Your Financial Progress Starts Now!

Summary

The Ramsey Show – "Your Financial Progress Starts Now!"

Date: March 25, 2026
Hosts: Dave Ramsey & George Kamel

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Overview

In this engaging and heartfelt episode, Dave Ramsey and George Kamel help callers tackle real-world money challenges—from sudden wedding changes, renting dilemmas, and overwhelming debt to navigating relationships and career comebacks. With their signature blend of tough love, humor, and practical advice, they guide listeners through both emotional and financial obstacles, emphasizing that financial progress can start at any moment, no matter your history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family Finance & Emotional Fallout [00:49–05:27]

• Topic: A father asks if he should request reimbursement from his daughter after her last-minute wedding change caused the family to lose $8,500.
• Advice: Dave and George urge him not to ask for funds back, emphasizing that weddings are ultimately about the couple, not the funders, and the emotional hurt is the real issue, not the money.
  • Quote [01:47, Dave]: “The thing I had to keep reminding everyone…was that it ain’t our party. We just funded it, but it’s not our party.”
  • Quote [03:10, Dave]: “The problem is…it’s not the $8,500. Your wife’s feelings are deeply hurt.”
  • Memorable Moment [04:40, Dave]: “I just wouldn’t throw this down. I’d just let her ride and move on. 20 years from now, it’ll just be a not funny memory.”

2. Rent Negotiation & Apartment Market Tactics [05:27–08:30]

• Topic: Caller wonders if he should sign a lease or go month-to-month, given current market rates are $100 less.
• Guidance: Push for the lower rate or move; don’t be afraid to negotiate or walk away, and always get agreements in writing.
  • Quote [07:01, Dave]: “It’s not that big a hassle. It’s a one-bedroom apartment. It’s your buddies and a six-pack of beer in a pickup truck.”
  • Quote [07:54, George]: “And if they’re jerks about it, that’s a sign you should not be staying there.”

3. Debt Despair, Divorce, & Rediscovering Earning Power [10:23–19:43]

• Topic: “Sarah” faces $123k in new debt following job loss, divorce, and personal struggles; asks how to tackle Baby Step 2 when she can’t pay more than the minimum.
• Advice: Drastic life changes advised—sell the expensive car even if underwater, target higher income in real estate, and stop rationalizing past decisions. Focus on maximizing earning potential and cut aggressive expenses.
  • Quote [15:12, Dave]: “The car is stupid, and so was the vacation. You gotta start calling stuff what it is.”
  • Quote [18:08, Dave]: “I’m gonna get away from that other day job as fast as I can. Cause you can’t pay squat. $40,000 a year. Boo boo boo.”
  • Dave’s Challenge: "You need to go make $150,000 selling houses—or more. Go get with top performers."

4. Budgeting & the Role of AI in Personal Finance [22:08–30:54]

• Topic: Should listeners use AI for tracking spending and budgets?
• Advice: AI only works with good data—behavior change is key. Manual budgeting creates the crucial "friction" needed to control spending.
  • Quote [22:41, Dave]: "AI is only as effective as the data set you feed it."
  • Quote [25:22, Dave]: “You need to look at it and say, for me…this is what I need to spend on rent.”
  • Quote [28:04, Dave]: “You subscribe to your stupidity…Regular, regular diet of it.”
• Notable Moment: Cash (envelope) budgeting is praised as more effective, activating pain centers of the brain; Gen Z’s “cash stuffing” is reminiscent of budgeting in the 1930s.

5. Frugal Partners & Family Dynamics [32:58–42:19]

• Topic: “Chelsea” seeks help encouraging her ultra-frugal husband to feel comfortable spending.
• Advice: Celebrate his responsibility but teach him to enjoy money as well—budget in fun money, talk about family of origin issues, and use positive reinforcement.
  • Quote [36:28, Dave]: “He can’t even give to himself. He can’t even leave the oven on.”
  • Quote [39:02, Dave]: “You’re about to be millionaires and you’re 30 years old. See, I told you—the guy’s a great guy.”
  • Fun Suggestion [42:03, George]: “He needs a hobby and give him 30 bucks a month to do that!”

6. Late Start After Divorce—Is It Too Late? [44:05–51:31]

• Topic: A 42-year-old man, post-divorce, feels he's too late to build wealth.
• Guidance: Focus on moving forward, consistent investing (15% of income); it’s not too late.
  • Quote [46:32, Dave]: “The biggest thing you have to overcome is not the math challenge…but the lack of confidence in yourself and quit looking in the rearview mirror.”
  • Quote [48:17, George]: “From 42 to 67…you’d have $1.4 million (investing $1,000/month).”
  • Quote [51:29, Dave]: “The guy in your mirror is the only one you gotta talk into it.”

7. Secret Debt in the Family—What’s My Role? [65:23–69:42]

• Topic: Caller seeks advice: her aunt hides debt from her husband; should she intervene?
• Advice: Confront her aunt, give a deadline to come clean, otherwise disclose to uncle. Encourages healthy boundaries and family transparency.
  • Quote [67:12, Dave]: “What you’re doing is wrong and I love dad and I’m not going to let you do this to him. You have four days till Friday evening to tell him. If you haven’t, I’m going to tell him.”
  • Quote [69:29, Dave]: “That’s not being a rat. That’s being an adult.”

8. Marriage, Inheritance & In-Law Financial Support [85:27–93:33]

• Topic: Caller now financially supporting his elderly mother—how far should respect for parents go, especially as it impacts his family’s finances?
• Advice: Don’t enable dysfunction. Be generous, but set boundaries; manage the budget for her; don’t become an ATM.
  • Quote [88:05, Dave]: “We want to be honoring of the position of mother, but that does not mean we participate in dysfunction or allow it.”
  • Quote [93:22, George]: “It's the life she set because she started taking my money. Once you start taking my money, it’s my vote.”

9. Rapid Debt Payoff Success Story—Debt-Free Scream [106:02–114:51]

• Guest: Roman & Jennifer, Jackson, TN
• Accomplishment: Paid off $154,000 in 23 months, income $148,000–$154,000, via selling belongings, working extra jobs, and intense lifestyle adjustments.
• Advice & Inspiration:
  • Cut to the bone, two jobs, sold unused items, “ate at home,” stayed weird.
  • Motivation: Realized after best income year they “had nothing left.”
  • Quote [110:16, Dave]: “How’s it feel to be free?”
    [110:18, Jennifer]: “Weird. I had to change my perspective…It’s changed a lot for us.”
  • Debt-Free Scream [114:43]: “Three, two, one…WE’RE DEBT FREE!”

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Notable Quotes

• Dave Ramsey [15:12]: “The car is stupid, and so was the vacation. You gotta start calling stuff what it is.”
• George Kamel [07:54]: “If they’re jerks about it, that’s a sign you should not be staying there.”
• Dave Ramsey [28:04]: “You subscribe to your stupidity…Regular, regular diet of it.”
• Caller, Roman [110:16]: “Weird. I had to change my perspective…It’s changed a lot for us.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• $8,500 Wedding Fallout: [00:49] – [05:27]
• Rent Negotiation Call: [05:27] – [08:30]
• Divorce & Debt Overhaul (Sarah): [10:23] – [19:43]
• AI & Budgeting Discussion: [22:08] – [30:54]
• Frugal Husbands & Ketchup Fights: [32:58] – [42:19]
• Late Start After Divorce: [44:05] – [51:31]
• Secret Family Debt Dilemma: [65:23] – [69:42]
• Parental Support Boundaries: [85:27] – [93:33]
• Debt-Free Scream (Roman & Jennifer): [106:02] – [114:51]

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Tone and Takeaways

• Tone: Direct, compassionate, humorous; equal parts empathy and accountability
• Central Message: No financial situation is hopeless. Progress starts today—with honesty, strategy, and behavior change.
• Behavior Focus: Repeated reminders that money management is 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge. Emotional factors must be addressed along with the math.
• Actionable Steps: Budget, sell unneeded things, increase income, cut lifestyle, foster communication with partners/family, and use proven tools—not shortcuts.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Ramsey Show is a crash course in tackling the unexpected, getting real about mistakes, and starting fresh—with both your money and your relationships. Whether you’re facing a costly financial misstep, a life reboot after heartbreak, or striving to enjoy wealth responsibly, Dave and George deliver the accountability and encouragement you need to get moving now.

