving a hundred thousand dollar car.” ([113:28])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The debt is a symptom, not the problem.” —Dave Ramsey ([03:03])
• “Behavior is a language.” —Dave quoting Dr. John Delony ([04:22])
• “You’re very vulnerable. … It’s an undercurrent in your house that you’re not valuable enough to marry, but you’re valuable enough to have kids with.” —Dave Ramsey to Sandra ([24:06])
• “You can do anything for 90 days… If it changes the whole rest of your life.” —Dave, on short-term focus with big debt ([52:07])
• “You will not return to the same shape.” —Dave, on lasting change after a year+ of gazelle intensity ([37:40])
• “When you shine a light on stuff, the bugs run to the corner… Demons don’t like light.” —Dave, on telling the truth and dropping money secrets ([62:51])
• “Contentment… just keeping your eyes fixed on the goal that you have as a couple or a family.” —Addison ([73:28])
• “You cannot change your family tree simply by stacking cash. If you raise idiots, they will go through everything you made.” —Dave, on generational change ([75:25])
• “Don’t pay for a subscription that you don’t read… If today’s actual usage justifies [it], keep it.” —Dave, on club memberships ([110:49])

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Timestamps for Essential Segments

• 00:52 – Rachel discovers husband’s hidden debt – major marital/financial breakdown
• 07:49 – Nick on finishing Baby Steps, when to invest
• 14:55 – Daniel’s house fire, public adjuster question
• 22:33 – Sandra: Long-term relationship, kids, unmarried, financial vulnerability
• 33:03 – Lori asks: How to shift from intensity to intentionality after Baby Step 3
• 54:24 – Maria’s debt and money secrecy in marriage
• 65:17 – Addison & Autumn (Debt-Free Scream; paid off house in 20s)
• 85:39 – D’s “futility seeds” battle: marriage & spending priorities
• 106:44 – Josh: Is the country club membership worth it?
• 117:06 – Logan: Single father, custody fight, mountain of debt

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Joint Money = Joint Life: Marriage without financial transparency leads to deep fractures. Combine finances, work together, and address root trust issues.
• Intensity, Then Intentionality: When in crisis (debt, emergencies), stay hyper-focused, but recognize when to shift gears to a purposeful, sustainable financial routine.
• Shame & Secrecy Destroy Peace: Hiding financial mistakes perpetuates stress and isolation; confession and teamwork heal money and relationships.
• Contentment Wins: Early wealth-building is possible with aligned values, purposeful budgeting, and practicing contentment over comparison.
• Plan for Vulnerability: Don’t accept dependency without legal or financial protection—especially for unmarried parents.
• Generational Impact: Financial wisdom and habits cascade down generations, but only if paired with teaching and character.

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Episode Tone & Style

True to Ramsey’s style, the tone is punchy, direct, and sometimes sentimental—especially when addressing callers’ struggles or cheering their victories. There’s irreverence and humor (especially around “futility seed” budgets and Sisyphus references), but also deep empathy for those carrying shame or pain.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the emotional and practical crossroads of family, marriage, and money—especially as you decide when to go “all in” and when to sustain your financial health for the long run.

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 Dave Ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality number one best selling author, host of the very popular Ramsey Network program called Front Row Seat. He's my co host today. The phone Number here is 888-25-5225. Rachel is in Nashville. Hi, Rachel. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm okay. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

I was calling because I recently found out that my husband has been hiding some credit card debt that I didn't know about. And how much now? 30,000 that I am aware of.

[Dave Ramsey]

30,000 that you're aware of?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you don't think he's told you everything?

[Caller]

No, I do not. He recent. Like when I confronted him about it, he wouldn't answer me.

[Dave Ramsey]

How did you find it?

[Caller]

I got into my. My bank account app to upload a check and saw a notification that my credit score had dropped significantly. And I looked at it and then saw that there was $30,000 of credit card debt attached to it.

[Dave Ramsey]

To your credit score?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

How did you get a credit card that you didn't know about? He signed your name.

[Caller]

Authorized. No, I. Well, I'm an authorized user on it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Authorized users don't have their credit damaged.

[Caller]

Well, not supposed to anyway. Well, it's tied to my credit score currently.

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. So he. He's run up. So you guys have got your money separate and why didn't he tell you about it?

[Caller]

I don't know if he was embarrassed or just hiding or just counting on the fact that I wouldn't find out about it. I'm not sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, why does he care if you find out about it? It's his business, right? You all have separate stuff.

[Caller]

I don't know. He told me that it shouldn't matter or I shouldn't care if my credit score is okay or not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, that's not the point. The point is why is he hiding debt?

[Caller]

I. I don't know the answer. I mean, he's trying. So now he's trying to do cash out mortgage refinance to roll the credit card debt into our mortgage.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, there's a lot going on in this conversation. Okay, we can separate it out into three or four pieces. Number one, we'll go with the last thing first. You do not refinance credit card debt into your mortgage ever, unless it's to avoid a bankruptcy. And you're not bankrupt. You're just out of control, have a horrible system and a questionable marriage. But a refinance does not help any of that. It treats the symptom. The debt is the symptom, not the problem. And I'm asking questions that you don't know the answer to that you need to be asking to try to find out what the actual problem is. Why did he run up this debt? What's he buying with it? And the answer to the overall situation is the most concerning of all is your marriage. He's lying to you and flippant about it and thinks it's perfectly okay that he's actually done harm to your score. Does this not sound weird? This whole thing sounds weird.

[Caller]

Yeah, it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

And I don't know how to proceed because he's.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a marriage issue is how you proceed.

[Addison]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Yeah.

We've been, we've been going through counseling and he doesn't want to do anything about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Dr. John Deloney says behavior is a language.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And when someone says, I don't want to work on our marriage, they're saying, I don't want to be with you.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry. So I would get with the counselor this week and say, we need to be real clear with this guy. I'm not signing a mortgage. And we're going to heal our marriage. And as we feel it starting to heal and trust starts to rebuild, we're going to combine our finances so that this never happens again. I have full access to everything. He has full access to everything. We both have a vote. But right now he's acting like his 14 year old girlfriend is inconveniencing him. And you're not. That you're his wife.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So the parts of you that said this all sounds crazy are absolutely correct. This all sounds crazy. See, I really want to know where the money went.

[Caller]

I want to know that too, but I can't find anything. I. I mean, from what I can look at, I can't see anything crazy. And then he's like, you didn't find anything, did you? Which makes me think that he is hiding things.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

And proud about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

It's like, yes,

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm. I'm worried there's other things even going on after having done what I do for so many years. I hope it' not. But there's got a lot of symptoms here that, that this money's going to something that's really going to piss you off later. So I really, I want you to get to the. All the way to the bottom of this and start from ground zero and rebuild your marriage from the ground up. It's your only shot. Existing in the current situation is not status quo. Is not going to work. It's not going to work.

[Ken Coleman]

I don't think this guy wants to be married. I'm getting passive aggressive vibes where he wants to have her call this off because he didn't have the guts to. This is a liar. This feels. Dave. I don't know if you're catching that vibe. That's what I'm catching. He wants her to be the one to say, I'm done, I'm out. Because he's a weakling.

[Dave Ramsey]

So he's manipulating her well before it comes out that he has a girlfriend.

[Ken Coleman]

That's it. I think he's trying to push her.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know. I do not know. We can't tell. But we've done a lot of this over the years and it doesn't turn out well with the type of an attitude you're describing. And so the biggest thing is, is okay, I've got a problem. The situation's broken. We work on together, we fix the problem. That's how a good marriage works. And this is not so. Yeah, you need to talk to your counselor and your counselor needs to grow a pair and drag them in there and go, look, this isn't you guys. You're screwing around with all of us and I'm not going to have it as a good counselor will hold. A good therapist will hold him accountable for this misbehavior. So. And for this lack of repentance and so on your credit score is, is not on the list of things I'm worried about here. Getting rid of the debt, not signing the mortgage and healing the marriage, not in that order, are the three things I'm worried about. All right. Nick is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Nick, what's up?

[Caller]

Yes, I'm. I'm just recently hearing about your baby steps program. I've only been listening for about a week, but I have a couple of questions. I'm 52 years old and I'm debt free and my house is paid off, but I really don't have any money in saving. I have about 500 in savings right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income?

[Caller]

4,000amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Great.

[Caller]

I work for myself, so I have a janitorial business that I, that I operate.

[Dave Ramsey]

Nick, I bumped into a commercial. It's my fault. I'm gonna have to put you on hold and bring you back when we come back from the. When you've saved up and paid cash for a reliable used car, you want that thing to last. And the best way to keep it running for the long haul is to take care of it with people you trust. That's why I'm proud to welcome Christian Brothers Automotive as the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey Show. At Christian Brothers, they treat you like family. You'll get digital vehicle inspections so you can see exactly what your technician sees, a complimentary shuttle to keep you moving, and every repair is backed by their nationwide nice difference warranty. They've even been ranked number one by JD Power for customer satisfaction among aftermarket full service maintenance and repair providers six years in a row. Visit jd power.com awards for the details. So if you want your paid for car to keep going and going, trust Christian Brothers Automotive, visit cbac.comramsey to find your local shop and get an exclusive Ramsey discount of 10% off your visit.

[Ken Coleman]

10% off up to a $250 value.

[Dave Ramsey]

See store for details. All right, we're talking with nick in Portland, Oregon. $4,000 a month income, no debt, including his house. New to the baby steps. I think that's about how far we got into it, Nick. And your question today, sir.

[Caller]

So I guess I'm on step three of saving up an emergency fund.

[Dave Ramsey]

Correct.

[Caller]

But currently it's going to take about two years before I can save up, say 20,000. And I'm wondering if I should start investing at some point before I have that full emergency fund saved up.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, you make $48,000 a year. Why do you need a $20,000 emergency fund?

[Caller]

I thought that was three to six months of my.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, that would be more than six months. So three months would be 12,000 of your income, not your expenses. And it sounds like your expenses are 3,000 because you sounds like you're saving $1,000. And so if that's the case, then 10,000 is plenty.

[Caller]

Okay, 10,000 is plenty. So do you have. I'm totally new to anything with regard to investing. I don't know anything about it. Do you have any recommendations?

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure, I would do investing after you get the 10,000 saved. And you can go to ramseysolutions.com click on our SmartVestor program. And those are mutual fund brokers, advisors that don't work for us but that have agreed to do stuff the way we teach. And I put mine and Ken Puts his in four types of mutual funds. Growth, growth in income, aggressive growth in international for a very stable conservative portfolio. And then you fund that with your Roth IRA and if you've got 401k, your Roth IRA, and I think you said you're self employed, you could do a simple IRA as well. There's a lot of different ways you can do it and keep the government's hands off of it. But the other thing I'm going to do is look at maybe adding some income to the equation at least short term to be able to get the, to be able to get the emergency fund funded as fast as possible. Because you know you're struggling on how quickly you can do that. $2,000 a month, you'd be done in five months on 10,000. And that would be fine for right now because you're obviously a very conservative person. Your expenses should not be so high if you don't have a house payment and you don't have any debt at all. So I'd also be looking at your budget.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, I agree with this, Dave. I think people need to understand that the gazelle intensity that we preach in baby step two, when you're knocking all that debt out, that needs to continue into baby step three. Because when you get to that emergency fund, in this case somebody who's brand new to it, there is a level of accomplishment and a level of relief that kind of come together and it just puts you in a really, really good place. So I absolutely agree with extra jobs, sell stuff. Let's get that 10,000 accumulated really quickly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you will jump on to baby step as soon as you finish that because there's apparently no children involved and at least the way you presented this and no house payment. And so boom. Now we just, all we have left to do is to invest. And so I really want to do what I can do with my career overall to get my income up overall in these premium earning years to be able to do that. So Ken, it's also interesting to mention we've seen several pieces of data and I've observed this too, just taking the calls over the years. The highest income earning decade for a male is in their 50s.

