Stop Letting Others Call The Shots With Your Money

Summary

The Ramsey Show – “Stop Letting Others Call The Shots With Your Money”

Date: June 18, 2026
Host: Dave Ramsey
Co-Host: Rachel Cruze

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Ramsey Show takes a hard look at how to gain control over your financial destiny, especially in the face of relational, emotional, or external roadblocks. Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze tackle a series of deeply personal listener calls, offering tough love, actionable advice, and insight into the interplay of money, marriage, personal agency, and values. The episode’s core message: stop outsourcing control of your money and life—whether to a spouse, a scammer, your own old habits, or societal “normalcy.”

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Marriage, Money & Values Conflict

[00:46 – 09:02, Caller: Sam in Idaho]

Discussion Points

• Caller’s Issue: Sam wants to protect her finances, but her husband repeatedly derails their debt-free journey with big purchases, sometimes covertly.
• Dave’s Key Insight: “This is not a money problem. This is a marriage problem.” ([04:45])
  • Aligned goals and trust are non-negotiable for joint financial progress.
  • “You can’t build a relationship with people you cannot trust. Trust is the foundation for relationships. Broken trust breaks relationships, period.” ([05:50])
• Rachel’s Perspective: Recognizes the anxiety/insecurity this cycle produces: “It’s a trust issue... this isn’t just about money. It’s about what’s really going on in your relationship.”
• Advice:
  • Seek marriage counseling to address broken trust.
  • Approach partner with “I” statements, seek to share fears and feelings rather than accusations ([07:12]).

Notable Quote

“I don’t want to be your mother and walk around behind you and clean up your poop.”
— Dave Ramsey ([07:49])

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2. Avoiding Scams & Learning Hard Lessons

[10:30 – 18:07, Caller: Paul in Virginia & Crew discussion]

Discussion Points

• Solar Panel Scam: Caller Paul signed up with a solar company that made false promises not backed in writing—now he’s locked into a bad financing contract.
• Dave’s Red Flags:
  • Never move forward if you can’t get an agreement in writing.
  • If you’re told, “we won’t give you a copy,” that’s code for a scam.
• Advice:
  • Go to ftc.gov to check if the company has been flagged or shut down.
  • If not, consult an attorney—potential grounds for invalidating a fraudulently procured contract.
  • The “stupid tax”—expensive mistakes that are learning opportunities.

Notable Quote

“If it’s not in writing, it didn’t happen... Don’t get so freaking ginned up by a salesperson or your need to own a product...”
— Dave Ramsey ([15:53])

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3. Boundaries, Control, & Financial Abuse

[43:50 – 52:04, Caller: Kim in Baltimore]

Discussion Points

• Caller’s Situation: Kim describes 17 years of financial and emotional control by her husband, who isolates her from money, gives a small allowance, and is having an affair.
• Dave’s Response:
  • “He’s got you buffaloed... He’s not that smart, and he doesn’t have the law on his side.”
  • Strongly advises finding an attorney who will take payment from marital assets after separation—do NOT be intimidated by threats of “no money.”
  • Recommends domestic violence resources, church, and support lines to build a safety and exit plan.
  • Serious warnings about tax fraud/criminal liability for her husband and his accountant father.

Notable Moment

“You have to be done letting other people set the agenda in your life. An attorney that can’t see me till August might not be my attorney. A guy who won’t give me any money might not be my husband. A guy who has an affair probably not going to be my husband.”
— Dave Ramsey ([50:07])

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4. Career & Life Decisions: Cash Flow, Education, and Agency

[32:39 – 94:50, Multiple Callers]

A. Building a Strong Marriage & Wealth

[32:39 – 41:48, Caller: Tristan in Savannah]

• Question: What would you do differently to build a strong family & lasting wealth?
• Dave’s Framework:
  • Build on faith, unity in marriage, consistent communication, and generosity.
  • “I will have no lack of gain if I listen to my virtuous wife.”
• Rachel’s Addition:
  • Self-care and mutual respect are essential for healthy marriages.
  • Don’t let money become an “over safety net” or a replacement for purpose/spirituality.

B. Emergency Funds (Within Investments vs. Separate)

[21:37 – 25:46, Caller: Kim in Nashville]

• Question: Should I keep my emergency fund in investments?
• Advice:
  • Mathematically it may be fine, but psychology matters.
  • Separate, labeled emergency funds keep you from mental gymnastics and bad timing.
  • “Personal finance is 80% behavior.” ([25:00])

C. Career Transitions & Purposeful Sacrifice

[86:19 – 94:50, Caller: Andrew in Philadelphia]

• Dilemma: Leave a stable job to get a master’s in marriage/family therapy and take on more debt?
• Guidance:
  • Cash flow your education if possible; don’t commit to long-term obligations for a short-term benefit.
  • Consider working part-time, seeking adult ed options.

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5. Car Leases, Buying, and Financial Logic

[25:47 – 31:22; 66:05 – 68:51, Multiple Callers]

Key Points

• Leases are nearly always a bad deal—financially and in terms of hidden costs (average 14.2% cost of capital).
• Leasing doesn’t absolve you of maintenance; you just get dinged even more.
• If you have the margin, buy new, trade when you wish—but don’t lease.
• Notable statistics: 78% of new cars leave the lot on a lease.

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6. Breaking Cycles, Sunk Cost Analysis & Practical Strategies

[74:18 – 82:52, 101:25 – 104:44]

Sunk Cost Analysis

• When making decisions about what to sell or keep (e.g., a tiny house turned rental), ignore sunk costs and ask: “If I had cash, would I buy this now versus paying off all my debt?”
• “You don’t make decisions based on how you got here; you make decisions based on where you’re going.” ([74:18])

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7. Empowerment for Singles, Young/Early Savers, and Parents

[97:25 – 104:44, Multiple Callers]

Buying a Home as a Single

• Don’t let life “on pause” for a hypothetical future partner. Move forward—plan for now, adapt if things change.

Young Couples: Stay-at-Home Parenting & Retirement

• Invest 15% of income from the beginning—compound growth over decades is the difference-maker.

Inheritance, Estranged Family, and Raising Good Stewards

[107:13 – 115:44, Brandon in ???]

• How to handle/manage a potential inheritance from a wayward, estranged father.
• Dave: Money doesn’t ruin kids—it exposes the character you did or didn’t instill.

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Memorable Quotes

• On Trust & Marriage:
  “You cannot build relationships with people you cannot trust. Broken trust breaks relationships, period.”
  — Dave Ramsey ([05:50])

• On Financial Control:
  “You have to be done letting other people set the agenda in your life.”
  — Dave Ramsey ([50:07])

• On Sunk Costs:
  “You don’t make decisions based on how you got here—you make decisions based on where you’re going.”
  — Dave Ramsey ([74:18])

• On Leases:
  “Leasing is a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible deal. Did I mention that it’s horrible?”
  — Dave Ramsey ([67:59])

• On Money & Character:
  “Money does not ruin your children. It just exposes the fact that you did so raise good kids.”
  — Dave Ramsey ([114:35])

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• Marriage trust & finances: [00:46 – 09:02]
• Solar scam caution: [10:30 – 18:07]
• Financial abuse & leaving controlling spouse: [43:50 – 52:04]
• Career change for greater purpose: [86:19 – 94:50]
• Car leasing math: [66:05 – 68:51]
• Emergency fund psychology: [21:37 – 25:46]
• Sunk cost analysis explained: [74:18 – 82:52]
• Advice to a single woman about buying a home: [101:31 – 104:44]
• Inheritance & raising kids of character: [107:13 – 115:44]

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Tone & Approach

Dave and Rachel mix directness, sarcasm, and empathy. Dave’s classic straight talk (“cry me a river,” “throw him out on his head,” “stupid tax”) is balanced by Rachel’s empathetic and affirming approach, especially on issues of trust and identity for women. Listeners are called to take responsibility, get practical, and embrace hope—not denial.

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Summary Takeaways

• Stop letting your circumstances—whether a spouse, a scammer, or your own complacency—dictate your financial present and future.
• Trust, communication, and alignment are bedrock principles—not just for money, but for life.
• You are not powerless: Know your rights, options, and worth, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
• Behavior, not theory, determines your success—80% of personal finance is about what you do, not what you know.
• Financial decisions should always be forward-facing: Don’t let sunk costs, old dreams, or fear of conflict keep you trapped.
• Whether single or married, young or seasoned, your financial journey is within your control—act, adapt, and keep growing.

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For deeper learning, budgeting tools, and more support, visit ramseysolutions.com.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. Rachel Cruz Ramsey, personality number number one, best selling author, co host of the Smart Money Happy Hour. My daughter is my co host. Today. Open phones at 888, 825, 5225. Sam is in Boise, Idaho. Hi, Sam. What's up?

[Caller]

Hi. I have a question and it is, how do I protect our financial future without my husband 100% on board, knowing I can't change him? What can I logistically do on a day to day basis?

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's not a wall that you can put up that protects your family from goals and values that are not aligned.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

They have to become aligned.

[Caller]

So he's just like, slower to get on board than I am. So he's like making progress.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's probably slower at everything than you are.

[Caller]

Probably.

[Dave Ramsey]

That might be. That might. You might just be a wee bit enthusiastic. Is that what it is?

[Caller]

That's pretty valid.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, let's have a little patience with the poor guy. No, I'm serious. I mean, no, you can't change him. And we certainly don't want to change him into you. I don't want to change my wife into me. My wife is way slower to make decisions than I am. My wife is always gonna default towards saving, not spending.

[Rachel Cruze]

And Sam, I'd be in your boat. Winston would be like your husband. As one of our therapists said, I'm very urgent. And I feel that from you too, so maybe I can relate. I get it.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, I mean, is that what's going on or is he just dug his heels in and goes, hey, the whole idea of saving money and getting out of debt is stupid and I'm gonna spend everything. He didn't really say that.

[Caller]

No.

I think he gets caught up in the urgency of, oh, no, we need a truck, or oh, no, we need this, or oh, my friends have this. And then all the, the long term goals get thrown aside. And so like, we do the baby steps.

[Dave Ramsey]

No. Then we just sit down and say, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. We have long term goals or we agreed to those and you're, you're going to keep your agreement with me.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, because in the moment when you're not all hot and bothered about buying a new truck, your Brain is actually working. But when you get all hot and bothered about buying a new truck, your brain shuts down, quits working. I know, because I do it. You do, too. Everybody does it, right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so what you. But you've just got to be called back to when we were sane and we were sitting at the kitchen table and the children were asleep and there was a candle burning, and we were doing a budget, and we were thinking about what things were going to be like when we're 65 and we're 30. 35. And you know, yes, we can buy a truck, but we have to do it in line with the way we said we were going to run our lives. And you just call back to that. You call back to that. And, you know, and, you know. And so. And Sharon and I do that to this day. And we've been working this stuff for 45 years. But we'll have to sit down and go, now, how is that aligned with this? And we may have an argument to make about it, but. Or maybe there's a slight adjustment or something. But. But you can't just go off the rails and go, yeah, we've been working for three years to get out of debt, and I'm going to screw it all up by going and getting a truck payment.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. Where are you guys at, Sam, financially? Do you guys have a lot of consumer debt?

[Caller]

No.

So we've paid off our debt twice now, and we're almost paid off with the third round. So we have a truck loan for 10,000 and a mortgage for 107. And that's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

So the third time you went back in debt is what you're talking about, the truck? You just keep talking. You just keep going back.

[Caller]

Yeah. We can't make it through baby step three.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Because mostly, I mean, not to, like, point the finger, but mostly because of his purchases.

[Caller]

Correct. Yeah. Motorcycles, side by side trucks. And you.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you went along with those

[Caller]

behind my back? Some of them.

