You Can’t Shortcut Your Way to Wealth

Summary

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The Ramsey Show: "You Can’t Shortcut Your Way to Wealth"

Episode Date: June 24, 2026
Hosts: Dave Ramsey & Jade Washall
Summary Prepared By: [Podcast Summarizer AI]

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Episode Overview

This episode revolves around the foundational theme of personal financial responsibility, focusing on the principle that there are no shortcuts to lasting wealth. Dave Ramsey and Jade Washall take live listener calls, addressing a range of issues from home affordability, tackling debt, investing wisely, dealing with family dynamics around money, and making tough financial decisions in challenging life circumstances. Throughout, they emphasize discipline, honest assessment, and sticking to tried-and-true principles—even when the process feels slow or tough.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Should You Sell Your House to Pay Off Debt? ([00:49]—[07:56])

• Caller (Chelsea): Considers selling her house to pay off $22,000 of debt with income pressures due to maternity leave, budgeting concerns, and a high mortgage-to-income ratio.
• Dave's Guidance:
  • Do not sell the home solely to pay the debt.
  • The mortgage is high and should not consume more than 25% of take-home pay.
  • The real issue isn’t just the debt, but being "house poor."

  "You become house poor when your payment is too big a percentage of your take home pay. Economists would say you don't have enough disposable income after you cover necessities." — Dave Ramsey [07:35]

  • Husband should pick up extra work during maternity downtime.
  • If after reevaluation the house is still unaffordable, consider selling, but not purely as a shortcut out of debt.

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2. Navigating Major Legal Expenses & Prioritizing Family ([10:32]—[19:44])

• Caller (Skip): Facing a custody battle, uncertain how to cover legal fees with limited savings and significant debt.
• Key Advice:
  • Put children’s welfare above all else—sell the house if necessary to fund the legal fight and become debt-free.
  • Prioritize immediate family safety and stability over financial advancement.

  "The good of my child would come first. That would mean I'm gonna sell the house and I'm gonna go get custody. And if it takes $40,000 to do that, fine." — Dave Ramsey [17:03]

  • Calls out the long-term consequences of unwise relationships, but stresses the innocent don't pay for the adult's mistakes:

  "I want to love Skip and I want to help him. But I also want to say out loud for those listening that this is the result of decisions, bad ones. And now there's a baby and it's not the baby's fault." — Dave Ramsey [19:00]

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3. Real Estate Hype: Busting Myths About Million-Dollar Starter Homes ([21:42]—[24:23])

• Dave debunks a viral Zillow report claiming a million-dollar entry price in hundreds of cities by showing the national average for starter homes is around $199,000.

  "Zillow threw a thing out there to get a headline... it's absolute bullcrap." — Dave Ramsey [22:24]

• Stresses the importance of focusing on local market realities, not fear-based media.

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4. Young Adults and Investing: Where to Start ([25:29]—[30:20])

• Caller (Francisco, 20-year-old plumber): Unsure how to put savings to work.
• Actionable Steps:
  • Pay off remaining $800 in credit card debt immediately.
  • Build a 3–6 months emergency fund before investing.
  • Once debt-free and funded, invest 15% of income in retirement, using Roth accounts when possible.
• Behavioral Principle:

  "Personal finance is 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge." — Dave Ramsey [29:55]

  • Eliminate credit cards to prevent recurring debt cycles.

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5. Employee Loan "Opportunities": Evaluating Small Financial Hacks ([32:58]—[34:58])

• Caller (Kim): Debates taking a $2,000 interest-free loan from her husband's employer to "invest."
• Dave’s Take:
  • It’s a distraction for negligible gain; avoid overcomplicating finances with “peanuts.”
  • Watch for hidden traps in small "opportunities" and avoid the hassle for little benefit.

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6. Broken Employment Contracts: Pursuing Justice vs. Moving Forward ([35:06]—[42:25])

• Caller (Rob): Physician let go despite an 8-year contract, left feeling wronged and seeking legal recourse.
• Key Takeaways:
  • Even if legally correct and one sues, a judgment against broke LLC is fruitless.
  • Focus on channeling anger into productive endeavors instead of costly, unwinning legal battles.

  "Are you going to burn energy just trying to prove a point? ...You're not going to get justice." — Dave Ramsey [40:21]

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7. Marital Transparency: Access to Finances in Marriage ([65:25]—[72:08])

• Caller (Kayla): Husband refuses to share financial information, keeps her off accounts.
• Advice:
  • This dynamic is unsustainable and breeds resentment.
  • Full transparency is the only way to a healthy financial partnership.

  "Somewhere along the line, someone gave you guys a bad message about how a relationship works...Your vote counts." — Dave Ramsey [67:12]

  • If no change, seek marriage counseling.

  "The unknown is way worse than a bad known for creating anxiety." — Dave Ramsey [71:46]

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8. Investing Later in Life & After Health Crisis ([93:04]—[100:49])

• Caller (Linda, 60, cancer survivor): Debt-free, risk-averse, $115k nest egg in high-yield savings, living on disability.
• Advice:
  • Keep $30–40k in high-yield cash, invest the rest in conservative mutual/index funds for higher returns.
  • Learn before acting, use SmartVestor Pros, attend investing education.
  • Don’t chase risk, but understand missed opportunity:

  "If I were in your shoes, I'd learn some things…leave about 30,000, maybe 40,000 in a high yield…move the rest to mutual funds." — Dave Ramsey [97:22]

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9. Young Adults & First-Time Homeownership ([100:49]—[105:15])

• Caller (Liz): Daughter, 20, wants to buy a house; grandfather insists on college first.
• Advice:
  • Don’t rush into homeownership—renting first allows real-world responsibility without long-term risk.
  • Career clarity is more important than “company opportunity.”

  "I don't think she needs to buy a house right now. I'd love if she got an apartment and continued to rent and save." — Jade Washall [103:36]

  • Some education—formal or independent—is key to long-term prosperity.

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10. Family Dynamics, Control, and Financial Independence ([111:22]—[116:36])

• Caller (Samantha, 33): Lives in mother’s home after life setbacks, faces control/manipulation, unsure whether to move or pay debt first.
• Guidance:
  • Life is too short to accept controlled, unstable environments; gaining independence is worth short-term discomfort.
  • Give mom an ultimatum—deed the house or prepare to move.

  "At some point in your life, you've got to reach a point that you get some help healing. And you need to get away from this." — Dave Ramsey [114:27]

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11. Frequent Budget Disagreements: Prepared Foods ([44:00]—[52:23])

• Caller (Justina): Marital conflict over buying $14 frozen burrito bowls during “Baby Step 2.”
• Key Takeaways:
  • Don’t lose marital harmony over minor budget items.

  "If you lose the spouse over a $13 burrito, you didn't win the war." — Dave Ramsey [47:42]

  • Focus on major expenses and overall vision, not micro-managing every dollar to the detriment of the relationship.

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12. Cleaners, Luxuries & The Budget ([118:51]—[125:20])

• Caller (Katie): With $240k household income and significant debt, is paying a monthly house cleaner ($320) justifiable?
• Analysis:
  • With high income and tight scheduling, it won’t derail the plan if other spending is controlled.

  "I'm always looking at ratios…If they were bringing home $3,000 a month, no brainer [not to]. But they're making $250,000 a year." — Dave Ramsey [125:56]

  • Encourage reassessment if budget becomes strained or emotional/behavioral issues arise.

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Memorable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “You become house poor when your payment is too big a percentage of your take home pay.” — Dave Ramsey [07:35]
• “There are no money shortcuts. You can’t solve a problem by continuing to create it.” — Jade Washall [28:47]
• “Personal finance is 80% behavior. It’s 20% head knowledge.” — Dave Ramsey [29:55]
• “If you lose the spouse over a $13 burrito, you didn't win the war.” — Dave Ramsey [47:42]
• “You’re not taking care of the little woman. If you’re telling yourself that, you’re so full of crap you can’t breathe.” — Dave Ramsey [70:44]

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Practical Principles Emphasized

• Don’t shortcut your way to wealth: Lasting financial security requires discipline, sacrifice, and patience.
• Avoid being “house poor”: Keep housing within 25% of take-home pay for flexibility and margin.
• Prioritize family and well-being over strict financial advancement if necessary.
• Don’t make emotional decisions based on clickbait or headlines.
• Financial transparency in marriage is non-negotiable.
• Learn to crawl before you walk—rent before buying, side hustle before quitting your job.
• Don’t get caught in small financial “opportunities” that add complexity without benefit.
• Marital harmony and team effort outweigh minor budget disputes.
• Independence and healthy boundaries trump financial “convenience.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:49] — Should You Sell Your House to Pay Debt?
• [10:32] — Funding a Custody Battle: House vs. Debt
• [21:42] — Real Estate Price Myths & Fear-Based Clickbait
• [25:29] — Young Plumber: Budgeting, Debt, & Investing
• [32:58] — Should You Take an Employee Loan?
• [35:06] — Employment Contracts & Pursuing Justice
• [44:00] — Marital Food Budget Disputes
• [65:25] — Marital Financial Transparency & Control
• [93:04] — Investing After a Health Scare at Age 60
• [100:49] — Should a 20-Year-Old Buy a House?
• [111:22] — Living with a Controlling Parent
• [118:51] — Housekeeper Worth It During Baby Steps?

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Tone and Style

The episode blends tough love, empathy, and blunt practicality. Dave and Jade deliver advice with humor, candor, and the occasional admonition—firm but supportive, often drawing on personal stories to illustrate their guidance.

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Bottom Line:
Wealth and financial peace require steadfast, consistent choices—not shortcuts or hacks. Hard conversations, living with less, and making tough decisions (especially about home, family, and lifestyle) pave the road to prosperity. Stay focused, work together, and keep your eyes on the long game.

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Transcript

[Dave Ramsey]

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey network and the Fair Winds Credit union studio, this is the Ramsey Show. Jake Washall, Ramsey personality number one best best selling author is my co host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. Chelsea is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Chelsea, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Well, my. The simple question is should we sell our house to. Which should let us completely pay off all of our debt. Rent for a couple years, save up

pretty.

[Dave Ramsey]

Pretty bad out there, huh?

[Caller]

Big move.

Yeah. Well, we bought this house, my previous house. My husband and I married in 2021. I bought a small home on 2 acres that because of COVID and everything that happened, it doubled in value. And so when we sold it because it would only fit three of us and there were going to be four of us and now there's going to be five of us. There wasn't a lot on the market. We ended up buying something that was really at the higher end. But we were going to have about $40,000 in our savings account from the sale of that property since I basically doubled my money on it. And we put 20% down on this home as well.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so what do you owe on this home today?

[Caller]

We owe about 240, 242.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what is it worth?

[Caller]

Value should be somewhere between 270 and 200. 285.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And how much debt do you have?

[Caller]

We have about. Between credit card debt and medical debt, about 22,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's all your debt?

[Caller]

That's all of our debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much do you owe on your car?

[Caller]

We don't have any car payments. We tried to do pretty well.

[Jade Washall]

What's the. What do you pay every month for this mortgage?

[Caller]

It's 2200.

[Jade Washall]

And what do you guys take home?

[Caller]

We take home. It just kind of depends. I work at my church three days a week and then I keep my niece during the week. But as I said, I'm coming up on some maternity leave, having a third and so my income will be out of it. So my husband brings home now.

[Dave Ramsey]

What do you make now?

[Caller]

Somewhere between 45 and 4 and 5,000amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Combined on my hours. Combined.

[Jade Washall]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then your hours are getting ready to go away because of maternity. So you're seeing the pinch. So it's not really the debt, it's the house mortgage. Mortgage is going to kill you, right?

[Jade Washall]

It already is.

[Dave Ramsey]

Already very high.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah. Well, and that 40,000 had to go, that we had had to go to pay for court fees because I had to take my ex husband back to court to protect our son.

[Dave Ramsey]

That doesn't matter. I mean, I'm sorry for that, but it doesn't matter. What matters is you have a $2200 mortgage with a $4000 take home pay and that's getting ready to go down.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's a, that's going to be. Your house payments. Can be 50% of your take home pay. Now when you say $5,000 take home pay, do you mean after taxes or have you taken out 401k and other stuff out of insurance?