[Ken Coleman]

That's correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

50 to 60 years old. And so that's when it all comes together and there's an arc boom. And in the 60s you kind of plateau out, kind of ride the horse out into retirement. But until then, that's when everything comes together. Your experience, your education, your history, your failures, everything starts to pull in together and you Mix up this really neat gumbo that's got a great taste to it. In your 50s and 60s.

[Ken Coleman]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

19 in your 50 to 60 year old decade.

[Ken Coleman]

That's presuming that there has been some intentionality prior to that. And I really recommend that get it in your 30s. If you do that, then you can build on it in your 50s.

[Dave Ramsey]

Absolutely. Daniel's in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Daniel.

[Caller]

Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. It's an honor to talk to you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You too. How can we help?

[Caller]

Yesterday at 12:50am we suffered a house fire. And it looks like it's going to be a total loss.

[Dave Ramsey]

And is everybody okay?

[Caller]

Yeah, everyone's okay. We have two cats that are still missing. We're hoping they got out. And we have. We live right by the woods, so we're hoping they're just hanging out around the house right now. We had a good Christian public adjuster reach out to us and we wanted to know what your thoughts were on that and what the correct next steps would be to take from here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, a public adjuster's job is to make sure that the insurance company pays every stinking dime they're supposed to pay. And you've got to cross every T and dot every I to cause that to happen. And sometimes you got to lean on them. Is he willing to lean on them?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

They seem like they're. I've done my due diligence on them and already looked into the company, and they seem like they're a pretty awesome company.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I'm a fan of the concept. I've seen good ones and bad ones.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so I've seen them that embarrass you by the way they behave. And I've seen other ones that are too wussified to punch State Farm in the mouth, which is about the only thing State Farm freaking understands. Who's your. Who's your insurance with?

[Caller]

The home insurance with Triple A is with who? Triple A.

[Dave Ramsey]

Triple A. Okay. All right. Not any experience with their claims except on an auto claim once, and it was a good experience. A guy with triple A hit me and I got paid pretty quick. That was good. So, yeah, the inventorying of your stuff, the detail that when you don't do the detail, you get underpaid by 20 or 25% type of stuff, is where the public adjuster service is really valuable. Are they taking a percentage?

[Caller]

Yes, sir. They're taking 10%.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And what's the law? What's the house worth, do you think?

[Caller]

I bought the house in 2024. The property has a big detached garage on it. It was a tiny house. I bought it for 150. The actual house part itself was probably worth about 150ish.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not counting a lot or counting a lot. Because a lot didn't burn.

[Caller]

I'm not sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, because all you've got is the improvements and your contents. So you take lot value off of your appraised value and now we've got a total loss. And that's what it is. And it's a rebuild. They're gonna push it down. Rebuild it, or give you the money to rebuild it. Did you have a mortgage?

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. And so the mortgage company's involved in this as well. Cause they're one of the stated beneficiaries on the policy. All right. Yeah. I think if you've got due diligence, I mean, you're only 24 hours in. And be forewarned. Okay. Number one, you're only 24 hours in. Number two, the public adjusters that do a great job are the best. There's some of them that don't be careful with that. Then the third thing is this is one of the most emotional things that can happen to someone. You ever seen the list of like 10 things that if three of them happen in a year, you're in the hospital. It's like divorce, death of a parent, death of a child, major car accident, house burning, high stress, high trauma things. This is on the list of the top 10. Okay, so you're 24 hours after a top 10 event and you're making a major decision. So, you know, you do not have to retain them immediately. You could wait 24 more hours and just kind of let some of the adrenaline go down. Because you're just. You're burning the candle right now, both ends. I mean, you gotta be emotionally fried, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, it's pretty rough. I would be, obviously, a lot. My girlfriend lived there with me and we had a four month old. Everyone got out quick, but she was pretty hysterical. And it's pretty heartbreaking to see the person you love like that.

[Ken Coleman]

Hey, Daniel. I would be using good questions. I would interview this guy like he was going to be taking care of your baby. What are your goals? I'd ask him that, what is your goal with our case? And have him state it, push him, and then say, how do you think you're gonna accomplish that? Put him on the spot and trust your gut on this stuff.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

Oh, I need some advice.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

So I've been with my partner for eight years. We have two children, ages three and six. And he's expressed that he doesn't want to get married. It's just a piece of paper to him. And so it's been hard for me because I do want to get married. Now financially, he takes care of me and the children. I have $25,000 in savings, but he has a lot more. He's gonna inherit assets to buildings, I believe. And he has money from before now. We currently live in his home, his parents home, which he owns with his brother because his parents are deceased. So we don't pay. Mort covers all the household expenses because I'm a stay at home mom and that's to about $4,000 a month. And we. I do hustles here and there, so I maybe bring $500 monthly. So we.

[Dave Ramsey]

How can we help you?

[Caller]

So the. Mike, I have two questions. Should I disregard this and not care about marriage and should I invest those $25,000? I'm just afraid of if something were to happen. How do I care for my children since we're not married and I'm not entitled to anything of my fear.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. If he up and dies or up and leaves, you're screwed.

[Caller]

And so that's why I'm afraid to.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're like a homeless single mom. No, that's not funny at all. That's terrifying.

[Caller]

Yeah. He doesn't understand this. He thinks.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't care if he understands it. That's the reality. I'm scared to death for you.

[Caller]

Yeah,

[Dave Ramsey]

you're. You're very vulnerable.

[Caller]

I definitely am. I. I feel it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Stressed out all the time.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It's under. It's an undercurrent in your house that you're not valuable enough to marry, but you're valuable enough to have kids with.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry.

[Caller]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I don't think you're gonna do anything about it though, are you? I mean, you're eight. You're eight years into this system.

[Caller]

Yeah, I just, I don't. I can't afford to move out and be a single mom. I'm hopefully starting a new job soon,

[Ken Coleman]

but how much is that going to pay?

[Caller]

Next to nothing, because I can't.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay.

[Caller]

So let's probably have to be part time.

[Ken Coleman]

So let's address your fear. Okay. The fear is legit in the sense that you have no plan right now. But the fear goes away when you have a plan. So you have got to start digging into what would have to be true for me to work a full time job that would take care of me and the babies.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Ken Coleman]

What would have to be true? I'd have to have affordable childcare. And we got to dig into that. If I can't afford daycare, what does that look like? I will tell you that there are solutions to this. But until you begin to dig and go get answers to the fear question, can I survive without him? Right now you're telling us, no, that's not true. But you're gonna have to go dig and figure this out. And you can do it. And I gotta tell you, if it were me, that answer that he gave, that it's only a piece of paper, would be everything I need to know about being committed to this guy long term. And I think you're gonna regret this. And this is gonna eat away at you when you're an old lady. I think you're gonna regret if you don't make a change at this very pivotal moment. So I think you gotta say to this guy, I disagree. But do you wanna be with me? Because if you do, it's marriage. And if it's not marriage, now we need to begin to decouple. And this is what it's going to mean. But I think you've got to, before you get to that point, you got to go, what does it look like for me to be able to take care of myself and those kids and that $25,000 cash becomes an emergency fund. If you have no debt. Do you have any debt?

[Caller]

I don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are your kids?

[Caller]

3 and 6.

[Dave Ramsey]

La bolo girl?

[Caller]

Yes. Okay, both.

[Dave Ramsey]

Would you want this for your daughter?

[Caller]

I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Then fix it.

[Caller]

Mm,

easier said than done.

[Dave Ramsey]

Then fix it. Cause you're modeling for her that this is the way life's supposed to be. And it's not. Yeah, it's not. You're being held hostage. And financially. And you feel it, you feel vulnerable, you feel disrespected. And that's in the air of your house. And it's translating into your daughter's body. And she thinks this is how men are supposed to treat women. And it's not. Fix it. You've got to stand up and fix it. And amazingly, junior may decide he wants to paint or get off the ladder, I don't know. But not sure he's worth it. But Mr. I've got, I inherited my mommy's house with my brother. Oh, whoa. Aren't you a dad? Gum producer. You're killing me here. And so, yeah, I'm not impressed. So that's right, this is two in a row. The last guy with the house fire, same thing. Four year old kid and his girlfriend, who's hysterical, living together. So here's the data, folks. If you are 35 to 54 years old, this is Actual data we just got ahold of the other day, the average married couple has a net worth of 329,000. 50%. Over 50% of the couples in America living together are not married. In America right now. We have more unmarried people shacking up than married people shacking up right now. But the data says it's not working financially, and the data says it's not working relationally. So here's the thing. Married couples, on average, 329,000 between 35 and 54 years old. Unmarried male, not 300,000. 84, 87,000. So 1/4 of the net worth if you're an unmarried male. So if he wants to know why he should get married, that's the reason. Unmarried female, 1 10, 35,000. 1 10, 10% of the net worth. And that's where she's sitting right now. She's sitting with 10% of his net worth, or 10% of an unmarried guy's net worth, but 10% of what she would have had had she been married for these eight years on average. That's the averages. Okay? The average married couple, 65 and above, 608,000. Unmarried male, 218. 1/3 unmarried female, 174. 25% net worth. 40% of all the public are married. 75% of millionaires. Are you getting it yet? Married males outlive unmarried males an average of 8 years. Married females outlive unmarried females by 4 years. Cancer survival rate among married people, 20% higher than unmarried people. Hello, is this microphone on? This used to be a show where people would call up and I'd say, your car is stupid. Sell the car. It's gotten to where the answer to every question is, get married.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Ken Coleman]

This show is sponsored by Better Help. Financial stress does not just damage our bank accounts. It can also take a toll on our relationships and on our mental and emotional health. Money fights are one of the leading sources of conflict for couples. I know this personally. My wife and I have struggled over the years with money conflicts over and over again. Therapy can help even with money. Therapy is not about giving you financial advice, but it can give you strategies to better communicate about money, help you build healthier ways of coping, and help you build a plan to move forward with your mental and emotional health and your money. I want you to consider talking to my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals. BetterHelp therapists are fully licensed in the United States, and they work according to A strict code of conduct. You can message your therapist and schedule sessions right in the platform. And if the first therapist isn't the right fit, you can switch at any time for no extra cost. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Visit betterhelp.com Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E-L-P.com Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Lori is in Canada. Hi, Lori. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Caller]

Hi there, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. How are you today?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Wonderful. Same here. I'm looking for some, I guess tough love if it's at all needed, but just kind of my backstory here. I'm going to be reaching the end of baby step two at the end of April, which is so excited. I'm so, I'm so happy. I've been working myself to the bone.