Mm.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

That.

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is not a money problem. This is a marriage problem.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't do things behind your spouse's back because you're afraid of your spouse

[Rachel Cruze]

trying to avoid conflict. Just absolutely took the whole thing up

[Dave Ramsey]

in fire and it creates conflict.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It was. It was definitely like the. He knew I, like, was doing the numbers, and the numbers weren't going to add up to another monthly payment, and so he did it anyway because he. He wanted the cool, shiny toy.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so then we see that's breaking his word to his wife. That's a serious problem. And if he is willing to do that here, then that can also move into other areas he's willing to break his word with.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so this is not okay. It's not an okay pattern. Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's more of a. It's a trust issue. Right. When you get to the core of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, we agreed on this. We agreed on this. And you threw a 45 year old hissy fit and went and bought an F150.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. That's just bull crap. Okay, that's not that. Now I'm not going to take up for him. Okay. Instead I'm going to throw him in the marriage counselor's office and let them whale on him a bit about breaking the word to his wife. You cannot build relationship with people you cannot trust. Trust is the foundation for relationships. Broken trust, broke breaks relationships, period. It's a foundational issue. Basic psychology. Basic relational iq.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And that would, I mean send, send. Most people should send. Yes. And into a place of questioning everything of like, oh my gosh. Okay, if you're doing this, if you're

[Dave Ramsey]

lied to me about that, what else are you lied to me about?

[Rachel Cruze]

What's happening? Yes. Like what is breaking down here? And so it's either him having to grow up and not only face the conflict, but also tell himself no because he's functioning like a child. And if something doesn't get turned around. Right. And not only in your marriage, but

[Dave Ramsey]

him just like a kid on the 4 year old kid on the cereal aisle, throwing a fit because he wants Fruit Loops.

[Rachel Cruze]

It's going to continue.

[Dave Ramsey]

Only he's 45 years old and it's got $65,000 on an F150.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

So I would be.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know why I'm picking on Ford today, but it could have been a Silverado. But.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, no but Sam, you know I have Dr. John Deloney in my head. But you know when he always talks about when you're approaching these conversations making it not a you statement, even though he's been doing the action, it would be very easy to be like, you've done this, you've done this. What's going on in you, Sam? What's happening? The fear. The second question is, I don't think

[Dave Ramsey]

I can trust you.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. I mean, what is going on inside of you as his wife and bringing that to the table and telling him we need to sit down with someone, figure this out. Because this cannot continue to be a pattern where this becomes normalized. Not only Just for the money's sake. But again, we're going deeper than that. It's for your marriage and for the health of your relationship.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't want to be your mother and walk around behind you and clean up your poop.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, because what you want on the other end is complete freedom and honesty and vulnerability and be like, I'm dying for a new truck. Let's talk about it. Let's see if we can make the numbers work right. And then you kind of get to this place and you're like, we can't right now, but let's map out a way that we can get there. Like two grown adults. And, and that's what you want at the end of the day of you guys having the same set of values, maybe wanting to use your money for different things, but you at least have a plan that you're both working towards. And so that would be the goal, Sam, for you guys. And it probably will take a third party, I mean, honestly, a counselor, to kind of start that, that direction, that road to healing and getting, getting you guys in a new set of value systems. Because this is, this is.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

All right. Well, I have an issue with a solar company. I was scammed into making a long term deal with them and I was trying to find a way I can get out of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

How were you scammed?

[Caller]

Well, the sales rep made promises to me that made me walk and say, made me, but lured me to make the make the deal. He promised that I would not have an electric bill because the company that. Am I allowed to Say company names.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let me hear the story. It doesn't matter.

[Caller]

The company. He said the company was going to pay my electric bill and trade that I pay them for the solar. He showed it to me from his iPad that the company was going to pay it. And also that another thing that was that I could walk away after five years if it didn't work in my favor. So those things were kind of the biggest things that lured me to going on with the.

[Dave Ramsey]

Were those things in writing?

[Caller]

He did not have anything in writing. He had. He told me his contract that he had that for me to sign was on his iPad. So he showed that in writing on his iPad, just not in paper.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you didn't get a copy of that?

[Caller]

He said they don't give out paper copies

[Rachel Cruze]

or an email. Did he email you the document like a docusign?

[Caller]

No. He did.

[Rachel Cruze]

He did.

[Caller]

He did not.

[Rachel Cruze]

He did not. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm curious. Why did that at the time, why did that bullcrap line not concern you? I mean, he says you can't have a copy of the agreement you signed. That would concern me. From the moment he said that, regardless of what it was,

[Caller]

I agree. I saw it on the iPad. He said this in the contract. So I read it myself and I was like, okay, cool.

[Rachel Cruze]

And how long ago was this call? Has it been the five years or less than.

[Caller]

No, it was last April.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so the two things are a, you could get out of it anytime up to five years if it didn't work. And balance that they would pay your electric bill. And they have done neither. I'm guessing.

[Caller]

I found out in June, no, July of last year that they have not done either. They didn't pay the electric bill and that's when kind of everything started rolling.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And so when you confronted them about that and said, I need a copy of the contract that the salesman told me this. What did they say?

[Caller]

They sent a copy of it. Obviously it wasn't the same thing that the salesman showed me. And they just like, we're not backing out of it. We got you and this is where we want to be.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are they still open?

[Caller]

The company that the financier company is the company that installed it and that the salesman work for is under bankruptcy.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. There's a couple of those deals you need to check federaltradecommission.gov ftc.gov There's a couple of those deals that they have shut the solar companies down or they've gone out of business and they are releasing people from the liability of the finance contract. Because of that, you need to see if this particular company is one of those. I don't remember the names of them, but there's two of them that are floating around out there. One of them was real big with the Obama administration. The whole thing turned out to be a scam and they ended up dumping the whole thing. It was very embarrassing for the Obama administration. So if it's one of those, then it may be that you just have to contact an attorney or contact the Federal Trade Commission, either one. But first thing I would do is go on ftc.gov if I were you and do a little poking around about that particular name and see which of the solar companies are having the debt forgiven because they were scams. This sounds like it could be one of them. If it's not, and it's, you know, and yours is not in that bucket, then I would contact an attorney and, you know, we would subpoena the. We would find the salesman who doesn't work there anymore because they're now bankrupt. But I would find the salesman and put him on the stand and invalidate the contract because he puts you into a contract on a fraudulent basis. And I think you can be released from that. I'm not a lawyer, but probably going to cost you some money to do this, but some attorney's fees probably to get this done. And you're going to have to push really, really hard on it. But it's probably worth it because it's probably a lot of money. But I don't have a magic button that you can push that's going to make this go away easy. I don't have that one. The closest thing would be if you're one of those companies that the FTC has shut down. And so FTC, Federal Trade Commission.gov, that's the one you want to check out and then get on the phone with an attorney. If you're not one of those, that's what you would do. Yeah. Now, when I do something that leaves me vulnerable or hurts me financially, I always look in the mirror and go, just like Paul was. Paul owned his part of it and say, okay, I did something stupid here that left me open. And so when someone says, oh, we're going to do this, but I can't put it in writing. Let me help you with that. That's code for they're not going to do it. If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. And if you don't have a copy of it in writing, it didn't Happen. It's just missed, okay? And so, you know, don't get so freaking ginned up by a salesperson or by your need to own a product. Like, I'm gonna get solar to the point that you leave yourself vulnerable for that. And I've done a lot of stupid stuff, and every time I do something stup, and it costs me money, and, Paul, this is gonna cost you money. It's gonna cost you attorney's fees probably before it's over. Every time it costs me money. I call that stupid tax. And I have paid so much stupid tax in my 65 years on this earth. My goal with stupid tax is to never pay the same tax twice. If I'm gonna do something stupid, it oughta be a new stupid thing, not one I did before. And so since I have a whole collection of stupid things that I don't do anymore, now people call me wise. And that's where wisdom comes from. It comes from all the stupid things you didn't do that you don't do anymore, that you learn from. So at least go back and say, okay, as soon as that little butt said, you can't have a copy of it, it's only on my iPad, you should have tossed him on his head out the front door. Get off my property, Scumburger. You know instantly.

[Rachel Cruze]

Have you ever been scammed? This was like, a sophisticated scam with, like, a salesman and everything.

[Dave Ramsey]

That wasn't a scam. It was just a lying salesman.

[Rachel Cruze]

A lying salesman.

[Dave Ramsey]

Fair salesman. Lied.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I've been lied to by salesmen.

[Rachel Cruze]

Have you been scammed? Have you fallen for a scam?

[Dave Ramsey]

No.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's good. Good for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, not that I can think of. I can't think of one. Okay, I probably have, but I just can't think of one.

[Rachel Cruze]

You know who scammed me last year?

[Dave Ramsey]

Who?

[Rachel Cruze]

The usps. So I thought.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, the text.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do you remember? They texted me?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I got a text yesterday from them.

[Rachel Cruze]

I get them all the time now. And I say, I will not be giving you my. Because I gave it to him.

[Dave Ramsey]

No way.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Rachel Cruze]

I had to get it.

[Caller]

You did you?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. Cause I was legitimately expecting a package, and it said, my package was lost. And so you have to, like, enter in all your debit card information to pay a fee. I know, I know. I was waiting on my package, and

[Dave Ramsey]

I was like, oh, Rachel.

[Rachel Cruze]

Winston was like, babe, did you check out? Did you look at the website? And I was like, I mean, I copy and paste. It was. Y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Rachel Cruze]

It was terrible. Anyways, I won't do that again. Fair warning. And I've saved a lot of people. I told this on Smart Money Happy Hour, George and I's podcast, and I've saved a lot of people. People will DM me and be like, I got the USPS text.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your mother got that exact thing two weeks ago and sent it to me and said, hey, take care of this. We need to get this back. And I went, no, I'm not gonna take care of nothing. This is a scam.

[Rachel Cruze]

So, any calls, any texts? I learned my lesson. I don't trust them.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't trust them. USPS does not have your text number.

[Rachel Cruze]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

No hint. Neither does the irs. Hint. Neither does a Nigerian prince. Hint.

[Rachel Cruze]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Kim is with us in Nashville. Hi, Kim, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm great. I saved up, Dave, $1.6 million in investments. I plan to use it for my retirement. I've also been using it as my emergency fund. My question to you is, do I leave my six month emergency fund in my investment account or do I pull it out and put it in a bank? Or do I put it under my mattress

[Rachel Cruze]

in the sock drawer?

[Dave Ramsey]

So it's more psychological than it is mathematical. Okay, okay. Mathematically you would be fine to just leave it sitting there. And you've got so much money, you've done so good Congratulations. Way to go. You're a multimillionaire. You've got enough that if you need money, if you need $10,000 to, I don't know, bury a relative that died broke in Seattle. Okay. And whatever, Right. I'm making this up. Right. But you could just reach over to the mutual fund and do a withdrawal. Right? Wouldn't be a big deal. And so mathematically, that's okay. I personally would coach you, though, to set and label something as an emergency fund. And that's psychological. And the reason is, I don't know that if it needs to be six months, it could only be three, that's fine. And just put it in a High Yield Savings Account at Fairwinds Credit Union or something like that. Okay. And just something simple. And the reason is then when an emergency hits, you don't start and think, okay, is this a good time to pull money over my mutual fund? Because it could hit the day that Trump bombs Iran and the market drops 3% that day.

[Rachel Cruze]

And Kim's like, I'll just.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you go, I think I'll just put it on a credit card and pay it off after the bombing is over. You know, this is the kind of crap that goes through our minds if we're doing. If we're only doing math. And it's almost always the way life works. You know what I mean? That the emergency happens at exactly the wrong time. That's part of why they call it an emergency. I like having that money sitting over there in a stupid, underperforming High Yield Savings Account not doing nearly. It's not doing nearly as good as my investments. That's what I mean by stupid. Okay? But its purpose is not to invest. Its purpose is a buffer for me to keep my hands off my investments.

