Wealth Magnifies Who You Already Are

Summary

Summary of "Wealth Magnifies Who You Already Are" – The Ramsey Show

Release Date: April 17, 2025

Host: Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Deloney

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Introduction

In this episode of The Ramsey Show, Dave Ramsey and co-host Dr. John Deloney delve into the intricate relationship between wealth and personal character. The central theme revolves around how wealth can amplify existing traits within individuals and families, both positively and negatively. The discussion is enriched by real-life caller stories, expert insights, and practical advice on managing finances to foster healthy relationships and personal growth.

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Wealth and Parenting: Amplifying Traits

[00:54] Dr. John Deloney: "I'm just wondering if there is any way or hope to get an 18-year-old to budget when they are surrounded by wealth and not limited by regular constraints."

Dr. Deloney introduces the primary concern of parenting within a wealthy environment. He shares his personal struggle with encouraging his affluent 18-year-old daughter to adopt budgeting practices despite her lack of financial constraints such as debt, college expenses, or car payments.

[02:11] Dave Ramsey: "Oh, how are you... So you don't have a daughter problem, you have a husband problem."

Dave Ramsey quickly identifies that the root issue lies not with the daughter but with the husband's approach to parenting and financial control.

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The Impact of Unchecked Wealth on Youth

Dave Ramsey emphasizes that wealth itself isn't the problem; rather, it's the lack of financial boundaries and responsible parenting that can lead to detrimental behaviors in the youth. He asserts:

[03:04] Dave Ramsey: "You have a husband problem and what he's doing to you is unconscionable."

The discussion highlights how unlimited financial support can lead to entitlement, lack of self-discipline, and poor decision-making among young individuals who aren't accustomed to financial limitations.

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Real-Life Success Stories: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Ramsey shares examples of families who have successfully instilled financial discipline in their children despite having substantial wealth. He recounts how his own children were taught the value of hard work and budgeting from a young age, ensuring they grew up with strong financial ethics.

[10:30] Dave Ramsey: "The wealth doesn't do. The wealth is not the problem. The problem is the parenting."

This reinforces the idea that effective parenting and financial education are crucial in shaping financially responsible adults, regardless of their starting point.

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Caller Stories: Navigating Financial Challenges

Several callers share their personal financial dilemmas, illustrating the diverse ways wealth intersects with everyday life:

1. Caller Jonathan and Charlie: Paying Off Debt

   • [22:03] Dave Ramsey: "122. 186.52. Excellent. How long did that take? 18 months."
   • Jonathan and Charlie discuss how they paid off $122,000 in debt over 18 months with incomes ranging from $130,000 to $215,000, attributing their success to disciplined budgeting and teamwork.

2. Caller Nick: Mismanaging High-Yield Savings

   • [34:35] Dave Ramsey: "Write a check today and pay off the card. And place scissors across it and cut it up."
   • Nick shares his mistake of using a promotional credit card to purchase an engagement ring and not fully understanding the financial implications, leading Ramsey to advise against such financial gymnastics.

3. Caller Erica: Differing Financial Philosophies with Partner

   • [38:33] Dave Ramsey: "This is about living in reality or not. Living in reality."
   • Erica seeks advice on respecting her partner's laissez-faire approach to finances, while she adheres to Ramsey's budgeting principles. Ramsey underscores the importance of shared financial values for a harmonious relationship.

4. Caller Mason: Planning Home Renovations

   • [58:12] Dave Ramsey: "If you're doing repairs for you to enjoy, but they don't increase the value of the home, that's not a repair or a renovation you're going to do if you're only holding the home five years."
   • Mason discusses his plans to renovate a newly purchased house intending to sell it in five years. Ramsey advises evaluating whether renovations will yield a return on investment based on the local real estate market.

5. Caller Dr. John Deloney: Life Insurance Beneficiary Conflict

   • [69:25] Dave Ramsey: "And you do not owe this guy a dime. Not morally, ethically. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary."
   • Dr. Deloney presents a complex situation involving conflicting claims over a life insurance beneficiary following his stepmom's passing. Ramsey advises maintaining ethical boundaries and honoring the deceased's explicit wishes.

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Key Insights and Conclusions

1. Wealth as an Amplifier: Wealth magnifies existing personal and familial traits. It can enhance positive qualities like generosity and compassion or exacerbate negatives such as entitlement and irresponsibility.

2. Importance of Financial Education: Early and ongoing financial education is crucial in ensuring that individuals grow up with healthy relationships with money, regardless of their wealth status.

3. Shared Financial Values: Couples must align their financial philosophies to prevent conflicts and ensure mutual respect and understanding.

4. Ethical Financial Practices: Making informed and ethical financial decisions is paramount. Avoiding debt, especially high-interest debt, and understanding the implications of financial choices can prevent long-term complications.

5. Proactive Financial Planning: Setting clear financial goals, such as paying off debt or saving for emergencies, and adhering to a budget can lead to financial freedom and stability.

6. Community and Support Systems: Engaging with supportive communities, such as those offered by Ramsey Solutions, can provide the necessary tools and encouragement to achieve financial well-being.

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Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey on Wealth and Parenting:

  "[03:04] Dave Ramsey: The wealth doesn't do. The wealth is not the problem. The problem is the parenting."

• Dave Ramsey on Financial Discipline:

  "[10:30] Dave Ramsey: The wealth doesn't do. The wealth is not the problem. The problem is the parenting."

• Caller Erica on Financial Disagreement:

  "[38:43] Dave Ramsey: Your problem, America, is you're dating a little boy, not a man."

• Dave Ramsey on Life Insurance Ethics:

  "[74:52] Dave Ramsey: You don't owe this guy a dime. Not morally, ethically. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary."

• Dave Ramsey on Budgeting Together:

  "[51:22] Dave Ramsey: You're agreeing on your dreams. Right. You're agreeing on family dysfunction. Where are we going for Easter?"

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Final Thoughts

"Wealth Magnifies Who You Already Are" serves as a poignant reminder that financial prosperity is a tool that reflects and amplifies the core values and behaviors within a family. Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Deloney offer actionable advice and heartfelt guidance to help individuals and families navigate the complexities of wealth, ensuring it leads to positive growth and strong, healthy relationships.

For more insights and personal stories, listeners are encouraged to engage with Ramsey Solutions through their various platforms and upcoming events.

Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Me and Dr. John Deloney are coming to a city near you on the Money and relationships tour. It's happening soon, so don't wait. Get your [e-mail] tour brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free. Today. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John DeLoney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John DeLoney show and number one best selling author. He's my co host today. Open phones here at 888-820-55225. Heather's in Fairfax, Virginia. Hi Heather, how are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi. Good, thank you. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, I'm just wondering if there is any way or hope to get an 18 year old to budget when they are surrounded by wealth and not limited by regular constraints. They have no debt, they're not paying for college, they're not paying for cars.

[Dave Ramsey]

Who's 18 year old?

[Dr. John Deloney]

My 18 year old.

[Caller]

You just. So you put some givens in there of which you control all of them.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I don't.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So family. Her. The in laws will give her money whenever she asks. The. She knows this. So she. And she's also. We homeschooled her and she was taught very good values about money and morals. But then in high school we allowed her to go into a high school, a brick and mortar where people will drive a different car to school every day just to show off their wealth. And that's what she's been surrounded by for four years. And so she does not. She thinks everybody should get their own car. She thinks everybody. No 18 year old needs to budget and she's off to college next year and we're trying to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Who pays for college?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, her father will pay for it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Her father married to you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So we will pay for her college.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. Okay. And yeah. So we can't really say if you don't do this then we won't pay for college because she knows that. She knows he will pay for the college.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, how are. You don't have a daughter problem, you have a husband problem.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm. Yeah, yeah.

[Caller]

But so let me put it this way. She's acting like an 18 year old and I don't. I wouldn't begrudge her a second because she's acting exactly developmentally appropriate. Dave just nailed it. You have a husband problem and it's.

[Dave Ramsey]

His parents that are the twerps. Right?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So he needs to tell his mom and dad, stop it. You're screwing up my kid and he needs to stop screwing up his kid.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I think so.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you don't.

[Caller]

Yeah. Why are you hesitant?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I do.

[Dave Ramsey]

I.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, I, because I've been against it for many years, asking to limit the money and to allow me to know what money is going to her so that we can at least put it in account. And we know what money is flowing to her so we know what money is coming out, how she's spending it. We can discuss with her, her decisions.

[Dave Ramsey]

And your husband will not participate with you in parenting?

[Caller]

No.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He thinks that, oh, you know, she's old enough, you have to give her, you know, she's 18, she's an adult. You have to let her make her mistakes and, and not with my money.

[Caller]

I don't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Caller]

Let me just say this.

[Dave Ramsey]

After working, she's doing heroin. Let's make sure we fund that.