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 Studios, this is the Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. George Camel, Ramsey personality number one best selling author is my co host. Today. The phone number is 888-255-2225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your money. It's a free call. Some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Bob's in Chicago. Hey Bob, what's up?

[Caller]

Hi, Dave and George, how you doing? Thanks for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure, man. How can I help?

[Caller]

So a few months back, my daughter and her then fiance approached my wife and me to discuss moving their wedding up by several months. We made all the plans, had a D and they wanted to move that forward quite a bit. And we disagreed with them. We said, hey, we got a date, we got a venue, we got everything paid for, everything's moving along, let's keep it there. They didn't like that. They chose to then get married after about two weeks notice in a different venue, different state. And we're just kind of wondering, is it right or wrong for us to ask them to reimburse us for the funds that we spent were out of pocket.

[George Kamel]

These are non refundable. They changed it all. And then you, you were out that money and they didn't care because it wasn't their money.

[Caller]

Pretty much that's the way it feels. Yep.

[George Kamel]

How much money are we talking about?

[Caller]

$8,500.

[Dave Ramsey]

No. And here's why. I've gone through this three times with kids, getting married and setting up wedding budgets and all that stuff. And the thing that I had to keep reminding everyone in my family, including me and my wife, was that it ain't our party. We just funded it, but it's not our party. So the problem is it's not the $8,500. Your wife's feelings are deeply hurt.

[Caller]

The whole family is pretty hurt because it was gonna be a big family event, all the kids involved in it and it was taken away.

[George Kamel]

Did they like elope here? Were you guys invited to this other wedding?

[Caller]

We were invited with two weeks notice. So we scrambled and we got ourselves there. Spent a fortune getting there as we hadn't planned on it in short notice and all. But we did make it there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Where did you go?

[Caller]

We went to Texas.

[Dave Ramsey]

It costs a fortune to go to Texas.

[Caller]

Well, for us it Felt like quite a bit of money. We probably spent about $7,000 getting all the kids and everybody there. We've got a big family.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you paid for everybody, El to go, yes, sir.

[George Kamel]

Did they pay for the new wedding?

[Caller]

They didn't ask us for any money for it, although we had paid for the dress and some other stuff that they had bought already for the existing wedding.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I think everybody's mad and hurt and you guys are looking for a way to hit back and I wouldn't, I think it's a good idea to walk away and just go, this is just. This didn't go the way I want it to. Nobody's happy except the little bride and groom. They're happy and this is not how we want to do it. And the next time I get ready to interact with them on something that involves money or planning or something, I'll keep this in mind. But I'm not going to hit back. No, I would not. That's just father and in law advice. That's not financial advice.

[Caller]

Well, I do appreciate that. That's. It's a complicated situation for sure. And it's certainly like you said, there's emotions wrapped up in it that make us.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I mean, you know, if it's at my house, it's my wife that's royally pissed about this. If it was a mom, I would be like, ah, this is inconvenient. You guys are rude, you're being, you're being children. But, oh well, whatever. You're, you know, you want to get married and that's good. So you're married and here we go. And this is, I mean, I would have been whatever, but yeah, but at our house it would have been, you know, Bridezilla and her mother. And so it's what you like. That's, that's what we would have had to deal with here. So. And that's what happened here.

[George Kamel]

I don't think they're going to pay you back and I think it's just going to become a low contact or no contact relationship. So the question is, is it worth souring this whole thing over 8 it's

[Dave Ramsey]

already soured over Acre and so it's

[George Kamel]

just going to make it worse. I just can't imagine this.

[Dave Ramsey]

I just wouldn't throw this, I wouldn't throw this down. I just let her ride and move on. 20 years from now, it's just be a not funny memory. That's what it'll be 20 years from now. No one, no one. I'm still not laughing. 20 years later, I'm still. Don't bring it up. Okay. But I got a couple of those in my life. I got stuff that 20 years ago

[George Kamel]

happened, things everybody knows. Let's just not talk about it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't, I don't. I've got PTSD from COVID Don't bring it up. You know, it's just like, it's not funny. There's still not funny. You mask people, you're still not funny. And so all that stuff, you know, and all that, it's okay. We'll just keep moving. We're. We're all good. We're all the same planet. Life's good. Yeah. Ryan's in Reno. Hey, Ryan, what's up in your world?

[Caller]

Howdy, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure, man. How can we help?

[Caller]

Yeah, I have a quick question. So I rent an apartment. I pay about 1500amonth. My lease is up in June, but in part of the lease agreement, I have to give notice two months in advance. And basically my question is the market rate for my unit is down $100 from when I originally leased the apartment three years ago.

[Dave Ramsey]

You mean there shot. You mean that apartment complex is currently leasing a similar unit for $100 less?

[Caller]

Correct. So my question is, should I commit to a new lease for a year and keep paying what I'm paying, or should I. Should I go month to month and go at the current market rate, which would be a hundred dollars less?

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, how long are you gonna stay there?

[Caller]

Well, now that's another good question. I mean, I'm planning to stay at least another six months. But they don't do six month leases.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, then you're month to month, aren't you?

[George Kamel]

So you're saying you'll go month to

[Dave Ramsey]

month, you get flexibility and $100 less. You're month to month.

[Caller]

So that's what I'm saying. And they couldn't tell me. When I asked the manager, I was like, if I go month to month, would it be what I'm. What you guys are currently selling for or whatever?

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm leaving.

[George Kamel]

Yeah, you've got some leverage here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I can leave. That's another option.

[Caller]

That is true, but it's just a hassle to move everything, go somewhere else.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not that big a hassle. It's a one bedroom apartment. It's your buddies in a six pack of beer in a pickup truck.

[Caller]

That's good. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's not that big a deal. Don't. Don't make us into something. It ain't I mean, I would go in there and go, guys, I'm gonna go ahead and give you my notice now for June. I'm not gonna be here. I'm gonna go to month to month and I'm only gonna go to month to month if you give me the price that you put up, your street price. And otherwise I'm just gonna leave. So what do y' all wanna do?

[Caller]

Right?

[Dave Ramsey]

What do y' all wanna do?

[Caller]

Doesn't make sense for me to pay more.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. I'm not paying more than the other. Some boot dude walks in off the street and I'm already in the thing. So, you know, I mean, just sit or have a calm, nice, pleasant conversation. You don't have to be as rude as I'm being. But. But, you know, you're just making the point that are obvious and. But let the message be known. We're going to month to month and we're going at the $100 less rate or we're going somewhere else.

[George Kamel]

And if they're jerks about it, that's a sign you should not be staying there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, yeah. And it's just an apartment, man. You know, it's not a. It's not a wedding.

[George Kamel]

That's true.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I move the wedding up and cost somebody money.

[George Kamel]

It wasn't $8,500 worth.

[Dave Ramsey]

That was $100.

[George Kamel]

But there's a lot of incompetent, sort of like the front desk person who can't do anything. And so you kind of have to go above that to someone who can make those decisions and change the lease. Because some people go, it's the policy. Can't do anything.

[Dave Ramsey]

You know, I think we get it in writing. Yeah, for sure. Basically, powerless people have the power to say no only.

[George Kamel]

And you go, well, I guess they said no, no, go beyond that. Push a little bit.

[Dave Ramsey]

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[Caller]

I'm good. How are you guys?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I'm on baby step number two, and my question is, how do I implement it properly if my budget only allows for minimum payments?

[Dave Ramsey]

Something's got to change. So your income has to go up or your outgo has to go down. We got to sell something that's got debt on it. What do you owe on your cars?

[Caller]

So I made a couple bad decisions in the last year. 123,000 of this debt has just. I've just accumulated in the last year.

[Dave Ramsey]

On what?

[Caller]

A vehicle. So I have. I had a couple bad decisions that I saw a year ago. I was in a good financial space and I had a rental property that needed some work, and I took out a $40,000 HELOC so that I could do that work on that property. I also bought a new vehicle. Well, a new to me vehicle 2023. And I. Oh, 28,000 on that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And what's your household income then?

[Caller]

So my household income has changed in the last six months. I lost my dad, I lost my job, and I separated from my husband.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry.

[Caller]

So my income is around 75,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why did you say you lost your job? Got a new job. Good. Okay.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how long have you been married?

[Caller]

15 years.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm so sorry. Okay, are you all attempting counseling or is this going to end in divorce?

[Caller]

It is going to end in divorce.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

I was going to counseling individually for about five months.

I have.

I stopped that about four months ago when I got laid off from my job because I just couldn't.

Couldn't afford.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so the rent property is going to end up on you in the divorce.