[Caller]

Gotcha.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that's psychological, right? If 100% of the time, we all knew we would dip into the S and P index fund and pull the money out for the emergency, no matter what the market was doing. But we just don't. We always play these mental gymnastics with ourselves. And so I have to trick myself into being smart.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, well, and for me, there's just, like, an ease to having that High Yield Savings Account. And we do. We have Fairwinds and it's on the app, and we have that. And then we have a whole other, you know, High Yield Savings Account that we have for other savings that we're doing. But just that that emergency fund, it stayed there. And we've. We'll beef it up still, like, one side we still have that. And there's just. There is for me, where I'm like,

[Dave Ramsey]

the reality is, you probably. Honestly, Tristan, in your situation, whenever you situation my situation, you probably. When you have an emergency, you probably got it in checking. You're probably not even gonna touch the emergency fund. But having it there, there's just this weird little thing. And three months is fine. You don't need six because you've got a bazillion months in good after tax investments. And so you're fine. You're not gonna have a problem. It's just a matter of remembering that personal finance is 80% behavior. And I have to account for behaviors when I make these decisions. So it's an excellent question, by the way. And again, congratulations. I'm so proud of you. You've done so well. Millions of dollars.

[Rachel Cruze]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Very cool. All right. Bianca is in Tampa. Hey, Bianca. What's up?

[Rachel Cruze]

Hi.

[Caller]

Thank you so much for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Caller]

So my husband and I are so thankful. We got introduced to Financial Peace University through our church. And I would say over the last year and a half, we've paid off all of our debt, credit cards, student loan, my husband's car payment, and I mean, we've been kind of working on this before, but we just really started focusing on it after we enrolled in Financial Peace University. And so we're at this point where we've. We have our emergency fund set up, we're invest. We're doing retirement, putting money away for our kids. But there's a caveat of I'm still leasing a car, and we didn't pay that off because we had this belief of, like, it's not really mine anyways, because we've just been borrowing it, leasing it, and it has $10,000 left on the lease for about a year and a half. And I'm wondering if I should just pay that off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes.

[Caller]

Okay. Should I buy out the lease? Is there any benefit to buying out the lease when the car is done? Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you're buying it out now.

[Caller]

Okay. So you think I should just pay it off?

[Dave Ramsey]

10,000 women is $10,000. The remaining payments on the lease or the buyout?

[Caller]

That's the remaining payment for the lease. The buyout is 42,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Do you have $42,000?

[Caller]

Yes, but I.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do you like the car that much?

[Dave Ramsey]

If you want the car, pay your car off. If you don't, then you need to sell your car.

[Caller]

And so I guess because I don't own it, it's a lease.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you. You own It. Okay. It's an alternative method of financing, and it's a horrible method of financing. You have a car payment. We need to get rid of your car payment.

[Caller]

Okay. Okay. So just pay off the remaining lease balance, which is 10,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Need to pay off $42,000 or you need to get rid of the car.

[Caller]

Okay. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

One of the two. So what's your household income?

[Caller]

We're around 180 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Well, you're doing really, really good, except you did some mental gymnastics on whether or not you actually own this car. Trying to not deal.

[Rachel Cruze]

It feels like you're renting it, though, is with the lease, like psychological.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is not Hertz. This is not Hertz. This is Lexus. Okay. And so, yeah, pay it off or dump it. It's just like you have a car debt. Just pretend like you have a car payment and a car debt, because you do. You have a car payment and you have a $42,000 payoff. And you have $42,000 in the account. Look at the car. Do I like the car? $42,000 worth. If I don't, it's time to sell the car. If I do like the car, then pay it off and keep it. You can do that. Make it 180. You're doing really good. Everything else you told me is on point. Yeah. You just managed to do an avoidance technique here. And I avoid. I just sidestepped that thing and just let it drive on by. No pun intended. Yeah. And so. Yeah. But no, it's still there. So, folks, here's the thing. And let's go deeper into her position, I guess, on this car leasing is now 78% of the new cars that leave the lot. And a car lease, when you back out, the numbers on it. And a closed end lease works like this. You have a series of payments. At the end of the payments, you then pay a lump sum to own the car or you turn the car in. Okay. And that's. You can run a financial. Put those numbers, that stream of payments and a lump sum into a financial calculator as opposed to the actual msrp, the sticker price, and back out what the cost is of what's called cost of capital in a lease. And that is your interest rate. On average, it's 14.2% right now. So you borrowed money at 14% to buy your car on payments. And the car company knows that. That's why 78% of them leave the lot right now. Are leases. They make more money on leases than they do putting you on payments.

[Rachel Cruze]

So there's more lease cars than just having a car loan.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep, yep. And not included in the car debt that we're seeing increase. You know, we've noticed that a trillion. We hit the trillion mark the other day with car debt. That's not even in the leases because leases are not technically, as she pointed out, considered debt. However, it's exactly what they are. It's a contract to pay payments. That's debt. And it's at a 14% interest rate cap cost of capital. Okay? And so. And guess what? They don't disclose the interest rate. You know why Federal Trade Commission disclosure regulations do not apply? Because it's not considered borrowed money. So they're sidestepping everything and screwing you people. Hello, Ford Motor Company. Hello, General Motors. Hello, Toyota. You're screwing people and you're getting away with it.

[Rachel Cruze]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Tristan is in Savannah. Hi, Tristan. How are you?

[Caller]

Hey, brother. How you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey. So my wife and I are getting married next month and we're blessed to be in a good financial position. But my question to you is, if you're starting over, what principles would you follow to build a strong family and lasting wealth over the next few decades?

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, that's an eight hour seminar. It's a really good question. There's a lot of layers to that.

[Caller]

I agree.

[Rachel Cruze]

And are you asking beyond money, Tristan?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. He's a strong family.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I Agree, it's beyond money. We're blessed to be in the position that we are financially. So money's not really an issue.

[Dave Ramsey]

The way the Ramses would view this at my house is it would start with a foundation of faith. And so we would start with a spiritual foundation and say, all right, God is in charge. And now let's learn what he would say about these things. And that's where a lot of the things we teach here on the Arab come from, is from scripture. I mean, we present them in a non scripture, non weird way, but most of the time. But the. But, you know, it comes down to, okay, how are we gonna do this? And so an example of that would be one of the things I learned when I started over was that I didn't ask my wife's opinion about anything. I just went and did whatever I wanted to do. And she was okay with that because she was raising babies and I was running a business. And so she didn't really want to go look at every piece of real estate I was buying. I was in the real estate business and I, you know, and I didn't ask her opinion. And so that's a huge mistake to not be constantly communicating about the items in our life. And so who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain. And so once Sharon and I got aligned with, I don't make big financial decisions, she doesn't make big financial decisions. And we're in agreement on a budget without the two of us knowing everything and being aligned on that. And so, you know, I had some 14 year old sea Doos at the lake house. And so I bought new Sea Doos the other day at the lake house to upgrade for the grandkids and everybody to ride on. But I didn't, you know, just call up the Sea Doo dealership and go bring me some Sea Doos. I said, hey, Sharon, one of them's messed up. We're getting some work done on them. We talked through what the situation was. It looks like the stupid things are, you know, time to upgrade. And we got the money. Any issue with that? No, none whatsoever. But she did not walk down on the dock and go, aren't those new? That didn't happen that way. So we're in agreement, we're in alignment. That's a big deal. And that has saved me. Like, we don't make large. Generosity plays philanthropy. We don't write large checks to ministries in support of them without us both talking about it and praying about it. So we make decisions together. That's principle number one. And that's a big deal. That saved me a lot of angst in my marriage and my relationship. And it's also saved me a lot of money. Cause it kept me from doing some stupid stuff I would have done probably on my own without her speaking into it. And she might have done on her own without me speaking into it. So I think that a spiritual foundation. And out of that comes things like, I will have no lack of gain if I listen to my virtuous wife. And so out of that comes a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. And so I'm going to plan an estate that changes my family tree. And that includes the character of the people I'm leaving the money to. If they're of poor character and I leave them money, it ruins their life. Because you become more of what you are when you get more money. And we started talking about that to Rachel Cruz when she was three years old, to her brother and her sister when they were three years old. So you have to be a worthy steward. And if you're faithful in the little things, you'll be given more to manage. This is a teaching for your children. So I'm gonna teach my children to give so that they don't think the whole world's about them. They're not going to be entitled little brats. Right. It's not about you. And so I'm going to teach them to be givers. I'm going to teach them to save, which is a sign that they have some discipline. And they can delay pleasure, which is a sign of emotional maturity. I'm going to teach them to spend and enjoy their lives. Because our Heavenly Father, if we being evil, know how to give good gifts to our kids, how much more so the blessings come from him. And so all of these things come out of that whole mindset. So, Rachel, you kind of sat and experienced that, I guess on the other side, being raised in that environment. Imperfect, not perfect. But it was very intentional.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, very much so. And I think, you know, money can easily become an over safety net, if you will.

[Caller]

Yep.

[Rachel Cruze]

And so you have to be careful. This balance. And that's why the generosity piece, I think, is really big. I feel like it does. It keeps you in check. When you write a. When you write a literal big check to something, there's. There's something spirit. There's something that just happens in the character of who you are. So that generosity piece, I think, is huge. And that plays into the character of you. You know, generous people are usually pretty humble people. That definition of humility, I think it came from Rick Warren, but he said humility is not thinking less of yourself, but it's thinking of yourself less. This way of servanthood and looking at others. Right. And what's going on in them. And it's not all about you. Cause money can easily become the center point of your life because you have the ability to go do whatever you want because you have the money.

[Caller]

Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

And so that it can easily become that your life is about you. That orbit. We put them back. Tristan, I was gonna ask you, is this. Do you guys have kids? Is this your first marriage or you got.

[Caller]

This is our first marriage. We are both faith based.

[Rachel Cruze]

How old are you guys?

[Caller]

I am 29. She is 25.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Yeah, that's great. And I'll just say, for Winston and I, I feel like one of the things we've learned, and we've been married 16 years, so there's a lot of people been married much longer than us that probably have more thoughts on the marriage piece. But I have found the healthier we are as individuals, the better our marriage is. Like, when I find that Winston is, like, working on. On himself and he's doing work over here, and if I'm doing that, learning and growing over here, like, there's something about that where I think for a little piece of me getting into this, I thought marriage is the missing link. And that's what's gonna, like, create this better person of who I am. And I think the more we've gotten into it, the more I'm like, wow, when Rachel takes care of herself, she's a better version of her. And same with Winston. And it's created a healthier marriage when that's been our perspective. And so there's something great in that. And then the thing that you told us, you told me early on in marriage, which I loved, was just serve each other. I think I was so worried about the roles and who's supposed to do what and what marriage formula is supposed to look like. And I remember you said, dad, just serve each other. And there's something beautiful in that. Each of you has a voice, Each of your opinions matter. And so there's not that that hierarchy really wasn't. I didn't see that as much with you and Mom. It was a very equal, level playing field with each other as well.

[Dave Ramsey]

By the time you were old enough to See it, that was there. It wasn't what I just described.

[Rachel Cruze]

But before you were born, I think that's big. I think that is for each of you to feel like you are heard and respected is big.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Submit yourselves one to another. Says in Ephesians, okay, that's serving each other. And so I'm going to put your needs ahead of mine. I'm going to put the needs of the family, family unit ahead of my own little selfish desire for a new pair of shoes or purse or a gun or car or a fill in the blank thing. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things, by the way. Ramsey's have all those things. Sharon this week, Dave this week, you know every one of those things. But those are not ahead of the good of the family unit's goals. It's not ahead of. They're not gonna interrupt my generosity because I bought too many guns.

