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- [00:03]
Dave Ramsey
Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Please welcome to the stage Dave Ramsey.
- [00:15]
Jade Warshaw
What's up?
- [00:20]
Dave Ramsey
How you guys doing?
- [00:23]
Jade Warshaw
Wow.
- [00:35]
Dave Ramsey
Well, obviously, obviously, we're having a party here at Franklin, Tennessee in the Ramsey Event Center. And welcome to all of you here in the audience. And welcome to all of you at home that are watching all over the world. Yeah, we're glad you're with us. Thanks for hanging out with us. Welcome to Take back youk Money 2026. Yeah. Let me tell you about my friend Larry. Larry's 22 years old, one year out of college. He's walking along the sidewalk on a cold winter's day, kind of like maybe today. He looked up at the house in front of him on that street he was walking on and he thought to himself, I don't think I'll ever be able to get one of those. I think the housing market has left me, my generation behind. House prices are the highest they've ever been in American history. He thinks to himself. Interest rates are the highest they've been in a decade or maybe ever. Car prices, you looked at a car. Have you tried to buy groceries after you pump a tank full of gas? You looked at the pump prices. Then he turns on a screen and talking head tells him how bad it is. He changes the channel and another talking head tells him there's an easy get rich quick way to get around all of these problems that are facing. And he's beginning to feel the hope drain out of his body. Doesn't feel like this president can fix it. Doesn't feel like the last president can fix it. Is the system broken? Are the glory days all behind us? Are we stuck? Will I be able to work my way through this? Is the great American experiment over? The great American dream unattainable for somebody like me? Larry thinks. A lot of noise, a lot of chaos out there coming into his ears. A lot of opinions. Does that sound familiar? By the way, my name is David Lawrence Ramsey the third. That was 1982 and I'm Larry. It's easy to feel like the deck is stacked against you. We've heard it in every generation and we hear it every day. There's always been a hope stealer out there. There's always been someone telling you that it can't be done. There's also someone always telling you there's a shortcut. That's a lie based on greed and deception. There's always been a huckster and there's always been a naysayer. And a negative ninny. Most of them are in your family. We hear it every day. House prices are through the roof. Inflation's killing the American dream. The job market. You know you can't get a job in America today. And if you did get a job, AI, it'd steal it from you. Wages are stagnant, Tariffs are toppling the entire economy. The voices, the loud, the TikTok.
- [04:48]
Jade Warshaw
The.
- [04:48]
Dave Ramsey
Chaos, the white noise of negativity. It's always been there, but it's really loud right now. Have you all noticed so much noise. It can feel hopeless, like dreams are not attainable anymore. And yet I keep running into people that are doing it anyway. They just won't buy the noise, the chaos and the lies and the negative nannies and the hope stealers. They just refuse. I don't know whether they're just wired different or whether they got a different piece of information. I don't know what happened. But something happened. They said no. When I was 22, I said no. And I went and started buying and selling real estate and I got rich. I'll tell you about that a little bit later. Didn't work, but it worked once. The lies and the bad advice are everywhere out there. Lie. Mortgage interest rates and inflation are crippling us. They're the highest they've ever been. Are you hearing this on these news channels? You're seeing this on the ridiculous made up stuff on your Instagram reels where you're death scrolling into oblivion and it's just not true. I mean, you need to check your trauma against your facts and your drama against your facts. Inflation in 2024 was 3.4%. Inflation in 22 was 6.2%. In 1982, inflation was 7.4%. And in 1980 when Larry was 20, it was 12.4% and had been double digits for almost the previous 10 consecutive years. Interest rates in 1982 were 17.66% for a house. Today we're bouncing down there next to the bottom of 5 for a 15 year fixed rate as of this moment.
- [07:04]
Jade Warshaw
Today.