[Caller]

It is going to be where. It's where I'm living now. I moved into the rental property last month and my husband kept the house that we were in.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And have you all started talking about how things split up on all this?

[Caller]

Basically, I get my car and my dad. I get this house and it's payments and he. It's his.

[George Kamel]

So the 123 is all yours.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, but that's the 40 on the HELOC on the house you moved out of.

[Caller]

No, the house I moved into.

[Dave Ramsey]

It has a HELOC on it.

[Caller]

Correct. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

What's the first mortgage is?

[Caller]

My mortgage is 155.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

And the HELOC is 40.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you owe 195 and the house is worth what?

[Caller]

275.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. And you make 75. And what other debts have we got then? Is the 40 and the 123?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so one. So 40 and 28 is 68. What's the rest of the 123?

[Caller]

I have 54,000 in consumer credit card debt that I have racked up in the last. Well, 20,000 of it was prior. Prior to this other financial situation. I spent 15,000 on a dream vacation before my family split up. And I was in a financial position then that it wasn't such a big deal.

[Dave Ramsey]

What were you making before?

[Caller]

So to get my husband and I together.

[Dave Ramsey]

Now, what were you making at your other job before you made 75?

[Caller]

80. 85.

[Dave Ramsey]

So you didn't take much of a paycheck. What does he make?

[Caller]

No. 110.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are the. And you have children?

[Caller]

Yes, I have three children.

[Dave Ramsey]

What ages?

[Caller]

19, 17 and 14.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, my gosh. Okay. All right. So.

[Caller]

So my.

[Dave Ramsey]

Let's. Let's just put a bracket. Let's put a bracket around this. Let's put a bracket around this. On the math part, okay? There's a lot of emotion and a lot of hurt and a lot of broken hearts, but the math is you make $75,000 a year. You have a $28,000 car, and you have a house you can't afford and a car you can't afford.

[Caller]

I could afford the house and the car if I didn't have the credit card debt. But.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you have the credit card debt

[Caller]

out of the credit card debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you really can't. The car is stupid, and so was the vacation. You got to start calling stuff what it is.

[Caller]

Okay, I agree.

They were stupid. I purchased them before. I know.

I knew this was going to clean up the mess.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can't. You can't offend it. Then I can afford the car is not something that should ever come out of your mouth. You have a $30,000 car. You make $75,000 a year.

[Caller]

No, the problem with the car is

I owe 28,000 on it and the value is only 27, so I can't even sell it and get out from under.

[George Kamel]

You can you come up with 1,000 bucks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You sell it, don't pay the credit cards for two months to sell the car and get a $2,000 car. Ta da. We just got rid of. What is the payment on the stupid thing? Twelve hundred bucks?

[Caller]

653.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, God. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's killing you.

[George Kamel]

You told us you shouldn't have margin.

[Dave Ramsey]

So the thing. Because you've been through this tremendous heartbreak, you've given yourself permission to do things you shouldn't have done. Go on a vacation and buy a car and run up credit cards. Okay. So we have to say, we have to undo as much of that as we can undo. What do you do for a living?

[Caller]

I have three jobs. My main source of income, I negotiate leases and I bring in about 42,000 at that. My secondary income is real estate and I bring in about 25,000 in that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Selling real estate? Selling residential real estate.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right.

[Caller]

And then how long you been doing that? Eight years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So it's time to get good at it now. You need to go make 150,000 selling houses.

[Caller]

I would love to, I just don't know how.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Your raises effective when you are. I mean. Yeah, you do. You've been around people that make that kind of money selling real estate. You've been doing this eight years. You've seen top performers. What do they do that you don't do?

[Caller]

So I specialize in.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not anymore.

[Caller]

First time home buyers and not anymore.

[Dave Ramsey]

Now you specialize in money. I specialize in selling houses for money. That's what I specialize in now. You're not, you're not in a position to be niche. You got to go make money. And I want you to go make 150, $200,000 a year selling a bazillion freaking houses. Instead of selling a house every other month, I want you to sell five a week.

[George Kamel]

You've been doing it part time. So imagine if you went all in.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is, this is. You are. You are Miss Real estate girl with the glamour shot on her business card. The whole thing. You got to do something to get your income.

[Caller]

I. How do I come up with the extra hours to put into it when I, you know, my, my other day job is 8 to 4, and then I just picked up a bartending job on Friday.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think the bartending went away. And you're going to be in the real estate business.

[Caller]

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you know, and I'm gonna start. I'm gonna get away from that other day job as fast as I can. Cause you can't pay squat. $40,000 a year. Boo boo boo. So we gotta get your income up. We gotta think differently about these decisions that got us here so that we don't even ever say out loud again that there was a good reason for these things. They just were happening during a broken heart time. And I made bad decisions. And you said that early on. And then you went back and said, yeah, but I need the car. And the car. The car is bull crap. The car is awful. Get rid of it. It represents a bunch of things about you that you don't like. I want rid of it. I want it out of my driveway. I don't want to look at this thing anymore. I want to get rid of it. And I'm going to get in gear and start selling houses like a crazy person. And that's a good news because you actually have been around the business enough. You know, go get ahold of two or three of the top performers and say, teach me what you do. Let me join your team and help you with do what you do. I got to make more money and I'm getting ready to put it in gear like I've never put it in gear in my entire life. This is a start for old Sarah and it's a clean whiteboard. Brand new year Grace Mercy. Time to start over. And then you chop up the credit cards. So first thing you do is you pay food. The second thing you do is you pay lights and water. Third thing you do is you pay the two house payments. Fourth thing you do is you pay the stupid car payment till you get rid of the stupid car. And until you do that, you don't pay anybody anything. So the credit cards are way down the list. They don't get paid nothing right now. Nothing. My credit. You don't need credit.

[Caller]

You're broken.

[Dave Ramsey]

Getting married changes something in you. It sure did in me. When you say I do, all of the sudden. Life isn't just about you anymore. It's about we. And one of the most grown up things you can do for that we is to make a [e-mail] See, being a grown up isn't just about jobs and rent and splitting up the chores. It's about having a plan so the person you love is protected. And will isn't about dying. It's about deciding. It puts your wishes in writing so no one has to guess. And judges don't have the final say. That's why I recommend Mama Bear legal forms with Mama Bear Making your will is easy. It's completely online, no lawyers required. You can get it done in about 20 minutes. The price you see at the start is the price you pay with Mama Bear. So if you're serious about being an adult, do this today. Go to mamabearlegalforms.com use the promo code Ramsey and save 20% on your will. That's mamabear legalforms.com promo code Ramsey. Our question of the day is brought to you by why Refi if private student loan default has knocked you off track? Well, this is how you reset why Refi works with borrowers. Other lenders won't help, and they help you refinance a defaulted private student loan with a low fixed rate so you can get back on a plan and move forward. Visit yrefi.com Ramsey that's the letter y r e f y.com Ramsey might not be in all states.

[George Kamel]

Today's question comes from Alyssa in Vermont. I'm in my late 20s and trying to be more organized regarding my finances. Do you think using AI for things like tracking spending and setting budgets is a smart and practical approach, or should people stick to more traditional methods? Interesting. I have seen some videos online of people using AI to try to help them kind of get control of their money, but it really does a terrible job when it comes to actually tracking your actual spending because it can't pull in your transactions. It doesn't know your life.

[Dave Ramsey]

Here's the thing. AI is only as effective as the data set that you feed it. And so if it doesn't have the data, it can't crunch it. And so you have to build the budget anyway for it to know what to do. Or it's clueless.

[George Kamel]

It doesn't know your actual expenses, it

[Dave Ramsey]

can't read your mind or what your. No, it's not a spiritual thing. It's just you feed it a data set and it crunches it. That's all it is. And so like we built Ask Ramsey. Okay, you go to our website, ramseysolutions.com and you can ask Ramsey any question you wanted to ask on this show but you couldn't get through on the show. Okay, so what is the. And it's an AI tool. We built it. No one else has touched it but Ramsey. What's in the data set? 5 years of the calls from this show and the answers we gave are dumped into the data set. All the Financial Peace University videos are dumped in the data set. All the books that the personalities and have written are dumped into the data. Set. And so it's a pure data set. So it's going to give you an actual Ramsey answer to a money question. It's not going to give you an answer of anything else. Hadn't got anything to do with Reddit. Hadn't got anything to do with a bunch of crap on the Internet. There's no trash in the data set. And that's the problem, Alyssa, with trying to do what you're doing. Because personal finance, the key to fixing personal finance is understanding that personal finance is 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge. AI can help you with the head knowledge, but you still gotta deal with the person in your mirror. And when you actually take the every dollar budgeting app and lay out and put your budget together, your brain is affecting that. And you're making a commitment to you that, this is how much I'm going to spend on groceries, this is how much I'm going to spend on eating out, which is not at all. I'm getting out of debt. This is how much I'm going to do whatever with. And you've made a commitment to you. That's right. And so you've begun, just by the very act of you putting the number into the EveryDollar app, you have begun to modify your own behavior. AI can't do that for you. Now, once you've got all the data in there, and let's say you've been in every dollar for two years, are we going to have some AI in the background helping you manipulate your data?