[Rachel Cruze]

Right, right.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're not gonna interrupt my generosity cause I bought some sea doos.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

And another myth that I think we can kind of get into as well is that if I just have enough money, there's a level that problems for the most part kind of go away because I can just fix them. Do you know what I mean?

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

The more crap you own, the more repairmen you have to know.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, that. But also like you're still human and people and you're. You know what I mean? Like it's. It's still. Life is still gonna happen. And so it's not. It's not this over safety net like I was saying earlier. And there's something that I think. I. I don't know, we can kind of creep into and you're like, oh gosh. But it's not like it's almost.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're worshiping, we're getting our. We see God is. You don't say God is my provider. You say my mutual fund is.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's a dangerous spiritual ground. Yeah, Yeah, I agree with you completely.

[Rachel Cruze]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Kim is in Baltimore. Hi Kim, how are you?

[Caller]

Well, I've been better. So I'm sort of in a crisis situation at the moment and I really need some advice. I'm a 53 year old stay at home mom. I've been married 23 years. About three years into our marriage, my husband asked me to quit my career to help open a business. So I did. So I worked in the business with him for about two years and then we got pregnant, started a family, had kids. So I've been staying at home with the kids for the past 17 years. Since then he's controlled everything. He doesn't let me have access to any kind of account. I know nothing. He doesn't let me have access to anything. I get an allowance on the credit card once a month. Once that allowance cuts off, it's done for the month and I have to wait for the next month to have money again. That allowance is supposed to cover my gas, everything for the kids, food, stuff like that. It's not a very generous amount.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long has that been going on?

[Caller]

Oh, that's been going on the better part of the 17 years pretty much.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why have you tolerated it for 17 years?

[Caller]

Because I'm an idiot. I was scared. I've been scared.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are you scared of him?

[Caller]

Yeah, I'm scared of him.

Yeah.

And I'm scared, like anytime I go up against him, he punishes me by like taking stuff away or making my life even harder. Anyway, I have no access to anything and he gets a text message even with the credit card.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long has he been hitting you?

[Caller]

He doesn't hit me. He's all verbal. He doesn't hit me at all. It's just verbal and financial.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where, where is your family?

[Caller]

They're all gone. I don't have anybody. And he has parents locally that will stop at nothing to help him.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wait a minute. I. I'm not care. I don't care about him anymore. So your mom and dad are gone?

[Rachel Cruze]

Gone?

[Caller]

Yes, they've been gone for 20 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your siblings are gone?

[Caller]

My sister, yes, she committed suicide. I have one sister, but she basically not anyone that could give me any support. She's an alcoholic and not in a good place.

[Rachel Cruze]

Do you have kids, Kim?

[Caller]

Yeah, I do. I have two kids.

Twins.

Boys. Yeah, they're 17. But this gets worse. So, anyway, I recently found out he's having an affair secretly behind my back. Yeah, right. Secretly behind my back. He's in the process of opening the second location of our business with her so she has somewhere to work. He doesn't know that I know any of this information yet. He recently went to the bank to get a new business loan to open this shop. I don't know how that's going to play into, like, debt, you know, like, is he opening this shop and making it look like he has more debt and, you know, wanting to divorce me? I did see that he had reached out about looking to get a divorce with an attorney. His father is his accountant, and him and his father hide everything. Basically. They make it look like the business is a loss every year, but every single thing that he buys, right down to his ED medication, goes on a business card. So he's paying for everything with business expenses, but then claiming that he doesn't make anything. And like I said, his dad and him hide all of this. So right now I'm in the house with him. He doesn't know that I know that he's having the affair or starting a new business. I don't know what to do. I don't have any funds to get an attorney. In fact, he's laughed at me before in the past when I brought up divorce. And he laughed in my face and told me that I don't have access to money. And then I could never fight him because I can't afford an attorney. And he's right. So I don't know what to do right now. I have so many legal questions to ask.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's first establish that he's full of crap, okay? You have access to all kinds of money once your attorney shuts him down and takes half of what is in the accounts. And then Maryland, they'll do that fairly quickly. And so, you know, if you get half of everything that's in his account, you got plenty of money for an attorney to fight him for years. And so he's bluffing, or he's an idiot and doesn't know what he's talking about, or both. But he's just got you. He's got you buffaloed is what we would call it. Got you cowed. And you believe that he is stronger and smarter than he is, and he's not. He's not that bright. He's not that smart, and he doesn't have the law on his side. So, yeah, you do need an attorney, and you do need to leave as soon as you possibly can, and you do need to load the kids up and take them with you. But we've just got to figure out where you're going to go. Are you going to go to a domestic violence shelter? You're going to call your church, talk to your pastor, and then you get on the phone once you get out of there and find some legal counsel that will take on this guy, because legal counsel can get paid. They just got to get paid out of those accounts that he has control of. And it's very possible, very easy. Now, they can't. You can't give them a $10,000 deposit up front because you don't have $10,000. Okay, but. But you can explain to them what's going on here. And some good divorce attorney would kind of think this is going to be fun, right? They're going to mop the floor with him.

[Caller]

I know there's a good local attorney I've called. I haven't an appointment with her, but it's her first available appointments, not till August 18th.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, call her up and tell her. Tell her you a. A toxic, abusive situation and you need to move the attorney. You need to get an appointment sooner.

[Caller]

I've told them that they. That's the first they have. I've tried a couple of times. They did put me on a waiting list.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, then call another attorney. And call another attorney.

[Caller]

Okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

You're. You're. You have to be done letting other people set the agenda in your life. An attorney that can't see me till August might not be my attorney. A guy who won't give me any money might not be my husband. A guy who has an affair probably not going to be my husband. The accountant, who's his father and is committing fraud to avoid taxes, might go to jail,

[Caller]

right?

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, by the way, tax fraud is criminal,

[Caller]

right?

[Dave Ramsey]

So what you're saying you were describing there not only doesn't survive an audit, but if the IRS proves its intention, then all players might go to jail. The accountant father and the moron husband. And so, you know, maybe he. Maybe a call to the IRS and say, hey, you've got some players over here. Y' all ought to check out.

[Caller]

Am I correct in my thought that he's not legally allowed to be Putting all this stuff on business expense.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like, I mean, that's what I'm talking about.

[Caller]

Everything.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Caller]

I mean, that's not legal, right?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's not. At a minimum, it doesn't survive an audit. And a maximum, it could be criminal.

[Rachel Cruze]

And depending if the app, they're hiding income and revenue from the company so they don't pay taxes.

[Dave Ramsey]

That. That's criminal.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's tax avoidance and then there's tax fraud. There's two different things. Okay, so anyway, but that's not. That's not the issue here. You know, that's just. Is one more notch in the belt that says this is a bad guy. It doesn't really affect you because you're not going to be there anymore.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So. Yeah. Are you involved in a church at all?

[Caller]

I am not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, hang on. I'm going to have a Christian pick up and we're going to hook you up with one of our financial coaches in the area and get you plugged in with a good church and get you plugged in with some good attorneys and see if we can't get you out of there pretty quick because this is. This is done.

[Rachel Cruze]

Terrible. I'm so sorry for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a horrible situation. What you've described is not something anyone should stay in.

[Caller]

Foreign.

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[Dave Ramsey]

John is in Minneapolis. Hi, John, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing good. How about yourself?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I Deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Well, I wanted to kind of pick your brain on my situation. So I am debating filing bankruptcy, getting a secured credit card to potentially buy my first house in two years. Right around Covid, I got myself into about 12 grand worth of debt, and I could pay 1500 bucks, file chapter seven and start saving. Now, it is relevant to say that I. I got a better job since then. I now make anywhere between 10 and 25k a month, but I also have a girlfriend.

[Dave Ramsey]

You make 10 to 25k a month and you're worried about $12,000 in debt? Yeah. You realize how lame that sounds?

[Caller]

I know, I know. Yeah. But I'm also taxed at a heavier rate because it's whooping.

[Dave Ramsey]

You make $25,000 a month. You could have lived on 12, 12 and paid off 12 in one month.

[Caller]

So you don't think it's worth it to. To save the money?

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, I think it's asinine. You make so much money. Go pay your bill, dude.

[Caller]

Down. It's up and down, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, between 10 and 25. Cry me a river.

[Rachel Cruze]

$120,000 to 250. $12,000 of debt. That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You didn't call me with 1.2 million in debt.

[Caller]

Right. I guess it does sound silly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay, so let me back up. Let me back up three steps. Okay? This money is new. This money, this income is very new, isn't it?

[Caller]

It? Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And that's why you haven't done the calculation I just did. Okay. So if you make $10,000 a month, that's $120,000 a year. If you make $25,000 a month, that's$300,000 a year. So you're making 112,000 to 300 somewhere in there in the coming months. But your brain has not caught up with that math yet because you've never made that before, and you certainly hadn't made it lately.

[Caller]

Right.

And, well, I'm also. My girlfriend has good credit, and I'm trying to get mine back on track, but I have to take care of this debt first.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, the bankruptcy won't help that, John.

[Dave Ramsey]

Bankruptcy puts you out of the house business for two to three years. And by the way, they're not going to let you file chapter 7. There's a means test when you go to file A Chapter 7, which wipes all the credit card debt out. And the means test says, looking at your income, do you have the ability to pay this back? And the judge is going to go, huh? And they're going to throw you into a chapter 13 for five years. So your plan's not going to work. Even if I would go along with it. And I'm not going to go along with it because it's not good for you. So what would be much better? So you were making nothing before? Hardly. I mean, you must have had no income. Not had a low income before, did you?

[Caller]

Like six to eight grand a month? Yeah, it wasn't, wasn't that much.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's more than I was thinking. Thinking.

[Rachel Cruze]

Not bad. John, what's your, what's your life? What's your lifestyle like? I don't understand.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are you doing with all this

[Rachel Cruze]

money if you don't have a house? How much is your rent?

[Caller]

My rent is only 900 and I, I had a repossession of a vehicle and I've since cleared off a lot of my debt, but I still have this, this chunk hanging. And I went down. I bought two used, two used cheap cars that we got in on trade at the dealership. So I had good deals on and so I planned on, that's what I kind of do is just plan on keep paying cash for vehicles. But my girlfriend, I want to upgrade her vehicle and I'm also helping her wipe out her credit card debt.

[Rachel Cruze]

You're talking about filing for bankruptcy and upgrading your girlfriend's vehicle in one sentence like this? No, no, I think your priorities are all over the place. Do you feel that? Do you feel chaotic?

[Dave Ramsey]

Do you sell cars for a living?

[Caller]

I'm a finance manager at a Ford dealership.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, I thought so. Okay, all right, so let's slow down a little bit. All right? Girlfriend has started to become in this conversation, high maintenance. She wants a car, she wants a house. She gets, she doesn't want a car, but she gets nothing until you get your grown up life straightened out. Honey, you gotta get your grown up life straightened out and you don't be buying cars for people you aren't married to and buying houses with people you're not married to.