- [07:07]
Dave Ramsey
Not hardly 17. Lie. You can't live on an average income in America today. The affordability crisis is real. Math says otherwise. Median household income is now $83,000 and the average household expenses are 78. Bad advice. Put everything on a credit card so you can get your points and your cash back. Thank you, Samuel L. Jack. What's in your wallet? Must be your money off them commercials, buddy. Samuel's got him a little red rag and he just pulls around Full of your money that he made off them commercials. Phew, man. And by the way, the guy at Capital One, he doesn't live in the lobby. He lives in a mansion that was paid for with your dollars because you had to put one of those things in your wallet. Because the truth is, credit card debt's at an all time high. 1.23 trillion. I've been cutting up credit cards for 40 years. I'm a failure. Abject failure. This thing is still breaking records every year. You're still getting screwed by these people year after year after year, all in the name of airline miles that you will never use. It's ridiculous. You just keep getting screwed and screwed and screwed by the capital ones and the fifth thirds and the city banks and enjoying the ride. And then wonder why you can't afford nothing. It's always funny to me, too, that we're petrified, frozen, paralyzed by a 5% mortgage interest rate. We're blocked out of the market while we use a 22.8% Citibank card. It's a bit illogical. People. Lie. Buying a car without a loan is impossible. I heard that when I was 16 and I'm older than dinosaurs. You're always going to have a car payment. You ever heard that one? Might as well just get you a good car. Thank God it's Friday. Oh God, it's Monday. I'm just stuck. I'm a cog in the wheel. You ever heard this stuff like Eeyore is your spirit animal. Truth is, a new car nowadays is $42,000 and the average car payment's $748 on a brand. 20% of the cars that left the car lot last month were over $1,000 a month. I think we have an affordability crisis on our housing because we have a car payment in the driveway. As you got screwed by Citibank and Ford Motor Company. And they go down like a rock in value. That's where Chevy got that like a rock. Lie. Only poor people do a budget. Ramsey Solutions. We have a research department that did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We studied 10,167 of them in great detail. When we discovered that 89% of them became millionaires on their own with not the use of inherited money. They did not become millionaires because of inherited money. 9 out of 10 millionaires. And by the way, there's about 26,000 millionaires right now. 26 million millionaires in North America right now. And a bunch of them are in this room, aren't you? And you did it yourself, your first generation. So if you determine that 9 out of 10 millionaires did it themselves, then you need to ask, what did they do? So you can do what they did. Like, if you want to be skinny, ask skinny people what they did. It won't involve donuts, right? So let's talk to somebody that's winning about something and study what we in business would call best practices. Right? So we talked to these millionaires and we said, how many of you do a budget? 93% when you ask the general public how many of you do a budget? I'm broke. Don't ask me these questions. It's under 50%. So there's your little statistical analysis, cause and effect, correlation, causation, if you will. If you're doing research. Right. Wow, bad advice. Set up an LLC and run all of your personal expenses through it. You can write them off. No, you. That's straight up illegal. You can only deduct business expenses. Well, it's a business. No, it's not a business expense to buy your groceries that isn't your house. Electricity is not a business expense. Have you ever heard of a thing called an audit? They will come and take your stuff from you. They're called the kgb. I mean the irs. Lie. I'll never be able to retire in an economy and in an environment like this. Truth is, if you invest from age 22 to age 67, just $70 a month, you'd have a million dollars at prevailing market rates. And if you wait till age 30, you can still do it. If you invest only $170 a month. Some of you spend that on pizza. Bad advice. Start a small business for easy passive income. Been running a business for a lot of years. We coach about 10,000 small businesses. Easy passive are not words that come to mind. Scratch, claw, fight, roll in the dirt and the mud and the blood and maybe make a profit that comes to mind. Easy and passive. Bullcrap. Geez. Only on TikTok. Lie. I'll never be able to pay off my student loans. And yet people stand on the stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions every week and scream debt free because they paid off their student loans. And Jade Washaw will be out here in a few minutes and she paid off over $280,000 worth. So just. Mic drop. Hello. Lie is the little man can't get ahead. There's always been something holding people back. There's always been noise and there's always been chaos and there's always been Pessimists. And there's always been negative ninnies and debbie downers, and there's always been legitimate roadblocks and hard things to get over. That's why when someone wins, we admire their success, because we know they've sacrificed to do it. That they've scratched and clawed and put forth an unusual amount of effort to break away from the pack, the herd, to get out in front, to do something different. But something wired them up, something fired them up, something made them believe. A different set of facts, a different set of beliefs, and they took a different set of habits and of applications and as a result got a different set of results. Instead of being like everyone else and being normal, because normal just sucks. You don't want to be normal. I felt hopeless. Larry did, standing on the sidewalk. And then I started going, I think I can do this. And I started buying and selling real estate. And by the time I was 26, I had over $4 million worth. Starting from nothing, I did it stupid, had way too much debt, about $3 million worth. We had a million dollar net worth. And we ended up losing everything over the next two and a half years. And a lot of you have heard that story. And I remember standing in the shower losing everything and losing my hope yet again. First I was hopeless, and then I busted through that, went and became a millionaire, and then I lost it again and I lost my confidence and I was so scared I couldn't breathe. And I didn't know what I was going to do. And I really did feel victimized by the banking system and by the IRS and seemed like everything was stacked against me again. And then again I realized the real problem wasn't all that. The real problem was I had built a house of cards. And I shouldn't be shocked that it fell that I gave them access to my life and let them screw me. I signed up for stuff I couldn't do, just like people sign up for too much credit card debt, too much card debt and too much student loan debt. Same thing I did, except I did it with business debt. I hit rock bottom. I could have stayed there. And again I'm sitting around whining, y'. All. I thought whining was a little known form of prayer. Y' all ever whine? A buddy of mine said, you want some cheese with that wine? He said, you know, you got enough lemons, you probably ought to make some lemonade and stop your dad gum whining. That's a good friend that'll call you out, right? I said, alright. And I had just met God. I got to know him, met him on the way up, I got to know him on the way down. And I started studying what the Bible says about money. And it was common sense. And I started applying it to our lives. And I started working one little step at a time. Live on less than you make. Get out of debt, have a plan, be generous. Grandma's common sense. And it shows up right there in the Bible. If you're sitting here and you're treading water and you're scared and you're facing your first hurdle, like Larry, or your second set of hurdles, like me, like Dave after he went broke. I've done it twice. I'm so dumb, y'.
- [18:09]
Jade Warshaw
All.