[Dave Ramsey]

Congratulations.

[Caller]

Yes, thank you. And then for baby step three, it won't take me long. I have very low expenses. I'm planning to save about 6,000 for a three month emergency fund. And so by early June, early mid June, I should be about done doing those two steps. Now I'm trying to plan for after baby step three and maybe scaling back from my part time job because I'm working two jobs right now, 70 hours a week and I'm feeling a bit nervous to lose that extra 2,000amonth in income. And so I'm looking for some advice on how to scale back from a gazelle intensity mindset and nurture a prosperity mindset after I'm done. Baby step three.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very wise. Good for you. Yeah. When you're running wide open and you cross the finish line, you don't suddenly stop. It takes a few steps to slow down.

[Caller]

It does.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know what I'm talking about. Think of a sprinting a foot race, right? Like a 40 yard dash. Okay. Yeah. You're not, you're not going to slow down. It's going to be a few yards after that before you slow down. But by the time you get out there 100 yards after the finish line, you'll be back to a normal pace again. So it takes a minute to slow down. That's thing one. Thing two is anytime you're looking at something and I have anxiety about it or worry about it, you said facts are your friends. So look at your budget. I think you're doing a detailed monthly budget, aren't you?

[Caller]

I sure am. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so instead of, instead of white knuckling, instead of white knuckling, the budget look at the budget and go, now that I have no payments, how much room there is. Oh, my goodness. And so that gives you mathematical. Tells your brain. Math, the math tells your brain it's okay to slow down. It may take your heart a minute to catch up, but your brain will go, oh, we're okay. Yeah, because you are okay because you're putting, you know, you're putting more than the part time job towards the debt and then towards the emergency fund, Right?

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that means when you do away with the part time job, mathematically there's still the more than part, the margin.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're okay. Math says that, but you're. What you're trying to adjust for is the emotions. But I'm telling you, emotions are something you tell what to do, they don't tell you what to do.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. You know, I'm listening to you and I think you. A little exercise would be what is my focus now? You know, we hear a lot about what's my why? And you're getting through this because you want to be free. But. But it's really what am I doing in order to get the why? And so now, as you move out of baby step three, ask yourself, what am I intentional about now? Because you've been intense, super intense. Now let's move from intensity to intentionality. And so now ask yourself, what is my financial focus now?

[Dave Ramsey]

Right.

[Ken Coleman]

And baby step four, super clear. We're trying to build wealth now. And so I think if you can reframe into the next what I think it will naturally help you slow down as Dave gave the beautiful metaphor there, kind of out of a sprint.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long have you been fighting this?

[Caller]

I've been at this baby step two since February of last year. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

So 70 hour weeks for a year plus.

[Caller]

No, no, the 70 hours a week was a very recent addition. Before I was working about 50 to 60 hours a week. So I've been at it for.

[Dave Ramsey]

You've been at it. You've been hard. At my point is this. When you stretch something to this degree that's never been stretched before, it's impossible for it to return to the same shape. So you can. We have the number of people that, the number of people that we coach that do what you have done, that go back to being irresponsible doofuses with credit cards, is almost zero.

[Caller]

I don't want to go back.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't think, I don't think there's any chance you will. That's my point. If you've been doing this for two months, you might go back. But when you've been fighting it like this by yourself for a year, scratching and clawing, and we can hear the visceral intensity in your voice, kiddo, I love talking to you because you're like passionate. You're getting it. You are getting it.

[Caller]

Thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so that tells me that you have stretched to a place you've never stretched before and you will not return to the same shape. And so you're great. You're going to be fine. You're going to be great. And just be intentional, not intense. If you just tell your money what to do, you're going to have money the rest of your life. That's all you gotta do. Just tell it what to do. You don't have to freak out. You don't have to work like a crazy person. You don't have to do beans and rice. You don't have to do gazelle intensity. You just gotta tell it what to do. That's intentional versus intensity. Stay on the every dollar budget the rest of your life and watch your net worth climb. As Ken said, have a new target that you're aiming at. And it's one that is a little bit more joyful and comfortable than running from the wolf of debt that's chasing you through the forest.

[Ken Coleman]

That's really true. Your brain and heart, your nervous system, all of that has been reshaped. Yeah. And it will adjust, by the way, when you adjust your new focus. It's a miracle of the way our brains work. All this research on focus.

[Dave Ramsey]

Avery's in Hartford, Connecticut. Hey, Avery, what's up?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave. It's a pleasure talking to you.

Very excited, honored to have you.

[Dave Ramsey]

How can we help?

[Caller]

So my fiance and I are getting married in October and I'm trying to stress the importance of budgeting. But my question is, do we budget together when we don't have visibility into each other's finances? And should we budget together or separately?

[Dave Ramsey]

You should budget separately, but you can do some practice budgets together as part of your pre marriage counseling. In other words, you actually run your money separate until you're married. Do not combine finances with someone you're not married to. Then after you get home from the honeymoon, you can do what you've been practicing. So sit down and do a role play almost and say, oh, let's pretend this month we were married, what it would look like and you put all your money on the table. I put all my money on the table. We put all our bills on the table and we go okay, what will we do with our money this month? And that'll create a really good fight.

[Ken Coleman]

Yes. It will reveal expectations,

[Dave Ramsey]

and it'll be great for your pre marriage counseling. It really will. Because where you spend your money reveals your dreams, your fears, your values. Jesus said, your treasure's where your heart is. And so you're a spender, he's a saver. Or the other way around. One of you grew up in a household where people didn't care about money, and the other one, they were screaming about it all the time. And so all these things are gonna start coming out when you start looking at this together. But the money is not actually the thing. It's revealing who the two you are and what your differences are. That'll work for you if you learn to use your strengths for each other and guard each other's weaknesses. So I'm not the natural saver at my house. My wife Sharon is. So that's our natural safeguard. She's a straight up tightwad. She saves everything. There's way too many leftovers in my refrigerator, and I have a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars, and there's freaking leftovers in my refrigerator. It's awful, y'. All. I'm complaining right now.

[Ken Coleman]

I like day old spaghetti. I'm just gonna put it out.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you can come to my house anytime. And so we get it a lot. But it's her nature, though, and I love that. And I'll know I'll have a lot of problems in my life, but my wife being spending money like a crazy person is not gonna be one of them. Her husband, on the other hand. Me, I'm the spender by nature. And thank God I like making money.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because I've been good at spending it. So, you know, you learn about these things when you start working this together, Avery. So make sure you're doing it. Get. Get the everydollar budget out and run an app. Get the app out and run a budget as if you were married. But don't combine your finances until you are married. And do get some good in depth pre marriage counseling. It's one of the indicators of a marriage that lasts, by the way, because you get to talk about what's wrong with her mother. I mean, his mother, I mean, your dad. I mean, can you imagine the pre marriage counseling my kids went through? You're marrying into the Ramses. Talk about fraught with danger.

[Ken Coleman]

No comment. Next question.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's no heir at the table. No, I mean, you got Rachel Cruz. Me. There's no Room for another word in? I'm just saying.

[Ken Coleman]

And you still get two of the finest dudes on the planet. You got two good sons in law, I'm telling you that. And your daughter in law.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

We did great. You really did.

[Dave Ramsey]

We did great. They did great. They did. We taught them how to pick. When you're drowning in credit card debt and collectors start threatening lawsuits, a rep from some call center debt relief company can't protect you. A lot of so called debt relief programs leave people wondering am I actually protected if I get sued? When all you've got is a legal plan added on as an upsell, of course you feel stuck. But Guardian isn't another debt relief company. They're real attorneys. And with Guardian you're assigned an attorney from day one. That means if a creditor sues, you're not scrambling and you're not hit with surprise legal fees. Now look, I'm telling you straight, debt settlement isn't pretty. I'd rather see you get out of debt the old fashioned way. But if you're out of options and you're staring down bankruptcy, Guardian gives you real protection and a path forward. Guardian's attorneys have helped over 55,000 people across the country settle more than $600 million in debt. Not with gimmicks, with legal expertise. So if you want real help instead of a sales pitch, go to guardianlit.com Ramsey that's guardianlit.com Ramsey Attorney Advertising Results

[Ken Coleman]

may vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds credit union studio. Ken Coleman, number one best selling author host, a front row seat Ramsey personality is my co host today. Megan's in Phoenix. Hey Megan, what's up?

[Caller]

Hi Dave. First of all, pleasure talking to you. I love your faith in God and it's great to be on here. But I was a kindergarten teacher who left teaching to be home with my kids and I found myself doing contract work and just private tutoring to make money. But then I did not pay my quarterly taxes and now I found myself in a pickle where now I can't afford to pay my taxes. So I didn't pay the quarterly taxes the past two years. And now I'm thinking, am I just working to pay that unpaid tax? Did I screw my family over in this sense?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so a portion of the money that you made should have come out to pay quarterly taxes, correct?

[Caller]

Yes, it definitely should have.

[Dave Ramsey]

And now you're having to pay it, but you already used the money before so I don't know how Your family got screwed over. Your family got the benefit of money that really wasn't theirs.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

In the. In the earlier years. And so you didn't screw anybody over. You just. But you create a mess, obviously, by not taking care of it, by not taking care of business. So what's the tax bill

[Caller]

for 20? 24 is 13,000. And this past year it's going to be 11,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you need. So 13 and 11. So we need $24,000. And you're married, I guess.

[Caller]

Yes.

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And what's. What does he make?

[Caller]

He makes 85.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And how much money do you all have in savings?

[Caller]

We have about 1500.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And how much debt do you guys have, other than the IRS?

[Caller]

We have about 70,000 in debt between cars and student loans.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And what do you owe on the cars? How much of that's cars?

[Caller]

26.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, thank you. All right. And so you've got about 44 in student loans.

[Caller]

Yeah. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And 24 to the IRS. I mean, the KGB.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so if you owe 13, that means you probably made close to 50.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so are you planning to make 50 this year?

[Caller]

I'll make a little less than that. And I will say for this year, I do have money set aside to pay quarterly taxes for this year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but I mean, if you. Okay, why would you make a little less when you have a problem? You would make more. You work more.

[Caller]

Right. I. One of the things that I did for contract work isn't. Isn't a thing anymore. It was working with migrant students. And. And that program got. It's gone.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, I can imagine. All right. But you're going to have to take on a bunch more of the other kinds of students, not only to offset that, but to, you know, you've got to grow this business in order to pay this. Okay. So basically we're going to work a debt snowball, which means you have $94,000 in debt. But anytime you're working the debt snowball, the IRS is first. And you and your husband have a household income of about 135. And every dime of that we can squeeze out of our monthly budget, we're going to throw at the IRS until it's gone. And they're going to be cleaned up in about a year or sooner. Well, they need to be cleaned up a lot sooner, really. And then you're also going to have to think about. Is the 26,001 card?