[George Kamel]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Not yet, but we will have by the time you get there. Because that's a good use of AI,

[George Kamel]

because we actually know your goals. We can help ste you. Whereas AI is going to be a little more.

[Dave Ramsey]

It doesn't read your mind.

[George Kamel]

It's going to be a little more agnostic.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I don't want. I don't want. You don't want a budgeting tool of any kind that auto populates the numbers in the sense of. In the sense of, it just makes up a number.

[George Kamel]

Here's how much to spend.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because you need to look at it and say, for me, Alyssa in Vermont, this is what I need to spend on rent. It doesn't need to auto populate your rent. And when you actually type it into everydollar, you need to go, holy crap, my rent's really high, or, holy crap, I got a really good deal renting this garage apartment out back from this old lady's house. I got a deal. And your brain is starting to verify your numbers and your behaviors at that point, it's not going to help you

[George Kamel]

spend less on doordash after you've gotten

[Dave Ramsey]

control and have run a budget for many years. And AI could access that data. It could be really helpful. But when you're starting, I'm more concerned that you learn to control you than you do math. Right? Yeah.

[George Kamel]

You know your spending habits, you know what's going on. So I would start with every dollar for sure.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. And if you're working the baby steps, it's going to give you, it's going to prompt you again, like the Ask Ramsey thing. It's going to prompt you what we would tell you to do. So if you wonder what George Camel would say to do, every dollar is going to be telling you right then when you put that down, it's going to go, hey, by the way, it looks like you're missing this or you're

[George Kamel]

spending a lot over here. What if you.

[Dave Ramsey]

It looks like you're getting a tax refund. You want to adjust that W2, you know, it looks like you're doing this and you may not want to do that. It looks like you got, you know. And we're going to give you some Ramsey input as you're building your budget out. So it's not agnostic. It's got Ramsey flavor. It's not quite as sassy as I want it to be. I want it to be smart alec.

[George Kamel]

We'll dial it up.

[Dave Ramsey]

But digital smart alec is hard to get going. But if I ever figure out how to do it, I'm going to make a lot of money because digital smart alec is cool.

[George Kamel]

People have been asking for the Dave function on Ask Ramsey where it just spits out the Dave response.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's just like, like stop doing stupid stuff, don't do stupid stuff button.

[George Kamel]

It starts with that's a stupid question, but here's the answer. That would be fun. I would like that, Dave. How do I build my credit?

[Dave Ramsey]

None of that's there. None of that's there. And they're not going to actually do it. Even though in my dreams, I think it's funny. But yeah. So check out everydollar for free, download it in the app store and always keep in mind that when you are doing anything that doesn't prompt your brain to make a measurement on your budgeting stuff, you're probably off track because you need to be making measurements as you go along. When you're spending money in marketing, we call that friction. If when you spend money, you feel it, that's your brain telling You, I just spent money. But if you just like Apple Pay and I have no idea what'd you pay for that?

[George Kamel]

I don't know.

[Dave Ramsey]

It was on Apple Pay. I didn't even look Apple Pay. I just waved my phone and crap jumped in my basket, you know. And it's like that drives me crazy. No friction at all, right? But you know, submit, you know, prime, prime, prime, prime, prime, prime. Now it's on auto cases of toilet.

[George Kamel]

You forgot about a subscription to it and it just shows up.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's just. Yeah, oh yeah. You subscribe to your stupidity. Yeah, that's it. Regular, regular diet of it. But yeah, that, that's the thing. You want stuff that tells you when you're off. Here's an example of that. Okay. While we gone on this, it's good, it's good, it's a good subject. When you actually spend green cash with presidents faces on them, there have been studies done that shows that it activates the pain centers of the brain. So like you get ready to buy groceries and you slide two Uncle Benjamin's across to the cashier. Your brain goes ouch. When you wave Apple pay, your brain doesn't know anything happen. It doesn't feel it because there's no recognition. But there's something about our brains going I just freaking spent money. When you use a debit card and you know it's coming out of your checking account right then versus a credit card that someday I'll pay. I hope I pay it this month, but I might someday pay it right. Bull crap. There's a difference between the debit card and the credit card. They look just alike visually. But your brain is going, you just

[George Kamel]

spent money, it's using your money now

[Dave Ramsey]

you better have some money in that account. When you're using your debit card, when you're using a credit card, you're like, oh, I'll deal with this later.

[George Kamel]

You know, maybe problem for future me to deal with.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, using someone else's to be future me. But yeah, yeah, but even the debit card doesn't activate the pain centers like cash does. If you want to start spending less money, start spending more cash. You'll limit your spending because you go crap. Those groceries were expensive.

[George Kamel]

Well now it's on trend. You did the cash envelope system 30 years ago and now the Gen Z ers are calling it cash stuffing. They make videos of them stuffing the envelopes with the exact amount of cash, which, it's a great trend. I'm glad it's coming back. But they're acting like they invented it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I didn't invent it either. The first time it came up is the 1930s.

[Caller]

Wow.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because you got paid on Friday in cash in an envelope and you walked out with your paycheck and you broke it up. Put a little in a grocery envelope, a little bit in the rent envelope, a little bit in this. And people have sent me ledgers that their grandmother and their great grandmother kept with the envelopes in the back of them from the 1920s and 30s. And they used to. It was everything was 100% cash. I mean the number of people that

[George Kamel]

wrote checks, you had to budget.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you wrote a check in the 1930s, you were rich rich people. I mean nobody but rich people were rich.

[George Kamel]

Only the elite had access to checks.

[Dave Ramsey]

There certainly was no credit cards because there was no credit cards until the late 1950s up into the 60s. And in the 70s is when the credit card actually took off. So you know, you go back. So yeah, the Gen Z ers didn't invent it, but I didn't either. We actually sell an envelope system in the store.

[George Kamel]

We still got it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Rachel's wallet has a built in envelope.

[George Kamel]

That's the fancier version. Looks better.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. For the last one. People do to Rachel on future rich people. I don't.

[George Kamel]

It's a good history lesson. Dave, thanks for walking us down there.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, it's good, it's, it's, it's good to remember if you that you're managing behavior, you're not managing numbers. Running a business is hard work. You're the CEO, the accountant and the sales team. You don't have time to moonlight as your own benefits department. That's where Health Trust Financial helps. In fact, health insurance is one of the biggest and most confusing line items in your budget. And most of you are overpaying because you're stuck figuring it out. You don't have time to figure out all the fine print about networks and deductibles. My friends at Health Trust Financial have been helping Ramsey listeners for over 20 years. Their focus is simplifying health insurance and serving people with empathy. No pressure, no games. They give you clear, unbiased advice that fits your life and your budget. Most of their clients save hundreds of dollars every month. That's real money you can put back in your or into the baby steps. So stop wasting your time, your energy and your money. You run the business. Let Health Trust Financial handle finding the right health insurance. Go to healthtrustfinancial.com today. That's healthtrustfinancial.com. Chelsea is in Lubbock, Texas. Hi, Chelsea. How are you?

[Caller]

Hi, I'm great. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Good. I was just calling because I'm looking for some advice on how I can get my husband to be a little bit more comfortable, how I could encourage him to be more comfortable spending money. He tends to put a big value behind everything that we spend on as if it's wasteful and that sort of thing. We just.

[George Kamel]

He's cheap.

[Caller]

He's very cheap.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, my wife is too.

[Caller]

For example, we went. I wanted a five guys burger for dinner one night, and he, you know, joyfully went out and got it for me. And he comes back with a bag from there and a bag from Burger King. And I asked him, who got Burger King? You know, we have two young kids, so I thought that maybe. And he said, no, the burger at Five Guys was $18. So he got me a burger there and got himself Burger King. You know, we never. We're not big Burger King people. He doesn't like Burger King. It's just Che. And so he chose.