[Caller]

Correct. That's what comes into our bank account.

[Jade Washall]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is going to 401k?

[Caller]

He has a state job, so I think we do as much as we can to match what the state puts in.

[Jade Washall]

Do you have an idea of what a dollar amount might be? Just an idea.

[Caller]

I'm so sorry.

[Jade Washall]

What about insurance? Do you have a dollar idea of what that might be?

[Caller]

Each check Insurance is like $700. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

A month.

[Caller]

He's covered. Yeah, he's covered completely for free. But it's like $700 whether you have one dependent.

[Dave Ramsey]

So when we say $5,000 is coming into your check, but when we're talking about the ratio to your house payment, we mean just after taxes, not after 401k and after insurance. So we're going to add back probably 1500 bucks to this in terms of running the calculation. So the 2200 doesn't sound quite as bad then until you, until you quit work to have a baby and then it starts sounding bad again. So what is your plans after the baby comes home and you have a normal maternity after that?

[Caller]

I will continue to watch my niece and so all of the, all of my income will come back in about six to eight weeks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. No, I would not sell your house to pay off the debt. I would tell your husband to get two extra jobs and work through the extra debt. That's what I would tell. And he probably needs to do that anyway just to cover for your maternity losses right now so that you guys can stay afloat for the six to eight weeks. You get the other side of the six to eight weeks. And if you've got an extra thousand or $2,000 a month coming in from working all the time you can knock out $20,000 worth of debt fairly quick.

[Jade Washall]

You can, you can. I, I'm, I'm gonna go out on a limb. I still think the mortgage is a problem. Even if you had, even if your take home was $6,000, this is still high. This needs to be close. Your mortgage needs to be closer to fifteen hundred dollars for what you're bringing in. And I think that if you have any other money goals, it's just going to elongate it. I think you bought too much house.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your husband do?

[Caller]

Yeah, he, he works for the state of Texas.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so he's working 40 hours.

[Caller]

Yes, yes, he does.

[Dave Ramsey]

In order to keep this house, he's going to have to have a good lucrative side hustle for this to make

[Jade Washall]

sense that he wants to do for a long time.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's if you had no debt.

[Caller]

Right. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

In other words, the house is the problem, not the house solves the problem.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you called, you said, do we sell the house to get out of debt? No, you might have to sell the house because you can't afford it.

[Jade Washall]

Yes. That's a, it's a separate problem from the debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. But if I'm in your all shoes, I would stop his 401k today, his contribution to the state, and I would pick up two extra jobs to cover your maternity downtime. And then as soon as you're back, you guys just go into full attack mode and cut up all the credit cards and attack them in that order, smallest to largest. Get rid of those. And when those are gone, then you've got to assess. You need to be bringing in the door, not Counting insurance and 401k, 6 to $7,000 for this to begin to make sense.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah. And let's talk about it from the viewpoint of the viewer. The 25% rule that we're talking about, there's a reason for that. Because if your mortgage starts to eat up more than that, then you're not able to do the other things that we teach. You need to be giving 10% somewhere in generosity. At some point you're going to need to be investing at least 15%. At some point you're going to need to have margin to be doing that along with putting extra towards your house. And if you let your mortgage creep up to 40 and 50% of your take home pay, all of that plus eating and just living a normal life honestly, becomes impossible.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well. And you end up. The next car is debt.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because you don't save for a car. The Next vacation is debt because you don't save for a vacation. The next Christmas is debt because you don't have any room, you're pinched. It's why we call it house poor. You become house poor when your payment is too big a percentage of your take home pay. Economists would say you don't have enough disposable income after you cover necessities.

[Jade Washall]

We call it margin.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, exactly. And you need that margin to be able to build wealth, to be able to be generous and to be able to build a quality life. And if you pinch yourself with a huge freaking house payment as a percentage of your take home pay, it's very difficult to do. You guys are right on the line. If he's going to get normal raises and does a good side hustle, you probably could keep this. But you're going to have to make that a part of your life. He's not working 40 hours and you keep this house. It doesn't work. You're getting ready to hit the road this summer. You want to feel confident your car is ready to go. But when you don't fully understand what's going on under the hood, it's easier to either ignore something important or spend money you didn't need to. Because let's be honest, you're not a mechanic and you shouldn't have to be. That's why we trust Christian Brothers Automotive, the official auto repair partner of the Ramsey Show. They bring clarity to car repairs and maintenance with their digital vehicle inspections. You can actually see what your technician sees. Understand what needs attention now and what can wait so you can make wise decisions without second guessing. Listen when you're counting on your car to get you where you need to be. You don't want uncertainty. You want confidence. And Christian Brothers stands behind their work with the nice difference warranty. Three years or 36,000 miles, whichever benefits you more. Go to cbac.comramsey to schedule your service and get 10% off your visit. That's cbac.comramsey 10% off up to a $250 value. See store for details. Skip is in Minneapolis. Hi, Skip. How are you?

[Caller]

You know, hanging in there. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I've got a custody battle ahead of me. I've recently had to get a lawyer and I've been working the baby steps. I've aged. Step two, I've got my starter emergency fund a little more right now. I think I've got about 1300 in that. But with my debt and with this Custody battle on the horizon. I'm just really trying to look for the best way to navigate this. Obviously I don't have all the money for a lawyer, which would put me further into debt, which is not what we want. Otherwise, I'm looking at either bankruptcy or selling my house.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and what do you owe on your home?

[Caller]

I owe 193,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's it worth?

[Caller]

$100. It's worth between 299 and 324.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you got somewhere around $100,000 equity. And how much debt do you have?

[Caller]

I have roughly 60,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. So simple math says if you sold the house and you paid off all your debt, you'd have $40,000 in a war chest to fight with and you'd be a renter. Yes, that's one quick solution without getting into too many details, but that's just balance sheet transfer stuff. Now, what's your, what's your income?

[Caller]

I gross about 46 or 4,600amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

How many children do you have?

[Caller]

I have three total.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how old are they?

[Caller]

I have a 12 year old daughter, a eight year old son, and then the one that I'm going into custody battle for is my 20 month old daughter.

[Jade Washall]

Are you trying to get full custody or shared custody?

[Caller]

Probably full.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why?

[Caller]

So her, her mother is disabled and then this past weekend had a mental health crisis and ended up in a treatment facility.

[Jade Washall]

Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you married, remarried?

[Caller]

No, I, I'm not to this.

No.

No, not to this relationship.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you have, but are you, but the two, the other, the older two children, where are they?

[Caller]

So they're from a previous marriage and I have them 50% of the time.

[Jade Washall]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Jade Washall]

So the 20 month old in question and you're saying the mom is not a safe environment

[Caller]

as of right the second, no. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

It just depends on how scorched earth you want to go on this. You know, what's the nature of your $40,000 or $60,000 worth of debt?

[Caller]

Yeah, so I have roughly 26,000 on a parent plus loan that I agreed to take on when I, you know, was initially going to school. I've got 9,700 on my student loans. I've got about 4,100 on a credit card and then 9,200 on a roof.

[Jade Washall]

There's part of this and I don't know, Dave, you could probably speak to this a little bit better, but if the judge is looking for fitness, it might look good for you to say I've got $40,000 saved. I don't have any debt. You know, you're a renter and you live in a really nice place that could look good. It looks nice and responsible, if that's what you're going for, and I like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, and you got. You have the money to fight with, because right now, I don't know where you get $10,000 to hand an attorney right now.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's what you're going to need to get just to get started.

[Caller]

Yeah. I think I was quoted about four to six thousand dollars. If there's really no battle, you know, if she decides to just be agreeable to everything. Otherwise I'm looking at upwards of 15,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

And it could go on and on and back and forth really continuously.

[Caller]

Right. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, I mean, it's. I don't know where you're going to get $10,000 unless you do this. I don't. I mean, your income's not that high. There's nothing in this. I mean, if you quit paying all the debts, that's fine. It's not. You mean you quit paying those student loans. You catch up. Half of America's defaulted on their student loans, so you go back and pick that up later. But that's not a cash. That doesn't give you the cash flow to come up with ten grand quickly. And you don't have anything else to sell that I've heard of. Do you have money in savings or investments anywhere?

[Caller]

I mean, so my investment, I ended up pausing it. So I only got like $200 in an IRA. I've got 1,300 in my IR. My savings. After this month, I'll have closer to 2,000. But that's. I mean, that's really about it. I don't have a vehicle. I'm borrowing one currently, so I don't have that. I am 34.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you paying child support on the other two?

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Because you have 50%.

[Jade Washall]

Okay.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

20 months old. The only way I know how to answer questions that are super difficult like this one on this show is if I woke up in your shoes, what would I do? I've never been anywhere near something like this personally, so I don't know what I would do, but what I think I would do is that I would prioritize my financial investments and my financial advancement, my wealth building behind the good of my child. Good of my child would come first. And that would mean I'm gonna sell the house and I'm gonna go get custody. And if it takes $40,000 to do that. Fine. But I'm gonna have $40,000 in my pocket and I'm gonna be 100% debt free and I'm gonna get an inexpensive, clean, safe rental for the other 2k custody time and for this 20 month old to be raised. And then you're starting again to save because you're going to spend money on this 20 month old, on legal fees and, and to, to take care of this baby. And that's, that's what, you know, I think that's got to be the priority. The baby's got to come first. I mean it's like all this other stuff is secondary and, and I don't know, I don't see a hol story to re. Reach into and get 10,000 bucks. And it's going to take you 10. The four to five is. That's a, that's not going to happen. It's going to take, it's going to take 10, it's probably going to take 20. Because she's mentally ill. 100% expect a problem. If she wasn't mentally ill, might be different, then there'd still be a problem because you're trying to take her child, but she's mentally ill and so she's crazy. And so just expect crazy. I mean you don't expect nothing else. So that's, you know, what we're doing here.

[Caller]

Wow, that's tough.

[Dave Ramsey]

Skip, sorry for you, man. I'm sorry for that baby most of all. Yeah, take care of that. How do I say this? Nice.

[Jade Washall]

Just say it.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're sleeping with your crazy girlfriend and you make a baby, this is what you get.

[Jade Washall]

There you go.

[Dave Ramsey]

Was that nice?

[Jade Washall]

Yes, that was.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And if you're dating a girl, guys, and she says I'm not crazy 100% that means she's crazy.

[Jade Washall]

Well, she showed you something, you just didn't want to see it. At some point she showed you something or he showed you whoever gotta take your. When people show you who they are.

[Dave Ramsey]

I want to love Skip and I want to help him. But I also want to say out loud for those listening that this is the result of decisions, bad ones. And this is where we get to. Now we've got. But now there's a baby and it's not the baby's fault.

[Jade Washall]

That's right. And you want to protect them at all cost.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so now we've got to man up and take care of the baby for the mistakes that have been made in this process. So yeah, don't date crazy girls and for sure. Don't sleep with them. Hello.

[Jade Washall]

And there's ways to prevent babies.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm just saying don't sleep with them. That prevents it. That stops it every time. It's 100%.

[Jade Washall]

100%.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Jade Washall]

Attorney advertising results may vary and no specific outcome is guaranteed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Buying or selling a home is a big deal. We're gonna be talking about real estate with the real estate expert, my buddy Brian Buffini on tomorrow's show. So be sure you listen in on that or watch that or however it is you consume this show. And I was just on Fox a minute ago, Fox News, and we were talking about a Zillow report that's out. That's absolute bullcrap. Zillow threw a thing out there to get a headline that says 227 cities in America or whatever. 220 something cities. The starting price for entry to buy a home is a million dollars.