[Caller]

Yes, it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. That may be something that has to go away too, in order to make this work. The car payment on that's substantial. And getting rid of that and anything he can do to pick up extra work, Is there anything you could do in addition to tutoring to create income for a short period of time to clean up the mess?

[Caller]

I mean, I can pick up more clients and I know that it's a trade off with that is being at home and taking care of my kids is the problem is we don't have any family around to kind of help with that. Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need to solve for that on the short term.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not a long term prison sentence. But you need to create income because of this faux pas, because of this mess.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And if you create the income, it's going to make the mess go away and you're going to get your life back. Because if you didn't have a car payment and you didn't have the IRS and you were making, you know, 40 or 50,000 without having strain on the kids, and he's making 85, you guys could work through the rest of that debt snowball fairly easy. But these two things are the glaring problems in my face. And I'm like, it's 50,000 of your 94. Is those two things right?

[Caller]

Yeah, half of it.

[Ken Coleman]

Megan, let me ask you a fun question. Okay. If I told you that you could have $100,000 cash in three days, but for three days you had to work a 10 hour shift and you had to. And in order to do that, you had to have somebody to watch your kids for three days and I gave you a week to come up with childcare for three straight days, could you do it?

[Caller]

Yes, 100%.

[Ken Coleman]

So I'm not, I'm trying to be nice about this, but when I hear this defeatist attitude towards childcare, and I hear it a lot, I think you gotta get more innovative. And that's why I created a fantastical scenario for you to get your mind to say you would pull it off.

[Dave Ramsey]

The good news is it only takes a year of being completely out of control crazy. Some kind of very uncomfortable thing that we do for a year. This is not saying I'm going to raise my children this way. It's not saying for the next decade the kids are going to be in this situation, I'm going to be in this situation. But this tax thing has highlighted the fact that you all really are not in very good shape financially. And you've got, for a short period of time, you've got to Punch this as hard as you can punch. And when you do that, I think you can move the needle. So I'm going to go completely crazy with your income. I'm going to look at selling that car. I'm going to look at him picking up an extra job. I'm going to get on every dollar budget. We're not going out to eat. You're not going to see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there. And you're not going on vacation. You're broke and you owe the IRS because you screwed up and didn't pay your quarterly. And you have got to clean this up because the penalties are unbelievable, the interest is unbelievable. Every day that sits out there just killing you. Matter of fact, if you can go borrow on a credit card and pay them off, I would. Because you're just moving one debt to another debt. In this case because they have unlimited power to come screw with your life. They're unbelievable to work with in not a good way. So put them on a payment plan so that you don't have them coming after you garnishing your wages or hitting your checking accounts or anything else. And then get rid of that debt as soon as you can. It's the first thing to go. And, and of course meanwhile you're paying the quarterlies on your current situation. Ouch. That'll bite you.

[Ken Coleman]

Dave, real quick, I'd love for you to give us an answer as to what is the psychology that is necessary when you get yourself in a big financial hole and it feels impossible to get out of. You've done it, she feels it and I sympathize with that. But what is that? What's going on psychologically that has to be defeated.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can do anything for 90 days. You can do anything for 90 days. As a matter of fact, you can do anything for 180 days. If it changes the whole rest of your life. It's not a death sentence for 10 years, but the next 10 weeks are gonna really suc.

[George Camel]

Hey guys, George Camel here. Listen, we need to talk about your phone plan because for a lot of you it's like a bad roommate, you know the one. Unpredictable moods, always asking for money, hard to get rid of and they never do the dishes. And that's what the so called big wireless carriers are like. They're counting on you overpaying forever. But Boost Mobile flipped the script. You can unlock up to $600 in savings per year over the big guys. When you switch to Boost Mobile on their unlimited plan, there's no contracts, no hidden fees and no surprise emails saying, hey, your bill went up. Because reasons you see with Boost Mobile, you bring your phone, keep your number and pay just 25 bucks a month. 25 bucks and that price is locked in forever. So if you're thinking, okay, George, that all sounds great, what's the catch? There isn't one. Boost Mobile backs it up with a 30 day money back guarantee, which means you can try it without feeling trapped. People kick the bad roommate out. Head to BoostMobile.com Ramsey to make the switch today. That's BoostMobile.com Ramsey based on average annual

[Ken Coleman]

payment of AT&T Verizon and T Mobile

[Dave Ramsey]

customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. See website for full details. Maria is in Orlando. Hi Maria, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing great. All right, thank you for taking my call. I don't even know where to begin. I'm saying this. I have some credit card back that, long story short, I basically ignored for the last several months. A couple of them have gone into collection and I'm just hoping you can

help me figure out how to speak

with these collectors so that I can pay what I'm able to pay and get out of this hole I put myself into.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much credit card debt hun?

[Caller]

About 18,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. What do you make a year?

[Caller]

It varies, but roughly 55.

[Dave Ramsey]

And why have you been ignoring them?

[Caller]

I was actually paying them off and then last summer I had some loss, big loss of income compared to the previous summer. And I had some medical bills and I paid off the medical bills and neglected the credit card ones and kind of just snowballed from there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And are you single?

[Caller]

No, I'm married.

My husband does not know I have to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, he doesn't know the stats here. Why?

[Caller]

I guess mostly because I've just embarrassed. I. I don't know.

[Ken Coleman]

You guys have separate finances?

[Caller]

Yeah, for the most part.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does he make?

[Caller]

He's retired now, so he has his Social Security every year and then he's 401k and his savings from when he. Now.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is in his 401k?

[Caller]

I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you do.

[Caller]

No, I have no idea.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't know if it's 10,000 or 10 million?

[Caller]

No. We have one joint bank account. I know how much is in that account. I don't touch the the joint account.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because you've done this before and he keeps everything from you.

[Caller]

I haven't really done it before, but he's always. We from the beginning, I've always kind of wanted to have my own pepper thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it's not working for you? Yeah. And how long y' all been married?

[Caller]

16 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Why have you not told him? Because you're ashamed you said that. Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Does he have any debt?

[Dave Ramsey]

She doesn't know.

[Caller]

No, I don't know that.

[Dave Ramsey]

How do you know?

[Caller]

Because he has done most of your baby steps.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you don't know what's in the 401k. But you're sure he doesn't have any debt that's inconsistent?

[Caller]

No, no, that I can guarantee that the house is paid off, cars are paid off. Know that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Part of it is I was paying. Some of it is because I was paying off the credit card. And we paid off the cars last year. The year before.

[Ken Coleman]

How much money is in the joint account?

[Caller]

I have to look again. Probably like 50.

[Ken Coleman]

50.

[Caller]

15.

15.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. So here's what this is about. This is about behavior. It's not about debt collectors. This is about shame and marriage. And you don't want to come clean because the instant you come clean, first off, he's going to be disappointed, and rightly so, in you hiding this, number one. But number two, you're doing it at all. Because he's very good with money and he's not gonna be happy that you aren't. And then he's got the money. He probably got a million dollars in his stinking 401k, write a check and pay this thing off. And that's actually what ought to happen because a married couple, one of them doesn't know it yet, owes $18,000. So, sorry, dude. But then what you owe him, Maria, is the two of you get on the same page and handle money together for the rest of your lives. Full transparency, period. I'm going to be independent and then go do stupid stuff. Has got to stop. It's killing you, girl. It's eating you up. You're not even sleeping good because of this.

[Caller]

No, I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Scary. And here's the weird thing. As soon as you sit down with him, that's going to be a really difficult two hour discussion. And the next day you're gonna feel 100 pounds lighter. Because you've been carrying deception around in the name of shame. And if you're not careful, it becomes an identity. And then you got a real problem. And it's not an identity. It's just you screwed up. You did a thing, but that's not who you are. You are not defined by the worst thing you ever did in your life, nor are you defined by the best thing you ever did in your life. So there's more to it than that. So, yeah, I think you got to sit down with him tonight. And then you guys need a new system. Your system sucks. I do my thing, you do your thing. It's not working. So you guys need to be on the same page. And it sounds like this. Honey, I need your help. I need to know what's going on with the money. Not because I want to mess up your stuff, but because I want to get in on how good a job you've been doing. And I want you and I to work together. And I want to see everything that's going on with the retirement in case you die. I'm going to need to know what you want me to do. But you don't want him to die. And him have a million dollars worth of investments, and you don't have any idea how to do it because you have this all separated. And now you're just out in the cold with a bunch of money. And you don't want. You know, you don't want to live in shame either. Please do not let the sun go down with a secret. It's eating you up. My little sister. Let it go. Okay. Tonight you tell him. Okay? Say. Say, okay.

[Caller]

No, I will talk to him. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And tell him every bit of this. Yeah. And just. Just. I am so. You know, I didn't want to tell you because I'm ashamed. I feel inept. And I need your help. I need to work together with you on money from now on. The way we've been doing it for 16 years is not working. I'm not as good at it as you are. I don't want you to do it all by yourself. I want us to do it together so that I know how to do this in case something happens to you.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. Maria, just real quick, do you trust him?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, I know I asked an obvious question because I want you to hear it. Well, let me ask you this. What do you think his reaction would have been if a couple years ago, before you got into this mess, you said, you know what I want to have combined finances. I want to do this together. I think you're better at it than me, and you know what you're doing. What would his reaction have been?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

So I always said. I'm bringing this up is because emotionally, I want you to hear that. That kind of guy who you love and respect, who would have been on board with this from day one. While he will be disappointed, I think this a good man and I think he's going to welcome you going, I messed up. I don't want to ever do this again.

[Dave Ramsey]

If $18,000 is the cost of us getting on the same page, I'll write the check.

[Ken Coleman]

I think so too. That's what I'm getting at. And I hope that takes the edge off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Money well invested.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. Because you right. I'll guarantee you he's loaded. I just have a hunch there's a

[Dave Ramsey]

million dollars in that 401k if there's a dime.

[Ken Coleman]

I think you're right. I absolutely felt that. And I feel for her too. And I get that's why, by the way, she's so shame. You nailed it. She's ashamed because he's been so good with money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. It just. The weight of something like that is multiplied every day. You carry a secret. And when you shine light on stuff, the bugs run to the corner. The roaches run for the hills, man, they get out there and do little dances in the dark. But it's hard for demons to exist when you shine light. Demons don't like light. They run. So just when you just lay everything out, there's no place to hide. You just gotta be who you is then. Ah, so clean.

[Caller]

Sam.

[George Camel]

Most people don't struggle with money because they can't do math. They struggle because they don't stick to a plan. And when your bank makes your money feel confusing or hard to track, plans fall apart fast. And that's why I love Fairwinds Credit Union and their mobile app. Because, let's face it, most banks build systems that make it easy to swipe and hard to stay organized. But with the Fairwinds app, you open it and you know exactly what to do. No clicking through 11 menus just to move your own money. Just tap, tap. Transfer and done. You can deposit a check from your couch by taking a picture. You can get real time alerts so you're not guessing what's in your account. And you can add your Ramsey Beware debit card to Apple Pay and tap to check out. See, a lot of banks leverage convenience to make it easier to go into debt. But Fairwinds offers convenience to help you stay in control. It's a huge difference. That's banking that actually supports the baby steps instead of working against them. So if you want to bank someplace that's both faster and wiser, check out Fairwinds. Go to Fairwinds.org Ramsey that's Fairwinds.org Ramsey insured by the NCUA.