- [18:11]
Dave Ramsey
I'm here to tell you, you can do it. You can do it. You can do it. If a redneck hillbilly kid from Antioch, Tennessee, can become a millionaire twice, you, for God's sakes, can do it once. Zig Ziglar said, if you want something you never had, you got to do something you've never done. Culture's telling us it can't get better, that you can get rich quick, there's a shortcut, or you're stuck and you need socialism. Your communist college professor's telling you you need socialism. No, you don't. You need the best time in human history. In America today. You have the more opportunity at this moment to make more money than ever before at any time in history. You have so stinking much freedom if you'll turn off the stupid talking heads and the white noise and go be somebody, it's unbelievable what you can do. Stop listening to the hope stealers. They're wrong. They're wrong. The data says they're wrong. The proof text of people out here in the middle of this, changing their lives right in your midst every day says they're wrong. Stop listening to them. It's time for you to take your money back. So my friend Jade Washaw has written a new book called what no One Tells yous About Money. It came out two days ago. I want you guys to go pick it up now. Jade has an unusual advantage. The pastor that led me to the Lord and baptized me, Brother L.H. hardwick, used to say, a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. Jade has an experience. She's been there, done that, and got all the colors of the T shirts. She knows what she's talking about, and she's good at this craft. Y' all are gonna enjoy this. Welcome, Jade Washall.
- [20:44]
Jade Warshaw
Woo. That's for you guys, man. That's for you guys. All right, all right, all right. Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down. Man, you guys are rock stars. That was like. I felt like I was coming out to the wwf. I was ready. That's awesome, man. It is so good to be on this stage. I remember when I was on the other side of this thing, matter of fact, some of you guys watching on livestream, I remember sitting in your shoes just waiting for an event like this. Cause I needed it. I needed to lap up as much of the inspiration as I could. And so, man, it's not lost on me to stand up on this stage today in this situation. It's an honor. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for each and every person in this room. Let me start by saying that. But if you're watching on the livestream today, we're talking about taking control, taking back control. And like Dave said, I know something about that. My husband Sam and I, some of you know this story, some of you don't. We got married one week after college graduation and it was a good time. But slowly but surely, we started to unravel the truth that we had $460,000 of debt. Yeah, you can react. It's a lot of debt. It's a lot of money. And here was. This was the messed up part about it. The messed up part was we felt like we did everything right, right, you know, 18 years old, they said, you need to go to college. We say, yeah, we need to go to college. And culture said, not only do you need to go, but there's a student loan for that. You can go to whatever college you want. Just take out a loan. And so we did. Then we graduated college and they said, good job, you graduated college, you got your big boy job, you deserve a new car, you need a car. And guess what, there's a loan for that. So we took the loans. We had a Hummer H3 baby payment. $435. Woo. Let me tell you. Then Culture said, hey, you work hard, you deserve a life that you can't afford, but we can help you fund it. Credit cards, take out a few credit cards. We did everything right. Where did it get us? Pile of debt, stress, worry, sleepless nights, man. So if you're listening here tonight, if you're on the live stream and you're frustrated, man, I get it, I understand it. I've been exactly where you are. If you're overwhelmed, oh my goodness, I understand. But I also understand that many of you are on the cusp of making a big choice tonight. You've been listening to the things we teach. You've heard a little bit about it. And the truth is, the ideas that we teach. The folks in this room know the ideas that we teach. They are simple, right? They're simple to understand. Yes, simple to say. But the truth is. What's the truth? They're hard to do. It's tough, right? You guys know it's tough, man. But you can do it. I'm living proof that you can do it. Not only can you do it, it's worth it to do it. You can absolutely, positively take back control of your money. Yeah, you can. I like you guys. I do. But you need a system. You need a system, and I don't have a whole lot of time. I can't belabor it tonight. So I'm gonna tell you three things that Sam and I did to take back control of our money. It's gonna work for you, too. The first thing you need is a why, okay? You need a reason why. I would call it a purpose to proceed. Like, why in the heck, Jade, am I gonna go along with the stuff that you and Dave are teaching? Why would I do that? I know my why. Can I tell you my why? Oh, Lord have mercy. It was 2008 when Sam and I discovered our debt. And I don't know if you guys remember 2008, a little time I like to call the Great Recession. Oh, my goodness gracious. If you remember, let me paint you the picture. All hell was breaking loose. Gas prices out of control, real estate bubble bursting, 401ks. People were literally selling off their 401ks at the bottom, just losing thousands, hundreds of thousands by the day. It was a hurricane. And Sam and I were