[Jade Washall]

One million dollars. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then when you read the article carefully is they just threw that out to get attention as clickbait because it's absolute bullcrap. So, I mean, 120something of the cities are in California, which means that they took seven cities that were all little villages around the edge of San Jose and they all have a million dollar. Of course they do. You know, you're in freaking Silicon Valley. Of course, the seven cities that are around that are actual municipalities that surround LA are a million dollars. But. But Abilene Texas is not Oklahoma City is not Amarillo, Texas. Nashville, Tennessee is not a million dollar starting point. So they made it sound like that it took a million dollars for somebody to buy a house. And that's absolute bullcrap. The average entry point in America is 199,000. Right now. That's the average starter home. And the average home in America is 407,000 or something like that. What is it right now? But yeah, so it's 427,000 right in there. But I mean, that's the median price. That's the middle price of all homes in America, which means by definition, a million dollars is not starting.

[Jade Washall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So bull crap. Zillow. So that's the problem with stuff like that floating around from these people looking for clicks. If you want to know the actual thing that's going on, you can go to ramseysolutions.com market and you'll get a great real estate page that will outline for you exactly what's going on with interest rates, exactly what's going on with pricing and so on, and you can start to figure out whether or not you make enough to buy a home in your locality. Real estate's like politics. It's all local. So what's happening in Manhattan is completely, almost completely irrelevant to what's happening in Kansas City. And all that matters if you're in Kansas City is what's happening in Kansas City.

[Jade Washall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so you can't go, well, the average across America doesn't mean anything. You can say the average across the world, but you're including Tokyo and London, some of the most expensive real estate in the world. And that, that average is, is absolutely useless as a measure of whether you can buy a house or not. So that's not how you figure this out, folks. So. So Ramsey Trusted can connect you with an agent in your area that is Ramsey Trusted that we have vetted for high octane, high protein. And if you're listening on YouTube or on podcast, you can just click the link in the description. Or if you want to go online, ramseysolutions.com agent we'll connect you with a real agent that really knows their stuff, not a bunch of hoopla and bull crap clickbait from some TV show or website that's just trying to get people to click on it. And that's fear. Porn is what that is. So just stay away from it. San Francisco, our Francisco is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Francisco, how are you? Good are you, sir, Better than I deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

I just need a couple. I need some help with taking some next steps with investing my money. I'm 20 years old right now. I'm a plumber, and I just feel like I'm not taking advantage of my money the correct way. I feel like it's just sitting in the bank doing nothing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Cool. How much you making, man?

[Caller]

I mean, this is my first year by myself in my van. I just finished my apprenticeship, and it's been really slow over here. I don't know if it's just the company that I'm with right now. I am looking for other jobs because I just feel like this company that I'm with right now is not. I won't get far with it. So this year I feel like I haven't even made. Like, I don't even think I've made cross the 30. 30 grand.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's 40 hours a week so far this year.

[Caller]

Yeah. I mean, completely. I don't know how much I would make.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you making $2,500 a month, honey?

[Caller]

Some. Some months. Yeah. Some. Some months now less.

[Dave Ramsey]

That would be $30,000 in the first six months. And that'd be $30,000 a year.

[Caller]

Yeah, it's kind of. With this, it's been really slow, so, like some weeks I work.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sounds like you need a new job.

[Caller]

Yeah, that's what I've been hunting for recently, because. Finding new jobs.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and. And how much do you have piled in the bank?

[Caller]

About a grand is good for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much do you have in debt?

[Caller]

No debt. I mean, I only have credit card. I think I would like 800 bucks. Probably pay it off like next month or something.

[Jade Washall]

And cut it up.

[Dave Ramsey]

Pay it off right now.

[Caller]

Pay it off right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Tonight. You have the money in the bank?

[Caller]

Okay. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And cut it up. Quit using it.

[Jade Washall]

You don't need it for any purposes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your first goal is to be debt free. And your second goal is to build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses before you start investing. And so you're eight. You need to be 100% debt free. No credit cards. Be living on a budget, and we'll send you every dollar. Our app that will help you build your budget out and build the system out that we teach here at Ramsey. And then you build that emergency fund. So take that eight grand. It needs to be 15 to 20 grand. And you never touch that. That's just for a rainy day. It's just sitting over there. It's not an investment. Then you start investing 15% of your income. If your new company has a 401k, do the Roth version. Roth 401k. If it doesn't, then go to ramseysolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro. That's mutual fund brokers and financial advisors that we recommend they don't for us, but they have the heart of a teacher, and they'll sit down and teach you about investing, and you can start your Roth IRA with them, and they'll show you how to do it, and they'll show you how it works. And you will make the decision because they're not going to sell you something until you understand it.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah. And speaking of making sure you understand it, let's talk about why we told him to cut up the credit card. Because what I, what I don't want you to do, Francisco, is just say, well, they told me to do it, I'm going to do it. And you not understand it. We know that if you have a problem, the problem is generally debt. The things that you're experiencing are usually symptoms of the debt that's in your life. And so you can't solve a problem while continuing to create it. So if you have credit cards and you're continuing to spend them, you're continuing to create the problem. You're just chasing your tail. So one of the primary things that you have to do when you start this system of living is you have to say, I don't borrow money anymore. And that has to be part of who you are with your money from here on forward, because you have to be able to have the fullness of your income at your disposal every single month to do the things that we're teaching, whether it's investing, whether it's paying off a house, whether it's saving for kids, college, whether it's saving up cash to buy a car, you need income to do that. And if you're pulling and you're throwing all your monthly pay, all of your income onto monthly payments, you don't have the income at your disposal to do those things. So that's why we teach it that way.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. And so personal finance is 80% behavior. It's 20% head knowledge. So the problem with my money is the guy in my mirror, if I can get him to behave, he can be skinny and rich, but he's got issues. And so I've got to get him to behave. And that's how this works. And part of that is I have to trick myself into wisdom. Tricking myself into wisdom is not having a credit Card.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah. Just cut it up. Then it's not there to take it.

[Dave Ramsey]

If I don't have one, then it's not an issue.

[Jade Washall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And by the way, your debit card, folks, off your checking account. Account will do everything. Your credit card will do every single thing. Sharon and I have traveled in other countries six times in the last 12 months. 100% on a debit card. We haven't had a credit card in 36 years. No.

[Jade Washall]

And if you have fraud, it's the exact same protection you call them. You say somebody spent money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, they did. They stole Sharon's card the other day.

[Jade Washall]

Did they?

[Dave Ramsey]

Somebody started buying a whole bunch of Louis Vuitton and it wasn't her. And we had to shut the thing down.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

The bank called and goes, are you buying like Louis Vuitton in six different cities? And we went, no. Yeah, debit card. You know what it cost us? Zero. One of the biggest myths about money is that if you're winning with money, you're never supposed to spend any. That's not true. Some of the best money you'll spend is making memories with the people you love. That's why I was excited to find out about Young Washington from Angel. This movie tells the story of George Washington before he became a general or president. It's about failure, perseverance, and leadership. And it's the kind of movie that's worth seeing on the big screen. And here's the best part. Angel has made it part of a bigger and better deal. Instead of just buying tickets at the box office, you can get a premium Angel Guild membership for just $15 a month. You'll get two tickets to Young Washington, access to Angel's family friendly streaming library, and free tickets to upcoming angel theatrical releases every month. The truth is, the two tickets to Young Washington pay for the first month on their own. Celebrate America's 250th with a great movie this July 4th and a great deal. Sign [e-mail] Ramsey that's angel.com Ramsey. Kim is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Kim. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm good.

How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Hi. My husband's job offers a $2,000 interest free loan to all their employees yearly. We've never taken advantage of it, but we think we should. And we're not sure which way to go if we want to put that into an IRA or pay off one of our mortgages.

[Jade Washall]

But it's a loan. You have to give the money back. It's a loan, right?

[Caller]

It is, but it is interest free. So it'd be taken out of the paycheck throughout the year. So essentially for us, it feels like we wouldn't notice it so much. So we don't know if it'd be worth it or not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's pretend that they charged you interest on it just for the fun of it, okay? I mean, like, let's just make up a number. If you went to the bank and got a personal line of credit, you might get it for 10%.

[Caller]

Mm.

[Dave Ramsey]

On $2,000, that'd be $200. You're making $20 a month.

[Caller]

Mm.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't buy a biscuit with this transaction. You're burning way too many brain calories for no money here, okay? There's no trick, there's no hack, okay? You're dealing with peanuts and you're not gonna get anything but more peanuts, okay? Don't screw with it for that. And it's a trap. You're going to get caught in something like he's going to get laid off or fired and you have this loan outstanding and then it's going to convert to interest because you're no longer an employee or whatever the crap is in the fine print that you guys hadn't even thought about.

[Caller]

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

Do not step up on the rug that's over the trap door.

[Jade Washall]

George says this and it's so true. Whenever the call starts with I have an interesting opportunity. Whenever it's framed as a unique opportunity,

[Dave Ramsey]

it's like your friend is trying to get you into a multi level. Yes.

[Jade Washall]

This is not an opportunity.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, Rob is in Washington dc. Hey Rob, what's up?

[Caller]

Just trying to just want to say thank you for everything that you do for people and so glad that you took my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Thank you. How can we help?

[Caller]

I'm an interesting position. I make a very high salary and I had an eight year guaranteed contract. The company started going through financial issues to where I started having to cover payroll out of my pocket and then credit cards started bouncing and Anyways, and

[Dave Ramsey]

so you didn't have to, you chose to.

[Caller]

I chose to because I cared about people that were my employees.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or they're not your employees. They were that company's employees. You, they were your understand you.

[Caller]

I just, from a Christian point of

[Dave Ramsey]

view, I just know that's nothing Christian about that.

[Jade Washall]

Whose payroll did you cover? How much did you spend on this?

[Caller]

It wasn't much. I mean you're talking 17, $18 an hour employees and it was every couple months. And then she then the company started dancing. My paychecks are paying me late. And are you. My main question is, go ahead.

[Jade Washall]

Were you board level? Are you bought in in any way to this company?

[Caller]

That's where the contract is. Very interesting. I'm a physician and I signed an eight year contract with 5% interest or interest in the company going up over the first four years to where I don't own 40% of the company. And my. And the contract was guaranteed for eight years.

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

But they weren't broke.

[Caller]

No, they let me go because they couldn't afford to have me anymore. They went without my sip, without my salary. They're breaking even.

Okay.

So my options are to. It's an llc. The person that owns the company had no idea what they were doing and they were get. It's like a play project because her husband is very wealthy, but he is only on the SBA loan. He's not on the LLC or the corporate documents.

Oh boy.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, the LLC doesn't have anything. It's not got any money.

[Caller]

Well, no, it's just breaking even. It's breaking even covering expenses. Once I once I'm no longer there. The reason that she, the letter that she gave me for let me go was because of financial strain. It wasn't for any other type of cause.

[Jade Washall]

So when you were hired and There was this eight year, and after eight years it's 40%. Did you have to put money in to buy into that?

[Caller]

I did not. They searched me out because the type of physician I am, I'm getting paid significantly higher than any other college.

[Dave Ramsey]

What kind of an income do you normally make in your field?

[Caller]

Normally in my field they're probably making 70 to 100. I'm making 225 to 250.

[Dave Ramsey]

As a physician, somebody makes 70.

[Jade Washall]

Are you like a pediatrician?

[Caller]

No, I'd rather not. I don't want to give away who anything about.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Anyway, the answer to your question is A, we're not lawyers. B, from a practical standpoint, if you are completely right, which you probably are, they owe you for eight years. They owe you for eight years of income. They have violated a contract. That's what you're saying. And you could probably win the lawsuit and then you would have a judgment against a broke company that's not going to pay you a dime.

[Caller]

Right? No, I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

So why, why would you bother?

[Caller]

I'll be honest with you, Dave. I went through a bankruptcy like you did several, let's say 10, 15 years ago. And I've had. I always Feel like I'm the underdog, and I'm the type of person that'll work seven days a week for you. I'll do the blood, sweat and tears. And I'm having a hard time letting people get away with stuff anymore.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, they're going to get away with it because you can sue again. Get a lien against an LLC that has no assets.

[Caller]

No, but can I ask you, since the husband is on the fba, doesn't

[Dave Ramsey]

matter if he didn't sign the contract. The LLC signed the contract. You're not going to get to the

[Jade Washall]

husband to protect himself. That was intentional.

[Caller]

He said no. But he signed the SBA so he wouldn't be on the hook for the sba.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's on the hook for the sba, but he's not on the hook for you.