[Caller]

Yeah. Let me tell you, after working with 18 year olds for two decades plus an un. A never ending checking account is a recipe for a disaster. I'm just telling you right now, prep yourself, be prepared to wake up at 2am with a phone call from a dean of students at some college because it's coming well.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And that's how I, I was raised. I was, did not have an. I was poor. Okay. So I'm not from this. And I tell that to my husband, he says, well, I had never ending checking account until I got, you know, out of law school and then I started paying for my own stuff and I turned out just fine.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I would question that conclusion.

[Caller]

Exactly.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Caller]

And maybe. And I, I don't think being poor is the answer either. I think that educational message, the only thing I can tell you to do in this situation. Obviously your husband doesn't care what you think and so you've got a marriage challenge. And the only thing I can possibly see here is you take your daughter out and start right now and start a weekly. We're going to breakfast, just mom and daughter until she graduates and leaves your house. And it's not going to be a. You have to, you have to. It's you transitioning to. I'm going to tell you some things about when I was 18 year old, that your dad was an 18 year old woman like I was. I'm going to tell you about stuff, I'm going to tell you about boys, I'm going to tell you about dating. I'm going to tell you about how hard it is. I'm going to tell you the scary moments. And all you're doing is planting seeds so that when she gets over her head at 19, she will remember I can trust my mom. That's your best case here. I cannot stress to you enough what. What a tough situation this young woman is about to enter into.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And I don't want to gender it, but I would even suggest that she will have a tougher time than he did.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, I know she will. 100%.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, and here's the thing. In that regard, this gets me fired up, Dave.

[Caller]

Makes me.

[Dave Ramsey]

So here's the problem, okay? Who's going to want to marry this girl? I'm not signing up for this. Well, nobody with nobody with common sense is going to look at princess girl and say she's never known a single boundary and anytime she smiles, she's supposed to get be handed money. This is a disaster of a wife.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, but she'll be married and she'll end up getting divorced when they find out who she really is. She's a very good little actress.

[Caller]

Good God almighty.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Wow, you feel so powerless. Yeah, you're just. What? You feel like you're fatalistic, like you're just watching this car wreck happen and have nothing to do to stop it. I got to tell you, if I'm you, I'm in marriage counselor's office real soon. Yeah, because your husband is a twerp and what he's doing to you is unconscionable. And what he's doing, allowing it to happen to her while you stand by and watch and go, well, she'll just go through a divorce. Well, she'll just. Now instead you go to the breakfast as John's talking about. You insert yourself into her life and you insert yourself into this marriage crisis that you have very proactively or you stand back and be fatalistic about that too. And, well, it's just the way it is. His parents did that and I can't do anything with him. Well, then we can't help you. Because the answer to your question that you called about is proactivity.

[Caller]

And it's going down kicking and screaming.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that's it. Proactivity.

[Caller]

You're not taking my daughter from me.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm throwing a duck fit.

[Caller]

Day. Like, man, I can't tell you the number of students that just. I sat with it. They didn't understand dignity, but they don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Know that people that don't have a boundary and personal self Discipline.

[Caller]

No, they've been. Yeah, they've been stolen.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't have dignity. They don't.

[Caller]

They don't understand self respect because no one's ever given them a lot of them to have it. Yeah, that's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a sponge with no brains.

[Caller]

There is no consequence. Well, I'll just go to another college. I'll just get a new car. I'll just get another apartment. I'll get another house.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And it's just not how the world works.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

I hate it, man. I hate this for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's awful, horrible. But here's the thing. You can't fix her. You can only put some things in place that make her struggle. And I'll say this, Dave, I heard.

[Caller]

This is about six months ago and it rang true with me. It was a guy on a stage and it was just a clip, but it said, I don't want to hear another conversation about quote, unquote. These kids these days, kids have never changed. It's the adults that have. The adults are the ones that are letting these kids just run amok and saying it's for their good. And it's just simply not. She's. That kid's acting 18. Acting 18?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Rachel said when we started on this student loan stuff many years ago when we were doing that documentary Borrowed Future, we don't have a student loan crisis. We have a parenting crisis.

[Caller]

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[Dave Ramsey]

Stand around watching your kid completely bury themselves in student loans to get a degree in left handed puppetry. That's a parenting problem. That's not a student loan problem.

[Caller]

Oh, man, I would go down kicking and screaming on this one. Heather. That's my. That's my baby girl, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or just screaming and kicking.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Let me tell you, the gods going to cut you.

[Caller]

It's Holy Week in Jerusalem and the city is restless. The people of Israel welcomed Jesus as king, his followers ready for revolution.

[Dave Ramsey]

But instead of taking the throne, Jesus turns the tables. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. How will you escape being condemned to hell?

[Caller]

Experience Holy Week like never before. What have you done now in theaters.

[Dave Ramsey]

The chosen Last Supper.

[Caller]

Get your tickets now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. All right, I want to settle a couple of scores here. Okay. Oh, number one, a lot of the time when I'm doing a VIP thing with our customers that have become baby steps millionaires, like when we were on the Ramsey cruise, this happened a lot. And we're doing a Q and A, it Often comes up, okay, I've built wealth and I'm concerned I'm going to ruin my children. And let me assure you that you building wealth will not ruin your children. It will expose the fact that you already ruined them or not.

[Caller]

Correct?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So the wealth doesn't do. The wealth is not the problem. The problem is the parenting. And so because I meet lots of wealthy families who have extremely functional, high achieving, high relational iq, children that do very, very well as adults, the money did not ruin their children because their children were not ruined. And so what the money does is it puts extra pressure on you as a parent to make sure you're doing your job of growing character, self discipline, kindness, compassion, contentment, gratitude. Not entitlement, Hard work, not. I was born on third base and thought I hit a triple. No, the opposite of that. And so the Ramsey kids, they had it tough growing up. Not because we didn't have any money, but because we had money. Because old Dave is not going to let this crap happen. And so, you know, you be working, you be a Ramsey kid. I mean, we're sending you the freaking salt mines. I mean, it's ridiculous. They'll tell you story after story after story of crap we made them do for money because we want them to associate hard work and calluses and sweat on your brow with money. And then when they get to college, I have an unlimited budget. They don't. So one of my kids, when we got a new car one time, we got a upgrade car. And it's the first time we gotten a decent car in a long time because we were kind of coming up through the stuff, right? And he leaned. Daniel leans back in the back seat and says, we're doing pretty good. So we aren't doing anything. You're broke. I'm doing pretty good. You get to ride in my car. That's how this works, buddy. And so we don't get to have. And you don't get to. I'm not buying you a car when you turn 16 either. I will match it. We had 401, Dave, and we matched it. Whatever you save, I'll put with it. So if you save nothing, I hope you enjoy your bicycle because you get nothing, honey. Nothing. And we did this all the way up through their growing up year. So when they go to college, they had a set budget per month of cash that I put into their account. If they wanted more than that, you know where they got it working, right? None of them died and none of them are in counseling for that. To my Knowledge.

[Caller]

They're in counseling for other things, but not that. Not that. Let's just double click on the exposure. This happened in my house. Hank, my oldest, he's 15. He grew up in the Tale of Two Cities. And to this day, he will still pull me aside in a restaurant and say, hey, dad. And he's very respectful about it. Hey, I'm, I'm still hungry. Can I get another taco? And I'll be like, buddy, yes, of course, man. And my wife backed into our car several months ago and just getting out of the driveway, because I'm a terrible parker. It was my fault.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, right.

[Caller]

And Josephine, my 9 year old, said, well, looks like we got to go get a new one. And I looked at her and said, that's not how that works. Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But.

[Caller]

But what I realized is my son cleans horse stalls, and my daughter's growing up in a different world than my son did. And so my wife and I was. It was a good moment. We got to be extra intentional now. Yeah, right. It just, it just. The tide went out.

[Dave Ramsey]

Create teachable moments that create grit.

[Caller]

That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

That create contentment, that create gratitude. And. And then the money is just a sidebar issue. But this unlimited is not good for any human at any age. Just ask Congress. I mean, there's no off spigot, right? I mean, I had a pug dog that did not have an off button for food. And so if we kept the food out and it free ranged, the dog would get. It would be like a complete sphere. It would be so fat that it rolled instead of walked. And we were killing our dog, right? So we had to take up the food and we're like, no, Just because you're down at the lake house chasing jet skis and you run your fat off in the summer doesn't mean that you get to get fat every winter. No, we're going to cut the food off because we're killing you, the animal that we love, with an unlimited supply. Hello. There we go. And so this is. But, but never fear, parents, that you are ruining your children by becoming financially successful yourself. You can have $500 million and not ruin your children. You can have $5 and ruin your children because it hasn't got anything to do with the money. The money's not the variable. Right. And it's just a reflection of all the other crap that's going on, the dysfunction that's going on or isn't going on in the family. And so wealth just magnifies. That's all. It does. It makes you more of what you are. And, and so if you're a grouch, you become super grouchy. If you're kind, you become super kind. If you have a temper, you become a rage aholic. And it's, don't you know who I am? That kind of junk, right? And anybody that gets in your way, you know, that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And so that's what wealth does to people, all of us. And so if you're a giver, it turns you into a philanthropist wealth, it magnifies whatever's going on, good or bad, in the family dysfunction or function and in the individual. And so please enjoy your financial success with no fear of the money having ruined your child.