right in the middle, just getting waylaid, just getting pummeled by the storm. Now, let me just explain this for a second, because I'm a Florida girl. I don't know if you noticed. I'm a Florida girl, okay? And in Florida, we have hurricanes, okay? I'm not talking about the football team. We have storms. And. And with a hurricane, a lot of people get it twisted. They're like, oh, the worst part of the hurricane. You don't wanna be in the eye of the storm. Like, no, no, no, no. With the hurricane, you got the big storm swirling around, then you've got the eye in the center. The worst part of the storm is this area. If you can see right in here, this inner area just before you get to the eye, it's the most severe weather. Sometimes there's tornadoes that drop down in that area. Terrible. That's where Sam and I were the worst. $460,000 of debt. Now, don't get it twisted. Some of you watching online tonight, maybe even in this room, you're in a situation where you're like, hey, where I'm at, Jade, it's sunny, it's 70, it's calm. That's what the eye of the storm feels like. Everything looks good. The birds are chirping, sky is blue. But you and I both know, if you're in the eye of the storm, if the wind blows just a little bit to the left or to the right, you lose a job. Wife gets a diagnosis. Somebody steps off the curb, breaks their leg. Next thing you know, they're on disability. All it takes is one thing, the wind will blow just a little bit and you go from sunny and 70 to being waylaid, pummeled. You know what I'm talking about. I'm going to be honest with you. When it comes to a storm, a financial storm, an economic storm, the place is not to be, is not on the edge like Sam and I were. The place to be is not in the middle, in the eye of the storm, the place that you want to be above the storm, you gotta get above the storm. I'll tell you the first time I ever heard that concept. This is story time right now. The first time I ever heard the concept of flying above the storm. In 2008, back, you know, when it was just Dave Ramsey on the show, it was called the Dave Ramsey Show. I was listening to the radio and Dave was on and he was talking about. Somebody had called and he ended up talking about real estate in the midst of a great recession. And he said, you know what? For me, I'm not really feeling the effects of the recession because I positioned myself above the storm. Right now, real estate is cheap. So I'm buying it up. And I'm listening to my radio. Like, what? What is this, man? He is sitting in his air conditioned studio with his UT Vols tumbler talking about buying up real estate. Y' all know what I'm talking about? Cause it's cheap. I was mad, yes. Here I am getting knocked out and he's saying, it's easy to buy up real estate. I got mad. And do you want to know what happened? Shortly after that, the old brain clicked on and I got smart. I said, wait a second now. If he's above the storm, it's because he worked to get there. It didn't just happen. It wasn't luck. He worked to get there. And I very quickly went from being angry to what I'm gonna call probably the most righteous jealousy anyone could ever have. I was like, I hear what this man is saying, and I want it. I want it and I can get it, but I'm gonna have to work hard and do something I've never done before to get it to fly above the storm. I made a decision that day with my husband Sam, who's back there somewhere. He's in here somewhere. I said, I never want to be in this situation again. I don't know if you guys have noticed this stuff, but these economic hardships, these downturns, it's all like cyclical, right? I'm thinking back, like, all right, you got like the 2000s when it was like all the dot com stuff in a Y2K. You had that. Then it was like 9, 11. And then we came to the great recession and then we had Covid. And then have you noticed it's really bad for a while and then it gets good and then we forget and it gets really bad again. And then we forget and it gets good. Right? It's cyclical. And I said, man, I don't know what it's going to be, but something's going to happen again. And I never want to be getting waylaid by the storm. I want to get above the storm. And sure enough, yeah, a while later, Covid happened, and we were able to fly above the storm just like Dave Ramsey. And so you have a choice today. There's really only three options. Time's going to pass anyway, right? Right. It's going to pass because when we started getting out of debt, it was 2008. We did our debt free scream in 2018, 2017, the time is going to pass and you have three options. You could be the same. Let me tell you, being the same is not an option. I don't have time to talk about it, but look up the parable of the tenants Staying the same is not an option. Couple years passes, you never, you know, you never paid off the debt. You're still leasing a car, still living paycheck to paycheck, still arguing with your spouse about the same old arguments. That's for the birds. That's ridiculousness. You have opportunity in front of you. Staying the same is not an option. I feel like I'm talking to my kids right now. No, sir. You know, you could be worse off. Worse off. You Never paid off the debt. And before you know it, you know you didn't see it coming. But you got laid off. And now you're having to borrow on credit cards to make ends meet. And you're having a hard time keeping up with the mortgage, and you miss a few payments, and then you miss a few more, and suddenly you're house is at risk. You're thinking about filing bankruptcy. Oh, my goodness, it's worse.
- [31:54]
Dave Ramsey
Or.