[Caller]

No, but it's still. Because they're making enough right now to pay the bill, so that would allow them to pay all the loans off.

[Dave Ramsey]

This doesn't feel moral, but it's completely legal.

[Caller]

No, I know what it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not going to get to him. He has what's called a corporate veil. That's why they did business in an llc. That's why any of us do business in an llc. So if we get sued, the maximum thing you could get is the assets of the LLC you can't come after. That's why all my real estate is in an llc. Because a drunk guy fell off the front porch of one of the houses the other night, decided he was going to sue, and it's his fault because he was drunk. But I still got a deal with the moron, and he can't get to any of my stuff. All he can get to is the LLC that owns that house.

[Caller]

You're a moral question. How do you get over a moral question? How do you get over. I don't want to say been victimist, but just feeling like you're getting burned and not sticking up for yourself.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, I completely. I don't know that you do get over it. It makes you angry and it hurts you, your feelings. And all you can do is distance yourself and then figure out, okay, what, am I'm gonna burn some energy? Am I going to burn it? Just trying to prove a point? Because you're gonna spend 10, 20, 30,000 bucks to sue them and win, and then you're gonna get nothing. And it's gonna be playing in your head for the next two to three years because the court system sucks and drags everything out. So it's not justice. You're not gonna get justice. And so you've gotta decide, okay, what am I gonna spend my time and my energy on? I'm gonna spend it on something positive going forward, something that's helpful and hopeful.

[Jade Washall]

So let's pretend he did sue and he sued him for a million bucks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

And they're doing business out of a commercial building. Maybe that they own it. Maybe it's worth a million bucks. So if he sues them, the judgment wouldn't cause them to have to close down, sell the property and pay him.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, he said the LLC has no assets. It doesn't have a commercial building.

[Jade Washall]

Well, he said they were breaking even,

[Dave Ramsey]

but I kept asking about assets. No assets. They don't have any money. They just cut their doctor loose. And they're a medical operation.

[Caller]

That's true.

[Dave Ramsey]

They're going down. They don't have any money, and they might have an asset. If they've got an asset like a commercial building, then. Yeah, go after it.

[Jade Washall]

Go after it.

[Dave Ramsey]

You could get it. You can end up with the building.

[Jade Washall]

Even the. I mean, he did say no assets, but I got. There's gotta be something in there that they're.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, there doesn't. They could have gone and rented office space, set up a medical operation, say a clinic of some kind. Right. We don't know because he didn't give us the details.

[Jade Washall]

Sound like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's probably something like that. And so, you know, there's a bunch of used medical equipment in there and a bunch of broke people that aren't getting their salaries paid.

[Jade Washall]

Okay. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And there's, you know, and a used office desk. And, you know, I wouldn't agree with it. I'd move on with my life. But it's very hard to his point. Because you're angry. It's unjust.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not fair. And it's not right.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Rachel Cruz]

Okay, guys, let me ask you something. What would it take for you to switch your bank? Because if you're still earning next to nothing on your savings, you need to check out Fairwinds Credit Union. And I know what you're thinking. It might sound like a hassle. Moving your direct deposit, updating bills, getting a new debit card feels like a lot. But here's what most people don't realize. Staying where you are could be costing you hundreds of dollars every year. Y', all, the average savings account pays less than half a percent. So let's say, for example, you got $20,000 saved. You might earn around $70 a year. But with a Fair Winds High Yield Savings account earning 3% APY or more, that same money could earn you over $600. And that's real money that you can use towards the baby steps. So don't let temporary comfort keep you stuck. Check out the Smart bundle from Fairwinds Credit Union. You get a High Yield savings account, a no fee checking account, and the Ramsey Beweird debit card. Go to Fairwinds.org Ramsey to learn more and make the switch today. That's Fairwinds.org Ramsey insured by the NCUA.

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Caller]

Hi.

I'm doing good. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

My husband and I, we keep fighting and I just want to know if he's right. We keep fighting about buying prepared foods while in baby step two. Is he right?

[Dave Ramsey]

What's a prepared food?

[Caller]

So like frozen meals or like prepared lasagna or in particular, I buy these chicken burrito bowls to eat while I'm at my second job.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you guys, are you guys aligned on everything else?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Jade Washall]

What's the problem? The quality or the price? Because that stuff is not expensive.

[Caller]

I don't think it's expensive at all. The chicken bowls are 13.97 and he says I can make them, but I prep are.

[Jade Washall]

What are you spending on during the week? What are you spending?

[Caller]

We spend about 200 every two weeks.

[Jade Washall]

Okay, so 400 bucks a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's your household income?

[Caller]

I make 61 and he makes 58.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and you're attacking debt, obviously with intensity.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so how much debt are you attacking?

[Caller]

We have 45 in student loans and then 37 and credit cards and then 195 on our house. But unfortunately his mother passed away, so we just inherited 104,

[Dave Ramsey]

which is going to clear all your debts.

[Caller]

Everything but the house.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you're not going to be in baby step two anymore.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

So then it doesn't matter if you buy prepared meals anymore.

[Jade Washall]

And by the way, it didn't matter before either if you were spending $400. I've spent a hundred bucks a week on groceries. That's really, really good.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's really low.

[Jade Washall]

It's really low. Now if he says to you you're responsible for the meals and I don't like this food. I don't enjoy it. Can we please do something else? That's fair. But if he's saying on price alone, I would disagree with what he's saying.

[Dave Ramsey]

It feels like that. Okay, let me tell you what normally happens when I've been coaching people in these situations that we've found one thing that absolutely doesn't matter to argue about. But there's a whole lot of big things that we should have been arguing about that were not right. Like he's still buying $2,000 guns or something and bitching about a $13 burrito. That's what I find a lot of times. Or he, you know. Or you're buying something else that he's really frustrated about, but he's pointing it over here at the burrito instead.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Am I missing something? I mean, is there a coach purse in the story that I missed?

[Caller]

No, he's just a tight boy.

[Dave Ramsey]

You guys are in complete 100% agreement. There's no argument about everything else in your budget, and you're running a $400 food budget.

[Caller]

Yeah. I guess the only thing different in our budgeting that we want to do is I want to take Rachel's suggestion and add a stupid line item for those things that just pop up and he doesn't want.

[Jade Washall]

He's a tight wad.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, no, he's trying to be very, very intense. But here's the problem. You end up. If you lose the wife, if you lose the spouse over a $13 burrito, you didn't win the war.

[Jade Washall]

You threw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, now again, she's not trying to buy a $6,000 Coach purse. Okay? This is. There's no Louis Vuitton in this discussion. There's no expensive firearms in this discussion or whatever it is that we want to talk about boy toys and girl toys or whatever. Okay, that's not in the discussion. So this is simply. Okay, so what I'm going to coach him to do is this. You win the argument because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. $13 does not fix your all's life. Okay, so you win the argument, but he needs to learn the art of letting you win some battles so that we win the war of working on this together. It's more important. It's 99% important that both of you stay enthused and pointed at the problem. It's 1% important as to whether you buy a burrito dough.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

You got me. So, yeah, you know, there might be a dollar or two technicality, and Jade's better expert on food. She says there's not. She says it's not out of line. But even if it Was. Even if it was $5 more in a $400 budget, he could win the math. But. But it's stupid.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, you're.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't lose your wife for $5.

[Jade Washall]

He's right. You're. It's going to be cheaper for you to cook everything from scratch. But $400 is a fair budget item. Like, that's a fair amount to spend on groceries. It's very low. Very, very low.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Very low. As it is, we don't see that hardly ever. So overall, you win the argument. But if I had him on the line, I would coach him and say, dude, more important that she's enthused and focused on the overall plan than the $13 burrito, what she's asking is not so far out there.

[Rachel Cruz]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

It's like when I ask my husband to make up the bed, and he makes up the bed, but he does it a little bit different than the way I do it. And if I get on to him,

[Dave Ramsey]

then you get to make it up.

[Jade Washall]

Pretty soon, he ain't making up the bed.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

You know?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

It's almost like that happened this weekend.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, that. Oh, did we just bring up a real analogy? A real metaphor? Okay. Yeah, that's exactly it. I mean. Yeah. You know, if you're gonna gripe about the way I do it, you get to do it.

[Caller]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so you lose the battle of helping with housework over the wrinkle in the corner of the bed. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. So let's get on the same page. Let's decide what's really important here. What's really important is we get out of debt, stay out of debt. We're generous when we build wealth, and we're on a plan together.

[Jade Washall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is what causes people to be wealthy. Not $13 burritos or the lack of them, either.

[Jade Washall]

You really caught up on this burrito?

[Dave Ramsey]

Either one. Well, I tell you what's flashing through my head is those stupid bags of chicken breasts from Sam.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

We lived on those things when we were broke. And I hate never want to see it again. Anytime I'm at a restaurant, fine dining or otherwise, we have a chicken breast.

[Jade Washall]

No, thank you.

[Dave Ramsey]

No way. The other one was tuna fish.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, I remember you said that she

[Dave Ramsey]

would make tuna fish sandwiches, and I would take them to work, and they would be in the work refrigerator, and by lunch, they'd be saucy. When I smell tuna fish, my net worth goes down. Now just the smell of it reminds me of being broke.

[Jade Washall]

It's cat food.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's just somebody else needs to eat that health food because I'm not doing it. It's that simple. I can't do it. It reminds me of being broke.

[Jade Washall]

I totally get it.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's just the smell of it. I smell it and I feel broke.

[Jade Washall]

I feel that that's how I am

[Dave Ramsey]

with myself because that's when the last time I ate it it was like soggy. He sat there in the refrigerator, the bread gets, oh God, it's so gross. And so that's the, you know, that's the stuff he's going to remember now. They're going to remember the 13 burrito or whatever when they, they're the side of this someday and they're millionaires or baby step millionaires. And we had this stupid discussion over that.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

The other one that was funny was Sharon. I had this huge fight, three little kids, because I thought same, I'm that guy guy spending too much at the grocery store. And she's like, all right, king genius, you do it. Get your butt in the car and let's go to Kroger. And we go up and down the aisle. And you know what I discovered? She was doing a pretty good job.

[Caller]

I love it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And my level of criticism for her future deal making on the groceries was none at all. Cuz otherwise I get to do it. And I couldn't do any better anyway. But I had this opinion from afar that I had this figured out until I got marched down the aisle of Kroger.

[Jade Washall]

Very good, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

I'm doing good, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. It's a pleasure to speak with you.

[Dave Ramsey]

You too. What's up?

[Caller]

Sir, I'm a welder by trade and I am looking to start my own mobile welding and fabricating business to get this off the ground. I'm humoring several avenues to pay for the startup cost of this. The big cost. I already have the rig and I already have the welder. So the two main costs are taken care of. But there is a substantial amount more that needs to go into getting this thing ready if it's going to go out and do the job. The first avenue I'm humoring is selling. My wife and I both have our cars paid off and I'm thinking about selling my 2017 Subaru Crosstrek, which Kelly Blue Book last time I checked, will get me about 13 boxes, maybe that ballpark. We are expecting our third child here at the end of July and my welding rig is not car seat friendly. So we would be down to one vehicle for the kids if we need that move. The second avenue I'm thinking about is I have about 150,000 right now put away in traditional and Roth IRA and I'm thinking about taking some of that out to fund this.

[Jade Washall]

How much do you need? What's the dollar amount that you need?

[Caller]

I'm thinking from all the quotes and everything that I've been putting together, it's going to be maybe around $10,000 to be serious, to have the right equipment on this thing for what you've already

[Dave Ramsey]

got the rig,

[Caller]

power tools, toolboxes, cylinders, gasoline tanks, business cards for gasoline. I would just say that as well because it's a 1981 Chevy Custom Deluxe. So this thing drinks gas. So when welding, right. If you know anything about welding, just. There is nothing cheap about it, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you're. Well, you're a welder now, right?

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

What do you make now?

[Caller]

I make just shy of 73,000 a year, so 35 an hour.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so if you take this rig out as a side hustle and do some welding, is that in conflict ethically with your day job?