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Addison]

Good. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. Where do you all live?

[Addison]

We live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

[Dave Ramsey]

Fun. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off?

[Addison]

You paid off $184,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Goodness. How long did that take?

[Addison]

32 months.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. And your range of income during that time?

[Addison]

It went from 127 to $200,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Excellent. What do you two do for a living?

[Addison]

I work in a family business doing

[Autumn]

drywall and I'm a wedding photographer.

[Dave Ramsey]

Awesome. And you're making a couple of hundred a year between those two. Excellent. What kind of debt was the 184,000 in 32 months?

[Autumn]

Our house.

[Dave Ramsey]

You paid off your house? You two weirdos. How old are you guys?

[Addison]

I'm 26.

[Autumn]

I'm 27.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you paid off a house? Yeah, I just. I can't. I'm speechless. That's amazing. Congratulations. So, $184,000 mortgage. What's the house worth?

[Addison]

It's around 340. Somewhere around there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. How long have you two been married?

[Addison]

Almost three years.

[Autumn]

Yeah, three years in April.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you got married, bought a house, and the first order of business is 32 months later paid off?

[Autumn]

Well, the house was already bought.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, it was already bought?

[Autumn]

Yeah, he bought the house the week that we went on our first date and met.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, yeah. So you were stuck with it? Yeah,

[Autumn]

I like it.

[Addison]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I stuck with a paid for house. Now what'd you say it's worth again?

[Addison]

Like 340.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And it's a paid for house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania?

[Addison]

Yes.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Man, that's amazing. So what in the world? And you're 24 and 26?

[Addison]

26 and 27.

[Dave Ramsey]

26 and 27. I'm sure.

[Autumn]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. Wow. So, you know, all we hear about all the time and the negative things in the media is that Gen Z, your generation is stuck. They can't buy a house. It's not affordable out there. It's impossible. Yet you went and bought one the week you started dating and convinced this young lady to marry you and help you pay it off.

[Addison]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

How does. Where do. Where do you people come from? How does this happen? How'd you get. How'd you run into the Ramsey stuff?

[Autumn]

Well, we grew up, like, our parents had, like, grew us up with Ramsey principles and like the envelope system. And so, yeah, both sets of Parents?

[Addison]

Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Both of you are financial peace babies?

[Addison]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, my God.

[Ken Coleman]

I have to ask the obvious question. Was this an arranged marriage?

[Caller]

No.

[Ken Coleman]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

But the parents were happy about it.

[Autumn]

My dad was very happy.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think you found a good one. He knows about the envelopes.

[Ken Coleman]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is incredible. I'm serious. You had to go home. When y' all both discovered that both your parents were doing the Ramsey stuff, that had to be a little weird.

[Addison]

Yeah, it definitely was, but it was really exciting because it was like Autumn had the same values as I did, which, I mean, honestly transformed or translated into the rest of our marriage. And it was just like, wow, this is very easy. I mean, this is so simple. Such a simple plan, and we were able to work together on it seamlessly. So.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

How did y' all meet?

[Autumn]

Blind date.

[Dave Ramsey]

A blind date got set up. Wow. Okay. So you weren't, like, going to the same church or something?

[Addison]

No, no.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. Because I thought maybe your parents, if they'd gone through FPU together or something, that'd be too much. All right. Right. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

[Autumn]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Pretty incredible.

[Autumn]

But we just, like, made a lot of really, like, wise financial decisions, like, right when we were, like, 18, 19. So we, like, cash flowed college and, like, bought cars we could afford and, you know, all the things that you teach.

[Dave Ramsey]

So when you entered into this, all there was was the mortgage.

[Addison]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it was brand new because you just got it when you started dating. Then you get married and 32 months. So you did about 60,000 a year for three years, give or take around 5,000 bucks a month, making 127 to a high of 200. You lived on nothing to do that. Y' all. Pretty intense, knocking that mortgage out.

[Autumn]

Did it really feel like nothing, though? We just followed our budget.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay. All right, let's get into this. What was your budget in year one of your marriage? Based on what income at that time?

[Addison]

Well, it was based on. Roughly. I mean, it was $127,000 a year. And so we just.

[Caller]

Just.

[Addison]

I guess it was like 8. 8,000amonth, I guess. I don't know.

[Ken Coleman]

All right, so what was the. What were their bills? If you just. If you can remember, what was your. To cover all your expenses out of that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, boy.

[Ken Coleman]

Roughly. I'm not holding you to the.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're putting, like, five grand a month average.

[Addison]

Yes. And it definitely. Near the end is when we started piling it on.

[Autumn]

We put more on the last.

[Dave Ramsey]

So maybe three grand in the early years and six grand or eight grand in the.

[Addison]

As Autumn's business. As Autumn's photography business started to grow, she definitely was picking up a lot more weddings. And, yeah, the money just kind of started rolling in. I was like, wow, this is amazing.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah.

[Autumn]

And we based our budget mostly off of his income because I was really consistent. So then anything extra that I made that was above the minimum amount that we set aside and planned for that I would make, we just threw on the house. So that was just our goal. And so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, pull the taxes, throw the rest of the house. Yeah, exactly.

[Addison]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cool. Good for y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm so proud of you. I know your mom and dad are proud of you. Both of you. And they all came, right? Both sets of parents came to celebrate. They're in Nashville. Okay.

[Addison]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. That's amazing. Very, very cool. All right, well, this kind of makes the case of it's very important to choose a good mate. Oh, yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

We've been talking about the value of marriage. Earlier, Dave went on a marriage rant that was great. And this really illustrates it. Here's what I want to know, because we put it to you guys, like, you guys were super intense. And Autumn, your response was, it was fine. We lived within the budget. That speaks to contentment. So as a young couple, you're starting out and the world is your oyster. Right. How did you develop that contentment? Was it a disciplined thing or was it the way you were raised? I'd love to know why you were so content.

[Addison]

It was definitely the way we were raised, but also, we're Christians, so we knew that there was joy and contentment and. And just not comparing ourselves to anybody else. So it was just like how we could keep looking at each other and just connecting with each other. Yeah.

[Autumn]

Yeah. And we made the budget together, and we were both, like, okay with it. We still did so many fun things, too.

[Caller]

So

[Dave Ramsey]

I just don't sense a lot of time spent with Instagram influencers.

[Ken Coleman]

No.

[Autumn]

I mean, I'm on Instagram, but I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you have a job. I mean, you have a photography business. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I don't think you're sitting there doom scrolling, wanting stuff. I mean, it's just. No, yeah, that's not you.

[Addison]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Matter of fact, there's some data out right now that shows the amount of hours spent on Instagram equals the number of dollars spent. It's ridiculous. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Okay, quick follow up for this young couple, because a lot of young couples listening to this, they think, oh, I can't win.

[Dave Ramsey]

Amazing.

[Ken Coleman]

How are your. What Are your dreams give us. You don't have to give this grand plan or share something you don't want to share. But how are your dreams? Or is there something that has changed now to realize that you guys have zero debt, a house included, and you're 26 and 27?

[Addison]

Yeah, it's kind of surreal because, like, it's something that, as I bought the house, as I was, like, working, like, right out of high school at 18, it was something that I was, like, striving for. Like, I knew I wanted to buy a house, and I knew I wanted to pay it off. And then to marry someone who had the same values, and, like, when she, like, we both wanted to pay it off right away. So it was just like, it was really cool to be able to work on that. Work on that together and enjoy. Enjoy that life together. So now looking forward, I don't know. I mean, we're just excited to build wealth together and build a life that is good for our family, for us.

[Autumn]

And we set a goal, and we wanted to do it in five years before I was 30, and we ended up doing it way quicker in less than three.

[Ken Coleman]

Congrats.

[Autumn]

So I think that's just like. Like, so motivating and encouraging. Like, when we set a goal, we can work towards that together and just be on the same page. And, like, yeah, it can go faster than we really ever expected it to go.

[Dave Ramsey]

What do you tell people the secret

[Addison]

to getting out of debt is, Honestly, contentment. Like, you were talking about just keeping your eyes fixed on the goal that you have as a couple or as

[Autumn]

a family, sticking to your budget, setting that. Have that conversation together. And we were both okay with. With every line item, how much we were giving. And so. Yeah.

[Addison]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Now that you're 100% free, no payment at all, does it feel different than you thought it would feel?

[Addison]

Yeah, it's just kind of, like, uneventful. Cause life still goes on.

[Autumn]

We were living in the house, so,

[Dave Ramsey]

like, nobody shot off fireworks in the backyard. It was weird.

[Autumn]

No, I was sick when we paid our last mortgage payment, too, so it really felt just like.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like, yeah, yeah, I got the flu. I don't care.

[Addison]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, we're gonna. We're gonna celebrate today. We're gonna have fireworks, going crazy. We're so proud of y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Dave Ramsey]

Y' all are amazing. You're like, the perfect couple. You, you young, you gen zers.

[Caller]

Here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Here's your poster children right here. Addison and autumn. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 184,000 paid off. House and everything in 32 months from 26 years old and 27 years old. Count it down, down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

[Autumn]

Three, two, one.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're debt free. Yeah.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's interesting. I was checking out a at a place the other day, and young men work in the valet. Two high schoolers. One of them was in our classes in high school. And he's like, hey, man, stuff on YouTube, man. Cool, thank you, man. And all this stuff. And he said, so give me the other one pipes up and he said, give me a proverb, Dave. And I went, okay, where's that coming from? Because I love proverbs. And this kid must have actually known something about who we were, because if you read Proverbs, the book of wisdom in the Bible over and over, you'll have a master's degree in finance. And it happened to be the 22nd of March. And I said, well, here's one for you. Proverbs 22:7 says, the rich rules over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. Oh, by the way, here's an interesting thing. Proverbs 22:6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Now keep in mind that there are not numbers in the original scriptures, and so there's no 22 6, 22 7. So if you actually just read that, it says, train up a child in the way he should go, when he's old he'll not depart from it. The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. Train up a kid that's to stay out of debt is pretty close, but we separate those because proverbs are very disconnected sayings and we don't usually put them together. And I said, so so train your kids up to stay out of debt. And so train them up when they go on a dating website to find another family that went through financial peace. See, when you change your family tree, here's how you do it. You cannot change your family tree simply by stacking cash. If you raise idiots, they will go through everything you made. No matter what you make, if you leave idiots money, there will be no money. It will not survive one generation. No kidding. We all know that. I mean, you can't leave them $100 million, they'll still blow it. You can't stack enough cash to leave it to idiots. So the way you change your family tree has two components to it. One is you raise godly, strong, contented young men and women that find each other and choose to marry someone like that and you leave them a stack of cash. In this case, this young couple has not had yet the inheritance of the stack of cash that is waiting on both of them, probably. But instead, they are already Almost millionaires at 26 and 27 with a paid for house. Been married only 3 years in 32 months, paid off their house, but mom and dad changed their family tree by teaching. In both cases, these kids were raised in an environment of biblical wisdom, common sense ways of handling money. Get out of debt, stay out of debt, be on a budget. They're financial peace babies. They know not to. They don't have credit cards. They're not motivated by the name brand on your purse. They're not motivated by fill in the blank of stupid stuff that people in America do and consequently are broke. Spending money that you don't have to buy things you really can't afford to impress people you don't even really like. That's the opposite, opposite of what we're talking about. And this young couple is like. This is like every parent's dream come true. Not only to raise one, but then have them marry another one. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Isn't that the most fun thing you can think of?