- [31:56]
Jade Warshaw
Or maybe today, tonight, something clicks upstairs like it did with me. And you go, you know what? I'm gonna do this thing. And you make a choice. And the day after that, you make another choice. And the day after that, you make the next choice, Right choice. And they start compounding on each other. And the time passes. And before you know it, it's two years later, five years later, 10 years later, you don't even recognize who you used to be because you're free. You don't have payments. You haven't had payments in a minute. You're free. That's what I'm talking about. Let that be your decision tonight. Staying the same isn't an option. We gotta get above the storm. All right, I spent a lot of time on that, but that's the reason why. All right, that was number one. Number two is you need a budget that actually works. All right? A budget. And I say, a budget that actually works. Cause I see what some of you guys are doing, you're calling into the show. I'm like, that's your budget? Is it working? You need a budget that actually works. Let me tell you what I mean. For those of you watching online, maybe it's your first time hearing it, hey, a budget is simply a plan for your money. It's deciding every single month. This is how I'm going to spend every single dime. And I do a new one every single month. Because every single month is different. Now, I won't hold you on this, but a really good budget that actually works needs to be three things. It needs to be detailed, realistic, and flexible. Let me explain that real quick. Detailed simply means I'm not guessing. All right, folks call on the Ramsey show all the time. I say, well, how much do you make? Well, duh, duh, duh, duh, my guy, you gotta know how much you make. Okay, so I'm gonna log into the HR portal, I'm gonna pull up the statement, I'm gonna find out exactly how much I make. Then I'm gonna be detailed about writing the expenses out, everything I could possibly think to spend Money on. From groceries to grandma's birthday, I'm putting it in the budget. Detailed. Somebody say detailed? Woo. Yes. Flexible. No, no, no. Let me go to realistic next. Realistic. Realistic. Oh, yeah. Yes, realistic. Okay, I'm going to call some of you guys out. It's 2026. It's expensive out there. Groceries have gone up, gas has gone up, and some of folks are still putting on their budget. Family of four saying they're gonna spend $400 on groceries. Listen, you can't be a family of four trying to squeeze into a single and ready to mingle budget. It's not gonna work. You gotta put real numbers in the budget so that you'll actually stick to it. You're not always going over in the red. Realistic matters. Final thing, it's gotta be flexible. Flexibility is simply a matter of awareness. You can't change your budget. You can't adapt your budget to what's happened in the month. If you're not looking at your budget, you gotta log in and look at the thing. It's in your pocket. Every dollar's in your pocket. Look at it. It'll help you see. Hey, I said I was gonna spend $800 on groceries. I'm at 900 and it's only the 15th. I better slow down. Right? That's how you're flexible. Then you can say, you know what, I'm about to go over. Let me pull from this other less important category, like, I don't know, movies, entertainment. Let me pull from that. Move it over here and make it work out. Don't just go in the red. Continuously K detailed, realistic, flexible. And like I said, we do a new one every month for those of you listening for the first time, because every month is different now. I don't want to hear it because I can already hear the naysayers. Data, budget. That sounds like a lot of work in 2026. The budgets are digital, all right? I don't want to hear it. Because back in the day with Sam Warshaw and I, it was on paper, okay? It was a paper budget. There was no other thing to write on except that little bitty ledger in the back of the checkbook. You guys don't understand how old I actually am. I can see. I'm 42. Ah, the ledger in the back, it had the little triangle that you had to fit all the numbers in. Don't miss a decimal point, all right? Don't accidentally add a zero. That's an argument right there, okay? It's digital. I don't want to Hear any excuses, get your budget on point. All right? You have a why. You have the budget. Number three. You guys already know what this one is. You need a proven plan. All right? You need a proven plan that works. Obviously, I'm going to tell you about the seven baby steps. Millions upon millions of people have used this plan, and I have a feeling the folks in this room, y' all know it by heart. So you're gonna help me go through it right now. Baby step one, for those listening for the first time, baby step one, you're gonna get $1,000 saved. Somebody say $1,000? Yes. Baby step two, you're gonna pay off all your debt using the debt snowball method. Everything but the house. You're gonna do it off. Pay it off using what debt snowball? Yes. Baby step three, we're saving three to six months of expenses in a fully funded emergency fund. How much are we saving? Three to six months.
- [37:25]
Dave Ramsey
A.
- [37:28]
Jade Warshaw
Somebody always has to add something at the end. Cut off. Next one. Baby step four, we're investing 15% of our income. I'll hit that one. Baby step five, we're going to put a little extra for the kids college. Baby step six, we're putting extra. We're being intentional about paying off the mortgage. And finally, baby step seven, what are we going to do? Build and give. Yes. Clap that up. It's the plan Sam and I used to pay off $460,000 of debt. It's easy to say, but how many of you know? It's got a lot of nuance in it, doesn't it? It's a lot of nuance. I remember back in the day, I'd be like, okay, what was I supposed to do if I'm upside down? And what happens if I'm saving for the down payment, but I still need to save for the retirement? But it goes for too long. I'm trying to think of all these things, and the only way I could do it was I'd have to find an episode of the Ramsey show where Dave might have been talking about it. You don't have to do it that way anymore. Every dollar will walk with you. It's in your pocket. It will literally learn your circumstance and tell you what to do next. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But it's in your pocket. There's no excuse. Now, I know I've thrown a lot at you. It was a lot. We talked about a lot. We covered a lot. A lot of change. But really, what I'm trying to get you to. Is the point of acceptance. Because I get it. You're sitting there right now. You're like, okay, Jay, what do I need? Do I need a side hustle? Will I not be able to go on a vacation? You know, you're already counting the cost. Slow down and remember the why. The goal is to fly above the storm. Don't forget, don't get spooked. The goal is to fly above the storm. You got to remember the why. And if I can get you to a point of acceptance to know, hey, journey's not going to be easy. But you can do it. I know you'll win. I know you will. Matter of fact, I think Back to. It's 2026, so technically it was 2024. I ran my first marathon. And you cheer about it now. But can I tell you the honest truth? The honest truth is I talked about running a marathon for a decade. For 10 years. For 10 years. I said, one of these days I'm gonna run a marathon, and one of these days I'm gonna do it. But there was always, always an excuse. Oh, I'm too busy. You know, I've got kids. You know, I got the mom bod. You know, I'm too busy at work. And there's the fee to sign up. There was always an excuse. But it kept calling me. It kept calling. Can I tell you a secret? The conditions will never be conducive to do what's uncomfortable. I'm going to say it again because my guy over here got it. The conditions will never be conducive to do what's uncomfortable. Never. There's never an ideal time. And matter of fact, if there was, it would have been back then