[Caller]

No, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Are you already doing that?

[Caller]

No, I just got the welder back from the shop. You tuned up the welder? So I am not currently accepting job.

[Dave Ramsey]

So I understand the rig as it sits today is less than ideal, but I also understand it will. It will weld.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

So go weld something and get you some money from that job and use that money to upgrade your equipment and then go weld something else as a side hustle and get you some money. I mean, crap, you can make $10,000 in your side hustle pretty quick.

[Caller]

I know.

[Dave Ramsey]

And pour it all back into equipment and get your, get your rig ready and then you spend six months to a year as your side hustle making sure this is actually going to work in terms of you're going to get enough business to offset because you don't quit your job until you have this thing proven, of course. So go, go well something man. Go get you some business today. You can roll up, weld something and they will write you a check, right?

[Caller]

It is, sir. No doubt.

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. That's where you get the money.

[Caller]

I understand that, Dave. I'm just saying that like when I go out there and do the job because I do construction repair, like that's what I specialize in. And so I add wear plates and, and a bunch of other stuff to construction equipment. So like I need acetylene torches. Like if I just show up with a welder, just the welder on its own is, I'll be frank, sir. Is not enough to do the job right. In effect. And I would be saying no to a substantial amount of work because I don't have the tools needed to go and get.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm not saying this is your five year plan. I'm saying it's your five week plan. Listen, I started this business on a card table in my living room. It made $300 million last year, 100% of the equipment in this place. And there's millions and millions and millions of dollars of it. Today was bought with money we made in this place with equipment we didn't really like. And then we upgraded to equipment we liked with the money we made from the equipment we didn't really like. This is my seventh studio that I built that I'm sitting in. The first one wasn't even soundproof. We had to put up tape in the hallway, crime tape to keep you from walking down the hall and talking because it would have gone over the air. That's less than ideal, to say the least. And that's how this show started. And it makes millions of dollars now. The show alone does. So start with what you got. Borrow your buddy's acetylene torch. Pick up some stuff from the vendor. If you got to pick up some supplies from the vendor and tell them you'll pay them at the end of the job, they'll do that. And then get your butt down there and do some welding. If you wait until everything's perfect to start, you're going to figure out that even your perfect plan wasn't perfect. Go make some money and use that money organically to pour back into the business. That's what I would do.

[Jade Washall]

That's what I would do.

[Dave Ramsey]

I wouldn't sell the Subaru with a kid on the way, and I sure wouldn't touch my 401k. And I for sure wouldn't borrow the money to buy stuff that I'm not even positive yet exactly what I need. I think I know. I think you do know. But I'll guarantee you, you're not 100% right on your shopping list.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, there's something to cut back, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

And by the way, as soon as you get a piece of equipment, you'll see another one that looks better. Welcome to the world of being in the trades.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, you have to have a version one. You have to have a V1 to start.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, just start. Minimal functional. Minimal functional. Get going, get going. Make the thing, make money. And that's how we start. And, you know, I've had to tell the engineers, we're wiring stuff in here, they come in with these bids to redo the studio on stuff. It's been. Been here for six years. Okay, great. Looks okay to me. But the electronics are tired. I didn't know they'd been running. Yeah, so, okay. But. Yeah, okay, good. So what? And then they bring in, like, we're gonna build a freaking Taj Mahal of electronic. No, we're not. Minimal functional. Boys, go back and figure it out. This is a business. We're trying to make a profit, not make a profit for the electronics store.

[Jade Washall]

What you're saying is so right. You know, it's the same thing. When Sam and I started our business, I didn't have a computer. I had my phone. And we couldn't afford for me to get a computer, so I had to do everything like this and, you know, do what you gotta do.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. But please. Yeah. So first thing is go make some money to properly equip your truck, your mobile welding shop, and then once that's done, then go make enough profitable business in a short period of time as a side hustle to prove to yourself at least a minimum of six months worth to prove to yourself you can at least make more than you are making now. I actually think it's all going to work. I think you're going to go make a whole bunch of money.

[Jade Washall]

Absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I will tell you that we coach about 10,000 small businesses and a lot of them are in and around the construction world. And one of the things those guys all laugh with me about and I make fun of them all the time, is you guys will spend all your profit on tools in trucks. Trucks. Well, true. I mean, because Chevy ran some Silverado through a mud puddle and so you think you gotta have a new Silverado on a construction site so some moron can back into it with a backhoe. And that's, you know, it's hilarious. Construction people, they're just boys with toys. And we just buy. And I need a backhoe and I need a skid steer and I need this and I need. Yeah, you don't, you don't, don't use up all your profit buying gadgets. And that's not what he's saying. But there's a tendency in that world to do that.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, even the business card, it's like you don't need that yet you don't

[Dave Ramsey]

need a business card.

[Jade Washall]

Use your mouth.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't have a business card. You don't need a business card. You need an email address.

[Jade Washall]

That's all you need.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you need a text, a telephone and a phone, but you do not need a business card.

[Caller]

Sa. Foreign.

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[Dave Ramsey]

Kayla is with us in San Francisco. Hi, Kayla, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave, how are you? Thank you for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

Hi. Yeah, I have a question. How can I get my husband to be financially transparent with me as far as bank accounts, debts, and income?

[Jade Washall]

So when you ask him, what's his response? You tell me what you say and then you tell me what he says.

[Caller]

So I am not included in the bank account. I'm a stay at home mom. So when I ask him, you know what, it's in the bank account, he never gives me an exact amount. He always kind of goes around it and says, oh, we're okay, we're doing okay.

[Jade Washall]

Does he get upset with you if you continue to ask?

[Caller]

No. He's for the most part, a very calm person. He just kind of takes the conversation to a different, you know, direction. He tries to avoid all that.

[Jade Washall]

So if you said, well, if you said, well, instead of you telling me the balance, can you just give me the login? That way I can check it whenever I want. What would it be? His response?

[Caller]

I believe his. I think he told me once that he would rather be in charge of the finances so that I wouldn't have to stress about it.

[Jade Washall]

What? And you say, well, it's not stressful for me. I just want to see it.

[Caller]

I've told him that and he avoids it at all costs.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long have you been married?

[Caller]

We've been married for three years. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. Somewhere along the line, someone gave you guys a bad message about how our relationship actually works and they told. Someone told him, and someone told you that your vote doesn't count and your vote counts. So it just depends on how crazy you want to get to make your vote count. Because my prediction is this, that as long as you continue to build up resentment and anger inside of you because he's treating you like a freaking doormat, the longer that goes on, eventually you're going to blow. And when you do, your marriage will be over and no one will be able to talk you into staying because you will have put up with this for 10 years or 15 years or 8 years or whatever, and you will have had it. And no one will be able to dial you back in. I've sat in coaching sessions with couples and watched their marriage come to an end because they let this stuff go on and on and on and on and on. And finally they blow up.

[Caller]

Up.

[Jade Washall]

Now, here's a. Another take. I think Dave is right. Here's another way to consider it. I think that sometimes in these situations, when people want to prevent transparency, a lot of times it is because they have something to hide. And what's making me think that is because he's framing it in the way that you have the problem. Oh, I don't want. You'll be too stressed out. You'll be too worried worried. You'll be the one really. Right. When really the problem is he has the problem. And he's not saying, I just don't feel comfortable. I just need to get a grip. He's making it sound like you're the person who has a problem. So that's a red flag for me. And I do think that this has to be brought to a counselor, because whether it's what Dave said or whether it's what I said, both of those are not. You can't continue down that path that way.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's real calm, and you're real sweet until you're not.

[Caller]

Oh, God.

[Dave Ramsey]

But this will come to an end because you're getting pretty frustrated. You just called a couple strangers on a podcast with millions of people listening and told your story. You're already pretty frustrated.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so it's starting to build, and I don't want it to blow. And so, you know, I think, you know, honey, if we can't come to an arrangement where I have the same vote you have about our money, and we both know what's going on with the money, and my name is on the account and I have full access, there is going to be stress in the house, but it's going to be yours because I'm about to create some stress for you.

[Jade Washall]

Yep. And another. I'll tell you what Dr. John Deloney would say. He said, you know, when you have those conversations, frame it in the. In the story that you're telling yourself and say, you know, the way things are. The story I'm telling myself is that you're locking me out because you have something to hide. And the story I'm telling myself is that if this doesn't change pretty soon, I'm going to. Then I will blow, and that this will cause, you know, damage to our relationship that won't be able to be repaired. That's the story I'm telling myself. I don't want to keep going down that path. Right. That's another way that you can frame it.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so either. Either we can come to an arrangement by Friday afternoon where my name is on the account and I have full access to everything and you and I are making financial decisions together, or I'm going to go see a marriage counselor and I'm going to ask you to go with with me because I don't want our marriage to end. But that's where this is heading. This does not end well.

[Jade Washall]

No, it never. It doesn't.

[Dave Ramsey]

Doesn't end well.

[Jade Washall]

And let me paint this.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're the guy doing this, you're not taking care of the little woman. If you're telling yourself that you're so full of crap you can't breathe, that is an absolute lie. All it is is you're a control

[Jade Washall]

freak and we see the other side of it all the time. How often do people call in? They've been married forever and they've allowed this to persist. The husband passes away. The wife had no idea.

[Dave Ramsey]

No idea what's going on.

[Jade Washall]

No idea. And there's debt and there's.

[Dave Ramsey]

By the way, she can't get on the checking account. They go and get a court order because there's no will because bozo hasn't really been running the stuff. Right?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Bubba, you're not taking care of the little woman. That's just bull crap. That is not what's working. So the little woman is like a full grown person and they can carry half of the emotional stress of this household with you and should know what's going on. And by the way, the unknown more stressful than the known. It creates much more anxiety when you don't know what's going on and you make up stories in your head about what's going on than when you actually know the truth.

[Jade Washall]

That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Crap. I thought it was a lot worse than this. I'm glad to see that we're in this situation, you know, so you know, the unknown is way worse than a bad known for creating anxiety.

[Jade Washall]

Absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not helping someone. But that's. That's not the truth. He's really not trying to protector.

[Jade Washall]

No, he's.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's hiding.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, he's hiding something.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or he's controlling.

[Jade Washall]

Controlling. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Or both. Melissa is in Pennsylvania. Hi, Melissa. How are you?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave and Jade. Doing well. How are y' all doing?

[Jade Washall]

Great.

[Dave Ramsey]

How can we help?

[Caller]

Good. Okay. I'm a little nervous. So. Here we go. So we are selling one of our homes and we're expected to get roughly 120 in equity. So we're on baby step number two, but should we continue small to large or should we pay off all of my student loans because rates are expected to go up.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much, how much do you have in debt?

[Caller]

Consumer debt is 59,571 and student loans is 124,825.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, that is consumer debt. Okay, so you've got 160, 180, 483,000. Okay, and you got 120 coming out of the house. What are you going to do for a place to live after you pay all this down on the. The debt?

[Caller]

So we actually have two homes, so we're selling that one and then we're going to rent until. And then we're selling our second home. Actually, both are up for sale. And so then we're going to rent.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, good. So what's the other one going to bring?

[Caller]

Probably maybe night. I think 9,000 because we've been in less than two years. So we'll have to pay capital gains

[Jade Washall]

and then you'll have.

[Dave Ramsey]

You won't pay capital gains on anything except the gain. So how much did you say? How much did you buy it for?

[Caller]

We bought it for 320.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what will it sell for?

[Caller]

It's on for.

It's on for 360.

But that's 40 on the market, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

So 15% of 40 is not 9. No, that's not. You know, your taxes aren't as much as you thought they were. That's what I thought. Okay. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Still didn't clear it. Okay, so what's the 59,000 in in debt?

[Caller]

Credit cards and my car. We paid off my husband's truck.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much do you owe on your car?

[Caller]

My car is 19,906.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, the credit cards are a higher interest rate than the student loans.

[Jade Washall]

I really don't think it's going to matter. I would do it in the normal way, smallest to largest, because you're still going to have your income to put towards cleaning up the rest of the debt. And if you go at lightning speed like we suggest, it's going to be negligible either way.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're going to pay it off really fast either way. But clearing up all the credit cards and the car debt, that's going to clean up a bunch. Clear up a bunch of cash flow to be able to attack the balance of what you don't get to, you're only going to have about 60,000 left to knock out. Yeah, no, I would work that at Snowball in order.