[Caller]

It's just about communicating this, how blessed we are. And this blessing comes at a cost. This is how hard we have to work, and this is what reality looks like. And by the way, you can tell your kids how hard we're working, that you, they have to experience that they've got to experience hard work. Even if you can afford to have a professional do it, even if it's a pain in the butt and you don't want to go up and down the stairs and check their room seven times. That's part of parenting. Whether, whether you have no money or a ton of money. There's just some basic things that kids need to experience. And calling out that last caller, Dave, being poor isn't the solution either, right? I wouldn't wish that on anybody. You can look at any health and, and relationship metrics. That's not the solution either. The solution is to continue to focus on those lessons like you just mentioned, whether you have little, whether you got a lot, man. And you cannot. Don't steal from your kids. You said to us, caller, if you just give an unlimited amount of money to a teenager, you're robbing them of their own dignity, of their own ability to stand up on their own two feet. It's criminal. And often it is parents propping themselves up, look what I can do for my kid instead of, let me teach my kid to stand up, stand up tall. And it's just, it's, it's. I don't say it's abusive, but it's really close, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

So our kids attend a school like hers. That kid attended a high school in this area. Well, Williamson county, the county that we're in, is the wealthiest county in Tennessee. It's the 11th wealthiest county in the United States. It's full of country music people, tech People, hospital executives, that healthcare boom in Nashville. And there's some extreme wealth in this county. And there's lots of these kids that people give a 15 year old a brand new BMW, which is the definition of stupid by the way, because they're going to hit it like 30 minutes after you give it to them against a tree or their friend's car. So you might as well not tear up a good car while you're learning to drive. Okay. So anyway, this is the environment that our kids are in and our net worth and income is likely higher than most of those people that are doing that. And our kids are driving cars way substandard of that because they could only buy a car with the money they had saved, plus what we doubled. And so it wasn't the fanciest car.

[Caller]

But can I say hanks, my son's 15. He's heading into that season. The temptation is on me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh yeah.

[Caller]

Because I want to just go get him a really cool nice thing. And we look at trucks now we're driving, we come to stoplights, we're like, man, that truck, look at that. And I wanted to be able to just go write a check for it and get it for him.

[Dave Ramsey]

And.

[Caller]

And I have to know I'm stealing from him if I do that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Because he's got, you know, most especially guys are the worst. We get great pride out of our first car story. Yes.

[Caller]

88 Tercel Easy hatchback. My buddies called it the roller skate. I look like Fred Flintstone.

[Dave Ramsey]

74 Monte Carlo Land yacht.

[Caller]

Dude, I could start mine with a rope.

[Dave Ramsey]

Dave paid cash for it with or paid for it with a loan and a down payment I got from cutting grass and painting houses.

[Caller]

Mine went me, me, me, me.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is the Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind, scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip offs in the life insurance world. Like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect your family. The key is finding an independent broker who represents ton of companies and works for you, not for the insurance company. This is exactly what my friend Jeff Zander and his team at Zander Insurance are all about. They shop the term life companies to find you the best options. And they've been around for over 95 years, so you know they'll be there when you need them. Zander is the real deal, and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years. I trust them. And you can, too. Visit Zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch. Give them a call at 800-356-4282. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt free stage. Jonathan and Charlie are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey. Doing well. How about you? Better than I deserve. Welcome. Where are you guys from? Knoxville, Tennessee. All right, well, welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off? 122. 186.52. Excellent. How long did that take? 18 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that year and a half? Started around 130,000 up to 215,000. Whoa, nice jump in a year and a half. What do you all do for a living? I work in tech. Stay at home, homeschool Mom. I like it. Good for you all. Well, the tech world's treating you well, brother. Yep. Working hard. I bet you are. Good for you, man. This is good stuff. What kind of debt was 122? It was a lot of everything. So credit cards, personal loan, heloc, IRS debt, family loan.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Car loan. Y'all were normal. Yeah. Student loans. Really normal. Like, more normal than anybody would ever want to be. Oh, gross. Yeah. So what happened 18 months ago? What was the wake up call class at church.

[Caller]

So as he says, anything that the.

[Dave Ramsey]

Church is doing, I end up wanting to do it. He was a little hesitant, but we decided to jump in and go ahead and do it. Financial Peace University. Yes. Oh, good. Okay. Excellent. So you went into the class and it's like, whoa, mind blown. I mean, because this is a dramatic change right here. Yeah. You went from borrowing on everything to paying off everything. Yes. So what happened in the class that's interesting? Well, it's kind of how we wanted to live life. It was just kind of the fire that we needed to get going, the push that we needed. And I guess I always thought I would never be able to retire. And I don't even think I went to the first class, maybe do a scheduling conflict, but at the second class, went home, calculated some numbers, and said, maybe I can retire. Maybe we can do this. Yep. Yeah, maybe it'll work. It's called hope, right? Yep. Yeah. Good for y'all. Very cool. What's your church called? Central Church of Christ. Oh, excellent. Okay, good, good. Well, man, that's incredible. I'm so proud of y'all. Wow.

[Caller]

Okay, so I have. I have a question that's going to sound like a backhanded dig, and it's not. Okay. Same team. Good.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes.

[Caller]

Okay. You make a quarter million dollars as a tech person. What that tells me is your problem solving ability is far exceeds mine. And you're able to think logically. Right. That's. The guys who are building apps here. They. I drive. I drive them crazy because they're like, that's not logical, John. Right. What is it about that thinking that doesn't translate to borrowing? Taking another loan, the tax debt? Let me just. Let's just put the house. Like, there's a gap there.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Right.

[Caller]

And I think it's easy when you're listening to a story like this to be like, well, duh. But you were in the middle of it.

[Dave Ramsey]

As soon as he took that thinking and applied it, it went boom.

[Caller]

Went boom. It's gone. Yeah, but what's that gap? Just. This is just the way things are. Yet when I go to work, I'm able to put on such a logical, process driven hat and do really well.

[Dave Ramsey]

At it, I think, for me. So I've worked. I've. I've actually thought that before. I've worked as product manager and delight driving products to market. And I can manage those budgets. But when it came to my own personal finance, it was just like scared deer in the headlights. I don't want to look at it. Be better just not to look at it. So it was intimidating. Yep. Interesting.

[Caller]

That means there's personal stories or childhood stuff attached to that. To that budget maybe.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, I actually grew up in a Dave Ramsey household. My parents both were. Listen to you every day. Okay. But I didn't really want to hear it too much. That's fair. That's fair. That can happen. And then you end up going to church class. Financial Peace University at church. And your parents are like, yes.

[Caller]

What's this? What's the hardest thing? You sold.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Your trailer? Maybe.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, nothing too much. It was just all stuff. We. We still have stuff we're still trying to get rid of. But I think the hardest thing to get rid of was for her, her Sam's Club credit card. Ah. And for me was my Lowe's credit card.

[Caller]

Oh, I'm with you on that one, dude.

[Dave Ramsey]

There we go.

[Caller]

That one hurts.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. But the good news is both those places take cash. Yep. Yeah. Good News, you can buy whatever you want now that you got some money because you don't need debt. How's it. How long y'all been married? A little over six years. Okay, and have you ever been debt free in the six years?

[Caller]

No, until.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, now. Until now, but I mean, prior to that. This is. This is your first taste of freedom. Yep. Yeah. How's it feel? It's great. How sacrificial? How sacrificial? You got a house full of kids. I mean, how much did y'all have to cut? How tough was this? We cut a lot. They. The kids play a song about how Dave Ramsey stole Christmas. So we've heard that a few times. But the kids all fully on board. If we ever did go do something, like, aren't we supposed to be getting out of debt right now? Whoa. I love it. Okay, so it was a. It was a deep enough cut that everybody in the family saw it, felt it, got involved, and now enjoys the freedom. Yep. Very good. Proud of you guys. Thank you. Way to go. So cool. So cool. All right, now you're here, and there's a couple just like you guys that's normal, that's listening or watching right now on YouTube out there, and they could be where you are in 18 months. What do you tell them the secret is what was the thing that changed everything? Being on the same team. And even if you make mistakes, not just completely jumping ship, staying consistent, working together and definitely having that budget. Yeah, for sure. I think it's when you wrote it down and saw it could happen. Yep. We actually made a. Where there is no vision. The people perish. And you got a vision. We had a grafana dashboard that showed, you know, like, what we've been doing.