[Ken Coleman]

The only thing that would add to that is if you had somehow officiated the wedding. That would have probably. You asked me, was there any more fun? That would have probably been. I mean, it would have been quite the, you know, you just zip in.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm probably pretty. Pretty boring and stuff like. That's not a. That would not be a good to

[Ken Coleman]

see you in a tux would be also exciting.

[Dave Ramsey]

A little. Yeah, we're not even.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, you asked.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, just keep it up, Ken.

[Ken Coleman]

So the question was proverbial.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it was rhetorical. That's the word, rhetorical. That's the part where you're quiet. Yeah,

[Ken Coleman]

I try to be when you're on. I really do. That's a great start.

[Dave Ramsey]

The point is. The point is, the way you change your family tree is you change the mathematics of your situation, your net worth. Instead of retiring and having to eat dog food and calling up your relatives for money because you're broke and you worked your whole life and you have nothing to show for it because you spent everything, you made your whole stinking life. Instead of doing that, you changed your life in the process. Your kids watched and it changes their life. That's right. And then they become a better version of you and a wiser version of you, and you've changed your family tree. Add to that a high net worth, and now you've got amazing things that happen. So if you studied the Old Testament, for instance, you would know that inheritance is very biblical when done properly and when understood that it's actually God's money that you're managing. So see, David was prevented from building the temple Temple because of misbehavior and named Bathsheba as a ufo, an unclad female object. And so, yeah, he was prevented from building the temple. So his son Solomon built the temple. What did Solomon build the temple with his own money? No, with David's money. It was inherited money that built the temple, and it was somewhere around $20 billion in today's dollars to build that structure. If you do the biblical money narrative and you fast forward that with inflation several thousand years, you get a ridiculous amount of money. So this billionaire left billions of dollars to his son who built the temple, inherited money, built the temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. That's interesting when you think about it. So this idea of generational change is entirely possible, and it can go negative and it can go positive, but you've got the ability to change your family tree. And that last couple, man, that's just everything. That's the whole thing. So if you're working the baby steps, we want to get you on every dollar, because that's what everybody says when they're doing their debt free scream. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I say it over and over and over again and all the time. What do they say? Got to be on a budget. Got to be working together. Got to be on a budget together. Got to be working together on a budget. Got to be on a budget. We have to be on a budget. Every dollar. We love every dollar. Every dollar got us out of debt. Well, every dollar will get you out of debt because it not only is a budgeting app, but also hand spoon feeds you all the Ramsey insights to make you do the budget. The correct way to work our system. And if you don't want to work our system, you're really not going to like every dollar, because we're going to be like up in your face going, this is the fastest way to get out of debt and build wealth and be outrageously generous and change your whole family tree is every dollar, and it's free. You can download it at the App Store or Google Play. Ta da. Just like that. David is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hi, David, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing well. How about you, Dave and Ken?

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Caller]

So I am a Lutheran pastor and my question is should I opt out of Social Security and what steps should I take if I do so? Because I mean, you've been mentioning changing your family tree. If I did that, I would actually change my family tree with investing and also helping out fellow Christians because I mean, as a pastor.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are you, David?

[Caller]

I'm 28.

[Dave Ramsey]

Perfect. Okay, great question. And I've counseled pastors. Financial Peace University has been taught in 50,000 churches in the past 25 years. So I've been asked this question a lot. And here's the the three or four components to the situation. Number one, Social Security provides three things. Disability in the event you became completely disabled. So you need to make sure you have disability insurance. You need that anyway whether you have Social Security or not. If you die, your children, your minor children will get money from Social Security. They won't get that if you opt out. So you need life insurance. You need that anyway about 10 to 12 times your income. So those are the two main things. And of course you're going to retire and so you're not going to have Social Security when you retire if you opt out. And so you need to be investing for retirement, but you need to be doing that anyway because Social Security is not enough. You eat dog food if you're on Social Security. So you have to do those three things if you opt out because you're vulnerable if you don't, disability insurance, life insurance, and make sure you're saving for retirement. The fourth component is the IRS paperwork says that if in order to opt out, you have to be a conscientious objector, which means I object to the Social Security system on a spiritual basis. Okay. Not just I don't like it, okay. I as a Christian could object to it. I can't because I'm a pastor. I'm not a pastor, but I could object to it on a spiritual basis saying it's a horrible use of God's money, it's bad stewardship. And so I easily could sign that in good conscience. But you need to be able to sign that in good conscience and say spiritually I disagree with the Social Security system. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. I'm Dave Ramsey. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality number one best selling author is. My cousin Dee is in El Paso, Texas. Hi Dee, how are you?

[Caller]

Good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's Up.

[Caller]

Yeah. So my husband spends a lot of our landscaping budget on trying to get grass to grow in the desert. Is it fair for me to ask him to spend feudal grass spending from his fun money?

[Ken Coleman]

How much is he spending? I gotta know this number.

[Caller]

Well, like, in a summer season, between sod and seed and water, it's probably like 250 to 300 bucks out of our $500 budget.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your $500 budget for what? The $500. $500 is the line item for landscaping?

[Caller]

Yeah. Like a season.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

It's not a lot.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And what's your household income?

[Caller]

I mean, it's a trivial amount compared to our budget.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income?

[Caller]

10.

[Dave Ramsey]

What?

[Caller]

Sorry? 210.

[Dave Ramsey]

210,000. Okay.

[Caller]

All right. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so. Yeah, and it's. So is it the futility that bothers you?

[Caller]

I think so. And we just have, like, even though we have a high income, we have a lot of other things that we're putting that money towards. So it's like we've carved out this number that we agree on. And. Yeah, so maybe it is the futility, and I don't mind it that he wants to experiment with growing grass, but this is three seasons now, so is it fair to just call it a hopper?

[Ken Coleman]

How much does he enjoy it?

[Dave Ramsey]

Apparently a lot.

[Ken Coleman]

Well, does he enjoy it or does he just feel like it's really ugly and it's more of a thing that bothers him versus he's really loving the time spent on it? That's what I'm trying to get at.

[Caller]

I think that he's an analytical person who doesn't like to lose. And so I feel like it's almost like Sisyphusian, me against the grass.

[Ken Coleman]

By the way, great word. You win caller of the day for using that word.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's fabulous.

[Ken Coleman]

And him trying to beat the sun is. That's a tough one. That's a tough one.

[Dave Ramsey]

On one battle, Futility Seed is another one. These are some great lines. Oh, man. Okay. Because it is a very small amount of your world, and it gives him joy. I don't care which line item it's in, it still leaves your house. You're still spending $250 on futility, regardless of what you label it. You could label it futility in the budget. Have you customized the Feudal Seed budget?

[Ken Coleman]

That's a different kind of utility.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so just put it right there under, you know, subset of landscaping. And it's, you know, you name it, what it is, but it still leaves your Budget. I mean, if you take it out of his hobby. Oh, you're saying, though, it doesn't leave your budget because you're saying you would not increase his hobby by that amount.

[Caller]

Right.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, and you've got another line item you want that money to go to, correct?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Ken Coleman]

Which one? What is it?

[Caller]

We're saving to put in a sage structure in our backyard.

[Dave Ramsey]

A what structure?

[Caller]

Like a shade awning.

[Dave Ramsey]

Say a shade structure. Okay, okay, okay. And what does the shade structure cost?

[Caller]

It'll be about seven grand.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And so there's 200. $250 a month for six months is $1500, right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I think the way this would sound at our house. Okay, Net net. I agree with you that this is futile, probably. And net net. I agree that it's cool for him to want to do it anyway. And net net. We're all in agreement on these three things. You have the money. It's no big deal. Okay, so it's not killing your family, your children have diapers, all that. I mean, we're. Okay, so the. So at our house, it would sound something like this. Look, it's bothering. Sharon would say it's bothering me that we're wasting money on X because we're saving for Y. And I think we could get there faster. And I'll say, yeah, but it would bother me to not do the futility seeds. I need to do those. It's good for me. And so I'll cut the. Let's cut the budget some other places and let you get. Let's get the shade thing a little faster by cutting in other areas. And she and I would end up negotiating some other area that we cut that didn't mean as much to either one of us, because in this case, this actually means something to him. He has a valid vote in this process. It means something to you to increase the speed at which we buy the shelter from the same sun that's killing the grass. I wonder if these things could work together. But yes.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, there you go. We'll have a large. We'll have a little patch of grass underneath the shade. Dave, that's actually brilliant.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm telling you, this is why I'm here.

[Ken Coleman]

You know what Stacy would say? It would go like this at our house. She would say, so how do we feel?

[Dave Ramsey]

How do we feel?

[Ken Coleman]

And she always does that, and it snaps me out of it. And I always go, we. You don't feel.

[Dave Ramsey]

You got a mouse in your pocket. Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

You're never out There she'll say to me, like, we should weed. I go, you don't weed anything. It's not weed.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a passive aggressive statement.

[Ken Coleman]

But it's a great one for a wife because it snaps me out of it and lets me know that she's probably questioning, we have a trash problem.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, that means I have a trash problem.

[Ken Coleman]

That's right. We should go to the dump. That's never the two of us.

[Dave Ramsey]

Funny. That's funny.

[Ken Coleman]

Stacy's the queen.

[Dave Ramsey]

Stacy and Sharon get along, right? The passive aggressive.

[Ken Coleman]

And it snaps me out of it because I realize, oh, the queen is not happy with something.

[Caller]

We.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right. We are lying seed in futility.

[Ken Coleman]

Here's why I am on D's husband's side. I'm not anti D. I get it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's kind of a fun call.

[Ken Coleman]

It is. But here's the deal, Dave. Yard work for me is very therapeutic. I enjoy getting out, doing a little bit of landscaping. I'm no architect, as you. As you know, but I do enjoy the time out there. My brain frees up. I get some good thinking done because I'm on this menial task. I get it. He doesn't want to give up yet. So I think the approach is, how do you feel about this season? You think it's going to work? How many more seasons are we going to try this? I'm going to give you the Stacy tip.

[Dave Ramsey]

We kind of felt that way about our Titans Tank tickets.

[Ken Coleman]

Oh, exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many more seasons are we going to try this?

[Ken Coleman]

How many more seasons?

[Dave Ramsey]

That's right.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, It's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Talk about futility.

[Ken Coleman]

Boy, that's so true. UNFL fans know what we mean. Our beloved Titans. We got another uniform, another new logo. I don't think we have any new results.