[Caller]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Jackie is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hi Jackie, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi. Good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

I was wondering if you could help me determine a comfortable monthly payment for a house and how much I should put down.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not, not counting 401k and not counting health insurance, only having taxes out. Whatever your take home pay is with only taxes coming out, we recommend a fourth. A fourth of it on a 15 year fixed rate. And so if you're coming home with $5,000, not counting, not counting 401k and not counting health insurance, just taxes coming out, you're coming home with $5,000 and that's the proper amount of taxes coming out of your check. Then you would say a fourth of that would be Twelve hundred and fifty dollars.

[Caller]

Okay. And would you. And with my assets, I was wondering how much of it I should put down on house.

[Jade Washall]

Whatever the amount will get you to that number.

[Dave Ramsey]

As much as you can. That's not. Not retirement.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah. I have a substantial amount of stock and I don't know if I can

[Dave Ramsey]

cash it out and put it on the house.

[Caller]

Like all of it?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And just.

[Dave Ramsey]

Can you pay cash for the house?

[Jade Washall]

Yeah. How much is the stock?

[Caller]

I have about 250 in stock and then a little over 60,000 in cash.

[Dave Ramsey]

So 3 10. You could buy 310 house for cash, is that right?

[Caller]

I would still have to pay cash or pay tax on the stock.

[Dave Ramsey]

So yeah, but I mean approximately, give or take, you're gonna be, you're gonna be able to pay up to $300,000 or so and pay cash for a house. What price range home were you thinking of?

[Caller]

I wasn't sure. I got approved for 400. I could have probably been approved for 500.

[Dave Ramsey]

You could probably be approved for whatever. Approval doesn't matter.

[Jade Washall]

They'll take you up to approval.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just means the mortgage company wants to loan you money. That's like asking a dog if it's hungry.

[Jade Washall]

Now, Jackie, you have no debt, right?

[Caller]

Correct.

[Jade Washall]

And do you have any other emergency funds, any cash sitting around?

[Caller]

It would just be that 60K.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and what do you make in cash?

[Caller]

My take home is about 4,700 cash. Like after taxes, like I net 4,700. And then I do have child support, that's about 2,800, so about 7,500 per month.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old are the children?

[Caller]

They're just starting elementary school.

School.

So I'm going to definitely need child care at least for the next five or six years, which is about 1200amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, but you're going to be 10 years. You'll be getting child support, give or take. So. Okay.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, at least 10 more years. So here's the thing here, here's what we're, why we're bouncing around with all these questions. What we're trying to get you to is 100% debt free as soon as possible because house and everything. Because if you had zero payments on a house and you have $7,500 coming in, you could build wealth very quickly. Okay, so in other words, your most powerful wealth building tool is your income. And when you're not giving it to the bank, whatever the bank is, in this case a mortgage company, then you are, you have it freedom up to build wealth with. And it becomes a lot of money, millions of dollars, fairly quickly if you don't give it all to the bank. So you know, mathematically, and I don't live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, so I don't know. But mathematically, if you paid cash for a $260,000 house and had $20,000 or $30,000 in an emergency fund and you had no payments and that would suffice for your children for the next several years. Years, you could live there four, five, six years or whatever and be safe. If you did that and you took 7,500 bucks and you started putting aside several thousand dollars a month, you're gonna become a millionaire fairly quick. That's the most Extreme side of what we teach. Now if you want to back all the way down to up to the maximum we would ever tell you to do, and I'm really uncomfortable in this conversation telling you it's even okay to do that is a fourth of your take home pay. So about 2500.

[Jade Washall]

I mean, I don't even think I would recommend that because I mean we,

[Dave Ramsey]

it fits with our guidelines. Fourth of your take home pay. And so we're talking about $2,000 approximately a month on a 15 year fixed with $300,000 down. You know that's going to get you a lot more house than I was talking about a while ago. Right. That's going to get you in like six, $700,000 house. So three or four times the house house that I was discussing and you're still fairly conservative.

[Jade Washall]

I think I'd go some. If I were in your shoes today, Jackie, I'd probably be, if it were Jade in your shoes, I'd go somewhere in the middle. I might not pay full cash, but I might say I'm willing to finance a little bit. But what I'd be thinking about, and this is just based on some of the calls we get, I'd be thinking about what my life would look like if child support were to change in a major way and I were no longer getting that money. I'd want to be well within in affordability because we do get calls where that amount changes and it's like, what do I do? I was dependent on this. So yeah, if, if I were in your shoes, I, I'd veer more towards the cash. But maybe I'm financing one or two.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, before I even did that though, I would go investigate and say I'm going to look at houses for $270,000 and go, I'm gonna pay cash. Because I got to tell you, that's. You'll be really wealthy.

[Jade Washall]

Pretty nice.

[Dave Ramsey]

You'll be pretty wealthy. I mean, $270,000 house paid for, zero debt, zero stress.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

All you got to do is make money and save it and be generous with it and take care of those kiddos.

[Jade Washall]

And that would still be somewhat of a temporary thing because you could then, I mean, gosh, you could move up in house and five years, if you

[Dave Ramsey]

buy that house in five years, it'd probably double.

[Jade Washall]

Man, that's nice.

[Dave Ramsey]

And then you take that 500 and put a bunch of money with it and, and move up. That's, that'll get you a long, long way. That is, people don't think that way anymore. Zillow tells you you can't do that.

[Jade Washall]

You got to start at a million.

[Dave Ramsey]

You got to start at a million dollar startup house. But except that the typical is by the way, first time home buyers. The number one, the main price, the average home price for first time home buyers in America, 199.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Nationally. Now again, I do not know the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania market. Here's the thing, I can't comment on it.

[Jade Washall]

Here's the thing though, it really is an expectation thing. Cuz if you, if you watch any of the shows where they go home

[Dave Ramsey]

shopping that, that you're already screwed.

[Jade Washall]

You are. But think about it. If you're in California and you are in one of those markets where just to start you're spending 950, a million dollars, what they get is nothing. Nothing. It's nothing. But they buy it and they make it work and they live there. So if you're jacking and you can be, you know, in a rural suburb or you know, a suburb of Harris, Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and you can get something. That's right. You could pay a lot less for it. But it's still that size that you would. Right. So it's all not a fixer upper though. It's a thousand, you know, it's 1500 square feet or 2000 square feet that. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

[Dave Ramsey]

So John, John on Fox a while ago the anchor asked me, he said, what would you pay for your first house? He said I paid 88,000 for mine. And he's about my age, he's a little younger than me. And So I paid $67,500 for mine. I was making $18,000. But get this, here's what people don't think about. It was a one car garage. It had no stove, no microwave, no refrigerator. It was on a hill and it was really ugly. One bathroom, it had one and a half baths and it was 1200 square feet. Yeah, that's one car garage. No stove. Way to go buy a stove. No dishwasher, no garbage disposal for mica top cabinets. Okay.

[Jade Washall]

The vinyl, the roll out vinyl floors.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yep, exactly. Exactly. The rollout vinyl floors because they were big then.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, and so you know. Well it was only 67,500. Yeah. But a lot of you people would be going, well it doesn't look like that on television. My Instagram account doesn't show a house because you know if you walked into a house like that now y' all would go, we're going to have to spend a million dollars to renovate it.

[Jade Washall]

That's true. That's why when you look at pictures from the 80s, everybody thought.

[Dave Ramsey]

We thought we bought a house.

[Jade Washall]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

We had a brand new baby. We bought a house and we thought. And the next house we bought was $100,000 and it was 1900 square feet and it did have a dishwasher and two car garage. Moving up, moving on up. So you got to think about the house I grew up in, man. I mean it was thousand square feet, one and a half baths. The little doors were hollow core doors. There were no secrets in this house. Welcome back to the Ramsey show and the fair winds come Credit Union Studio Jade Washall, Ramsey personality is my co host today. Susie is in Lubbock, Texas. Hi Susie, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good, how are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Well, I'm under a solar contract and I was wondering if y' all knew of a more economical way to get out of a contract. I talked to an attorney and they want $8,000 to get out of the contract and they guarantee they can do it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you got the wrong attorney.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Any attorney that wants to make you a guarantee for $8,000 is not telling you the truth. There's no such thing as a guarantee. What do you owe the solar company?

[Caller]

Well, it's a 25 year note. Right now I pay 200.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the balance? What's the payoff balance today if you paid it off?

[Caller]

I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, how long have you had it?

[Caller]

Two years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and how much is it a month?

[Caller]

$200 and it goes up every year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, and is the solar company that sold it to you, they obviously sold the note to a bank. I'm sure. Right. Who's the bank?

[Caller]

They. It's sold twice and I'm not sure. It's not a bank, it's a.

I don't know,

I'm not sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. It's a finance company of some kind that's bought the paper. Is the solar company that sold it to you still in business or have they bankrupted?

[Caller]

No, they're in business. Never brought was the name of the company.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Okay. All right. And why is it that you think you should be able to get out of it? Why did the attorney think he can get you out of it?

[Caller]

Because they misrepresented represented it when they.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your bro, your phone's breaking up, hun. They misrepresented what?

[Caller]

They misrepresented represented the solar system to Me. When they installed it in what way was. I thought that he said that we could just. It was more like a lease and if we didn't like it or it didn't work out, we could just call them and they would come get it.

[Jade Washall]

Did you lease the solar. Is it a lease program?

[Caller]

No.

[Jade Washall]

Okay.

[Caller]

No, it's not. It's not okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I. Well, I mean, anytime that there's a fraudulent misrepresentation in the process, the company that sold it to you could be sued. And the. There's a rule that the Federal Trade Commission has passed that says the holder of the note is liable for the same fraud that the actual solar company is in. The solar business has been. So there's been so much bad stuff. Go on. That the Federal Trade Commission has a regulation now that, that this, if fraud was proven, if they prove that they lied to get you to sign this note and they lied about the note and you can prove that, and you prove that, then the contract would be canceled.

[Jade Washall]

Well, that'd be the hard part.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know how you're going to prove it though, because it's just your word against the salesman. Right.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't have anything in writing that says that?

[Caller]

No, what he said.

I do not.

I don't really. Just got a note that was filed and that's all I ever got from them.

[Dave Ramsey]

Did you ever think while you're doing this that this was not a good idea considering the way they talked about.

[Caller]

Yes, I did.

I did.

[Jade Washall]

Got to go with that gut reaction, that gut feeling.

[Caller]

I know

[Dave Ramsey]

what I do want you to do. There's not an automatic switch you can flip that solar contracts are forgiven. There's no such thing. There's a couple of companies that went broke and the entire company was a shell game, a fraud thing. It was an embarrassment to the Obama administration was one of them. And a couple of those companies, the loans have all been forgotten, given in mass, but under a class action thing. And the Federal Trade Commission movement. But most of the several hundred companies have gone broke. Your company hadn't even gone broke because the tax credits went away. And when the solar tax credits went away, the solar business got really hard. And so I think you probably have been defrauded. I'm not an attorney. I have messed with attorneys enough to know that it's not easy. And any attorney that makes you a guarantee is a shyster. They're not. They don't have the ability to give you a guarantee. Our court system is not that efficient or just if justice was done. A judge would walk up, look at this and say, these people were taken advantage of. Slam the gavel down, and 30 minutes later you'd be out of the loan that doesn't exist in our country. This is going to take years with an S. And it's not an $8,000 event because it sounds like you've got tens of thousands of dollars of note here, but I would continue to investigate it because I do think you probably have been defrauded just on a practical basis. Now, whether you can prove that in a court of law and get this done, I don't know. But I would talk to some more attorneys and interview some different ones. Ones, but please hesitate to do business with an attorney that makes a guarantee. Oh, $8,000. I got this. That's somebody that wants your $8,000.