[Caller]

To.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you certainly don't do that too. And you certainly don't do that to make them happy because they're not worth being married to if that's what makes them happy. So warning, Warning, warning. Okay, so now, so we're going to set her aside and let her have her little life while we date her and we're going to look at John. Now John makes 6 to 8 to 10 to $25,000 a month. So I want John to sit down and Say, do the math. You know how to do math. You're a finance manager, for God's sakes. Sit down and do the math and say, okay, where is my $10,000 going? Where is my $12,000 going? Where is my$8,000 going? And then make it behave. I want you to buy food, shelter, clothes. You have $900. Very good. Okay, pay the cars off. Any car that is in your name needs to get paid off or sold, and you need to clear these debts. Now. Then, as you know, you're sitting in the chair looking at credit reports every day. Credit reports age out. Anything that is not a bankruptcy stays on seven years, but approximately three to four years out. An old repo, an old defaulted credit card that has now been paid off and made good, an old repo that has been cleared up and made good, the deficit has been negotiated out. All of that, that's three or four years old, hardly counts against you anymore. It might bump your credit score, but you can go get a house. But you need to put these things all paid off, all cleared, so you can get the credit report clock ticking. Because when they tick off seven years, they will all disappear. Chapter seven bankruptcy is 10 years, though, my friend. It stays on their 10 years. And when you have them fill out an application in your office at Ford to get a Ford Motor Credit Loan, it doesn't say, if you file bankruptcy, it doesn't show up on your credit report. It says, have you ever filed bankruptcy? And if you say no and you have, that's fraud. So the answer is, for the rest of your life, you have to say, I filed bankruptcy while I was making $15,000 a month and I had $12,000 worth of debt. That would be stupid. You don't want to do that.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm at a loss for words. That doesn't really. I'm just confused. I just don't. I just can't get in his brain. I'm not sure. I don't understand his logic. No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Maybe she wants a nice car, she wants a nice house, and he wants to impress her.

[Rachel Cruze]

But that has nothing to do filing bankruptcy. I mean, like, I just don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

He thinks it's the shortest way to get there.

[Rachel Cruze]

Of all of it, though, I don't. It just. Yeah, it just makes no sense. So, yeah, John, I. I would make a. I would make it a goal. Live on four grand a month. It's plenty. With your rent, lights, cell phone, insurance, and throw six grand this month at the debt and the next month the same. You're Completely debt free, get an emergency fund. And I would work on John. There's a lot of, of. She need. You said she wants a new car. I was like, no, no, she doesn't want to. I, I want, There's a, there's a lot of ego in all of this. I, I would, I would do some work on John if I were you, John. I would, I'd get to the bottom of what some of this that you're grasping at. You're grasping at a reality that's not there. And it's, and it's so interesting to, to hear you talk about it because I, I, I don't, I don't know. I don't get it. I'm at a loss. I am at a loss.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

And I think our audience is too, Everyone just, we all just kept looking at each other like, I don't get it. I don't know. I don't know. Well, it's, and bankruptcy is the most extreme. I think that's it too. Bankruptcy is the most extreme. I think if he called and was like, I don't know. I'm thinking about doing debt collections and letting it go, you know, letting it go to be bad debt and be sold and try to negotiate it, like, even that. I'm like, okay, that's not a smart thing. But bankruptcy, I'm like, that's just the most, one of the most extreme things that you can do to yourself financially.

[Dave Ramsey]

But somebody on TikTok told him that in two years he can get a house if he has no debt starting today. And the best way to get rid of the debt is bankruptcy. And yeah, all of that, of course, was TikTok law, which doesn't, isn't real law and isn't how bankruptcy really works. There's a means test.

[Rachel Cruze]

You were very empathetic.

[Dave Ramsey]

When you go in, when you go in. I'm not, I'm not, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to. You were just trying to make sure he hears me, that's all.

[Rachel Cruze]

John, we are for you. We are for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

I, I, we want you to win.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, I don't want that to be shameful.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're just confused by.

[Caller]

Foreign.

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[Dave Ramsey]

Buying or selling a home is a high stakes event. You need a pro in your corner. If you you met somebody that didn't get their license three weeks ago and knows your mother from bridge club, that's not how you pick your realtor. You get a real estate agent that does a lot of real estate deals. They know what the flip they're doing. They're high octane, high protein. That's how you get to be a Ramsey trusted vetted Real estate Agent. If you want to connect with one for free, click the link in the show notes or head on over to ramseysolutions.com agent the Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by why Refi? If you've fallen behind on your private student loans and don't know where to turn, why Refi works with borrowers and other that other lenders won't work with and helps them explore low fixed rate refinancing options. Go to y refi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Rachel Cruze]

Today's question comes from Max in Ohio. I am a 70 year old retiree. My wife and I prepared well for retirement, have no debt including our home. I would like to lease a car for three years and then give it back and repeat the process every three years. At our age I don't want to worry about paying for car maintenance considering that we can easily afford this. Is it okay for us to lease rather than buy a car?

[Dave Ramsey]

Leasing a car does not get rid of maintenance. You're still responsible for the maintenance you're thinking because you're driving a newer car, you're not going to have any other

[Rachel Cruze]

is it paying for maintenance is the.

[Dave Ramsey]

I wonder if the warranty maintenance is not included in a lease.

[Rachel Cruze]

If the warranty for.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the warranty would be on the new car, whether you bought it in cash or whether you leased it. And the quality of the car not needing as much maintenance might be what he's referring to. I want to drive a nice car, so I don't have to worry about that.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, you just said not worrying about paying for car maintenance. Maintenance paying for.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you do pay for car maintenance, but he don't have to pay for it. If there's not much like a brand new car, you don't have a lot of maintenance on it.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that's what I'm thinking. He's thinking about, I want to drive a nice car that doesn't require a lot of maintenance. Okay. If that's what you're saying, it's ridiculous to do it the way you're talking about. You should just buy the car and go buy a brand new car. It sounds like you're a multimillionaire. If you're a multi millionaire and you want to go buy a $100,000 car, go buy a car, just write a check. And then three years later, if you feel like that car is getting old, then write another check, get you another one. And you're going to take a loss on that car, but you're going to take a bigger loss if you lease it, because 100% of the loss in value is built into the lease. So whatever you would lose by buying a new car and trading it every three years, you're paying for it in the lease. You're going to lose more than that by leasing because the lease covers at least that plus a percentage profit, plus the cost of capital and the interest.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So your theory breaks down, and if you think that leased cars have less maintenance than cars that are paid for, that are the same exact car, they don't. And there is no lease maintenance program. Now, you could rent one at Hertz and Hertz will keep it, but that would be like super expensive. Right. If you want to go over Hertz or Dollar rent a car and rent you a car the whole time, they'll. They'll maintain their cost, but you're going to pay through the nose for that, obviously. And that's not what you're talking about. So I'm thinking that what he's talking about is that a nicer car doesn't require as much maintenance.

[Rachel Cruze]

And if I get a new car every Three years, I'm not going to

[Dave Ramsey]

have as much, and I don't have to worry about it. And if you can afford to do that and you want to do that, I don't have a problem with that at all. It's just you're losing a lot of money in the first three years is when a car loses its most value because cars lose 70% of their value in the first five years.

[Caller]

Years.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so $100,000 car becomes a $30,000 car in five years. And so that's burning cash. But if you got a lot of money, you can afford to do that. Okay. I just bought a brand new Ford Bronco Raptor package. Okay. But I can afford for the thing to be worth nothing in a few years. I can afford for that. It's not going to affect my life. I've got enough margin. And if that's you. You got enough margin and you want to do this, I'm fine with that. You know, that's, that's why you've worked. But don't, don't lease it. Don't, don't lease it. No, no. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. Did I mention that it's horrible? Rachel is in Huntsville. Hi, Rachel. What's up?

[Caller]

Hey, Dave. Okay, so I am newly married, and we are in the process of blending a family of five and getting a mortgage, taking care of a rental property, getting it set up to be rented, and still on baby step two. So right now my question is rental property.

[Dave Ramsey]

One of. One of you that had the house that's going to become a rental property used to be your house.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why don't you just sell it?

[Caller]

So he. That could be a possibility.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it is a possibility. Clear up all your debt.

[Caller]

So it's a, it's a tiny home, and it probably wouldn't clear up all the debt. It might bring 130. And so the house that we're in now, it, you know, it was a fully remodel, so I have to refinance it because I have a HELOC on it, a personal loan, and the original $60,000 mortgage, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but if you sell, how much other debt do you all have? Other than what you just mentioned,

[Caller]

I have it all out. So like nine. 9,000 in credit cards, 7,000 in student loans, an $18,000 car.

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's not. And then on the house, you've got a first mortgage. It's how much? 170. And the HELOC is how much the first mortgage is?

[Caller]

60.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm sorry, 60 and the HELOC is how much?

[Caller]

88. 88 and a $15,000. Personal loans. So 170 total is what personal loan

[Dave Ramsey]

is on the house?

[Caller]

Yeah, it was just I needed extra that didn't want or didn't have it in the 75.

[Dave Ramsey]

150. So 200k. What's the house worth?

[Caller]

235.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. You maxed this thing out, didn't you? And the, the tiny house, that's worth 130. What's owed on it?

[Caller]

Nothing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, perfect. Sell it, clear up 9, 7, 18, 15 and then refinance the 60 and the 88 on a 15 year fixed.

[Caller]

Okay. I mean, my husband is really wanting the rental income and already some win.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's stupid. We're going to borrow on your home, your $235,000 house to buy a tiny house for rental income, gross. No. Yeah, and it's effectively what we're talking about.

[Caller]

My original question was, you know, like right now with the mortgage, was I going to do a 15 or a 30? And. And I wanted you to do a

[Dave Ramsey]

15 because you're going to get rid of all this stinking debt.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

When you only got 60 and 88. He only got 60 and 88. And that's your only debts. And you refinance those on a 15 year fixed. Right now you're talking about five and a half or six. So.

[Rachel Cruze]

Which is pretty wild, Rachel.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, five and three quarters. You're going to be in great shape. You're going to have no payments anywhere. Paid off your car, your student loan, your credit card, your 15,000 and whoo, we're free. We don't trade a tiny house.

[Caller]

Rachel may only bring 130.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know, but you owe nothing on it. Right?

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So 130 in my hand will pay off 15, 9, 8 or 9, 7, 8. You can even pay off a bunch of the HELOC. Pay down the HELOC.

[Caller]

Don't even, don't even do a refi of mortgage.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think you could pay off the HELOC and everything else and only have your first mortgage.

[Caller]

Yeah. With 60,000, that's.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your, what's the interest rate on

[Caller]

the 67 and a half?

[Dave Ramsey]

Little. Little rough. Yeah.

[Caller]

And the new, the ones that, the ones that I'm looking at right now to do the refi of the house HELOC and the 15 year is 6.625 and $1,700 a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I wouldn't do that. I'd sell the tiny house and be debt free with $60,000 owed on my home.

[Rachel Cruze]

And then the thing is that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Be 100% free. Get on a budget with your new husband. The two of you throw your incomes in together, and let's go get rich.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. And then if you guys want to buy a tiny home and rent it out in a few years, you can do that. Well, if they want to. Some people. Dave doesn't want to. Rachel may want to. You, Rachel, you may want to. But if y' all do, just do it with Katie. It like this is your ticket out.

[Dave Ramsey]

A tiny home has a tiny market. Nobody wants it.

[Caller]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's why they're. That's why. Jeez, it's just a fad. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm. If you get 130 for that thing and clean up all of this.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes, this is your ticket.