[Caller]

I don't even know what that means.

[Dave Ramsey]

The predicted amount of when we get out of debt. And that really, I think, inspired Charlie. Yeah. I was like, just pull up the dashboard. I want to see where we are.

[Caller]

On the graph now.

[Dave Ramsey]

And just watching the little cursor move down the graph, and now it's moving towards paying off our house and when we become baby step millionaires. I like this.

[Caller]

Congratulations, guys.

[Dave Ramsey]

I like this. So how far out to pay off the house? Three years. Wow. Very good. And how far out to be baby step millionaires? Five years or five or six years. Okay. From today. So that's going to be under 10 years from the time you started. Yes. Wow. Powerful. They're good.

[Caller]

That's amazing, guys. Congratulations.

[Dave Ramsey]

You guys are. You guys are powerful. Very good. So you brought the tribe with you. Yeah. And I'm sure they've been practicing. So if they do a Dave Ramsey screwed up Christmas they got to have a debt free scream. They better. Okay. They better have that, right. Okay, so get them up here and let's hear their names and ages. Come on up guys. Get in the thing in the picture here so we can see you. What are their names and ages? We have Bella, 14, Amelia, 14, Natalie, 14. We have Caleb, 11, Tristan, 12 and Georgie nine months. All right, and we also have one more at home that's working and at public school right now, so very good. Good job. Wow. Good family. Well done you guys. Well, you kiddos, your mom and dad are heroes. They've changed your whole family tree. They've changed your life with their sacrifice and forcing you to sacrifice. And.

[Caller]

And this year you get Christmas back, y'all.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's coming.

[Caller]

Christmas is back.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good news is Christmas is going to come back in 2025. All right, Jonathan and Charlie and Tribe 122,000 paid off in 18 months making 130 to 215. Count it down, let's hear a debt free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt free. Yeah. I love it. Well done man. See you. You can't hit what you're not aiming at. And they have exactly figured out when the house is going to be paid off and when they're going to cross a million dollar net worth be baby steps millionaires. They're going to hit it. And let me, I'll give you another predictor. A hundred percent chance they do it sooner.

[Caller]

Much. Absolutely, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

100 chance they do it sooner.

[Caller]

So whether you're out there and you can build a app that can show you when you're going to pay off is or if you do it like I did with construction paper and a pen, get yourself a vision and then go chase it down.

[Dr. John Deloney]

All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions possibly. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, credit unions for one thing are nonprofit which means that the members, the customers own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing so you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking and so on, that kind of thing. And that's what's more important than that though is the fact that the customer is the owner, changes the spirit on the credit union. So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer centric.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're the right kind of people with the right kind of values and they've done a really, really good job with customer service and the deals that they're offering. The Ramsey Tribe is incredible.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that the things that.

[Dave Ramsey]

We teach they so line up with.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And you're right, their customer service is unbelievable. Winston and I signed up and we got an account.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And I'm not kidding, it took less than five minutes.

[Dave Ramsey]

It was so user friendly. Like the step by step approach was unbelievable.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And then the next day my phone rings and it says fair winds on my phone. So I answered it and talked to.

[Dave Ramsey]

Someone there and they said, yeah, they.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Give calls to every new customer. And so again, they just really care about your experience and I, I so, so appreciate that. Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with [e-mail] or on their app. And you'll have free access to over 33,000 dol.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thousand ATMs. You guys know how much I hate banks in general and so for me to do this is a big deal. Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey Tribe. You guys, it's incredible.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So go to Fairwinds.org Ramsey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co host Today. New York City. Nick is calling. Hi Nick, how are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking the call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I just recently purchased an engagement ring for my long term girlfriend.

[Caller]

Hey, thank you very much.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I appreciate that. Yeah, very excited and just looking forward to this next chapter. So. Yeah, so basically how I did it was I had an introductory credit card offer from the good people of bank of America and. Exactly, there's some good people, I guess. But anyway, I received an offer promotional offer from bank of America where qualifying purchase through this new credit card would warrant a 0% interest on any debt that's paid within the first 60 days of purchasing and opening the credit card. I have no intentions of putting anything else on the credit card and essentially it's been purchased through the card and it's just a cash outflow question. As far as managing my monthly payments.

[Dave Ramsey]

I originally intended to how much is on the card?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I currently owe 11,000 for the ring.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much money do you have in savings?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I have about $25,000 in a high yield savings account.

[Dave Ramsey]

Write a check today and pay off the card. And place scissors across it and cut it up.

[Caller]

Ta da. That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You shouldn't have done this. It was dumb. You did a sweet good thing, a dumb bad. Mm. Dude, no one in the millionaire study that we said got rich by using zero interest credit cards and leaving their money in a high yield savings account on 11,000 freaking dollars. Do you know how much money you made in 60 days on this? Enough to buy a biscuit. You didn't make any money. You did all these mental gymnastics and burn all these calories thinking you were beating bank of America. Believe me, you don't beat bank of America. The only way you beat bank of America is stay away from them.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay?

[Caller]

Why does it make you nervous? You have $25,000 in the. In the bank. You'll have 14 grand in cash left.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, I think the point I was thinking about it was if you get below the $25,000 deposit, it goes down to. I'm making about 4% yield on that savings account. It goes down to 1%.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let me ask you something.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's 4% of $10,000? Do you know.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That would be, what, $400? Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Divided by 12.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It'd be less than 40 bucks times two. You can't buy a pizza.

[Caller]

Yeah, not New York.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're acting like this math matters. It doesn't matter. There's no math here that matters. There's not enough money and time involved for these interest rates to be relevant.

[Caller]

Yeah. How much do you make an hour right now at your job?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, I'm salaried, but I make probably about 3,500 paychecks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Okay, so this wasn't worth your hourly wage.

[Dave Ramsey]

The hours you have spent screwing with this in your mind, you made A$16 on it per hour. Screwing with this paid off. Dude, dude, don't. Do not play with these snakes. They will bite you. This is a big, ugly snake called bank of America. Big, ugly snake. It will not only bite you, it will eat you and your future. Young. No, no, no, no, no, no. The good news is you've got the money to pay this off and still.

[Caller]

Have a whole bunch of bad news.

[Dave Ramsey]

Is I'm not sure I convinced you, and you're still kind of.

[Caller]

I don't know about.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do this or not. Yeah, you need to do this, Nick. You. Because you don't want to be putting that ring on her finger and be going, thank you, bank of America. Gross. That makes Me, I got a little throw up in my mouth right now.

[Caller]

Well, here's what's going to happen. She's going to say, well, hey, I want to do pony rides at the wedding, but they need a cash deposit. Or I want. And I don't know what people do at weddings. I don't know. George rolled in on a camel.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know what these youngsters is a camel.

[Caller]

I know, but these young weddings are out of control. But he's going to have $25,000 in the bank in his sweet new fiance is going to say, hey, we need a cash deposit. He's going to give it to her and he's going to say, okay, I'm just going to float this for one month. And that's going to float for one more month.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is what bank of America counts on.

[Caller]

That's exactly right.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is they're counting on. Once they've got your your head in the noose, they pull the rope. Yeah, that's how it works. All right, our question of the day is brought to you by. Why refi? Why refi refinances defaulted private student loans, which are different than federal student loans. These are private loans that are in default. If you got one of those, they can get you out and they can get you on payments you can do and a good interest rate and get you out and get the things up and current, get it off of your credit. All that stuff go to y refi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Caller]

All right, today's question comes from Erica in Delaware. Erica writes, how can I respect my partner when we have significantly different views on money? He believes living paycheck to paycheck is justified because you get experiences before you die. Because I know, dude, I'm just. Dave, we're gonna have work forever. Forever. We're always gonna have a job.

[Dave Ramsey]

We're geniuses.

[Caller]

We are the smartest men who've ever lived. Do you know what we do for a living? We convince people to live on less than they make.

[Dave Ramsey]

Go ahead, finish.

[Caller]

How big is this building? Is it 650, 000 square feet?

[Dave Ramsey]

Just finish. Finish the email. Golly, please.

[Caller]

Because I've been following your principles for a year and I'm on Baby Step 4, which is investing for the future. I totally disagree with him. Help. Here's the deal. You already don't respect him because this isn't about different views on money. This is about living in reality or not. Living in reality. And so let's don't blame money about.

[Dave Ramsey]

Being a grown up or being a child.

[Caller]

That's right. So this is, this partner of yours is a child. That's exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

I want experiences.

[Caller]

That's right. And by the way, we just went on a boat with a bunch of millionaires all like 3,000 days, 3,000 of them. And it was an insane experience.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's quite an experience. But they had the money.