[Jade Washall]

That sounds like another scam.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's somebody wants your $8,000. It is going to cost you some attorney's fees, but they should be, if someone is efficient in how they do this, they should be lower than the payoff balance on the solar. And again, you're going to have to prove, you know, you're going to have to approve the fraud. And I don't know how that's going to happen here, but I would learn, I would learn more about it by talking to a few more attorneys and try to get one that's a little more professional than the last one you talked to. Linda's in Wisconsin. Hi, Linda, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi. I'm doing good. So glad I get to talk to you.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. What's up?

[Caller]

Thanks. Well, I am wondering if I should be investing in the market given my current somewhat unusual circumstances.

[Jade Washall]

Tell us more.

[Caller]

Yeah. So I'm 60 and I was diagnosed with cancer several years ago and I am in remission. But when I got diagnosed, it was. Was quite Advanced, Stage 4. I left my career of 30 years and went on full disability so I could focus 100% on my health.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you.

[Caller]

And luckily I heard of you.

Right.

A couple of years after that. I wish I had heard of you decades ago. I'd be in a different situation right now. But. So I do make pretty good Social Security disability. I do have margin. I own my home, I own my car. I have no debt, no children, no spouse. And I'm. And I have a small nest egg of about 115,000. But that's everything, you know, that's my emergency.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are you living on the Social Security disability?

[Caller]

I am.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you don't have another pension other than that, no. But that's enough to cover your money monthly.

[Caller]

Nut yes. And I do have about $500 a

month margin at least.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, that's amazing given your situation.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, it is.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm impressed.

[Jade Washall]

Congrats on the remission.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hang on. We'll come back after this little break and make sure you get a good solid answer instead of trying to give you a 10 second version with all you've been through. Dave Ramsey here. For more than 30 years, I've been talking to folks on the air and I can tell you that most people are broke not because they don't make enough money, but because they don't have a plan. You need to give every dollar you earn a job because when you do that, something change. You stop guessing, you stop worrying, you stop stressing. Our every dollar budgeting app will show you how to find extra cash, pay off debt and finally start winning with money. But most people won't do it. They'll keep living paycheck to paycheck, keep hoping things will change without making a change. It's time to say enough is enough. It's time to take control of your money. It's time to start your every dollar budget for free today. Go download it in the app store or Google play play. Continuing with Linda. 60 years old, recovering from stage four cancer and now in remission. Paid for house, paid for car, no debt, $120,000 in the bank. Living on her Social Security disability. Is that a fair summary? Summary of what you told us so far?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long you been in remission?

[Caller]

Three years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Congratulations.

[Caller]

Excellent.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's awesome.

[Caller]

Just stop treatment.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So happy for you.

[Caller]

Wow, thanks.

[Dave Ramsey]

You feeling better?

[Caller]

Sort of. Well, you know, I'm still undergoing a of lot lot of surveillance and close monitoring and things and.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, the cure just about to kill you.

[Caller]

Right? Right. Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's incredible.

[Caller]

Just the stress and I, you know, I, my, my concern is that I'm only utilizing high yield savings account right now and I, I'm quite risk averse. You know, I'm very cautious.

[Jade Washall]

Is that worth 115 gain is in a high yield savings account?

[Caller]

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

If I were in your shoes.

[Caller]

350amonth.

[Dave Ramsey]

If I were in your shoes, I would learn some things about the market and about mutual funds from a smartvestor pro. And I would move, I probably leave about 30,000, maybe 40,000 in a high yield savings for your emergency and I'd move the rest of it into some mutual funds to where you can get a lot better rate of return. So to give you an example, okay, the. In 2023, the market went up 26%. High yield savings was 3. In 2024, the market went up 25%. High yield savings was 3. In 2025, it went up 18%. High yield savings was 3. It's up 8% year to date right now. And if so, if it continues on that pace, it'll be up 16% because we're at about halfway through the year. And high yield savings is 3. So the, so the difference for you, and it's not, it would not have been appropriate where you were. But. And those are unusually good years in the market. So you don't expect that. Okay. But if you make 10, let's say you've got a hundred, hundred thousand dollars in there, which you wouldn't quite have that much in there, but if you make 12% on it, that's $12,000. If you make 3% on it, that's $3,000.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so that starts to add up. So I do want you to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro and begin learning about a good mutual fund. It could be that all you do something simple as an index fund fund, which is a very calm. It does exactly what the stock market does. Okay.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And risk. So you own a home that has zero guarantees, but you are comfortable with no guarantees on your home because you were comfortable with the track record, the history of single family homes as an investment. And that was wise.

[Caller]

That's, that's true.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. But you got no guarantee there. And you're risk averse. But that's a steady, calm investment that has a huge track record. And so if you look at a good mutual fund that's been open for 80 years or 70 years and it's got a track record and it feels like buying a home emotionally risk wise because you learn about it over time. And you're not doing it. Cause Dave said do it. You're doing it. Cause Linda looked at it and Linda is wise and Linda is intelligent. And Linda is going to put Linda's money in. And Linda feels, okay, you follow me? And you don't do it because the guy at SmartVestor Pro said to do it. You do it because you learned about it and you felt good about it and then you're not going to perceive the risk.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah. And I think we should give her tickets to Investing Essentials just for free.

[Dave Ramsey]

Absolutely. Good idea. I'll be doing that September 1st and 2nd with George. It's a virtual event. You can just log online $199 tickets. I'll give you a ticket. We'd love to have you watch. Good idea. And we'll get you signed up or we'll get you hooked up with a smartvestor pro too. Christian will pick up and help you learn how to do that on the site. But take your time, Linda, and learn just like you did when you were buying the house and you got comfortable with the risk. Liz is with us. Liz is in Green Bay. Hi Liz. How you are? How are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

I'm wondering how I can convince my dad to get on the same page with me about my 20 year old daughter purchasing a home. He's trying to dissuade her from doing that and I'm trying to convince her that it's a good investment.

[Jade Washall]

Let's find out which of you is correct. Tell us more about the 20 year old daughter.

[Caller]

So she currently lives with me. She does not want to go to college. She has made that very clear. She has? Currently. She just bought a car for $19,000 in cash. So she has no debt. She has another $20,000 in savings. She would get a $10,000 gift from me. She would get a $7,500 gift from my. From the company that she works for that is fully tax free and forgivable after three years as long as she stays with us. And then she would also be eligible

[Dave Ramsey]

for stays with us. Us.

[Jade Washall]

Do you both work at the same company?

[Caller]

We do.

[Jade Washall]

So if she move. Hold on. So if she leaves the company, she owes the 7,500 back?

[Caller]

Correct.

[Jade Washall]

So let's check that one off the list. She's 20 years old. We don't know what she's going to do.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does she do at that company?

[Caller]

She works in the billing department.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does she make?

[Caller]

She makes about $45,000 a year currently.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you want her to move out and start her life because she's been very successful so far and is a great kid. Kid? Your dad doesn't want to do that. Your dad doesn't want to buy her to buy a house. Why?

[Caller]

He wants her to go to college and he's afraid that if she purchases a home she will choose not to go to college.

[Dave Ramsey]

But she's not going to go to college. You put it out as a foregone conclusion. Has she decided she's not going to go to college or you decided she wouldn't go to college?

[Caller]

No, she's decided. I've Gone to college. My other child's gone to college. She has determined she is. She does not have any interest in going to college.

[Jade Washall]

Okay, what does she want to do for a long term career? Does she know?

[Caller]

She's not 100% certain. But our company has a very upwardly mobile track for people in her position without a college degree.

[Dave Ramsey]

Upwardly mobile track out of billing.

[Caller]

Correct. Our current director of customer service started in feeling.

[Jade Washall]

I'll tell you what, I think she's doing a great job. She's got the cash car, she's got a job. I like the idea of her moving out. I think she's ready to move out. I don't think she needs to buy a house right now. I don't think she's ready for that. I'd love if she got an apartment and continued to rent and save because I think the 7, 500 is off the table. I would not want her to take that. Yes, that's off the table. So she's got 30,000, but really she's got less than that because she would need, need three to six months of expenses for an emergency fund. In her case, I'd say six months of expenses.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

And so for that reason she's just not ready financially yet. And she. And let me add this financially, not quite yet. And I would love to see somebody rent for a while before they buy to just go straight from mom and dad's house to. I have a place that I own that's a, a major. I mean, you know what home ownership feels like.

[Dave Ramsey]

Move in, move into a one bedroom apartment, buy your own milk for a while while.

[Caller]

Yep, now she does pay rent to me.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't care.

[Jade Washall]

But it's not her place she doesn't have to worry about. If moisture is building up in the crawl space.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, I want her to, I want her to be out on her own and none of you telling her what to do. And let's work on that for a while and then talk about buying. The second thing is I don't want her career to be decided as a track at one company. I want her to choose a career. What does she want to be doing? Making a lot of money at 30 years old, 10 years from today. And what must be true that's not true today about her because she probably needs some kind of continuing education. Very few people with zero continuing education after high school do well. Now we have a lot of quote, high school graduates that become very successful. That's true. But they have continued their education even if they didn't do it at a four year college. They go to seminars, they read books, they've got a constant track. They're on a personal growth and they're very aggressive. Dave Thomas comes to mind. This started Wendy's High school graduate. Okay. The Wendy's Hamburger King and not Burger King, Hamburger King of Wendy's.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so anyway, yeah, so I want her to think about what she wants to be and then if that company is the best place for her to be, that that's fine. But just saying, oh, she's got a great track at the company. That's not a career. That's a.

[Caller]

The problem with online investing advice, you

[Dave Ramsey]

hear so many different opinions and you're left wondering if you're even doing it right. And that's why we created Investing Essentials. Join me and Dave Ramsey at this two night virtual event to learn Dave's playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll break down 401ks mutual funds, passing on wealth and more. So join us September 1st and 2nd. Tickets start at 199 bucks. You can get yours today at RamseySolutions.com events or just click the link in the show notes. Our question of the day is sponsored by why Refi? If missed, private student loan payments are keeping you from making progress towards your goals. Why Refi may be able to help you explore refinancing. With a low fixed rate and a payment you can manage visitors. Why refi.comramsey that's why refi.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[Jade Washall]

Today's question is coming from Kevin in Oregon. He says a lady recently called in the show regarding giving up her late husband's firefighter pension to get married again. You calculated her $50,000 annual pension income as equal to a $500,000 investment. Investment. My question is where do you get, where do you invest to get a 10 return like that? All right, so he's wondering and I think a lot of people ask that question because we quote, you know, if you invest the way that we teach, you know, you can expect a annualized rate of return of between 10 and 11%. And that is true if you invest the way that we speak about. You can say that. Now I'll start by saying if you just look at the S P500 hundred which is just baseline index, if you look at that from inception, if you look at it from 1926, you're going to see annualized rate of return of over 10%. That's what you're going to find about 11.8. It doesn't mean that every year it's that. I mean, just the last call Dave quoted the last three years was in the upper 20s. So there's years where it's very high, unseasonably high, I'd say. And there's years where, you know, we have dips and there's months where we have dropped drops. But if you add all that together and accumulate all of that information, you're going to find an annualized rate of return of around 10 to 11, 11.8, which is what Dave just said. Now, that's S P 500, we're telling you. Hey, if you do it our way, you're investing in a mix of four different types of mutual funds, right? We say growth growth and income, aggressive growth and international. And when you do that, these are funds that are seeking to be the average rate of return of the S P500. So you really should be doing even better than the 10 or 11% that we tend to quote around here. So that's where we're getting those numbers before. We're not talking about after inflation or this and that. We're just saying that's the rate of return. That's what it is. And so that's where that comes from. Dave, do you want to add anything to that?