[Dave Ramsey]

Definitely what you want to do. And then you ask yourself, would I take a loan out on my home that has $60,000 mortgage to buy a tiny home to rent? The answer would always be no. And effectively, if you don't sell it and do all this, it's the same thing. Let me tell you something I see happen way too often. People fall behind on their bills and they wait. They hope it will work itself out. It won't. That's why I recommend Guardian Litigation Group. Here's the deal. If you've missed payments, collectors are calling, or if you're getting letters threatening legal action, that's not something to ignore. That's the moment to deal with it. Because when you do nothing, it escalates. They can take you to court, and if you don't respond, they can win by default. And that gets expensive fast. Guardian Litigation isn't a call signal center. They're an actual law firm. From day one, you're assigned an attorney to represent you. So if things do escalate, you're not scrambling and you're not hit with surprise legal fees. Guardian Litigation only gets paid when the debt is negotiated and you accept the settlement offer. This isn't about shortcuts. It's about dealing with the problem before it gets worse. Go to guardianlit.com Ramsey today. That's guardianlit.com Ramsey today. Today. Attorney advertising results may vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed. All right, here's a technique that will help you. It's helped me a lot. Make decisions like our last caller's facing. And it's one of the reasons you will hear me be so incredulous and so quick and harsh to judge on something, because it's the technique I'm using, I'll just share it with you inside baseball. Okay, Here we go. It's called a sunk cost analysis. A sunk cost analysis is simply this. You don't make decisions based on how you got here. You make decisions. That's the sunk cost. You make decisions based on where we're going. So five years from today, what do you want your life to look like? Not five years ago, all these things happened. You don't do your analysis based on all the trauma or the bad decisions or what you thought was a good decision. But now that you're married, it's not a good decision anymore because you wouldn't do that if you were married and all that kind of stuff. So all that matters now is we're getting married and we're moving forward together. She's got some kids, she has a house. I have a tiny house, okay? That's all that matters. How we got here or what my little dream was prior to this doesn't matter anymore. The second and the way you can determine the okay. What's going to put me in the best shape five years from today is to reverse engineer where you are, okay? And you ask yourself the question, if I, instead of that item, if I had that pile of money in the middle of my kitchen table, would I buy that item? You can do that with anything. You can look at up. Like, you know, there's an old joke that says there's two great days of owning a boat. The day you buy it and the day you sell it, right? Which means that usually by the time people get rid of a boat, they're sick of their boat. Now, I'm a boat person. I've got a couple of boats, and I'm not sick of them at all. They're excellent boats. They're Mastercrafts. World's best ski boat. There's an advertisement for you. And you know, so. But I'm not sick of them. And so. But I do know what they're worth. And if I look down on the dock at that boat and I say that boat, that's not true. I won't use real numbers, but let's just say that boat's worth $40,000, okay? And if I had $40,000 in the middle of the table, kitchen table, and I didn't own that boat, would I go buy that boat today? If the answer is no way, then sell the boat because you'd rather have the $40,000 than the. The boat. That's the reverse engineering of it. Okay? So if you look up at her situation and you say, I can rent out my tiny $130,000 tiny house for 500 bucks a month. Meanwhile, I can pay payments on $9,000 worth of credit card debt, $7,000 worth of student loans, $18,000 worth of car, $15,000 worth of personal loan, and $8,088,000 worth of HELOC. That's going to. Those payments are going to be a lot more. More than the rent that that tiny house will bring in. And that tiny house being sold will clear up all of those payments. So the way you would reverse engineer that and say, if I didn't own this tiny house and the only way I could buy it would be to borrow 88 on a HELOC, 15 on a personal loan, nine on a credit card, seven on a student loan, and 18 on my car to go buy this tiny house. Would I go buy this tiny house by doing it that way? And the answer is, hell, no. Not even close. You wouldn't even think about doing that? You know, not even close. You know, no way would you trade a $500 rental income for getting rid of all those payments ever. No way. Doesn't make sense. And so that's why it's instantaneous for me to give that answer. But all I did was I just reverse engine is if you didn't own it and you had $130,000 sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, and you could either pay off all of this debt with it, or you could go buy a tiny house, no one in their right mind would go buy the tiny house. It's a ludicrous mathematical equation. Not even close. And it doesn't matter how we got here. That's where we are. So you reverse engineer it, and you ask yourself, would I do that? No, I would not do that. That be asinine to do that. I'm not doing that. And so that's why we can answer her with such force so quickly. And you can do that for yourself. Anytime you say, okay, I've got money in a stock. My grandpa gave me a stock. Well, I don't care who. I don't care where you got it. You have Exxon stock, and you have $400,000 in Exxon stock. I don't know anything about Exxon. I've not looked at it lately. I don't know what the stock is. I'm not making a judgment about Exxon one way or the other. But you just ask yourself, if I had $400,000 in the middle of the kitchen table. Would I go buy Exxon stock? Probably not, because you were not well diversified. But you just got it from your grandpa. And it's not like it's his family bible. It's stock. It's not got an emotion tied to to it. And so if you wouldn't go buy it again with that same amount of money, then don't keep it. And if you do that, if you practice that exercise, you can make decisions on whether to buy an investment, whether to keep an investment, whether to buy an item, whether to keep an item instantaneously. It's the same part of your brain that says, I'm gonna throw all this stuff away cause I'd rather have a clean closet. It's the exact same part of your brain that you're using gets the clutter out.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a declutter. It's a cleansing process. And you say, would I do it again if I hadn't already done it? No. Then undo it and sell the car, sell the boat, sell the Exxon stock, sell the tiny house, whatever it is. But if you go, oh, no, I think in the next five years, the best possible investment on the planet is a tiny house bringing $500 to in rent on $130,000 investment, which, by the way, sucks as an ROI. But if you, you know, if you really believe that's the best thing, then you should keep it. But you can't possibly believe that. Okay. Not.

[Caller]

Not.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. Katie is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Katie. What's up?

[Caller]

Hi.

Thank you guys so much for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help?

[Caller]

So, okay, my husband and I this week just combine our finances. This week we've been. Yes. This week it's brand new.

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long y' all been married?

[Caller]

We've been married for three years.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many?

[Caller]

Three.

[Dave Ramsey]

Three years. Okay, good. Okay.

[Caller]

Yes. We've been together for eight and a half years. And that entire time, it was made very, very clear that we were never going to be combining finances. The reason for that being he had a previous marriage and. And through a bunch of different things, ended up having to go bankrupt and has a lot of trauma where finances are

concerned.

And so I never expected to be combining finances with him, even though it was something I really wanted. But because of our debt and just our situation, he did come to me and finally said, hey, okay, I guess this is something we can try because

[Dave Ramsey]

it's not something else. Good for him. Good. That was hard for him.

[Caller]

It was incredibly hard for him. And it happened Immediately after a big moment of conflict. And so I just think there was

a lot of trust, a lot of humility.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for him.

[Caller]

He's a great man. I had been sending him videos of your guys' for a little while, so that may have helped. But yeah, so my question really just boils down to we've been sitting down trying to figure out, out how to restructure, how to combine, how to do this smoothly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, it's messy, isn't is. It's a very. And it brings up all the emotions every time you look at a number.

[Caller]

And every time I look at him, he looks like he's going to puke and I feel so bad.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just give him a hug. I hug him and remind him, remind him that you think he's a great man. Let me just tell you this is a hard thing you're doing.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

But it's worth it. If it is. If it is strenuous and it's causing your stomach to come up in your throat, both of you, that makes. That means you're good human beings. You're facing awkwardness to get a better future.

[Caller]

Well, our. We were gifted financial Peace University by our neighbors who have become our very best friends. And they are the biggest fans of you guys and they believe so much in your.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let me tell you what, let me. I'm big fans of you and your husband and I want, I think the way you've approached this conversation and his humility and what he's doing, but that is not going to mean it's going to be easy. I can only promise you that it will get easier. When we combined our finances, I almost puked every night because I was used to being in complete control and I no longer was. I was now accountable. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Andrew is with us in Philadelphia. Hi, Andrew, how are you?

[Caller]

Hey, Dave. Hey, Rachel. Get to talk to you guys today.

[Dave Ramsey]

You too. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I would like to pick your brain on this question I'm having with myself and that is to. Should I leave my current stable job to pursue going back to school for the like a more fulfilling job?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. What would you be going to school for?

[Caller]

So I would like to go back to school for. To become a marriage and family therapist.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So do you have your undergrad already done?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you'd have to finish your master's so that you can get licensed and do your practicums.

[Rachel Cruze]

How long is that? Is that a two year?

[Dave Ramsey]

Two year?

[Caller]

Yeah. It's usually a two year program.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it costs what?

[Caller]

It costs $34,000. And then I do have. I did a little bit of research kind of on. So I'm a veteran and I have 100% disability. And then I looked into the. They have a vet center scholarship program which will pay for 100% of the tuition. I think they give you like a thirteen hundred dollar a month expense. Yeah. The only. The only catch to it all is that I would have to, you know, basically at the whim of the VA for six years to go wherever they need me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, no, I'm not doing that. No, no, no, because the VA is going to pay you half. A marketplace, a marriage and family therapist can make 100 to 100 and a half. You're not gonna make that the VA. You're not gonna make 60 with a VA. Okay, so it's not worth that 34,000 out of pocket. I'd rather do. So do you have any money saved?

[Caller]

So I'm on baby step two right now. I got about, I would say probably like 13,000 left to go, like 1800 on a credit card and 11,000 in my original student loans.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so by marriage and family therapist, you mean you would be like opening a practice charging people an hourly rate to sit down and help them with their issues?

[Caller]

That would be the end goal. If I did that scholarship program.

[Dave Ramsey]

I would not do the scholarship program. I've already established that.

[Rachel Cruze]

What are you doing now?

[Dave Ramsey]

Six years. The six year trades. Not worth it.

[Rachel Cruze]

What are you doing now and what are you making right now?

[Caller]

I'm a utility locator for a construction company. I'm making about 35 to 45,000 a year.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So if you. But the military has a program that you don't have to go to work for the military that's just part of your GI bill. And they'll pay you a stipend plus a bunch of your tuition with no requirement to go to work for the Voice.

[Caller]

So I've used my GI bill.

[Dave Ramsey]

You already have used it?

[Caller]

Yeah, I've used the full 36.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, okay.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

What was that used on?

[Caller]

That was for my psychology undergrad. Your undergrad psychology.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, cool. So you've been pursuing this for a while.

[Caller]

Okay, yeah, it's kind of been a big thing for me since I got out of the military myself.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much do you receive in disability income?

[Caller]

It's about 3,900amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

So call that 4 grand a month. Plus you make 30,000, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so we're talking about. About an $80,000 income.

[Caller]

Yeah, I would say about that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right. And you sound like the words you're using. You're single.

[Caller]

I have a girlfriend. I am divorced, though, and I have.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I mean, you don't have two incomes and all that, so you got a girlfriend.

[Rachel Cruze]

I'm wondering, Andrew, if you can do some of this while you work full time and do night classes. I've had.

[Caller]

We.

[Rachel Cruze]

I've known one or two people that have done that. And seeing if you can work your way through, it may take you a little bit longer, but to keep the income going so you could somewhat cash flow it. It may not be next year because we'd want you out of debt with an emergency fund before you jumped into all this. But

[Caller]

that's kind of what my thought originally because I've been listening to you guys for a while. I know not to take out more loans or anything like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

For sure.

[Caller]

Okay, I want to do this. I got a cash flow.

[Dave Ramsey]

It.

[Caller]

I kind of ran the numbers roughly and it's like, okay, I don't really make enough right now to do that essentially. So I have to, you know, paid off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's let me back up two steps. Number one, the answer to your question is yes, you need to go do this. Then the only question remaining after we make that statement is how do we do that in the wisest possible way? I would rule out giving up six years of my income being in half and trade that for 34,000 plus living expenses. No, thank you. I don't think that's a good trade. So I'm going to rule that one out if I'm you. So that means I have a $34,000 barrier and I make 80,000 if I can find a way to run an adult program, an adult master's program. And they're out there. I don't know what's available Philly area, but they're out there. If you could even an online thing and knock out half of your one of your two years and you know, during that time, finish up being debt free, have your emergency fund, then start Saving towards the 34,000 and cash flow while working and making 80, that sounds ideal to me. Then the second, the third possibility is some big move because your 3900 goes with you wherever you are. So the bulk of your income is going to follow you no matter what because that's the disability income. So if you could go make 30 working weekends, building decks and move to a city where you could have an inexpensive master's program and finish this thing up for 34k in two years. That's 17 a year. You could do that.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the nature of your disability?