[George Kamel]

He likes the price, not the taste.

[Caller]

Yes.

[George Kamel]

Got it. That's hilarious. But at least he got you five guys.

[Dave Ramsey]

And he burned $10 worth of gas driving across town to Burger King.

[Caller]

Got it. Yes. Yeah. We have a six month old, and I preheated the oven to start dinner, and I went in to feed the baby and put him down, and I come out to the oven being turned off, and he just. He thought it was just wasteful to leave the oven on. And I was like, well, it was preheating. And he's like, well, the electric bill will go up if we just leave. Leave the oven on.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's called preheating, doofus. Yeah. Okay. Wow.

[George Kamel]

It sounds like he must have had a childhood where dad and mom were like, hey, it's tight. We got to save money anywhere we can.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. When was he wounded?

[Caller]

He did have some experiences as a kid. You know, it was like brand new dirt bikes one day, and then, you know, Hawaii vacation, and then suddenly they can't afford the vacation they're on. And they'd have to go to the grocery store, and now they're buying food. They can't afford to be there. You know, from. We learned from mistakes that his D had made.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old is your. Is your husband?

[Caller]

He's 30.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you guys have been married 10 years?

[Caller]

Yep. This year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Yeah. And so we.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I think. I think it starts. It starts with saying, okay, being Frugal and wise with money is the hallmark of wealthy people. Wealthy people are careful with their money, but the Burger King and the preheating the oven is just weird. That's not careful. That's just strange. Okay, so we start with a conversation with. You have a natural tendency that's going to cause our family to be very successful, and that is you're going to watch and be careful with money. The downside is that you're never going to be able to enjoy it and you're never going to have the ultimate joy of it, which. The most fun you'll ever have with money is when you give it away. Generosity. Generosity. When you put a set of tires on a single mom's car and she's working three jobs and it costs you $1,000, that's the most fun you'll ever have in your life. When you leave a $300 tip at Thanksgiving for the pregnant Waffle House waitress, that's the most fun you'll ever have with money in your life. And you can't do that in the mindset that he's in. He can't do that. That his brain won't let him do that.

[Caller]

Well, and so there he. He actually is a very generous giver.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, he's not. Well, I mean, because he can't even give to himself. He can't even leave the oven on. Okay. So, no, he's not. I mean, he. I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I think he's a great guy. I think he just has. If I were coaching him, if he were to call me, I would just say, you need to have some. And you need to have some fun, because this guy's never gonna be irresponsible. It's impossible. He's never going to impulse a Porsche. No, his brain would explode. He just can't do it. He couldn't do it, and I don't want him to. So if I get this guy feeling like he's gone wild now, he's just normal now. He's just a regular human now. Because, I mean, he's just wired up about this. So I want him to enjoy money. There's three things you can do with money. You can invest it for the future, being careful and frugal. You can enjoy it and you can give it to others. That's the only three things you can do with it. And you should be doing all three. If you're healthy spiritually, if you're healthy emotionally and relationally. And so, honey, I want us to enjoy the money. I don't want us to be irresponsible. I'm so happy you're here.

[Caller]

Here.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm always going to be provided for. We're always going to have money because you are going to make sure of it. I'm never going to worry about money because I have you. And you're going to learn to have fun because you have me. I'm going to help you have fun.

[George Kamel]

I'm guessing it's partially why he married you.

[Caller]

Oh, yeah. I'm the one that plans the trips and the extra things that we're doing and stuff. But I mean, you're right. He is the. He is responsible. I feel like I'm responsible too, in the sense. But I feel like there's definitely. I'm trying to figure out a way.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm not saying you're irresponsible. I'm just saying he's hyper responsible.

[Caller]

He is very hyper responsible. I mean, if I. If I bought a name brand ketchup, you know, he's like, what, did we win the lottery? You know, And I'm like, okay, well,

[Dave Ramsey]

you know, next time you say that, I'm gonna hit you with a ketchup. I'm gonna smack you across the forehead with a ketchup bottle. Yeah, that's. That's so silly. That's so silly.

[George Kamel]

Do you guys do a monthly budget? Do you actually sit down and look at the numbers?

[Caller]

Yes, we use every dollar.

[George Kamel]

And there's money left over at the end of the month, right?

[Caller]

Oh, yes.

[George Kamel]

Where does that all go?

[Caller]

Just two investments. I mean, we invest about 20% of our income. We make about 250k a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much do you have in your nest egg?

[Caller]

Our net worth is about $800,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

30. You're about to be millionaires and you're 30 years old. See, I told you. The guy's a great guy. I mean, what he's doing. But he really has got to dial this back about 5%. The ketchup bottle thing and the cutting the oven off thing and the Burger King thing. That's just over in the weird column, y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, that's just. That's strange. Okay? Yeah, and so quit being strange.

[George Kamel]

I tell him to go to therapy, but I assume he won't pay for it. So that's kind of a conundrum there. You might have to tell him it's free. The first one's friend.

[Caller]

You may be able to see a counselor at a.

[Dave Ramsey]

Go have coffee with a friend. But I'D have to buy the coffee.

[George Kamel]

Too frugal for his own good.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, seriously. And I'm gonna send you a copy of Rachel's book, Know Yourself, Know youw Money. And she talks about family of origin. And it's one of the things that causes people to make the decisions we make in our upbringing. And Rachel and Winston are a little bit like y'.

[Caller]

All.

[Dave Ramsey]

Winston's the tighter, more conservative one, and Rachel's the fun girl. Right. And so. And Winston really needs Rachel. Cause he wouldn't be any fun without Rachel. And Rachel really needs Winston because he's super responsible. And they've got a great net worth, and they do a great job managing money. And they, they, you know, she teaches him how to have fun. He teaches her how to save money. I mean, it's a. This is an ongoing thing. They've been married 12 years. I mean, this is how they do it. And that's the same with Sharon. And this, the dance Sharon. Sharon's the saver, I'm the spender. And, you know, I'm the frugal one in our house.

[George Kamel]

So I relate. But I don't go this far. I don't go this far if Whitney comes home with the Heinz ketchup instead of the, know, generic brand. But leftovers, unless it was Kirkland, I at least try to go. I find what's on sale, and that's kind of how I shop. Okay, but if Whitney goes out shopping, I don't expect her to live by my standards.

[Dave Ramsey]

Your. Your weirdness.

[George Kamel]

Exactly.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, your cheapness there and frugality.

[George Kamel]

But you know, what I mean is I force myself to spend money in the budget. So I have George fund money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Ah, you.

[George Kamel]

And Whitney keeps me accountable to spend it. That's why I asked about the budget.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, we need to put a fun category for boy child in there and let him go have some fun. You have to spend some money on you. Otherwise, I did that. And when we first started with Sharon, because we had clothing envelopes, we're talking about the envelopes a while ago, and she spent it all on the kids clothes.

[George Kamel]

She said, well, I don't need anything.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't need anything. I'll just make something out of the drapes. And I'm like, what are you, Scarlett o'? Hara? I mean, seriously. And so I had to separate the envelopes. We had Sharon's clothing, kids clothing. And you can't spend anything in that envelope except what the envelope says. So you have to spend this on you. And she's gotten over that, by the way.

[George Kamel]

Now she's very comfortable.

[Dave Ramsey]

She's particularly shoes. Yeah, but I mean she. Yeah, she very comfortable buying. Isn't this cute? Yeah, that just cost me.

[George Kamel]

Now she's a shoe museum.

[Dave Ramsey]

So cute.

[George Kamel]

Yeah, Come a long way.

[Dave Ramsey]

How cute that is.

[George Kamel]

I'm proud of you guys. Dave, that's progress.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I mean that's only 40 years we've been working on it, so we eventually get there. But yeah, make him have a category with his name on it. And he has to spend it on something fun and something that's irresponsible and wild and crazy.

[George Kamel]

He needs a hobby and give him

[Dave Ramsey]

30 bucks a month to do that

[George Kamel]

lo some money on a hobby and he'll go, gosh, this is actually fun. And he'll start to unwind a little bit from the Tiwad syndrome.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a good idea. That's a good idea, George. That's better than all the other blabbing I did in the whole call.

[George Kamel]

I'm a man of brevity.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, you got right to it, I can tell you that.