[Dave Ramsey]

We'll see. Oh, D, it's fun. We're not giving you much of an answer, but. But I think he has a valid point. It is. It is that. But I also think it's valid for you to bring up that because you feel like this is feudal. We need to squeeze somewhere else in the budget if you're not willing to give up the feudal seeds.

[Ken Coleman]

And I actually love Dave, and I'm being serious, D. I love Dave's suggestion. We save up. We stop the futility. We save up for the shaded structure, and then he tries to grow grass underneath that. I think that's actually a stroke of genius.

[Dave Ramsey]

I. I don't think it. I don't think it'll work, but I think you need sun. But what do I know?

[Ken Coleman]

It's the arid climate, Ken. It's not.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's it. That's it.

[Ken Coleman]

Just get a bag of rocks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Dave Ramsey here. Most people stay stuck with their money because they're not paying attention to it. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, stressed out and broke. Don't be most people. You work way too hard to be broke and feel broke and you deserve to have something to show for it. That's why we built the EveryDollar budget app. It gives you a personalized plan for your money that shows you how to free up extra money every month and use it to beat debt and build lasting wealth. Plus, you get real coaches guiding you through your plan step by step up. Look, most people hearing this will just keep hoping something changes, but not you. You're ready to make change happen starting now. Go download every dollar in the App store or Google Play and start for free. Today,

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

Show question of the day is brought to you by why refi defaulted? Private student loans don't define you, but dealing with them can. Why refi helps you to refinance into a low fixed rate payment that you can afford so you can take control of your money and get back to working the baby steps. Go to y refi.com Ramsey that's the letter. Yes. F y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Ken Coleman]

Today's question comes from Kristen In Idaho. My husband and I are in our mid-50s and both work full time. I contribute 15% in my employer's 401k, but my husband works for a small business and doesn't receive retirement benefits. Would you recommend that I increase my investments to cover the both of us? I don't think so. Because just because he doesn't have an employer program, he still has an income and he can still be investing at that 15% rate that we teach. So it's the principle, not necessarily the product. And in this case, if you invest the way we teach, then he can absolutely start investing in retirement so you don't have to double up.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can. But what I would, I would use some extra in yours if I had to, Christian. Yes. But the first thing I would do is both of you do Roth IRAs. You can do 8, $8,600 each every year right now. And so that's 17,200 bucks. That 15% of 100,000, you know, would get you there. Right? So, I mean, that's 17% of $100,000 income. So if that doesn't get you with what you're doing in your 401k to 15%. So if he makes over $100,000, you'll need to do something more than or over $110,000, you'll need to DO something more than two Roths. But you can do 8,600 apiece at age 50 and that all you know both of them. 8,600. Your name 8,600 in his name. Go to ramseysolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro. Find a SmartVestor Pro in your area. They can set that up and have it auto drafted out of your checking account. It's very easy to do in the four types of mutual funds. We talk about growth, growth and income, aggressive growth and international. That's how mine is set up. That's how Kins is set up. Set up. And if that plus your 401k doesn't get you there because he makes 200k, which, okay. He works for a small business and doesn't receive retirement benefits, the likelihood I'm making 200k is pretty low, probably. Okay. So more than likely, you know, that'll do it. But if it doesn't, then you could add some to yours. But I would want you to do two Roth IRAs before you talk about adding to yours to Ken's point. And so I think you can get there without any trouble. London is in Atlanta. Hi, London. How are you?

[Caller]

Better than I deserve. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Just the same, sir. How can I help?

[Caller]

So I'm on my last credit card of my debt snowball and it's at $7,800 that I got. And the entire time that I've been paying it, I've had a 0% APR on it until the start of this year. And now it skyrocketed up to 28%. I'm wondering if it would be smart to seek a debt consolation loan to get a lower APR or if I should just bear down.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what do you make pay it

[Caller]

off of that APR? I make 4700 right now, but I'm getting married in two weeks.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does she make?

[Caller]

Not quite sure. We're not quite sure. She's starting a new job, but she'll be making 15 an hour. Part time.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why part time?

[Caller]

The. It's a career advancement for her and this is kind of an entry level and they aren't offering full time for a little while.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, I'm sorry, part time. $15 doesn't sound like career advancement to me.

[Caller]

Well, it's for a pharmacy position, so there's a Lot of room for growth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is she a pharmacist?

[Caller]

No, she's a tech. So she's working.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, she needs to get full time work. And if they don't. If they don't provide that within 30 days, she needs to get a different job. There's no. This is not career. Career advancement on counting pills out is not. No, no, it's not. You know, she's not a farm pharmacist. Gonna make 135. She's not. So.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Anyway, aside from that, because that's that. But that does bring us to the point of while she's working part time, she needs another part time job too, because you guys have a $7,800 debt. What other debts do you all have?

[Caller]

No, that's all of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Does she have any money? Do you have any money? Not in retirement.

[Caller]

I've got $1,000 for my emergency fund, but aside from that, no, she doesn't have any money. No. No debt either.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, good, good. All right, cool. All right. Well, the answer is no. I would not get a consolidation loan. You're gonna get yourself off into some deep water with some bad paper, some bad loan terms there. What I would do is shop for a different credit card that has a 0% and just do a balance transfer. But here's the thing. It's $7,800. I want you to pay this off in like two months. I want y' all to work like 24, 7 and clear it up right now.

[Caller]

That's kind of been how I paid off my other credit cards because I was taking up side work. But my side works kind of slowed down right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

We'll get a different side work.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Get more side work.

[Ken Coleman]

There's always side work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Lots of side work. What do you do for a living?

[Caller]

I'm a machinist.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, great, man. You can find some work for sure. Definitely people. Good Lord. And you're in Atlanta, A market that size? Oh, you can find work for sure.

[Caller]

I'm north of Atlanta. I'm over. Closer to Blue Ridge.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, you may have to. May have to haul a little bit to get to some work then. But anyway, yeah, you're. You're. Anyway, yes, I would pick up extra work, side work. And the. It's not 78,000, so this should not be around long. And so the interest rate, if you only have it for three months, the interest rate almost doesn't match matter if the debt is going to be around three to six months max, the interest rate is almost Irrelevant. But if you want us burn some calories and Go get a 0% transfer credit card or a 5% interest transfer credit card. I don't care, anything like that. Transfer it to another card and then cut this one up and then cut that one up as soon as you do the transfer and then still pay it off just as fast. But you have a $7,800 problem. You don't have a $700 problem. And 700 is the interest we're talking about. So that's, you know, 700 doesn't solve your problem. If you got another zero percent, it doesn't solve the problem. It's still sitting there looking at you. You need eight grand and you're getting married, and you need to go get as fast as you can and clean it up as fast as you possibly can. And you know that that's how I would go at this. Susan's in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hi, Susan. How are you?

[Caller]

You?

I'm fine, Dave. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

We have a second home. It's. My husband and I were recently married. I didn't do anything for about a year with the home. I rented it for a year, and then when we started to delve into it, we thought we'd flip it real quick, but it's kind of become a nightmare. And to bring it up to code, it's costing us a lot. So the question is to keep, you know, plugging along, cash flowing it. Or we brought a contract. We're looking at 80 to $100,000 to get everything done. There is a mortgage still on the home, so we're kind of looking at what options.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is owed on the home?

[Caller]

80,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

What will it sell for? As is?

[Caller]

As is, I don't think it's going to bring much because it's been pretty much gutted. That's the big problem.

[Dave Ramsey]

As is, what will it sell for? Have someone look at it and tell me, what do you think it's really going to sell for? All the emotion about you being pissed off about this house or whoever gutted it. I don't care about what will the house actually sell for?

[Caller]

Maybe 125.

[Dave Ramsey]

Selling it. I wouldn't put 80 in it. Sell it and put a few dollars in your pocket. Move on.

[Caller]

Okay. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Why put 80 into that? You put 80 into it now. Now it's got to bring over 160 for you to break even on that investment. And it's already a piece of crap house that you hate, right?

[Caller]

Not exactly, but.

But close.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I mean, you're. You're. No adjective you used towards the house was positive. Yeah. Anyway, that's what I would do if I woke up in your shoes. This thing is. It's a leftover from another life that was imported into this new marriage, and it needs to be jettisoned from the new marriage. I want to clean. I want a clean house. No pun intended,

[Caller]

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. The Ramsay show's going on tour this April. Next month, we're headed to Charlotte, Denver, Phoenix, and Anaheim. If you've never experienced this show live in person, well, you have the opportunity. It's a perfect date night. If one of you is a spender, one of you is a saver. Come have Rachel and John and George and Jade and Ken settle the money debates live in front of everybody, everybody. Tickets are already sold out in Anaheim. We've been told there's three left in Denver, which means Denver, sold out, Charlotte and Phoenix. Don't wait. You're going to be sold out soon. To go to ramseysolutions.com events or click the link in the show notes. If you're listening on the podcast or on the YouTube, come out and see the show live in person. Josh is in Chicago. Hey, Josh, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing well, Dave. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So my question is, my wife and I have been going back and forth on whether or not it makes sense to keep our country club membership at this stage in our life and finances.

[Ken Coleman]

Ooh, who says keep it? Who says get rid of it?

[Caller]

You know, I would say I'm probably leaning more. Keep. My wife's probably leaning more, get rid of it. But at the same time, I'd say in the recent months, it's been a little bit back and forth of. There are times where we'll talk about it and she says keep it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You probably had a big up front on it, right?

[Caller]

So we've been there for six years. We joined as junior members and we had a pretty Small upfront, actually. But then the catch is now, as I'm getting older and kind of progressing up the different membership classes, if we left and came back, I'd then be hit with a big downstream, about a $50,000 downstroke. If we left and came.

[Dave Ramsey]

50,000. Okay. All right. And what's your household income?

[Caller]

So base salaries end up right under 300. And then with bonuses and everything, we pretty commonly clear a little over four, sometimes a little more than that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is this a golf membership also?

[Caller]

Yeah.

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how often do you play?

[Caller]

So I'll play two to three times a week. During the season we're in Chicago, so I mean, we get. I mean, Memorial Day through Labor Day.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are your dues?

[Caller]

So monthly dues before we walk in the door are 8, 65. And during the winter, it's about that. We don't really eat out there. We much during the winter and during the season, we play quite a bit, eat there. Pretty involved socially. So a couple, maybe two to two grand to 2500amonth. We're playing. We're paying in season.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you're also that. That's in lieu of restaurants and some of that.

[Caller]

Correct?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, so. Or green fees, for that matter.

[Ken Coleman]

Do you have any debt?

[Caller]

Debt? We do. We do have some car debt. Should be cleared by the end of this year, but we've got about 77,000 in car debt, and that's the end. It's that in our house that we have.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, based on your usage, I don't know why you're thinking about getting rid of it. You have the money. I mean, you have the income to support that. Some of. That's the equivalent of a restaurant bill. So basically it's a thousand bucks a month, $12,000 a year.

[Caller]

Year.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you play unlimited golf, I assume.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

And. And usually you got like a food minimum, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, I. I'd say the reason I'm actually, I don't. In my category, I don't have a food minimum. Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So. So the 2000s, if you actually did eat, then.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or take. Or take guests on the golf course.