[Caller]

It's mostly, you know, mental health stuff. And then I have my knee. Who got all jacked up in the military.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so maybe building decks is a bad example. Okay. With a jacked up knee. Right. But I mean, but you know, that's why I asked. But anyway, I don't care what you do. I mean even if you're working the psych ward as a, as an orderly or something, something to get some practical proximity to what you're going to be doing, but you're making 30 in there and you're working, you know, three 12s or something like that and then you got the rest of time off to go to school. So I mean just build your life out to where you go do this. I think you do need to go do it. That's the answer to your question. I just want you to do it in a way that three years from now you're sitting in a private practice and you're, you know, you're going to make your first hundred and you're going to, then you're going to move towards 150 because a high quality private practitioner ought to be making 100 to 100 and a half.

[Caller]

Yeah. I feel like it takes a while to get established. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

When you go the private practice,

[Dave Ramsey]

that's the most lucrative route and it's the route by which you control, control what clientele you serve the most. If you're working for an institution of some kind like say the VA they're going to have, they're going to control who your client is. You're not. And that, that may take a lot of the fun out of this idea. The reward out of this, the psychological reward.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. You'll be able to do what you want to do and see who you want to see is.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I'm like working with people and know that, that I don't want to be working with a group or whatever. And so.

[Rachel Cruze]

And for six years. It's a long time.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's not. You don't want to sign up for that one. No, no, no, please don't do that one. But the. But, but I do think you're. You've thought this most of the way through. We've just got to get you there debt free cash flowing it and get you finish up your baby step two and get you there without, without selling your soul to the company. Company Store.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on the 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 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. Investing can be really confusing. Three years ago for the first time, we did an unusual investing virtual event called Investing Essentials. And it was me and George Camel and I basically used I opened up my personal playbook, how do I do real estate investing? And I showed exactly how the returns work, the details. Nerd it out, right? And how do I do mutual fund investing? And I nerd it out and how do I view wealth spiritually and nerd it out and all these different things. And we went through my playbook and then George and I also talked about buckets of investing that we don't do and why. So we went into the details of what's broken about some of these theories that are floating around out there. And we're going to do it again. This is only the third time we've ever done this and we're going to add a little bit of new material to it. Reducing taxes, navigating wills and building legacy. Going to add some stuff in on those things. Tickets start at 199. It's two nights. It's September 1st and 2nd. Investing Essentials Virtual event. George Camel, Dave Ramsey, me doing my playbook with George, my personal stuff. You want to know how Dave Ramsey does real estate? That's what I'm going to do. That's simple. All right, get yours [e-mail] events or click the link in the show notes and we'll get you set up. Elizabeth is in Huntsville. Hi Elizabeth, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave and I. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

My husband and I are a young married couple. We've always planned for me to be a stay at home mom when we have children. Since I won't have my own income for those years. During raising our children, how will we make sure to invest adequately for our retirement?

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, Elizabeth, I mean funding 15% of your income into retirement is our baby step four. And that's after you're out of debt with a fully funded emergency fund funds and if you start young, you guys should be. Should be. Okay. How much are you guys making right now?

[Caller]

My husband makes $105,000 a year pre tax. Okay. And I'm making 20,000 a year pre tax.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Well, just for fun, how old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 20.

[Rachel Cruze]

You're 20. Okay. And do you guys have anything in. Anything in savings right now?

[Caller]

Yes, we have $15,000 in savings, which is four months of emergency fund for us.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay. Anything invested?

[Caller]

We have invested about $30,000 in a Roth IRA on my husband's job, and he's. He's getting. He's giving 10% per paycheck.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well, just. Yeah, I mean, if you. If you guys from 20 right now to, let's say 59, which is retirement age, and you contributed $1,100 a month, which will get you to about that 15%. And that's if your income never went up, Elizabeth. Okay. Just on his. Like, if he never got another raise and you guys just did that, you'd have $10.6 million at retirement just from that 15%.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Rachel Cruze]

So I think you guys will be great.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're going to have to stay out of debt and keep your emergency fund in place and stay on a budget so that you put $15,000 out of $100,000 away every year. Okay. Which is more like $1200 a month. But 1100 is what Rachel ran the number on, and that's fine.

[Rachel Cruze]

So, sorry, I missed my 100,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, that's okay. That's okay. Go. But I mean, that's. Go, go. You can go to ramseysolutions.com and look at the retirement calculator. And that's what Rachel was using. That's how she ran those numbers.

[Caller]

We are currently out of debt. We have our house mortgage, but that is all of our debt currently.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you continue to work to pay out, get the house paid off early while putting 15% away while paying cash for everything else you do. If you do that and he never gets a raise, you're going to have millions and millions of dollars. That's the point. And of course, if you work for 35 years and you never get a raise, by definition you're a loser, because. And your husband's not a loser. So the chance you work 35 years and never get a raise is zero. Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

He'll be doubling his income. I mean, you know, you guys will look up in your 30s and. Yeah, you guys will be great. They'll be great.

[Caller]

And that's probably at the lowest Rung of his career field.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, totally.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes. Yeah. You guys will be completely fine.

[Dave Ramsey]

Elizabeth, you're gonna get.

[Rachel Cruze]

If you do it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. My point is, is that the calculation is conservative, okay? So you're going to be fine, but you have to do the budget and live on what you make. If you run up a bunch of stinking car payments and go on cruises you can't afford and buy couches you can't afford and spend $40,000 redoing the nursery on a credit card because you had a baby and, like, run around being a normal American and then whine. Cause you're broke. Then you're not going to have any of that money because you're not going to have the money to put money aside for rent retirement. But you're not going to do any of that.

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Three old cars that we love and.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean, you can even upgrade your cars. Just pay cash for them. That's the whole thing. There we go.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well done, Elizabeth. And the beauty. Honestly, for you guys, starting at 20, those calculations look different if you're in your 40s and 50s. Yeah.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's pretty amazing. All right. Crystal is in Baltimore. Austin. Hi, Crystal. How are you?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave and Rachel. I'm great. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

Yeah. So I am single. I have enough saved up for a home. But I'm wondering if I should wait and see if I need a partner and get married before buying a home.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, no, you're not incomplete. You're awesome. You're awesome. You're not incomplete.

[Caller]

Well, thank you.

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Buy a house. Now. The thing we would put immediately after the comma, right after the exclamation point would be, you may change houses after you have someone come into your life. Okay.

[Caller]

Right. And that's what I'm concerned about.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's okay. Sell it.

[Caller]

It's a house in two years.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's okay. Buy a house and you get married and you decide we don't want to live in that area. Sell the house.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

Are you dating anyone right now, Crystal?

[Caller]

No.

I just recently signed up for a dating matchmaker and I'm starting to.

[Rachel Cruze]

That's great. Well, I was gonna say, I mean, if you had a serious relationship and you guys were talking about marriage and all of that, I probably would pause and just make sure. Sure it's the city you want to be in with this person. You know, if they're in the picture. But if they're not in the picture. No, I would keep running. Running your race Girl, you're doing an amazing job.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Way to go.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Excellent.

[Rachel Cruze]

There's more. Yeah. There's studies coming out showing that there's more women homeowners than men right now. So you will be part of a

[Dave Ramsey]

wonderful pool in their 20s. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's going to make you pickier on who you date too. You're not going to want to date somebody that's going to mess this plan up because you're working a good plan now, you know?

[Caller]

Yeah. I'm in my 40s, I'm divorced, no kids.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I'm always joke with the guys and say, but be ready to know that after you buy this house, once you find her, she's going to tell you it was the wrong house. But that might not be the case with you. You might find somebody that just loves this house.

[Rachel Cruze]

You know, women usually have good taste in houses. I would say that. I think.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. I'm just saying.

[Rachel Cruze]

No, Crystal. Yep. Keep moving forward with your financial plan.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do not wait on some guy to come along to make it okay. No, no, no, no, no, no. You go be you girl and then the guy will show up when he's supposed to.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

In this.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And to your point, Crystal, she threw out like. Yeah. But if it's not within two years, you know all this. Listen, if the right person shows up, marriage and a life with someone and he comes in 12 months and you guys choose to move cities, that's okay. Take the hit on the house. You're going to be fine financially. Right. I mean, like, don't let that be the thing that scares you into not doing it with what may happen. Because if that even happens, that's a great life.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And to your point earlier, if someone else is listening and you're in a relationship that's getting progressively serious and that two year thing is real.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Then maybe you do pause, then.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yes, absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's asking with no one on the hook, you know, no fish on the line right now.

[Caller]

Now.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so, yeah, let her be. You're amazing, Crystal. Way to go.

[Rachel Cruze]

Well done.

[Dave Ramsey]

Congratulations,

[Caller]

Sam.

[Rachel Cruze]

Hey, guys. Rachel Cruze here. And I love summer. There is more fun on the calendar, more time with your people and way more chances to make memories. But you know what else? There's more of spending. Oh. Between the extra groceries and gas and camp fees and family trips, it all starts to add up so fast. And before you know it, money stress starts to steal the fun out of everything. And that is why I love the everydollar Budget budget app because it helps you plan your money, track your spending, and find more margin in your budget so that you can put extra cash towards the goals that matter most. Enjoy your summer without the money stress. Download the EveryDollar app in the App Store or Google Play and start for free today.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to do it is EveryDollar, our budgeting app that helps you work the Ramsey plan. It holds your hand and answers the questions the same as you'd hear on here on the air. And we're going to walk you right through the baby steps, the fastest way to get out of debt and into wealth. You track your progress, you get personalized recommendations. You get coaching for your situation. It's like having one of us walking with you every day, showing you the nice next right step and holding you accountable. Start every dollar for free by downloading it in the App Store and Google Play. Brandon is in.

[Rachel Cruze]

Whoa.

[Dave Ramsey]

What in the world? What did I do? Did I do that? Let me try again. Brandon, are you with me?

[Caller]

I'm with you, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cool. How can we help?

[Caller]

So a little bit of a quick backstory. I grew up in a divorced household, had a relationship with my father at a young age. Wasn't a good one. In my adult age, I decided to not have a relationship with him, especially after I started to have children due to the way that he lived his life. He lives his life for money, but in a bad way. He is okay with doing things the wrong way way. Maybe messing some people over to in order to get there alongside just women and just a whole plethora.

[Rachel Cruze]

Not a great.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I got it. So you had to draw a boundary. And now where are we?

[Caller]

Sure. All right. So now I have been told that and I want to clarify. I do not want this money at all. But I have been told that he is putting his will for my two young children, one who's younger than 1 and one that is 7, to receive all of his inheritance.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cool. And how much is it?

[Caller]

I don't know because I don't trust anything he says.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, what do you think it is?

[Caller]

He. He says that it will be millions.

[Dave Ramsey]

What do you think it is?

[Caller]

One or two, maybe.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So it's a lot of money. All right, good.

[Caller]

Yes, I would imagine that it is a lot of money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Regardless.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

My concern is a young child who has never met their grandfather getting a large sum of money from them. How can I help guide them? And who knows what age they will be when this happens. Happens, Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old is your dad?

[Caller]

He's only 55 now, I believe.

[Dave Ramsey]

So the kids will probably be grown, correct?

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Unless he's in poor health now, you know, they'll probably be adults before they get this money.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Right.

[Rachel Cruze]

And a lot can happen between now and then too.