when I was skinnier and didn't have two kids and didn't have the mom bod. Right. It's not always gonna be sunny and 70. Okay. The time for you to start the baby steps. Yeah. The ideal time. It was probably before the divorce. It was probably before you lost your job. It was probably before the big move. But you're here now, today. So that means the time is now. The time is today. You gotta accept it. Hey, there's gonna be. There's gonna be rainy days. There's gonna be days of when your muscles ache. There's gonna be days when you don't wanna get up and do it. There's gonna be days when it feels completely thankless. There's gonna be days when you have absolutely no energy. Worn slap out. All right, you gotta keep going. Don't quit. Don't quit. Matter of fact, Galatians 6, 9 is my favorite scripture ever. It goes like this. I'm gonna paraphrase it, but it says, let us not become weary and well doing. Basically, don't give up on doing the right things because it says at the proper time, at the right time will reap a harvest of blessings. If you don't give up. That's right, my guy. If you don't give up. Some versions say, if you don't faint. Oh, because you feel like you want to fall out, don't you? You feel like you want to fall out, but you can't. You can't quit. You can't tap out. You gotta accept the challenge. You must make the very intrepid decision to take back your money. Now, I just told you everything you need in order to do this. Let me show you exactly what to do and how we're gonna help you make it happen with every dollar. Remember I was talking to you about the budget. Let me show you. If you haven't seen it, let me show you what it looks like now at the top, just to get acclimated at the top. That's where the money goes that I told you to find out how much you make. Then you're going to be detailed about everything on there. That's all the expenses, everything like that. Now, when you make your first budget, it shouldn't take long. Matter of fact, in the time it takes you to watch is it cake on Netflix, you should be done, all right, you should be done with it just like that. And I'm not going to hold you with that. But that's the way the budget looks. Now, I told you every dollar was going to help you with the budget, but it's also going to help you with a personalized plan. Somebody say personalized plan. That means it's tailored to you. So when you get in there, it's going to start an onboarding experience and say, get started. It's going to ask you questions like, hey, what's your priority with money? How often do you get paid? Do you have children? It's going to ask you all of these questions. And all of that is so it can synthesize it and say, okay, based on what you told us, we're going to give you a couple of recommendations. And if you do the recommendations, you're gonna find margin. Margin. That sounds pretty good. Margin is extra money. Now, here's the thing. Average person gets eight recommendations. Eight. And what you need to know is, at the end of each of those recommendations, Cash money, right? It's finding you money, okay? And if you do them, if you do the recommendations, however many it gives you, the Average person finds $3,015 in the first 30 days. I'm going to say that more clearly. $3,015 in the first thirty days. Somebody thought they heard 30,000 and was like, what? No, not that. Never that margin, Extra room, breathing space. If you never heard that before and you're like, jay, what do you mean, margin? Think about like this. You ever got on an elevator and when you first got on the elevator, it was just you. You're like, this is nice. Then people keep crowding on more and more people. Before you know it, you're in the elevator like this and you're like, oh, my God, I can feel the guy's arm hair on me, right? The guy next to me, this guy's ate garlic for, you know, garlic for lunch. Terrible. You can't wait for folks to get off the elevator. Then as you go down, people start to crowd out. You start to breathe again, start to move again. Same thing with your budget. When you started out, it wasn't like that, but over time, subscriptions added on, the car lease added on, the HELOC added on, and before you know it, your boat budget is crowded out. There's no extra breathing room. It wasn't intended to be like that. All right, now, there's two types of margin that we're looking for. First off, one time margin. Just what it says. You get it one time. That means you did some sort of act like you sold a vehicle or you sold off some stock. It brought you money one time. It was a one and done deal. Every dollar is going to help you find that. It's also going to help you find what we call monthly margin, which is exactly how it sounds. It means if you do an action once, you still see the margin month to month. For instance, if we say, hey, cut down your grocery budget from $800 to $600, what's that make? $200. Every single month that you do that action, an extra margin Is that simple as it sounds, every dollar is going to show you how to do that. Now, here's the key. When it shows you the recommendation, you get a choice. Am I gonna commit or am I not gonna commit? Yep or nope. See, right there? Commit. Click the commit button. Because there's. Think about it. If the average person gets eight recommendations, if you only say commit to one of them, do you wanna know what you're gonna get one eighth of the success. That's not good margin. You gotta do all of it. You gotta do all of it. And I know what you're thinking. Yes, it could be hard to change your tax withholdings because now you don't get the big refund check. And it could be hard to give up the trip to Hawaii or to sell the car. But hey, I told you before, this isn't necessarily fun, but this is what's necessary to fly above the storm, right? We're flying above the storm. That's the goal. So we gotta commit and do this hard work. Guys, remember, people are finding $3015 in the first 30 days. And I know you're thinking, hey, that's a little bit more than I make in a whole month. But remember, but it's first time, it's one time margin and monthly margin. Don't forget that. That's how they're getting the number, ma'. Am. Okay? That's how it works. Now, I mentioned to you before, I said, hey, I want you going into the app because that's how we have a flexible budget. Remember I said that earlier, that awareness was key. There's another couple reasons I want you in the app. Number one, you got to track your transactions every single day you spend money, it'll show you and in real time, let's go through and track it so we can stay on top of it. That's so, so important. But probably what's the most important thing? The daily lessons. If you get in there, it's going to teach you the why behind the what. It's gonna teach you the why behind the what so you can understand. It's not enough. It's not enough for you to be like, hey, I'm gonna do it because Dave said it, or I'm gonna do it because Jade said it or Rachel said it. That's not enough. That will wear off in like two seconds. You have to understand the why. It's a personal buy in thing. It's the difference between you being like, yeah, you know, yeah, doc, I know I need to stop eating sugar, and you actually understanding and doing the research and understanding what sugar does to your body. Right? It's a big difference. The bridge between you saying, yeah, you're right, and you say, you know what? That's right for me. That's what I'm gonna do. It's personal buy in. And you're gonna find that in the lessons so that you're in control. We're not telling you what to do. You're telling yourself what to do. This is what I wanna do because I know what you know. I know what the business is. I've experienced it for myself. I listen to folks on the Ramsey show every day who have experienced it. But I want to show you some videos here tonight of some more folks that are just like you and just like me who have experienced it. So check this out.