[Caller]

They had the money. That's right. So the idea that having a budget and following principles keeps you from experiences is nonsense. It just magnifies how rad your experiences can be for a long time. It's just, it's just, it's, it's not living in reality. Yeah, it's yolo. It's what I expect my nine year old daughter to, to how she should view the world.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your problem, America, is you're dating a little boy, not a man.

[Caller]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the problem. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. So I mean adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. And that's what we have here, one adult and one child.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so it's not a matter of what you can do to respect him. It's a matter of if you ever will. You won't. Because you're who you are. You're wise and you're old, an older soul, regardless of your actual chronological age. And you've got wisdom and you know, you're looking at a guy who, he might be cute, he might be fun, he probably is fun, but. But he's not a good man to spend your life with. And you already know that.

[Caller]

And by the way, I guarantee you this is not just money.

[Dave Ramsey]

This has to do with everything.

[Caller]

Everything. How much we're going to drink, raising kids, where we're going to live, what are we gonna do for vacation like this, this impacts everything. And Dave, I'm hearing this. More and more people want to dump this on the baby steps or dump their, the, the global marriage challenge they have inside their house or their dating relationship on a plan. The plan just exposes what's already there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, there's not a, you know, so what we're saying, what John's saying earlier is right, Erica, I think you don't respect him. And until he becomes a person of maturity. One definition of maturity is the ability to delay pleasure, live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else so that you can have experiences like you said, john, if you got $10 million, your experience options are a lot different than when you're a broke person saying, I like experiences. It's a lot different. I mean, one throws a Frisbee, the other one goes on a worldwide cruise.

[Caller]

Yeah, exactly. One gets a bunch of, like, of banquet beers, and the other jumps out of a plane with his buddy Dave because Dave's great at peer pressure. Like, it just. It just changes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Didn't cause that. You. You think I can control your decisions?

[Caller]

No, honestly. Honestly, here's what happened. It. You said, hey, who wants to jump out of a plane? And Ken Coleman said, absolutely not. George Campbell said, no way. And I was like, I have to now. That was peer pressure. You didn't cause that. That was my own insecurity.

[Dave Ramsey]

Ah, okay.

[Caller]

But what a great experience.

[Dave Ramsey]

It was. It was fun. It's better than throwing a Frisbee.

[Caller]

I'm gonna drive home today and see some guy in the park throwing a Frisbee. I'm gonna be like, I should have got our budget. I'm gonna judge his frisbee throwing activity.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I mean, you could do competition Frisbee, I guess.

[Caller]

No, no, no, no, no. Because then you have to Crocs or whatever. It comes with the whole outfit.

[Dave Ramsey]

It does. It's got a uniform.

[Caller]

Yeah, no, that's something James does. No competition.

[Dave Ramsey]

James does that.

[Caller]

Of course. He plays offender.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, there it is. This is the Ramsay Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes, I have, George.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sketchy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And never trust them.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's why we recommend delete me. They help with that?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, they do. Delete me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites. And it is an incredible service that everyone needs.

[Dave Ramsey]

And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So much.

[Dave Ramsey]

But Delete me will delete your data. Hence the name. It's gone. They'll wipe it out for you so you can sleep easy.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a detailed report telling you where they found your information, when they removed it, how many hours they've saved you. I mean, it is incredible. So detailed and it's beautiful.

[Dave Ramsey]

Get this. So far they've reviewed 27,000 listings on my behalf, remove me from 240 data broker sites, and save me 77 hours of time.

[Caller]

It's incredible.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Absolutely amazing.

[Dave Ramsey]

And Winston and I now get fewer texts, weird emails, spam calls, all of it. I love it. So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to JoinDeleteMe.com Ramsey that comes up to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Again, that's joins the late me.com Ramsey. Make sure to check it out. You guys foreign.

[Dave Ramsey]

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show. Where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Dr. John DeLoney, PhD in counseling. Ramsey personality number one. Best selling author and host of the Dr. John DeLoney show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co host. Today you jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Triple 882-55-5225. John's in Springfield, Michigan. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good. How are you guys? Better than I deserve. What's up? So me and my wife took your FPU class maybe about a year and a half, two years ago. And I thought we'd been doing good, but she keeps overdrafting her bank account. And it started off 50, maybe 100 bucks here and there, but in the past month she overdrafted it 700 twice and I'm not sure what to do anymore.

[Caller]

When you call her out on it, what does she say?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I asked her about it and everything. She told me she don't know what she spent the money on. And she told me that it shouldn't matter what she spent it on either. So you guys flunked Financial Peace University. You flunked the class. You have to go back and take it again because in the class, in the class we taught you to combine all of your income and combine all of your assets and operate out of one checking account and do a budget every month that you both agree to and stick to. Does that sound familiar at all? Yeah, it does. Okay, you.

[Caller]

You. I say this like I don't like saying this. This isn't fun for me. You've got serious marriage issues. If she responds to an agreed upon set of values that y'all agreed on when you say, hey, what's going on here?

[Dave Ramsey]

You're.

[Caller]

You're fifteen hundred dollars overdrawn. And she says, stay away. Get out of My business, like your marriage is in trouble is what I'm telling you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

Do you. Do you have access to these purchases, or does she have her own checking account?

[Dave Ramsey]

It's her own checking account. We. We can see each other's checking accounts and bank accounts and all. So you can look at it. You know exactly what she spent it.

[Caller]

On and what you get.

[Dave Ramsey]

I have no idea. Because she pulled the money out in cash when she did it.

[Caller]

That. Dude, I can't. Every alarm I have is going off right now, whether it's for a hotel room, whether it's for alcohol, whether it's for drugs. I think y'all got a mess on your hands. Okay, I've just done this for long enough now, and Dave's done it for way longer than me. When people start pulling cash out, and the first thing, when their partner says. When their husband or wife says, hey, we agreed on this thing. What about this money? And the first question, the first response is, you back off. You don't. Shouldn't even apply to you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't have any say in this, buddy. That screams guilt.

[Caller]

That's right. And let me give you another picture. I have gone before a hunting trip to a place in town to buy camouflage gear. It's obnoxious. My wife calls it my outfit. And I have told her, I'm gonna go spend a ton of money in here. And it was in the budget. And on the way home, I said, hey, please don't look. It's not good. It's embarrassing how much I just spent on clothes. Right? That's the one thing. And we sit down, and she goes, oh, my gosh. And she laughs, and I laugh, and she pokes fun at me. For a couple of months.

[Dave Ramsey]

It was in the budget a couple years, but we. We had agreed upon it, and they talked about it, and it was completely transparent. That's a completely different scenario. It's not an overdraft.

[Caller]

No. You hear the difference? Yeah. And I had the money. That's the other difference.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I hear that difference. So what. What has she ever had been addicted to anything that you know of? I mean, she's been addicted to alcohol, but she got over that. So as long as I know nothing, maybe about year, year and a half ago, she got over that.

[Caller]

Okay, you. I'm just telling you right now, this is that moment to turn all the lights on, turn the music off, all the little games y'all play, all the avoiding of the hard conversations. I'm worried about her health right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay?

[Caller]

That's the behavior of somebody who's struggling. Where else is she doing this? This isn't not just isolated to money. Where else is she hiding from you?

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm honestly not sure. I know we have a budget and. No, I mean, is she like. Is she light from work?

[Caller]

Yeah. Does she flip her phone over every time you come in? She changed her passcodes on social media. Like, you get what I'm saying? Where else is this showing up?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah, she. She did change her passcode on her phone. I noticed that. Okay.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Last night I had mentioned I needed to look at some pictures so I can put some money in the budget, and she grabbed her phone real quick and said, give me a minute.

[Caller]

Yeah. So you. Hey, listen. You know, right? You know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And I'm. I'll just tell you right now. I'm heartbroken with you, man. I hate this.

[Dave Ramsey]

So sad. Yeah.

[Caller]

It breaks my heart for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is not a. This is not an overdraft problem. Dude, you got real serious stuff she's gotten into. Yeah. And I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what you're going to find. Yeah. For a minute I thought it was alcohol, but I just changed my mind. Yeah. Wow.

[Caller]

Dave, we. I mean, you're the one who taught me this, but, man, when people start hiding money, it's always a symptom.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's always a symptom, not the problem.

[Caller]

Right, right, right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Money problems are the problem. They're not the symptom. Whatever they are. But hiding it is a whole different thing. And there's a whole series of whole pieces of research and data that indicates that you know what's going on there. And so it is one of the beauties of the cleanliness and the high level of communication, connectivity and alignment of value systems and so forth, that doing a budget together that is completely transparent, where every dollar for the entire household is spent in the Every Dollar budget app. And both of you have a vote on where it goes. Equal votes. We can argue about it, we can, whatever. But when we put it down there, then it becomes a contract and we stick to increases communication because Jesus said, where your treasure is, your heart is also. It also therefore is aligning your values. You're agreeing on your fears.