[George Kamel]

Hey guys, George here. Listen, 99 times out of 100 when people say I don't know where my money goes, it's not a math problem, it's a behavior problem. They're not budgeting. Then they're shocked when their bank account hits triple zeros. Well, here's the deal. Winning with money is about doing the boring stuff consistently. And that includes banking someplace that helps you stop guessing with your money. Money like Fairwinds Credit Union. They're not going to fix your habits. That part's on you. But they do support people who are ready to take control of their money. At Fairwinds you get a high yield savings account with a great rate to help grow your emergency fund, a checking account that won't nickel and dime you and up to 10 free savings accounts so you can organize your money on purpose because when you stay disciplined, your money gets predictable, manageable and boring in the best way. So if you're ready for a bank that helps you be intentional, open your smart Bundle [e-mail] and get the Ramsey Beweir debit card to go along with it. That's Fairwinds.org Ramsey insured by the NCUA.

[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. George Camel Ramsey person is my co host. I'm Dave Ramsey. Daniel is on the line in Salt Lake City. Hi Daniel, how are you?

[Caller]

Hey fellas, how we doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

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

[Caller]

Oh, so got divorced about two years ago. Well, separated two years ago. Finalized a year ago. There was effectively starting over financial. Pretty much lost all the equity in the house. And I'm 42. I've learned a lot of the basics on. I won't say basics. I've actually learned finance within that point. I actually understand money now, but it just feels like I'm too late. It feels like I'm too far behind and I'll never catch up to actually retire at a decent age with my back still straight.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. You said you're 40, right?

[Caller]

42.

[Dave Ramsey]

42.

[Caller]

Got divorced at 40.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. And your, your income is what, sir?

[Caller]

Right now it's about 85,000. Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right. And so the house and a bunch of the stuff went away. Did you end up with debt also or are you debt free but have nothing?

[Caller]

Are you even debt free but have nothing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. You have Anything in a 401k from before?

[Caller]

Yes, but it's. Well, so from before. No.

[Dave Ramsey]

We all went to her.

[Caller]

Well, yes and no. It's not like she kept it. The, the context is one of the main. One of the main reasons we divorced was she racked up a lot of debt behind my back.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, okay. All right. And so you cleaned out the 401k to pay that, so you got nothing?

[Caller]

I never, I've never formally had one because I worked. I worked construction my whole life and I worked for smaller companies that never offered a retirement.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, all right. I'm just trying to catch up. So you literally have no debt, but you have. But you're renting a house or an apartment?

[Caller]

Yes, correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you have no debt on your car?

[Caller]

Correct. I got a. I, I mean, I did that smart. I got a 2010 Toyota Tundra. I just rolled over 250. 1,000 miles, never broken. I love the maintenance.

[Dave Ramsey]

My car will go another 250. That's a great car.

[Caller]

Yes, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you're working construction, so that's perfect truck for it. Absolutely.

[Caller]

I've taken a promotion. I'm now in the management side rather than the field installation.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, well, here's the thing. The biggest thing you have to overcome is not the mathematical challenge of being okay by age 65, because that's a lay down. You definitely are going to be fine. You're going to be a multimillionaire.

[George Kamel]

We can show you how to have a million bucks and an nest egg

[Dave Ramsey]

by then, but easy. Maybe two. Okay. But the biggest thing you've got to overcome is two Things. How long were you married?

[Caller]

Well, we were together for 21 years, married for 14.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you're grieving a death, a broken heart, a relationship that died after 21 years. And with that goes a broken heart. It goes anger, it goes loss of confidence in myself because I let this go on longer than I should have. The part you played in it, that you just kind of turned a blind eye and then finally you didn't, and, and all that crap. If you were just starting fresh without any scars on your heart and you were just 18 years old and all smiles, we could just turn you loose on the world. Making 85,000 and you go have a bunch of money pretty quick. But you've got to overcome the lack of confidence in yourself and quit looking in the rear view mirror. It's smaller than the windshield. That's called grace. Start looking forward instead of backwards so much. And I'll learn a few lessons that I did wrong, but I want to not do those again. But that's all I got from the past. The rest of the past is just gone. It's past, it's over. Let's go forward and say, okay, because George, 15% of 85,000. Did you run that?

[George Kamel]

I ran the numbers for him here. From 42 to 67, you're. You'd be investing a little over 1,000 bucks a month. If you follow our plan, 15% of your household income, you'd have 1.4 million, and that's at 10%. If you get 11 or 12, you're talking 161718. And I think you're going to think

[Dave Ramsey]

you're going to have $2 million or more. More at 65. If you do what we teach and you follow it. So you're going to live on a written budget. You're not going to borrow money. You're going to have an emergency fund, and you're going to put 15% of your income, whatever you make the rest of your life away, into good retirements and good growth stock mutual funds. Get online. Go to ramseysolutions.com, find the SmartVestor pro in your area that we have vetted and that we trust and that does stuff the way we teach. And they'll sit down and go, okay, your company has a 401. You can do this or it doesn't, and you can do that, that, and you can do this and you can do this. And you need to be putting aside, in your case, right around $1,000 a month. That's about $15,000 a year. I mean about 15% of your income. And if you never get a raise in the next 30 years, which would officially make you a loser. Okay, if you never get a raise, you're still going to have over a million and a half dollars.

[George Kamel]

That's with no employer match your whole life in a retirement account.

[Dave Ramsey]

If there's match and you get raises, it's going to be more than that. But you're going to have to do this as methodical. It's just every stinking month, thousand dollars goes into something and I don't know what your mix is, what you're going to be able to put it in. But we're going to put it into Roth 401s with a match first and then we're going to put it into anything with a match second. And then we're going to put it into Roth IRAs and all in good growth stock mutual funds. And you're going to have serious money and stay out of debt so that you can do that. And when you start dating again someday and he's like, oh well you will. But once you get past this a little bit, you know, you're looking for someone that wants to join you in this wealth building venture, not suck the marrow out of your bones. And so you know, because you can't make enough money when someone's sucking the marrow out of your bones to end up with anything but broken. Even at 42, which is where you are. So you're fine, you can become wealthy and you're going to be, you're going to have a lot of money if you just simply follow this plan. But the biggest impediment you have today is a broken heart and confidence that it can be done because you're sitting there saying, I don't know if it's too late. You're a 42. You're not even close to too late. If you call me up and you're 72, we'll have this discussion. Discussion. But you're 42 decades.

[George Kamel]

What's happening? He's comparing his 42 year old self to his 39 year old self who had a bunch of money.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, but his life was. It sound like it's been ongoing but I mean, but whatever. His 34 year old.

[George Kamel]

What I had and now I don't. And now it feels like I'm behind.

[Dave Ramsey]

Exactly. That's, that's fair too.

[George Kamel]

You'll hear callers on the show who are in crippling debt at your age, who still have a mountain to climb. Cleaning this mess up and you're actually in a good spot. Yeah, you're all things considered, you have a great income.

[Dave Ramsey]

You don't have to talk anybody into the this.

[George Kamel]

It's just you.

[Dave Ramsey]

The guy in your mirror is the only one you got to talk into it.

[George Kamel]

That's the only one that can mess it up.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's very. That's a lot easier than the way you've been living. You've been trying to push the rock up a hill by yourself and man. So yeah, that you're going to be fine. So you hang on. We're going to get you set up with every dollar and I'm going to send you a copy of the book that started the whole thing, the total money makeover with the baby steps, and show you exactly what to do next. What to do next. What to do do next. I want you to build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses, but you're going to do that in just a few months and then you're going to kick in on this 15% of your income and you're going to retire with anywhere from 2 to 3 million dollars at age 65 to age 70. Somewhere in there. That's where you should land. Finally, mortgage rates have dropped and you know what that means. People who've been sitting on the sidelines are about to jump back in in to the housing market. So if you've been waiting to buy, this could be your window. But you got to be prepared and do it the Ramsey way. You need to contact Churchill Mortgage. Their home buyer Edge program gives you peace of mind. In a wild market, you can cap your rate for 90 days. So if rates go up, you're protected. If rates go down, Churchill will drop yours automatically. And get this, Churchill will even back your offer with a $10,000 seller guarantee. So if your loan falls through due to financing, the seller still gets paid. That's how confident Churchill is. Plus, when you shop as a Churchill certified home buyer, it's stronger than pre approval. It makes you look like a cash buyer, which makes your offer rise to the top. So don't let this moment pass you by. Get ready now. Go to Churchill Mortgage.com to get started today. That's ChurchillMortgage.com this is a paid advertisement.