- [48:37]
Testimonial Speaker 1
This is pathetic to say, but I'm sure others will relate. There was one day I was walking into Trader Joe's and right before I walked in, I looked online and I had $14 in my bank account.
- [48:50]
Testimonial Speaker 2
I buy myself down to one income. It wasn't anything really that I could control, but I had to figure it out.
- [48:57]
Testimonial Speaker 3
We sold our paid off minivan to get an expensive suv brand new. And then our water heater broke, then our air conditioner broke and now we have $60,000 in debt.
- [49:12]
Testimonial Speaker 1
So I declared war on debt on July 4th of 2024.
- [49:18]
Testimonial Speaker 2
As soon as I started interacting with the app and I knew I had.
- [49:21]
Testimonial Speaker 1
Made the right choice, I finally felt like I had clarity. I had a solution, I had a plan.
- [49:27]
Testimonial Speaker 2
I was able to just plug in real numbers, see real data and real timelines. Just little recommendations along the way. Before I knew it, I had freed up almost $500 a month.
- [49:38]
Jade Warshaw
Wow.
- [49:39]
Testimonial Speaker 3
We ended up both getting 10 year old Toyotas. I called her budget Betty. I drive that thing around and I'm like, hit me.
- [49:47]
Dave Ramsey
We just view, you know, cars different.
- [49:49]
Testimonial Speaker 1
What we have to buy, you know, the things that matter.
- [49:52]
Testimonial Speaker 2
I've financed my daughter's braces for like 18 months. I actually was able to pay those off in six months.
- [49:58]
Jade Warshaw
Wow.
- [49:58]
Testimonial Speaker 1
The emotion behind it is excitement. It's hopeful.
- [50:02]
Jade Warshaw
It's hard for a moment, but once it's over, it's over. And then you get to live in the new life that you've created.
- [50:07]
Testimonial Speaker 2
I tell people all the time, I don't know what I have been doing with my money for the last 39 years of my life.
- [50:14]
Testimonial Speaker 1
I've seen it work. I just had to commit to it and stick with it.
- [50:18]
Testimonial Speaker 3
After we completed baby step number three, we decided to save up money and we cash flowed. A trip to Hawaii.
- [50:26]
Jade Warshaw
Nice.
- [50:27]
Testimonial Speaker 2
It's so freeing. And it's just, I feel like the way we were meant to live, we don't have to be slaves to the money that comes into our bank account. I'm sorry. I get very passionate about it.
- [50:37]
Jade Warshaw
I love it.
- [50:38]
Testimonial Speaker 2
I get very.
- [50:39]
Jade Warshaw
I love it. All right, all right. Give him a round. Of applause. Give him a round of applause. And. And. And we actually have a couple of the folks that you saw in that video here tonight. We got the Morrison family up here. Guys, come over here. Come. Come and see me. Face that way so they can see you. So good to see you guys. Give them a round of applause. Did you guys take the trip to Hawaii? Yeah, they took a trip to Hawaii. Come on. Come on, man. That's so, so good, man. We're rooting for you. We're so proud of you guys. Thank you for being here with us tonight. One more time. And we got Andy. Come on up here. Andy. You saw him. It's real. Clap it up. This is working for real people every single day. So good. Proud of you guys. Proud of you guys. All right, guys, that was so, so cool. But, you know, we gotta bring it back to the man himself. Dave Ramsey.
- [51:28]
Dave Ramsey
Jade Waso.
- [51:33]
Jade Warshaw
Wow.
- [51:40]
Dave Ramsey
Wow. So, as I told you, we made a lot of money in the real estate business, spent two and a half years of our lives losing it, and got the opportunity to start over. Yet the second time. And what happened? Well, as I said, I met God on the way up. I got to know him on the way down. We started studying these biblical common sense principles and started applying them to our lives.