[Dave Ramsey]

No, that's it. That's the average annual rate of return. That's what it is. And so the stock market has averaged The S&P 500 is the most accurate measure of. The stock market has averaged 11.8% since it started. And again in 2023, it was 26%. 2024, it was 25%. 2025 is 18% this year. It's up 8 as of today. And this is halfway through the year. So if it annualized that, that'd be 16. So all of those four years will beat the average. But that means there's some years that don't beat the average. That's where an average comes from. But it still beats high yield savings account of 3 or 4% every year. Except occasionally it's down. But I mean, if you go back and look the number of years that it was actually down, it's Almost none. Okay, three or four out of 25, that kind of thing. And so, you know, you just. That's what you're looking at. And. Well, I've always heard. Well, I know what you always heard, but you heard from people that didn't know what they were talking about. That's the actual deal. Go pull it up. Pull up the S&P 500 index and look at it for yourself. You can look at the charts. Google will pop them right up for you. And it's pretty simple to do. It's not. It's not really rocket science. So that. And so. So the other reason I use 10% on something like that is it's really easy for everyone listening to visualize. 50k is 10% of 500. You don't have to do a lot of fancy math to get there. I mean, you can do that if you got out of the third grade. And so I can put that out there and someone riding in their car doesn't have a car wreck trying to calculate this.

[Jade Washall]

Right, Exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so it's just. We throw it out there. But. But that's a. You know, again, some years might be 8, and some years might be 28, but the average is about 11.8. And so that's where that comes from. Samantha is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Samantha. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Okay, so my question is, I'm about 20k in debt, 17 of that being on a car loan. But I currently live in my mother's home. She owns it. I don't pay rent or mortgage, but she can be kind of controlling. And, you know, she has threatened, like, for me to leave at any time. And my question is, do I pause baby step number two and paying off all this debt or. And leave or do I try to pay off all this debt first?

[Jade Washall]

How old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 33.

[Dave Ramsey]

And why are you at 33 years old, living in your mother's home?

[Caller]

Home?

Well, I was in a domestic violence situation until my mid-20s. I got divorced with three young kids. And then I moved in with my parents when my dad was sick and dying. He passed away. And then my mom's sister's husband also passed away, so they moved into a home together. And my mom gave me this home, but she never signed it over to.

To me.

[Jade Washall]

Okay, got it. That makes a lot more sense.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much do you make a year?

[Caller]

About 45.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how old are your babies now?

[Caller]

They are 9, 10, and 11. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you got an awfully expensive car, don't you?

[Caller]

Yeah, I messed up on that really bad.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, you did. Well, I can't tell from. I mean, it sounds like you've gone from one toxic relationship to another to another, and now the latest one is your mother.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah. Why is she. Why is she threatening to kick you out when you say she's controlling, what's that mean?

[Caller]

On the day to day, she's not so bad. Like, she tells me I can do whatever I want, that this is my house or whatever. But then like if I were to make any kind of decision that she's not in alignment with, she's like, well, then you can just leave.

[Jade Washall]

About the house or about your life?

[Caller]

Life, anything.

[Dave Ramsey]

Give me.

[Caller]

Okay, we have a vacation coming in August that we really can't afford. Well, I can't afford to go on, but she's paid for everything. I'm afraid to even tell her I don't want to go because I'm afraid that will cause backlash.

[Jade Washall]

Okay, I see.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Jade Washall]

Your mom has a lot of money. Does, does she want wealthy?

[Caller]

She's middle class, she's doing okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

So here's what I would do. I would leave. Yeah, life. Life's too short. You know, at some point in your life have to be able to make a decision without a domestic violence partner or an abusive mother. At some point in your life, you've got to reach a point that you get some help healing. And you need to get away from this.

[Jade Washall]

What do you take home every month? How can we find you something you can afford?

[Caller]

Yeah,

monthly I'm about 26.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you're going to be in a super cheap rental of some kind. That's going to be uncomfortable. But you get, you got to choose which hard thing you're going to do. Hard thing is putting up with your mother or hard thing. Hard thing is putting up with a rent thing that's not a rental place. That's not pleasant. Cause that's where you're going. Or the other hard thing is put up with your mother. Now what I might do is this. I might catch her in a good mood and say, mom, we've got to change the way we interact. And after everything I have been through, I cannot sit on an unstable situation where every time you get mad, you threaten to throw me out.

[Caller]

Out.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so if you're not going to deed this to me by the end of next week, I'm going to have to move mom and give her a shot. Give her a shot at dating it to you.

[Caller]

Right. I've, I've previously tried that. The home needs repairs, then leave. And I brought it up to her and then leave. I was like, okay, then leave.

[Dave Ramsey]

If she, you know, if you're not going to play through on that some Samantha, if you're not going to stand up and say, either give it to me and I'll deal with the repairs and I'll deal with the house, and it'll be mine. And. And. But I can't live in a situation emotionally anymore where someone's constantly pulling the rug out from under me, where every time I go to sit down, somebody pulls the chair out like a. Like a second grade prank. And I. My life, I. I can't. I've been through too much to live like this anymore. And if you're not going to deed it to me right now, I'm gonna.

[Rachel Cruz]

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

[Dave Ramsey]

Our scripture of the day, James 5 and 16, therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person. Person is powerful and effective. Les Brown said, in the end, it is the person you become, not the things you to achieve, that is most important. Well, we wish we could get to every call here on the show and every question, but we can't. You can't get through on the lines most of the time and. But hey, we appreciate those of you that do. If you can't get through and you got a money question you want to answer over your situation, head over to our website. Use Ask Rank Ramsey. Ask Ramsey is our free AI tool that's built and trained on only proven Ramsey principles. It's going to give you a Ramsey only answer. You'll get an answer the same way we'd answer it right here on the show. Ask your question [e-mail] or just click the link in the description or the podcast or on YouTube. Katie is with us in Seattle. Hi, Katie. How are you?

[Caller]

Hi. I'm good. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Great. Okay, so I have. My husband and I have a bit of a quarrel. So we're in baby step two and we're trying to Decide how you decide what's a necessary expense because we're differing on something.

[Jade Washall]

What are the things you're differing on?

[Caller]

It's really one thing. Most of the budget when we've gone through has gone well. But we have someone who cleans our home once a month because we both work full time. We both push 50, 60 hours outside of the home. We have four children and it's just.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much is that expense cleaning?

[Caller]

It's $320 a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what's your household income?

[Caller]

240.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Jade Washall]

How old are the kids? They might be your cleaning service. That's why I'm asking.

[Caller]

I wish they were less than 19 and we have an 11 year old.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you mean you can't get less than 1 to do any. Wow.

[Caller]

I wish.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Who's taking care of less than 1 while you're doing 60 hours a week?

[Caller]

We have daycare, so we just try

to work our schedules so that, you know, the other one is okay.

[Jade Washall]

And is the six. The six that high amount of hours that's to pay off debt, right? That's a temporary thing. Or is that just the nature of

[Caller]

your jobs right now? The nature of our jobs. Mine should be easing up in the

next couple months just because it's not.

I'm feeling very burned out, but my husband's will be for the foreseeable future.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the, what's the amount of debt again? Not counting the house?

[Caller]

Oh, yeah. We have 87 in student loans and then another 40 in consumer. Eight of that's a car and then the rest is credit cards.

[Jade Washall]

So just one car?

[Caller]

We have two cars, but the other one's paid off. Yeah. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. With your income and your hours, 325 is not the end of the world. It's not going to keep you from winning.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And the fact that you're stressing over it means you really are squeezing this budget trying. Okay, that means, that means, that's a good sign because it means you guys are considering everything.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, you're, you're pushing the pendulum to the other side because you make a lot of money and if you push it away, if you, if you really are squeezing everything else out, you're going to knock his debt out really quick, aren't you?

[Caller]

I think we could have it done. You know, we have daycare and all that, but I think still in under a year easily.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so. And 325 doesn't change that.

[Caller]

That was my thought.

[Dave Ramsey]

And it isn't A representation the way you've described this. Now, granted, you're making the case for the 325, so we'll have to consider that. But. Yeah, but, but even, even with that said, the way you're discussing it and the fact that you are discussing it tells me everything else is probably squeezed pretty good.

[Caller]

I would like to think so. We're, it's really been over the last couple months and we're just. Every month we tighten down more and more.

[Jade Washall]

Now what you could do is you could, you could. If you really wanted to get extreme, you could test it. Because I'm guessing 320, is that somebody coming once a week?

[Caller]

Yeah, no, it's.

It's once a month.

[Jade Washall]

That's once a month. You need to find a different cleaning service. That's what I'm gonna tell you. Because that's expensive. But I was gonna say if you wanted to test it, you could always go back. If you test it and everything just goes crazy and your house is a mess, you could always go back. But if you wanted to test it and say, can we get through? Can we make this work? You could.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Jade Washall]

Not saying you have to, but because

[Dave Ramsey]

I think you have cut out eating out, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you have cut out vacations.

[Caller]

You have cut out vacation going anywhere.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And so the two of you are working together and you're pushing everything through. And again, it's. Does the math matter or does this represent something emotionally in the behavior that matters? And I would say no on both of those after talking to you. So that means I keep them.

[Jade Washall]

Let me go back to this a second. Because I'm a mom too. I have two, I don't have four. But when you said once a month, it did hit me different because when you. The part of the cleaning service that you want is the things that you're not going to touch, right? Like it's. You want them to clean the blinds and you want them to, you know, vacuum in the couch. Those are things you don't have time to do. But the day to day stuff of doing the dishes and sweeping the floor and vacuuming, you have to do that stuff anyway. So I kind of, for that reason, I kind of do feel like. Like, because you still have to do the laundry, right? Like you got to wear clothes. So I kind of feel like you don't need this. If you said they're coming once a week and that's what's keeping things going, that feels different than they're. Because what are they doing once a Month.

[Caller]

They like deep clean. So they get like baseboards and floors and windows. We got.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, I don't, I, I actually think, I think, I disagree. I think that you, you could let that go for a while and if there's a little bit of dust on the blinds, I think you'll, you would.

[Dave Ramsey]

So, Katie, we're absolutely no help.

[Caller]

We're not.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because Jade, Jade is on your husband's side and I'm on your side. So we're, so we're no good at all. We're no help at all. I think, I think it's good either way. Truthfully, it's.

[Jade Washall]

Yes, you are.

[Dave Ramsey]

There's not, there's not a wrong answer. There's not a slap my hand on the table and go, you people are stupid.

[Jade Washall]

She does have no, no year old though. She does have an 11 year old who can clean. Get the Swiffer up on the ceiling fan. That's all she needs.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Send them to the salt mines. I like it.

[Jade Washall]

You, Dave, come on now. You know the stuff you were doing at 11. I don't have to tell you what I was doing at 11. We were cleaning. We were the cleaning service.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that, well, that's true. Not the one year old, but yeah.

[Jade Washall]

No, just the eleven year old again.

[Dave Ramsey]

I, I, I, I'm always good. If somebody is smart enough to ask the question, they're probably okay. That's when they don't ask the question. The ones listening that we just gave permission accidentally. Yeah, that scares me more than Katie.

[Jade Washall]

I agree with that. I do agree with that.

[Dave Ramsey]

So Katie, you, you and your husband talk it through. You could, you could try it with or without. But what's probably going to happen is you guys are going to continue to get more and more and more intense and you're probably going to cut them for three or four months. Months. And finish off the debt. And then when they come back, you'll appreciate it and it'll probably be something like that that you decide on. But again, I don't think there's an absolute one answers in the stupid column and one's in the smart column.

[Jade Washall]

I agree. I'm surprised. Usually you're the more frugal one.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I am. But I'm always looking at ratios.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah, that's true. And they do 200.

[Dave Ramsey]

If they were bringing home $3,000 a month, Ma's gone no brainer, you know, but they're making $250,000 a year.

[Jade Washall]

Yeah.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so, you know, and she's not working 20 hours a week, part time. She's working 80 hours.

[Caller]

60.

[Dave Ramsey]

80 hours. That's the other thing. She's not there. So, you know. But if you call me up and go, well, I have a remote. Work from home. Oh, shut up and clean the house, you know, for real. Really, I would. I would have been down, you know, like that whole different thing. But I'm just listening to the whole picture and the radio ratios and. That's very interesting. It's an interesting discussion. It is very cool.

[Jade Washall]

Usually we're telling people, yeah, cut back subscriptions if you're investing. Pause. Investing.

[Dave Ramsey]

You won't regret it if you cut her. No, and bring them back. Like, bring somebody back later. You'll be okay. You'll be okay. That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of peace, Christ Jesus.