[George Kamel]

Homebuyer Edge and seller guarantee are available for qualifying borrowers and select loan types only and not available in all states or locations. NMLS ID 1591 nmlsconsumerexcess.org Eagle Housing Lender.

[Dave Ramsey]

Art's in Buffalo hey, Art, how are you?

[Caller]

Hey, Dave.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, George.

[Caller]

How you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than we deserve. How can we help?

[Caller]

So I got a question. I'm calling to find out if our plan is possible. My fiance and I want to retire within the next five to seven years. I'm 42, she's 45. And we'd like to retire early.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are you gonna do with the rest of your life?

[Caller]

Travel. We like to travel. We do a lot of traveling now. And that's the plan. We, we have an RV now, you know, that's.

[Dave Ramsey]

So for 40 years, as long as you've already been alive, you're gonna try travel? I like to travel too, but my God, son, you're going to do nothing for the next 30 years but travel

[Caller]

until we get bored of traveling,

[George Kamel]

okay?

[Dave Ramsey]

I can't. I, I, I, I don't recommend that as a life decision. I, I, I don't think that's going to make you as happy as you think it is. Now, if you want to travel a lot while you have something that you actually do that contributes to your life and contributes to things, that's fine too. But I wouldn't do, do nothing but travel unless you said, I'm going to do that for two years or something like that, that's fine. But to have that to be your only plan for 30 years is pretty shallow. And I, I can't recommend that. I don't think it's going to make you as happy as you think it is. That I'm just going to tell you anyway. Let's answer your question anyway, about your numbers. So your fiance, when are you getting married?

[Caller]

That's probably within the next year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, got that tacked down? Not at all. Okay, and how much do you have saved?

[Caller]

So I have 45,000 in my 401. I've got 10,000 in a high yield savings. 10,000? A brokerage account. I've got 50,000 in cash. I've got a rental property that's paid off. Right now I only have about 45,000 in debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

What does the rental property produce?

[Caller]

1500amonth?

[Dave Ramsey]

Man, you're gonna be on beans and rice. You're not retiring in five years. I mean, you're gonna live on 1500. You're gonna travel on $1500 a month.

[Caller]

So, no, I, I mean, I plan on obviously contributing more to it in the next five to seven years.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, like five or six hundred grand. What do you make?

[Caller]

Together we make almost 200,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. If you want to save a hundred thousand dollars a year for the next five years between the two of you. And you get very specific on your marriage date so that you can do that safely without putting either one of you at risk. $100,000 a year would be 500,000, and then you've got the 1500amonth coming in from the rental property. That'll produce 50 grand a year, give or take. So you'd have a 65 or $70,000 income to live on. That's not much traveling.

[Caller]

But also with her, she got 240,000 in her deferred comp. She's got 50,000 in her off. And I'll also get older elder money When I turn 60, go Social Security.

[Dave Ramsey]

You're not gonna turn 60 for 20 years. And you say you're 42.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's 18 years. Yeah. Okay. The answer to your question is no. I don't think you're going to be able to do what you can accomplish with the money you've got. If you want to. You're just going to. If you do, it's going to be a very thin budget. I mean, we're talking. If gas prices go up, the RV's parked. I mean, I don't know what you're. Where you're going to be going on this kind of money, because we're talking about you're going to have maybe 50, 75, maybe $80,000 a year to live on without destroying your nest eggs that you're building between now and then. And so.

[George Kamel]

And traveling full time will eat that up pretty quick.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't know what kind of traveling you're talking about doing, but will do it for you then. Yeah, you could do it, but that's a lot of truck stop food right there, man. That's. We're not doing fine dining here. There's no Michelin stars involved in this process. Yeah.

[George Kamel]

And you, you said you had only $45,000 in debt, and that tells me you've probably been funding a lot of this travel on credit cards with money you don't have. And that part scares me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah. I think I would look for a different process. And because I don't think this is. You don't have the math ready within the period of time we're talking about. So what I probably would do is this. I might retool and reset what I do for a living. That gives me a lot more flexibility to where I could travel 30 or 40% of the year, work the rest of the time, not necessarily consecutive time, but take off a Week here, a week there, two weeks here, two weeks there, that kind of thing. And the rest of the time I run this business that I start and I'm making $100,000 a year and I keep an income stream going to fund the travel and then let the nest egg build. I think you're going to have a better quality of travel and a better quality of life overall. Then I'm having trouble picturing how this dream works out to be anything that's dreamy.

[George Kamel]

I don't think it'll last for long is the problem. You're going to have to go back to work eventually.

[Dave Ramsey]

If it does, it's going to be a lot of stuff on the cheap, which will get old faster, given that you have income potential for another 30 years. You know that. That there's something left out of the equation here. I'm just not comfortable with this. So I'm not. I'm not gonna. I wouldn't do it. So I can't tell you to do it. That's. I don't tell people do stuff I wouldn't do. I can answer your question. And the question is you don't really. You're not really gonna have enough money in five or six years to do this. Well, it's gonna be very tight if you do it and you're gonna struggle, struggle. And I would rather have a hybrid thing where I'm working less but instead of not at all and traveling less than you have in your mind, but are able to do it at a better rate, a better quality of travel, get to go places, you know. And you know, it's that. That you really did dream about going to sea.

[George Kamel]

It's more of just a downshift instead

[Dave Ramsey]

of just feels like we're running away from a career I'm burnt out on rather than running to something that's what's bothering me.

[George Kamel]

Well, I find that a lot in the. The fire movement, Dave. And it sounds like that's kind of what he's after here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, this is not.

[George Kamel]

It's not financial independence.

[Dave Ramsey]

Got better. The fire Movement's even got better goals than this, though. The goals associated with this are just horrible. I mean the Fire Movement is not.

[George Kamel]

They're a little more clear about. Here's the number.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And you need a bigger number. It's always got a bigger number on it. When I see that stuff, it's not,

[George Kamel]

you know, it's a seven figure number.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[George Kamel]

That they can live off of as a bridge until they get to describe

[Dave Ramsey]

the people of the Fire movement. Because it isn't what we teach, but it's out there.

[George Kamel]

It's existed for a long time. And it's called financial independence. Retire early. And essentially it's, let's work our tails off, get our income way up, keep our expenses way down, and then invest the margin in non retirement investments so that we can use that as a bridge to live for from 45, 50, 55, all the way through retirement before we can access those funds. And some people do it. And I think if the later you do it, the better your life is, the earlier you do it, what we find is that they either get bored or they run out of money or their goalpost changes and they realize, I can't do this, I gotta keep going, keep investing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, it's.

[George Kamel]

Very few have done it successfully for their whole life.

[Dave Ramsey]

The idea of not working is much more appealing when you hate everything you do, which is a lot of these jobs. And it's unrealistically appealing because I'm now 65 years old. And so my contemporaries, my friends have sold their businesses and some of them are the most miserable they've been in their lives because they don't have anything to do. They travel and they play golf and they're productive, smart people and they travel and they, they fish and they play golf and, and they're not very good and they're not having as much fun as they were when they had their hand to something. And they will tell me that often. They're like, I envy you because you

[George Kamel]

still work well, you like the work you do. That makes all the difference.

[Caller]

Foreign.

[George Kamel]

This show is sponsored by Better Help. I am right here because some extraordinary

[Caller]

women in my life, mentors, friends, my wife, my mom, because they're all amazing. And one of the common themes I've

[George Kamel]

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[Caller]

You can message your therapist and schedule sessions right in the platform.

[George Kamel]

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[Dave Ramsey]

Sarah is in Portland, Oregon. Hi Sarah. How are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing great. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Nice. So, quick question. My aunt is hiding debt from my uncle. Do I get involved and tell him quick question and then convoluted story that

kind of goes along with that?

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, it has to be like my parents. Yeah. Gotta be a great story. How old are these too?

[Caller]

They're in their 60s. They have no retirement. One is not working on Social Security. My aunt is not working on Social Security and husband is.

[Dave Ramsey]

How did you get into this middle of this?

[Caller]

They took me in when I was a child and raised me. So they're very much like my parents and their kids are very much like my siblings.

[Dave Ramsey]

Are the other kids in on the secret as well?

[Caller]

Most of them, as far as I know. That's who I've heard a lot of this from and from my aunt herself.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[George Kamel]

Why haven't they told her him or him?