[Caller]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're agreeing on your dreams. Right. You're agreeing on family dysfunction. Where are we going for Easter? You know, you're agreeing because it all shows up right there in the Every Dollar app and we have to agree on it. There's a cleanliness to that. Sure.

[Caller]

Or understand it even she doesn't. My wife doesn't know why I buy camouflage gear that it costs that much. Doesn't. But the point is we sat down and talk about it and we don't hide from each other. Right. And, and obviously camouflage is just me making something up. But yeah, this, this one. Yeah, this one ends in a pretty tough situation.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, it's. We have one guy in a financial Peace University many years ago, he goes, you know, it's really pretty impossible to have an affair when you're doing a budget and every dollar spent because you can't really put a category in it says, honey, yeah, this is the problem. Yeah, this is the problem.

[Caller]

And let's say we talk about, hey, you share a checking account.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

If one of you has to make a passcode on your phone that, that your husband or wife can't see, that's a problem. That's a problem. If you reach over to grab your spouse's phone and they freak out and grab it from you, that's a problem. And it, it serves the same dysfunction as not sharing checking accounts, not being aligned on how you spend your money. Because it's this idea that I've got my own life and you can't see a photo, you can't see the message and that means, hey, what, what is what? It just, it shines a light on who is this person that shares a bed with me. Like, why, why can't I see your photos? Why can't I see this stuff? If you have to hide from your partner, then your, your marriage relationship's in a big mess.

[Dave Ramsey]

Jade said the other day, she said, if Sam won't put his iPhone locator, if I can't know where he is, he can't share my bed. That was Jade. It's pretty hardcore. Only Jade, this is the Ramsey Show. I've been helping people get out of debt and change their lives for over 30 years. So I know change isn't always easy, but it's worth it. And here's change that's actually easy and worth it. Switching to Boost Mobile. Boost gives you nationwide 5G coverage for reliable calls and streaming. And their plans start at just 25 bucks a month for unlimited talk, text and data. With Boost Mobile, there's no junk fees, no contracts, and they offer a 30 day money back guarantee. Plus their customer service team is made up of real people, not robots. So switching is, is easy. So go to boostmobile.com Ramsey that's boostmobile.com Ramsey. You know what's crazy to me? Two things. One, that we're already down to the wire on the tax deadline and two, statistically speaking, most people haven't filed yet. And if that's you, I'm not trying to shame you or anything, but just know that taxes don't have to be stressful. Ramsey Smart tax is a 100% accurate software that makes filing simple and easy and doesn't make your wallet cry. So don't be the person pulling your hair out because you're trying to file at 10 o'clock at night on April 15th. Get this party started and over with by going to ramseysolutions.com smarttax that's ramseysolutions.com smarttax hey guys. Thank you so much for the number of you that have embraced the new book build a business you love. It's officially here. It came out this week. And the number of pre sales and the number of sales this week are off the charts. We appreciate you very, very much. This is not just another business book. I started this company with nothing, with a card table in my living room. How did I do it? How did we build it? How did we build Ramsey? What's the process we used? What are the five stages of business that we've observed here and the 10,000 small businesses that we have coached in the last 20 years as well. So business is hard, but we're gonna show you the clear steps to get there. Just like we did with the baby steps in Total money makeover. This is like the baby steps for small business. Right? And business is hard, but climbing a hill is easier when you know what's gonna happen when you get on top. The strain is worth it because you know you're going somewhere. It's a proven system. So ramseysolutions.com store or click the link in the description on YouTube or podcast to get the new book build a business you love. We appreciate you getting it this week. It's been a big help to our marketing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Carlos is with us in Los Angeles. Hey Carlos, what's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hey.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thank you.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Thank you for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I'm on baby step four, five and six and I recently met with a financial advisor about opening up a 529 plan for my daughter. And she went over all the fees and the stuff and then I started wondering if it's better for me to just open a plan directly like through Vanguard or something like that instead of using the advisor to save on fees and all that. I don't know what Your opinion on that?

[Dave Ramsey]

I would use your advisor. The fees shouldn't be substantial. They should be very small, little to nothing. And here's the thing. The 529 plans are so some of them suck beyond belief. And you could stumble into one of those if you're not careful and if you don't have somebody coaching you along the way on this and teaching you about it. Because the only 529 plan we would recommend is one where you control them and select the mutual funds. And they don't automatically change. They're not automatically selected for you based on the age of the kid. And, you know, there's just a handful of those out there that are done that way. And that's the type you want to get involved in. And I would always keep an advisor in my corner. I do. I use an advisor. And I'm the guy that tells everybody what to do with their money. So. And the fees on that stuff are not. It's not. It's not much. I mean, they're. They're very small. And it's not like they're taking half your money or something in commissions. It's not. And it's worth every bit of it to have all of your stuff in one place with one advisor. So they're keeping a watch on your whole. At least your entire mutual fund portfolio. Mine does. Mine's all in one place, by the way. All the mutual funds now, real estate separate, obviously, but that. That's the thing to do there. Mason's in Sacramento. Hi, Mason. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How can we help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So my partner and I just. We're about to close on a house in early May, our first house, and we want to know, like, about how much we should expect to be putting into renovations. We plan on selling in about five years.

[Caller]

How much work needs to be done?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So not a lot. It's in pretty good condition. There's a couple of things the roof needs to get done, but the seller is doing a credit for that. The other thing that is pretty imperative is just the. There's a little bit of pest eradication to do, and I don't expect that to be super expensive.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what renovation are you talking about doing? Neither one of those are even renovations. Those are just repairs.

[Caller]

Yeah, you gotta do that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, those are just fixing it up. Yeah. So we wanted to make it. The kitchen is pretty small. We want to maybe make the kitchen more appealing, at least appear bigger. So we want to, like, lighten it up and then we were thinking of doing the bathroom as well, like retiling and maybe the floor. We don't, we don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so the homes in a five block radius of that, do their kitchens look like you want the kitchen to look or do they look like the kitchen you're buying?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I think they're a little, they're a little bigger. The houses are not super nice right there. So they're not, you know, they're not super big. It was a $315,000 house, our first house. It's a three bedroom and it's not, it's not very big.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I'm really glad you're buying this house.

[Caller]

Yeah, good for you, man.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is a good, this is a good, a good modest purchase to get you started. I really like that. Mason. Here's the thing. What you're looking for on repairs is if you're doing repairs for you to enjoy, but they don't increase the value of the home, that's not a repair or a renovation you're going to do if you're only holding the home five years. But the reason I asked about the kitchen or the bathrooms in the area is if most of the homes in the area have gone through a renovation and have a nice kitchen and have a nice bath, then you probably will get your money out by doing your kitchen and your bath. If most of the homes in the area have a bath and a kitchen the way yours looks today, and you go make yours nicer than the rest of the area, you will not even get your money back on that renovation cost. It will not increase the value of your home equivalent to what you spend.

[Caller]

And can I tell you something just to put in your back pocket? Five years ago I was the chief academic office, I mean, student affairs officer at a university. Five years before that I was two cities away in another state. Why do I tell you that the me being a YouTuber was not on my radar and so I, I always hesitate when people say we, we want to do a thing, but we're going to sell in three years, we're going to sell in five years. Because, dude, none of us know what's coming in three years or in five years. And so if you've, if. Yeah, Dave, let me ask you this. If you have an outstanding mortgage and let's say, you know, Mason bought it in the right way financially and you've got cash, does it matter? Do you have a ratio for that or do you want to pay down the house a certain amount or you want to get the house paid off before you start renovating stuff?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I think if you're in baby steps four, five and six and you want to fix up your house, that's fine.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you, anytime you're doing an improvement to the property, you've got to ask yourself, does it increase the value of the home equal to what I'm spending?

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so I feel like if I'm.

[Caller]

If I'm going to redo my bathroom and it's not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Bathrooms and kitchens are the most expensive things to do in a house.

[Caller]

But I mean, I want it paid off if it's, if I'm going to, if it's going to outsize the market. And it's just.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't, you don't, you don't want to outsize the market. That's what I was just saying.

[Caller]

Yeah, but, but if I want it just, it's my house, me and my wife live in and we just want to make a cool bathroom. I need to have the house paid off and just have some extra money to burn in the living room. Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. If you're doing it and it's not increasing the value of the home equal to what you're spending, it should be. You should have it paid off first.

[Caller]

Right. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Whatever the renovation is. So I want to add 6,000 square foot of garage because I want to collect. No, you're not going to get your money back. That's a luxury purchase. And you're going to, you know, I want to put the only pool in a six block radius behind my house. That pool is not going to add a dime in value to that house because pools are not normative in your neighborhood. And so you're about to drop, you.

[Caller]

Know, literally bury 50 grand in your backyard.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. At least. At a minimum. And, and you're not going to get it out, but it's not going to increase the value of the home.