- [52:00]
Jade Warshaw
And.
- [52:00]
Dave Ramsey
And then people started asking me, well, how did you do that? How did you survive? How did you recover from that? Cause we didn't exactly bounce back. When you fall that far, you don't bounce. It's more of a splat. And so we started crawling our way out, and people saw we were surviving and that Sharon and I actually didn't kill each other. Because, I mean, you can have some good money fights, can't you? It's like, you know. Yeah, we held on to each other, but it's just to get a better grip. Y' all know what I'm talking about, right, man? And we started applying these principles and they started working. We started sharing them. Living on less than you make, following the baby steps, common sense practice. Then I started teaching it with a bad suit and an overhead projector. Y' all remember overhead projectors? Any of you? Y' all look em up. Those of you that are young. They're interesting. Interesting machines. Yeah. And then we took that material and actually did a videotape of it and put it on VHS tapes. Any of you remember those? Yeah. And we sent them to companies and churches all over America, and classes were being taught everywhere. And then we went to the DVDs. Yeah. And then we, of course, went to MP4s. Yeah. Wow. MP3 first and then 4 and online. And the Internet was invented and all these things happened. But through all. Through all those decades now, about 10 to 15 million people have been through Financial Peace University teaching those lessons. And with 35 plus years teaching this stuff on radio and now podcast, and now YouTube, we're now getting the third generation of financial peace babies through. And the baby steps millionaires are just rolling out everywhere because there's been enough time go by that these principles are really playing out in people's lives. And enough people have done it now that it's really not in question anymore. So we launched this budgeting app several years ago called everydollar that Jade was just telling you guys about. And we came up with the idea about five years ago to start integrating all of those financial peace lessons and all of that process into everydollar so that it leads you through the baby steps, makes you do the stuff in the baby steps, the way we teach, just the way we used to do in those financial peace classes. We still have the financial peace classes too, but it's now a digital thing in your hand that coaches you. Personalized coaching along the way. See, it's always been about how we can take the principles to people. Whether it was an overhead projector or a VHS or a digital app, I don't really care, as long as I can get it to you and you can go change your life using the exact same principles that changed my life. And so people come up sometimes, they say, dave, you changed my life. I didn't change your life. I wasn't even there. You did it, but I showed you how. I showed you the principles, and that's what we've woven into this app now. And here's what's happened in 2025 in savings, additional savings, and or paid off debt, every dollar, users had a change of position between those two numbers of three and a half billion dollars. See, I kind of got this weird idea that if we could make that 30 billion instead of 3 billion, we might change the whole economy, just you and me. I mean, what if most Americans weren't broke? This could be different. Yeah, that'd be kind of cool. You know the best time to plant an oak tree 50 years ago. You know, the next best time today, you know, the last best time to have started all this stuff was when you were 19. But you didn't do it. You didn't plant the oak tree either. So the next best time. Today's your day. Today's your Day. We've invested a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of effort to make sure this thing works. And it works and it will guide you and it will walk with you as if you had Jade or Dave or Rachel or any of us, George in your pocket saying, don't do that, do this, don't do that. And here's the weird thing. The price is actually less today for every dollar than when we launched it. There's some inflation for you. Well, it's working and the numbers are working and we're making money and we're helping you. So it seems like it's kind of a win win. Why do we need to jack it up? I think this is fine with me. So go to your App Store, Go to the App Store, go to Google Play, and you can start a free trial today for 14 days on everydollar. And then this time next year, things could look completely different. So the moral of the story for tonight is what the Bible says. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. When the noise and the chaos and the Debbie Downers and the hope stealers steal people's hope, it makes their hearts sick. Some of them are sad. Some of them are angry when that happens, but it's all because their heart is sick, because they don't believe they can win anymore. It's been stolen. Hope deferred. And that proverb continues. And it says, but when desire comes, it is the tree of life. When desire comes, it changes everything. And desire comes when you start to believe some of the stuff we've been talking about tonight. Could it really be that Larry could become a millionaire and do it poorly and go completely bankrupt and get a PhD in dumb, could it be that Larry could do that and then start again? And with the very principles that Larry David Lawrence Ramsey III used to turn his life around, that billions and billions of dollars could be transformed into savings and debt reduction all across America because desire came to you. I think that could happen. And that's kind of the dream tonight. It's kind of what we want to do. It's why we had a free live stream to just encourage you, because there's just no one out there doing encouraging right now. Everybody's whining and chaotic and crazy. And the sad thing is they're actually wrong. They're actually wrong. You can actually do this. And then I get to meet you when I'm walking through a restaurant someday or walking through an airport. And we'll just go, yeah, I see you. You did it. Baby step's millionaire. Baby, you did it. I'll get to see you. And you'll go, yeah. Yeah. I run into you everywhere, everywhere I go now, literally all over the world. I run into you in coffee shops, I run into you in restaurants. And you come up and you go, yeah. Because desire came a few years ago in your life and you believed and you decided, I'm not going to listen to the noise. Instead, I'm going to believe these common sense, God based principles, and I'm gonna apply them in my life in a very real, tactical and practical way. And it changes everything when you do. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Good to be with y'. All.