[Caller]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So you can afford all that if you weren't using it and you're just burning $1,000 a month and you never golfed and you didn't go there and eat then. Yeah. That starts to be the time that sun has set. Right. And so we sunset the idea and we move on. Because it's not. It's this season of our life. We're not there. An example would be one of the guys working here is a member of a club that we have a corporate sponsorship into. And he said, I can't go play golf, I have little kids. And he goes, I'm not paying $1,000 a month to just say I belong over there. And food's okay, food's okay, but it's basically a golf club. And so he's like, no, I'm out. And so, because he's not that. And he, you know, someday he may want to join something again, but it's probably a decade from now because he's got little kids and a round of golf's five hours, you know, so that

[Caller]

was kind of where the question came from a little bit is. So we, I mean my wife and I were early 30s and we've got two kids. I mean we've got a one year old and like a four month old. And so I do see my golf usage dwindling a little bit. But at the same time, I mean I. It's something I do want for my kids when they are old enough to enjoy it and let's say five, six years, something like that. My thought was if I left and rejoined, I'd be hit with a huge downstroke at that point. So does it make sense to kind of keep it during these next five to six years where I won't be using it quite as much?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you're going to use it if you're going to use it some. It's just a utilization thing, you know, don't pay for a subscription that you don't read. Don't pay for a membership you don't use. Right. But if you're going over there and playing golf, you know, a Chicago club's tough. There's some iconic clubs there, obviously. And I mean I played Medina up there the other day and it's incredible as an awesome. As an example, but I'm sure based on the numbers you're giving me, that's not what we're talking about. But the. Anyway, there's some iconic things up there. I think when you cease to use it enough because of whatever reason, kids or whatever, then you would cancel it. But today you're doing that in anticipation of that because today's actual usage justifies

[Caller]

keeping it makes sense.

[Dave Ramsey]

And because you can't go back in baby step two, I would keep it because of your income. Now if you told me your income was 100 grand, we wouldn't have been having this conversation. I don't care about your junior membership. You Just can't afford it. But you know you're making 300 plus and it's $12,000 and you can't get back in so you stay in to stay in. But I wouldn't keep it 10 years with non usage either.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah, I think it's an ros return on spend there. And I mean I'll tell you what happened to me. I joined the same golf club I got back bit I've always enjoyed golf but I really wanted to play a lot and for two years I did. And then I found another hobby and that this season of my life I don't have time for two hobbies because

[Dave Ramsey]

I go all over. Pickleball does not need a golf course.

[Ken Coleman]

It's essentially what happened. My own wife said so when was the last time you played golf? And I said well it's probably been three weeks because every nice day I was trying to get a pickleball game. And so it came down to I realized it just doesn't make sense. Sense. It's all it was.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Vincent's in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey Vincent, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing good.

[Dave Ramsey]

How can we help?

[Caller]

Well, I got a, I got a Shelby Limited Edition GT500 and it's worth about 105. I owe about, about 65,000 on it. But the question I have is I was a little bit of money about $18,000 and got some credit card bills and the car rare cars goes. I'm trying to wait to at least get up to 150,000 or I should just sell it now and clear off all my debt and everything else.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you did not own it and you had $40,000 in your checking account and you said I could either clean up my debts or I could go borrow another 65 and buy a car that I hope goes up in value. You, you would never do that. You need to sell this car. It is a fabulously cool car. I love the car. But dude, you're broke. You don't need me driving a hundred thousand dollar car. You're broke.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Ken Coleman]

I don't think he anticipated that response.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I mean it's a hundred, it's pro. He said $105,000 value of 65. Take the 40 grand, clean up mess and move on. You can, you know when you become wealthy someday and you have extra money, you can buy cars. It's okay. I buy cars. I like, I like wild cars, crazy cars. I like it, it's fun and that's a neat vehicle. 500 a GT.

[Ken Coleman]

500 a GT 500. It's going to be a sad day.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Ken Coleman]

Make no mistake about it, Vincent. What we're suggesting here is not painless.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's who I just.

[Ken Coleman]

That's a beast of a car.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just removed your little finger.

[Ken Coleman]

I would get one more burn out of it before I sold it. I would burn those tires one more time.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a horse, but yeah, it's. It's a. It's a classic muscle car. It is going up in value. I don't disagree with you there. I don't think you're in a position to borrow money to invest in collectibles going up in value. And that's essentially what you have done. And so I would tell you to get out of it. Even though my 15 year old redneck boy says that's the coolest car ever, but yeah, still got to sell it. 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 taxpropro to find one who serves your area with excellence. That's ramseysolutions.com taxpro. Scripture of the day. First Corinthians, Philippians 13, 6, 7. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Thomas Sowell said, facts can be ignored, but their consequences cannot be escaped. Logan is with us in Illinois. Hi, Logan, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Well, I'm 29 years old.

[Ken Coleman]

Old.

[Caller]

I'm a single father. Basically extenuating service circumstances over the last couple years has led me to this mountain of debt. And I just. I can't even look at the bills anymore. And I don't know where to start.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, how big is the mountain?

[Caller]

Quick list. $26,000 in total would kind of get me set straight, be debt free.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, $26,000 in debt.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And give me a little breakdown on that. What kind of debt is it?

[Caller]

A lot of. It's credit cards. How much credit cards? I've got one that's 27, 75, 28%. I got another one that's only 639. I got another that's 2,980. And then I think one that's another 600.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's only $7,000.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so they're emotionally heavy, but they're not that much. So what's the other $19,000?

[Caller]

I have a 2016 Chevy Malibu. $10,139 left. That's 13.63%. That thing is just. I mean, it's falling apart.

[Dave Ramsey]

And the rest of. What's the other $10,000 in debt?

[Caller]

The other debt is mostly medical. I'm looking at a lot of medical. There's one from my last apartment that I had to move out and I just couldn't afford it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you paying them monthly right now?

[Caller]

No, I am not. They went to a collector and I owe 2,200 medical bills.

[Dave Ramsey]

Pay any of those monthly right now?

[Caller]

Now I just. Yeah, I'm trying.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Different places and the.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your income?

[Caller]

40,000 salary. I just got a new job, so I'm starting in two days.

[Dave Ramsey]

What were you. What did you used to make?

[Caller]

I was making a little bit more than that. I was making about 45 with. But I was working a crap ton of overtime and I was not seeing my child. So this is.

[Dave Ramsey]

You were making more money, but we're not current and so you took a job making less money?

[Caller]

I did, but I'm driving an hour, two hours less a day. I'm not driving an hour to and from work every day.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

So that's gonna save probably about 2 to 3,000 gas. I am a. I'm gonna be a paralegal.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how old is your child?

[Caller]

He's nine years old. Will be ten in May.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and so he and your ex live around you there?

[Caller]

Yes. Yeah, she lives about 20 minutes away. I'm going through court proceedings and everything right now to get custody. And that's.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long have you been divorced?

[Caller]

We were never married. We've been split up since he was about 1 years old. And I've been fighting this uphill battle for the better part of seven years.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you've been seeing him during that time?

[Caller]

Yes, all the time. More.

[Dave Ramsey]

So why is there a battle if you're seeing him?

[Caller]

I just. That seems the way it goes. We. I fought for joint custody. She had the majority custody in the split up and then I had to fight to get joint custody. Finally had joint custody for the last couple years. And then there was a issues that gave me protective custody over the. For the last Six months. And now I'm doing. Trying to get full custody or majority custody, but the judge wants us to do mediation and that costs $600 per party. Then I had to pay the attorney another three.

[Ken Coleman]

Were you a paralegal in this previous job doing all the overtime?

[Caller]

No, I was not.

[Ken Coleman]

What were you doing?

[Caller]

I was working at a warehouse on a forklift.

[Ken Coleman]

Yeah. I'm going to tell you, I appreciate that you're saving gas on the hour each day, but you need to be working crazy hours where you are now. You really do. You can get out of this pretty quickly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So here's the thing. You've spent 90% of your brain power fighting custody for the last however many years. You spent almost zero percent managing money. Agreed. I mean, you put all of your energy into the nine year old, which is good. You're a dad and you're trying to do things for your kid and I don't blame you for that. But you get what you lean on. And so you're going to have to lean on this money piece from an income production standpoint, a side hustle, temporarily, long enough to clean some of this up and to start to plow through it to get rid of the credit cards and cut them up and get this car paid off and whatever else we've got to do to get this thing moving. Right, but I mean, you're not paying on the old debts anyway. Just let them sit for now. I don't care about your credit. And then I want you to pile up some cash. Let's get this car paid off as fast as you possibly can. Get these credit cards paid off as fast as you can. The interest rates are bothering you. I know that because you brought them up in detail.

[Caller]

Yeah, it seems like the interest rates are not.

[Dave Ramsey]

I said they're bothering you, but I didn't say they're your problem. Interest rates aren't your problem. They're only your problem because they've been around so long. But if you pay off these cards, $7,000 cleans up your credit card net, all of it. And so 17,000 makes your life whole. And so if I'm you, I'm going to go find $1,500 a month, which is $18,000 a year. And I'm going to cut into my monthly budget to the tune of at least $1,000 a month. That puts $2,500 a month on 17. That's a six or an eight month program. And you're debt free, except the medical bills and the old landlord debt and you can breathe again. But right now you've focused all of your energy and time. You've spent zero time analyzing and attacking the money thing because you spent all of your calorie burn on this custody fight, which is totally acceptable. I'm not shaming you for that. I'm just pointing out that when you bother to care about the money 1/10 as much as you care about this custody thing, it's going to straighten up. But you have to lean in on it hard. Like you've been leaning on this other thing hard.

[Caller]

And what do I go first? I know some people say interest rates, some people say I don't give a

[Dave Ramsey]

crap about your interest rates. I want you to get your budget on beans and rice, rice and beans. I want you to pick up 1500amonth inside Hustle and I want you to put 2,500amonth towards credit cards. If you do that, in three months the credit cards are gone and in four more months the car debt is gone.

[Caller]

Gone.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's seven months. 2,500 into 17 that counted up. Interest rates don't matter when you're doing it that fast. And so list your debts, smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one and then get pissed off about this. It's been riding on your back too long. You need to get this thing off your back. And by the way, your head will be clearer to be a better dad and to fight these other battles if you're not broke. And then go clean up the little medical bills. They're like a bunch of freaking mosquitoes around your head. And then call the landlord and offer them 25 cents on the dollar, lump sum once you've got a little money saved up and they'll clear that you could be debt free in like a year. Completely debt free in a year. But you're going to have, you know, you're going to have no, you're going to get nothing done during that year except nine year old work all the time. Nine year old work some more and pay debt. And it's the only thing you get to do for the next year. Complete focus and you can knock this out very quickly. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, the total money Makeover to help you do it. And we're going to get you signed up for everydollar Christian will pick up and get all of that happening for you. You can do this. You've just been completely focused on something else, which by the way, was the right thing to do. You should be focused on your kid before you're focused on money. But the great news is that cleaning up the money also helps the kid. Cause it puts you in a better position to fight when you're not broke and staring at interest rates all the time. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.

[Caller]

Sa.