[Caller]

Yeah, but if you have a paid off house and that's where your kids live, that's where your schools are, and you guys want a pool, fine. Knock. You're not. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you're gonna pay cash for it.

[Caller]

I like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

But don't do it. And call it return on investment because you're not, it's a consumption item.

[Caller]

Do you have a gut feeling on how many people call the show and say, I'm going to do X in three to five years and they don't?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, because I never hear back from you.

[Caller]

Never hear back from them.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know what they're doing. Open phones here at Triple 882-55-5225. I'm with you though on that idea because the average home turns every 5.6 years in America. Five and a half years, that's how long.

[Caller]

All right, so Mason's probably right.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's the average.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. But this first time home purchase for them, they're, they're, they're buying something modest. They're probably not going to stay five.

[Caller]

That's fair.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're probably going to move up. People that do a move up generally do it faster than that. And we are talking California real estate here. Yeah.

[Caller]

So 315 is a small house in California.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, it's a tiny. Yeah. Modest home. Yes. It's a, it's a wonderful entry purchase in other places. It might be a big house, but it's certainly not in Sacramento. So. Wow. The median house price in America this week is 412,000. For those of you that don't know, you can check out all this stuff, the stats on real estate@ramsey solutions.com. check out the housing, the home website that we've got within our site. I don't even know what you call the stupid thing, but okay, it's there. All kinds of stuff. I'm looking at the stats on it right now. It's pretty impressive. This is cool. Real change in your money and relationships is possible. You can break the cycles that have kept you from moving forward. You can build a better future for yourself. And it starts here. Hang out with Dr. John DeLoney. And I live in a city near you for the money and relationships tour. Starting next week, we'll be in Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth and Kansas City. Time is running out, so grab your tickets while you [e-mail] tour. Okay, guys, I got big news. Aldi is now the official grocery sponsor of the Ramsey show. Yeah, Ramsey is teaming up with Aldi, the grocery store that cares as much about saving money as I do. Get this. Aldi branded products save you up to 63% over similar name brand products at other stores. It's great quality and big savings on everything you need with no gimmicks, no membership fees or coupons required. See for yourself how Aldi is saving Americans across the country $8.3 billion a year. So stop paying more and start shopping at Aldi where they have the lowest prices of any national grocery store. Find a store near you today at Aldi US. That's a L D. I Usually this morning, John and I were on stage in an empty Ramsey event center with our live events team walking through what we're going to be doing on the money and relationships tour. So if you're signed up for one of these, you, here's what you're going to get and here's what, if you haven't signed up, you need to get signed up. We're going to put about 20 topics that either are John or Dave or John and Dave on an app when you walk in and you're going to vote and based on your votes that night, that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to run, we're going to let you do the set list. In other words, you get to, you get to do your choose the songs you want sung. Although there will be no singing, John. There will be no singing, bro.

[Caller]

Neither of us need, neither of us.

[Dave Ramsey]

Need to be singing, particularly me.

[Caller]

But it's already a chaotic time in America. They don't need that too.

[Dave Ramsey]

Talk radio for a reason. Talk radio. Yeah. Anyway, so there's all kinds of stuff on there. Like we're going to talk, you know, marriage and we're going to talk about, of course, we're going to talk about kids, we're going to talk about wealth building, we'll talk about debt. We could talk about whatever you want to talk about. We're going to put up a whole bunch of stuff. We tried to guess what you might want to talk about and then we thought we'd just let you pick it. So that's what we're doing. Starts this coming Monday in Louisville, Kentucky. There are some seats left. This coming Monday, April 21, Durham, North Carolina, April 23. Wednesday, Atlanta, Georgia, April 25. As I sit here at this moment, that's a week from tomorrow. And so that's the first three cities of our six city tour. And you can get your [e-mail] tour and of course then we're going to go out in May. Fifth will be Phoenix on a Monday, Fort Worth on May 7th and Kansas City on May 9th. Oddly enough, Fort Worth and Kansas City are the two that are almost sold out, the last two. So if you guys want to get in the on those, you better go ahead and get your tickets. You're going to miss that one. Okay. They're about to reach sellout and the others are not. You can get your tickets but go ahead and get them. We would appreciate that and we'd love to see y'all gonna be a Lot of fun, me, a lot of interaction and just come on out. So, Ramsey solutions.com tour or if you're tuning in on YouTube or podcast, click the link in the show Notes, please. Karen's in Huntsville. Hi, Karen. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi. Thank you guys for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I have a question. Kind of a. More of a moral question. My stepmom, she passed away in February. Thank you. I was her life insurance beneficiary. So we had had a conversation in November about it. So I was expecting to be a beneficiary. But the problem now is, is that now my stepdad, technically he was my stepdad, married to my mom for a couple years. My stepmom is technically his ex wife, but I just, you know, she came into my life at the same time, was expecting to get this money and.

[Dave Ramsey]

From his divorced wife's death.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm sorry, what?

[Dave Ramsey]

His divorced wife?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's weird.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Funny. It's the funny part about it. And they had been married for 20 plus years. She basically took care of everything for him. He never paid a bill. He never.

[Dave Ramsey]

But they weren't married anymore?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long have they been divorced?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, I don't even think they were legally married, but she had helped raise his kids.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long have they been split up, kid?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Probably 2012, 2013.

[Dave Ramsey]

So 15 years they've been apart. How old are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I'm 27.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And this goob calls you up and says he has rights to this morally.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So the problem is now is that his health had been declining the last about five years. And so she was living with her. He moved back in with her, and she was essentially taking care of everything for him. Food, doctor's appointments, all that recently and. Yes. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

So when she died, he lived in.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Her house, living with her when she.

[Dave Ramsey]

Died, he lived in her house?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yes. Yep.

[Caller]

What a mess.

[Dave Ramsey]

And she was married.

[Dr. John Deloney]

She had never been married.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

How much does she leave you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

She left me with 419,000. And she did actually end up having him be the beneficiary of her 401k, which turned out to be about 135,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so this guy's what, 50 or 65? 60 years old.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He is. My stepdad is 61, 62.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. How is he your stepdad? She was your stepmom.

[Dr. John Deloney]

So that's.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where's your dad?

[Dr. John Deloney]

My stepmom. But she really was just always, always in his life, even when he married my mom for a couple years. So he really was my stepdad and still is, but that's. I more affectionately call for my stepmom.

[Dave Ramsey]

God, this is so confusing. All right, stop a second. I got to get this figured out, because it's intriguing. All right, so the lady that died. The lady that died, did she raise you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

I lived with her when I went to college.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why?

[Dr. John Deloney]

And we grew very, very close.

[Dave Ramsey]

How did you. So your mom. See, I'm. So is she technically your stepmother or. You just called her that.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I just call her that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so she was not. So your mom and dad don't have anything to do with these people?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Nope. No. My mom and my technical stepdad, they had been separated now for a good couple years.

[Caller]

So this is just a woman that you met while you were in college. You lived with her, y'all got close, and she left you just south of half a million dollars when she died.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Correct.

[Caller]

And then some guy who she kept.

[Dave Ramsey]

And he's not your stepdad either.

[Caller]

There's no relationship to you who he was. He's been freeloading for the last 20 years on this woman. And she. It's not like he was just freeloading. She was also carrying him around in the wheelbarrow. Like, he called and said, whoa, I want that money, too.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, he. He was my stepdad. He was married to my mom for a couple years, but they've been divorced for a while, and he essentially.

[Dave Ramsey]

So was he married to your mom before or after this? Between this lady, I bet. What year was he married? What year did he divorce your mom?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Oh, that was probably 2013, I'd say. It's been a while.

[Caller]

I do wild.

[Dave Ramsey]

I thought the lady that died was with him in 2013.

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, just my. My stepdad and my mom. Their marriage was only a couple years. Pretty short.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

He was. My stepdad was with his ex wife, who I call my stepmom.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Or I do wild family situations for a living, and this makes me want to drink.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah, no, on air.

[Caller]

On air. Yeah, I'm trying to see if there's a flask under the desk here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Quickly. Somebody get John a bourbon. Okay. All right. So the answer to your question, then, is now that we've gotten through all of that.

[Caller]

Have we gotten through.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm through it. As far as I'm gonna get. Tangled. Web we weave. Okay. And the problem is, is that you are caught up amongst all these spiders, and these spiders all have sticky stuff, and they all interact and intersect, but none of it is your fault, nor is any of it your obligation. And so when you had a conversation with her before she died. She said, I'm going to make you the beneficiary on my life insurance. Is that correct?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And then that was her wish. The lady that died left life insurance to the person she wanted it to go to. End of story. And by the way, Bubba, the parasite gets nothing but.

[Caller]

No, she picked some money for him, too, so she was very thoughtful in how she did.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, but. But he. He doesn't get any of this. 419.