[Caller]

Right? Right. I guess my question mainly is, is how do I I, or do I mention to. I mean, obviously not now, they're way too young. But at what point would I bring this up to them and have a, have this conversation with them and what would that conversation look like?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the problem is, is that there's a high probability this, this guy's a high roller and he might have nothing.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

He could lose everything. And so we don't want to over. That's an actual possibility. Okay. So I don't want to overplay this. I certainly would not do it before teenage years and I would not do it and I would gauge it based on if we have any rumors about his health. In other words, let's say you heard that he's got gotten a stage four cancer diagnosis, then yeah, we're going to have a different discussion than if we've heard that he's doing great. Right?

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because it's more imminent and we don't know what it is. I will tell you this. Wealth does not ruin children. It exposes the fact that your children were already ruined. So you raise men of character, young boys, into men of character. You said they're boys, right?

[Caller]

Right, Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You raise them in to be men of character, men who know how to work, men who are generous, men who are honest, men who work a system and a plan and, and then if they receive this money, it won't harm them, it will just accelerate them.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But if they're, if they, if they receive the message that they don't have to work, work, and they're going to sit around and be a trust fund baby because someday when their grandpa dies, they're going to be rich and they consequently become worthless, then the money has harmed them. But the money didn't actually harm them. It just exposed the fact that you didn't teach them how to work.

[Caller]

Right. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you go build the men out of these boys that you were going to do anyway. And the further they are into that manhood, the more ready they are to receive and handle the wealth.

[Caller]

Right.

Okay.

[Rachel Cruze]

And when those conversations happen, if they are recent. Right. If you do hear of a health scare, you know, and they're in their early 20s, be honest with them, like, hey, he's not doing good. And. And. And he said he's going to leave you some money. I have no idea what that means.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

But let's walk. We'll walk through it together and kind of figure out what's a good plan.

[Dave Ramsey]

Here's what a wise young man does. If he receives a million dollars, but

[Rachel Cruze]

also, Brandon, the character of your dad. Honestly. Honestly, some people, they don't last in wealth. So he may have that now, today,

[Dave Ramsey]

and he may lose it. Yeah.

[Rachel Cruze]

Who knows?

[Caller]

Right? Right. I guess partial of my concern was, you know, once upon a time, it was going to supposedly be left to me. And I said, me and my wife had spoke and said that we didn't want the money, that we would just donate it. And that was just a personal thing to us, but.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cause where it came from.

[Caller]

I know that.

I'm.

I'm sorry if the money.

[Dave Ramsey]

I know. Because it was dirty money.

[Caller]

Yeah, right. Exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Should. Should I allow that to play my children or just allow them to have.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I appreciate you all not wanting that because you've got a lot of emotion tied up in this relationship with your dad, but money is not dirty. Bricks are not dirty. You can take a brick and throw it through a window and be a vandal, or you can take a brick and build a hospital for children. The brick doesn't care. And who made the brick? A cocaine addict made the brick, or a person of high moral character made the brick. It's still just a stinking brick. So the money itself is technically not

[Rachel Cruze]

dirty, but everything wrapped in it, in the story of it, feels gross to you, which is understandable.

[Dave Ramsey]

You would feel icky every time you looked around it. But for your boys just to get a million bucks and to be able to do something with that and go change the family tree for your grandkids in a healthy way, because they're good young men. They have a spiritual walk. They're quality people that serve and love the community. They love their family. They do conflict well, you know, you've grown some men. Right. You do that. This just becomes a blessing. And in the weirdest sort of way, from the weirdest possible source, but it does become a blessing. And so, yeah, they don't have the

[Rachel Cruze]

strings attached to it like you do.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, folks, I'll pan back from Brandon a little bit. He was not asking this, but there's around. This is the idea. And I get this when I'm working with wealthy people, like, a lot how, you know, I've worked all my life to build some wealth. How do I not let it ruin my children? We get that question all the time, don't we? Especially in a panel discussion somewhere where we're doing some generosity thing with multimillionaires. How do I not let this ruin my children? And our answer always is, money does not ruin your children. It just exposed the fact that you did so raise good kids. Kids raise children in such a way that they become excellent adults. And the money is not going to do. The money exposes who you are. It exposes who they are. That's all it does. Money magnifies the good parts of your life and character and the bad parts of your life and character and that of your children.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah. And the warnings, like even when you look through scripture, lots of warnings around wealth that you, you can't ignore, but that can ruin you, the person that made the money and. Or your children too. Right. So there's the natural warnings of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You did not do something to your kids. It's not spiritually wrong by becoming wealthy, and you did not do something spiritually wrong by leaving it in your family. As a matter of fact, there's lots of biblical indicators that that's what you should do. David didn't build the temple, Solomon did. With David's money, You should make not feel uncertain about investing. And you don't have to. That's why we created Investing Essentials, a two night virtual event where George Camel and I walk you through my playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll simplify everything from 401ks and mutual funds to passing on wealth so you can invest with confidence. Tickets to start at $199. Get yours today at ramseysolutions.com events or click the link in the show notes. Our scripture of the day, 2nd Corinthians 4:18. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Milton Friedman said, nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. Okay. Ashlyn is in Knoxville. Hey, Ashlyn, what's up?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

So my question is, should I focus entirely on paying off my debt first or try to income increase my income first and how to do. So

[Rachel Cruze]

what are you doing now for work?

[Caller]

So right now I am an hourly and commission based hairstylist in Alcoa, Tennessee. I probably make about 900amonth and I know my debt is a little bit higher than that. Not bad. But definitely higher than I would like it to be.

[Rachel Cruze]

How many hours are you working?

[Caller]

With my company, I'm not allowed to go over 40, so it's usually anywhere from 36 to 38 hours a week.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you're making 900amonth?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Rachel Cruze]

You're not getting paid?

[Caller]

Well, no, no, I'm not. But it's the only salon that contacted me and actually was able to hire me in the time period that I needed.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay, well, I would be looking for work that paid. Yep.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're living on $10,000.

[Rachel Cruze]

You can make more. Do an Uber.

[Dave Ramsey]

You could make more working half the time you work at Target.

[Caller]

Yeah. I've been looking for other salons, but unfortunately, living in Knoxville, it's so competitive.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's not. There are not salons paying people $900 a month. No one stays in that situation. That's $10,000 a year. You can't exist on that. So I'm telling you, they don't have people standing around working 40 hours for 900 bucks. Now, if you're working 10 hours for 900 bucks, maybe. But you're not standing around there the whole time, 40 hours a week making 900 bucks. Nobody's doing that in Knoxville. Knoxville's not that depressed, and Neither is Alcoa, Tennessee, or Maryville 10, Tennessee.

[Caller]

It's one of the franchise locations of a smart style. So it's similar to Great Clips again.

[Dave Ramsey]

So get out of there.

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, I would go. Go find a nice salon. There's. Yeah, they're there for sure. In Knoxville, even if you're working as a, you know, front desk and you're booking appointments for the first little bit, just get your foot in the door if that's what you want to do

[Dave Ramsey]

more long term, you're. You're not making enough to exist. You need a job today.

[Rachel Cruze]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Today.

[Rachel Cruze]

Are you living at home? Ashlin, Are you at home?

[Caller]

I am. I'm living with my parents.

[Rachel Cruze]

So no rent?

[Caller]

No. Okay. I do pay for groceries for our family a lot, though.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much debt do you have?

[Caller]

Yeah, my debt is currently at $1,104. Most of that is from my credit card. Another is from gym collections. That's making me pay it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how old are you?

[Caller]

I can pay paid off. I'm 21.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, good. All right, so what you need to do is to set a goal and say at Target, right there in Maryville, they'll pay you $20 an hour. Okay. Just working in there as a clerk. All right. And so hair. Hair is obviously Your, you know, hairstylist is obviously your goal. Right. So now if I know I can make $20 an hour at Target, then I need to find a place where I can do my craft and make in excess of $20 an hour and start pursuing both. And so you can work weekends and nights at Target or whatever. I don't care. Make it someplace making 20 bucks. Okay. Up in West Knoxville somewhere. Right. At a retail establishment. There's people around there paying that.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Right now in Knoxville, Tennessee, today. Okay. And then also, if you can work 20 hours a week on your hair stylist and get started, get a chair somewhere to get up, start to build your clientele. It takes a while to do that, if that's what you're doing. But the problem is they're paying you nothing and your own commission. And the only money you're making are walk ins that aren't your clients.

[Caller]

Mm.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because the type of organization you're in, that it's just. It's just a. It's a retail walk in. It's not. You know, very few people in there have clients that are repeats, but most of them are just walk in and whoever's cutting, whoever's. Whatever chair is open, they jump in the chair.

[Caller]

Yeah. The other stylist that works with me is making a lot more than that. Jaziel stylist, stairs. So I definitely need to be trying to find a salon. It's just been difficult recently because every time that I apply somewhere, I either don't hear back at all after going in person, calling, applying online, bringing in a physical application, or they answer and they say they're not looking for anybody at that moment.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

I've just been trying to find any other jobs in the area that will work either around my schedule or that the salon will work around the schedule for.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but honestly, if you lost the job you got right now, you didn't lose much. You work 10, 15, 20 hours a week and being more than that someplace else. And while you figure out this salon thing and get your foot in the door somewhere, I don't know who that is or where that is, but I'm going to send you a book called the Proximity Principle written by Ken Coleman that talks about what Rachel is saying. Get your foot in the door, even if you're just the receptionist and you get in booking of a piece appointments, then you get started and you get in the organization. You get around people that are doing what you want to do. And that's where jobs come from. It's not Just from applications and follow up. Okay, so this is harder than they told you at the school where you went to learn to be a hairstylist. And you paid them. They told you this was going to be easy and they lied. This is not easy. Tony is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Tony, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good, Dave. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up, man?

[Caller]

I hear you say that all the time. I can't believe I thought of y'. All like, I was in the army for 19 years and I'm 100% disabled now, and I've got a lot of debt and I really don't know where to start. I did just land a job. I was out the army for like a year with a dead end jobs between here and there making, you know, $10 an hour and whatnot. But I got a job at Mars. We make all the combos that go out in the world, and I actually got a lead position out there and I'm going to be making around 95,000 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, good for you.

[Caller]

I appreciate that. With that being said, you know, I thought it was good time. Obviously, me and my wife, we're not going to pull our credit reports when we don't have money to make any debt, put anything towards our debts. So, of course, when I accepted the job, we went on, we pulled our credit reports and we, you know, I mean, Excel spreadsheet on how much debt we have and kind of like a payment plan plan. The only thing that sucks about this job is that it's an hour and a half away and we don't have the upfront money to relocate at the time. But my main question is, I hear y' all talk about a lot of resources. Every dollar in this book and that book. And really, I don't own a house. You know, I got a car note.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

I got. Yeah, and I got notes. I mean debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much debt have you got? How much debt have you got?

[Caller]

It's around 55,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

On what?

[Caller]

Well, my truck, I still owe 21,000 on it. We have a camper I bought a couple years ago that had. I owe 11 on it. And then the rest is like credit cards.

Okay.

All right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I personally would sell the camper, might sell the truck, and as soon as you can scrape the money together to move and get out of that lease and move up closer to work, I would. That's going to save you a bunch of money. And then I would get on the everydollar budget and start working these baby steps. List your debts, smallest to largest, and attack them in that order. We'll give you a copy of the book, the Total Money Makeover, and give you the premium version of EveryDollar and get you started. Okay?

[Rachel Cruze]

Yeah, Tony, Instead of that Excel sheet, do the everydollar budget. Plug in those numbers that you found out and you'll start to see pretty quickly. Okay, here's what's going out to everything. And then the motivation starts of if we sell the truck, how much does that free up? Permission payment right per month.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sell the camper.

[Rachel Cruze]

Sell the camper. What are we paying on that every month? That frees it up. You start selling some stuff and get this moving. And with your income, you guys are going to do fantastic.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you got the disability coming in from the military. Thank you for your service. 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]

It.