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

0.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Struggling with.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't need a struggle. You don't need a struggle.

[Caller]

Struggle's over. That's why you called us.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you living in the house with this guy?

[Dr. John Deloney]

No, no, me and my husband are.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, good. You have a life. You have a life and you're going to try to, like, be normal people.

[Caller]

Pay your house off with this money. Congratulations.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. No, you do not owe this guy a dime. Not morally, ethically. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary. It would be immoral and unethical to give him any of it because the lady that died left it to you intentionally. If she wanted him to have it. She had an opportunity to do that in December when she was making these decisions before she died. No, it would be wrong to give him the money. Don't struggle with this. He's a. He's a guilt. He's a travel agent for guilt trips. Get away from him. This is the Ramsey show. All right, business owners, last call. The pre sale for the brand new book build a business You Love ends April 15th. Pre order now and get over $350 worth of free bonus items to help you hire smarter, lead stronger and grow faster. This is not theory. It's the system I use to grow my company from nothing. And the same framework we've coached thousands of business owners through. You can only get the [e-mail] store, so don't wait. Pre order now. The Ramsey network app is the only place to get all the episodes of the Ramsey show. It's free, we never charge for it, and there's a lot of other cool stuff on there, too. So download the Ramsey network app. You can get the link in your show notes, or you can just go to the app store and type in Ramsey network. It'll show up and you can get everything that happens on this show. There's another hour of content actually every day that is not out on the standard podcast. So jump over there on the Ramsey network app and you can see and watch and listen and you can search it. You can Send us emails on it. You can do all kinds of stuff there. So download that app and check it out. By the way, I mentioned, it's free. It's free. Erica is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, Erica, how are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Hi, Dave. I am super thankful and inspired by you and thankful for you, for inspiring myself, my friends, and for giving my son a good foundation for, for his financials at the ripe old age of 15. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Caller]

Well, you get the high five because you're out there doing it and making it work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way to go, kiddo. Proud of you. Good. How can we help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

So I'm. I'm in a good situation. I have a lot of retirement, about 700,000. I only owe 275 on my house. That's a value of 900,000. But I put my three to six months of savings I had into an account for my son for college. So I'm starting all over and it's been really tight. And I was wondering, in your opinion, what is the best order to do things? Do I pause on putting into retirement and build my 3 to 6 months backup? Do I? Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That's it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Here's why. If you don't and you have an emergency, you'll use some of your retirement, which you don't want to cash out for an emergency. So I don't want you to get into that. I don't want you to cause a problem with that or worse than that. Sometimes people will go put it on a credit card if they don't have any money. Or worse than that, they'll borrow against their home if they don't have any money. And we don't want to do any of that. Because if you have a car engine blow up or heat and air go out on the house or some kind of other thing happen and you don't have any money, you're asking for trouble. So let's stop and let's get that buffer in. I call the emergency fund Murphy Repellent because it keeps Murphy, you know, if it can go wrong, it will. It keeps him away. You ever notice that, folks, when you're broke that your life looks like a country song? Like everything can go wrong, Will. Like the dog got hit in the street and everything else. I mean, everything happens, right? Always when you're broke. But when you've got a buffer, when you've got 10 or 15, $20,000 or whatever, your three to six months and it just, it turns an emergency into an inconvenience, and that's the deal. So that's the route I would go. Yes, definitely. Rob is in Tampa. Hey, Rob. How are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Good, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. How can I help?

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, instead of asking how can I get out of my debt problems or whatnot, kind of the opposite. I haven't. We're both retired and have a nice nest egg saved up. Quite comfort actually.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much. How much in the nest egg?

[Dr. John Deloney]

We got 500k in a 403B. Got 25,000 in the Schwab account. Got 30,000 in a checking and savings account and we take in probably 9,100amonth net.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Good for you. Well done. How old are you?

[Dr. John Deloney]

64.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good job, good play, Good job. Proud of you. Houses paid for. Both houses are paid for, man. So you're a millionaire.

[Dr. John Deloney]

I never thought I'd get to this point in my life actually.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you are. So I'm sorry then what. What is your question? You've done a great job.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Well, we had. My wife and I, we. We have a great team together and we had plans on traveling and doing things like that, of that nature. And the past year and a half or so she's come down with some cognitive issues and.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep.

[Dr. John Deloney]

And she's. She's changed.

[Dave Ramsey]

She doesn't.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Doesn't do her regular things anymore that.

[Dave Ramsey]

She liked to do.

[Dr. John Deloney]

She needs familiarity. She does not like to be anywhere where she's unfamiliar with. And. And so I guess my question is in future. For the future. I know the care. Health care is. The cost of health care is just astronomical. And I'm going to take care of her and I just. Do I save all this money in case for future care? I guess that's my question. How do I navigate this disease, if you will.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm so sorry. How long you all been married?

[Dr. John Deloney]

32 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Okay.

[Caller]

Do y'all have. Have you went and. And run the battery of tests and gotten a clinical diagnosis yet or is this just you guys experiencing this in real time?

[Dr. John Deloney]

We did see a doctor about six months ago and we were. I was not happy with. It was just a routine office visit type thing, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

But we're gonna.

[Dr. John Deloney]

We've got plans in the mid May to. With a different doctor to determine what road we should take or. Excellent. Any.

[Dave Ramsey]

Any medicine should be taken truthfully, depending on what the cause is. There's some medication that slows this dramatically. Am I right, John? Yeah.

[Caller]

And sometimes there's medication that actually causes some sort of. Just the cognitive fog. And so. Yeah, going and sit and doing the battery of tests. It's worth the money and it's worth the, the, you'll be, it's nerve wracking but it's worth it because you'll get, you'll get some clearer answers here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, if she's on medication, that could be causing it. That could be. One thing is what he's saying and then the other is sometimes there's some things that can depending on what, you know, how this is diagnosed. We're not neither one medical doctors, but we both are around the edges of this stuff all the time because of what we do. So yeah, take the time and go deep on this. Don't just accept it as generally this is where it is because you might be able to do either some slowing or even some reversal. It's possible. That's the good news. Okay, now then back to your original question. I'll tell you what I'm thinking about these days and what we've told each other. Now because we've got the money and you've got the money, Sharon and I have figured out that we can hire full time staff in our home that ends up being net, net 24 7. That ends up being net, net net cheaper than nursing home.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

I just hire a full time freaking nurse just to live with. If it gets to where you can't do the care, that's an option versus nursing home or memory care units or whatever. Again, it just depends because like you just said, familiarity keeps her calm and helps her to have enjoyment. And so the opposite of that is a memory care unit somewhere.

[Caller]

And so maybe a stair step that you can get by with six to eight hours of care for the next two to three years or maybe you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don'T need it at all for a while.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you know, you've got, you know, you got 130,000, $140,000 a year coming in there already in income and you've.

[Caller]

Got 500k and no debt and two paid off houses.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And so it doesn't take you much to live. And so if your household budget was 4K and you staffed budget and you staff the thing for 5k a month, you know, later on, not, not today. But if that's where you end up five years from now, that might be, it might, it might take you a long way through this and a high quality of life for you and her.

[Dr. John Deloney]

That sounds like a good idea. I mean our, our month leases are under 1500 dollars a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

I thought you could, I thought you could live on 4k yeah.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Yeah. So that. I never thought of it that way.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And Rob, does she have good days?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes, there's good days.

[Dr. John Deloney]

It's just the repeating constantly. She does. She doesn't want to drive anymore. She doesn't read anymore. But she's a. She's a happy person. It's just I see what's coming down the road, and I'm just trying to prepare myself for all this now.

[Caller]

Can. I was gonna recommend, if you haven't already, and it's possible for you to. And every situation is different, plan something fun.

[Dr. John Deloney]

Okay.

[Caller]

That you have some photographs, that you've got some memories. Even if it's a. I don't say it's a last ride because it's certainly not there yet, but plan something fun. It. It. My. My inclination would be to pucker up and to just watch every penny. You're okay financially, but plan something fun.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Spend some money on some fun. Yeah. Right now. While you can. And then start mapping out and budgeting out what in home care looks like. And then, you know, worst case scenario, you can always go the other direction. The more standard directions later. And you've got the money to do all of it. You're going to be fine. Wow. No matter what you want to do with. Hey, what are you still doing here? You know the rest of the show's happening on the Ramsey Network app, right? So you got to jump over there to continue watching. You can download it for free. Just go to your app store, type in Ramsey Network, it's completely free, and I'll drop a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. So if you're watching on the app, you're in luck. But if you're watching anywhere else, this show is over for you. So jump onto the app and let the fun continue. All right, Go on now. Don't make it weird. Okay. I got nowhere to go, so you need to go. Okay, bye.

[Caller]

Bye now.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right, this is getting weird over there, guys.

[Caller]

What do we do?