[Caller]

Because they're. Yeah. That nobody wants to be the rat. And now it's also generational. The daughter is doing the same thing to her husband. Hiding that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, well, I mean, you got two options. One is you just stand back and watch this thing unfold. Which is bothering you. I can tell. And I don't know the depth of your relationship. It sounds like more of a mother than an aunt the way you're describing her.

[Caller]

Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

And I don't know how dysfunctional the lady is. I can tell she's a little bit or a lot, but I don't know how bad it is. So what would happen if you sat down with her and said, mom, what you're doing is wrong and I love dad and I'm not going to let you do this to him. So you have four days till Friday evening to tell him. If you haven't told him about Friday evening, you're going to see my smiling face here. Saturday morning. I'm going to tell him.

[Caller]

I can definitely do that. She has shared some of her debt already with him, but she's hiding some of it because she thinks that he's going to end up controlling everything she has and get really angry and give up, which has happened in the past.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, I think that's probably. That's probably accurate. Sounds like she needs that.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And guess what? When you lie and deceive and cheat and hide Target bags under the bed. Then it's not cute when you're 60. It's just dysfunctional, functional. It's gross. So, yeah, I think he, you know, I don't think he should react any differently. But what they should do is put a game plan together that the two of them both have full transparency and they start handling their money together. And then she can buy whatever that the two of them decide together that she can buy and he can buy whatever the two of them decide together that they can buy. And so that we don't have to retire. Any dog food. Food.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

And that's the proper way of handling this, is that not just get mad and become controlling, but get mad and go, okay, we're going to control this to the point that you don't do anything except that we do it together. And I don't do anything except that we do it together. And that's the fix for this. But I, you know, it sounded like your reaction to my suggestion was that might work. You tell her you have a deadline, and if you don't do it, I'm. You going tell. To tell him.

[Caller]

Yes. I have been in the middle of a little bit of stuff before where she's tried to hide something. And I said, no, you can't do that and we won't help you with that. And she didn't talk to me for months.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, that's okay.

[Caller]

I was.

Okay.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, because your other option is just be the rat. Yeah, that's the third option once do nothing. Two is say, you have till Friday or I'm going to tell him. That's not being a rat. That's being an adult.

[Caller]

I agree.

[Dave Ramsey]

And a rat is I sneak around behind her and use information on her against her, and that's being a rat. But just telling the truth in a dysfunctional situation to help clean it up. That's being an adult.

[George Kamel]

And think about this. Their financial mess is going to become everyone's problem eventually. She's already trying to make it their problem by.

[Caller]

We're worried about that.

[George Kamel]

And then that you're. You are in the middle of this, then say, hey, this is going to affect us. It's already affecting us and we can't live like this anymore.

[Dave Ramsey]

You need to talk to him. I love you and I love dad too much to participate in deception and in things that are going to bring you all apart rather than together, that are going to cause you to be unsuccessful rather than successful. We want you to be successful. And it starts with you coming clean and then you guys put together a plan and I'll coach you and be your cheerleader on how to do that if you want me to. But you have until Friday, Mom. And then Saturday, my smiling face is going to be sitting there and on the front porch with a cup of coffee with dad. And you're going to know what we're talking about. Yeah, and that's just because I'm not going to. I'm not going to be a part of deception that says things about me, not about you, and I'm not going to do that. And I love dad too much to, you know, to be a part of something that's hurtful to him just to protect you. And somehow you're gonna corner me like I'm 8 years old and I'm a rat. I'm not a rat. I'm an adult. And this is dysfunction. And we need to clean it up. And we need to get transparency on it and alignment on it so we can work to the forward future that is fun and successful again. Joseph is in Athens, Georgia. How are you, Joseph?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Up. So I am 30 years old. I've lived my life very frugally and I've tried saving as much as I can. I currently have a mortgage which is my only debt, and I'm paying that off aggressively. And I'm getting married in about a month. Good for you and thank you. My future wife will be coming in with a substantial amount of debt. Debt?

[Dave Ramsey]

How much?

[Caller]

And I have the. About 220,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good Lord. Is she a doctor or a lawyer?

[Caller]

She'll be a pharmacist. All the debt is from student loans just for grad school.

[Dave Ramsey]

She paid a lot for her pharmacy school. Okay, so she's going to make 135,000 a year, right?

[Caller]

About that. Yes, sir. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Almost like I've done this before. And she got $220,000 in debt. And you make. Make what?

[Caller]

It's ranged significantly over the last four years. Last year I made 450.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. What do you do?

[Caller]

I own a roofing company.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you, man. I love it. Yeah. You're printing money. And how much do you have saved?

[Caller]

If I pull everything together, about 700,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

And in non retirement or does that include retirement? Retirement.

[Caller]

There's about 50 in retirement and the rest is just stock accounts.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so after you get married, you could just write a check and pay off the student loan, right?

[Caller]

I could every time I Go to. Well, based on. Based on your teachings. I would never do that until the day after we get married.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

But every time I go to get that in order, sell stocks or things like that. Like that. It's hard.

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

It makes you want to throw up a little in the back of your mouth. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

[Caller]

It's the buffer that you've built. It's really hard.

[Dave Ramsey]

I mean, you're a frugal saver. And we're getting ready to go the opposite direction at 100 miles an hour. Of course it makes your stomach come up in your throat. If it didn't, you'd be weird. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.

[George Kamel]

Now, are you guys aligned on the money values in general going forward and over?

[Dave Ramsey]

Doing this again?

[Caller]

We are.

Pharmacy was always her dream, and she actually was on a full ride for undergrad. And this is all grad school.

[Dave Ramsey]

And she got completely screwed then. Okay.

[Caller]

It's all in state.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, yeah. She paid. She paid double. Triple what she should have. Okay. It doesn't matter now. It's behind her. But are you guys aligned? We're never doing this again. For any dream or anything. Or anything I want or never again. I couldn't do it. I can't do it again. I can do it one time, honey, but if we. If you think I'm gonna live my whole life doing this.

[Caller]

We are completely aligned on. We have no intent to ever have debt or anything ever again.

[Dave Ramsey]

And she's. She's saying that loudly and with strength in her voice, not just going along with Joseph.

[Caller]

Completely bought in.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, cool. Yes. Then that's what I would do. But I will also sympathize and empathize with you that, you know you're going to need a good stiff dog shot of bourbon right after you do this. Oh, my God.

[George Kamel]

She's worth it. And this sucks.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, this is. She's worth every dime of it. And. But, man, it's just. That's hard. You've been working a long time to build this up. You got a lot of calluses, a lot of roof and shingles slung over your shoulder to get to this. And now you're going to be 30. You're gonna build it right back up, man. Oh, they'll be there in no time,

[Caller]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

Speaking of things that make you want to throw up a little bit. Tax season is here, but gross. If you want some free checklists and guides that'll help you file, go to ramseysolutions.com taxes and we'll help you with the process done call a thing, I noticed the word was free. Did you notice that Chris is with us in Miami? Hi, Chris, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm good. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

[Caller]

So let me give you a little bit of what's going on. I'm 25. I just got out of jail eight months ago. Since then, I've been at a program which has been allowing me to work. They allow you to work after a certain period of time. So I've been working about six months, months at a car wash or detailership or whatever. I have a few certifications. I saved up 6k, like 6.6. But I have debt, and I'd say that's like around 13,000. I could like break it down, but that's another thing I have going on. And I mentioned the certifications I have, but not. It's not like. But I just. I'm kind of lost at finding a career too. So I'm basically just trying to like, invest and change my life around and everything like that. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. Good for you. I'm proud of you. So how long were you in jail?

[Caller]

I was in jail 10 months.

[Dave Ramsey]

For what, a felony?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

Do you want another charge?

[Dave Ramsey]

I don't care if you want to tell me.

[Caller]

There's an aggravated battery and a grand theft auto.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right. So have you got all that kind of behavior stuff in your rear view mirror? Because that's going to be a condition for you to be successful. I mean, obviously that has to be something we never go near again to be successful in a career and in business. Agreed.

[Caller]

All right. Of course.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. I mean, that's obvious, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, cool. I'm just gonna say it out loud because I'll make sure we're all on the same page. So I'm proud of you, man. Good for you. So we're gonna get a clean fresh start. How old are you?

[Caller]

I'm 25.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And you said you're working in a car wash now? What are you making now?

[Caller]

14 flat tips with tips.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, cool. And what do you do to get tips like super dry the windshield and all when they come through the car wash and run around and smile and make sure they get a super extra touch of niceness and you're smiling and they give you a tip? Is that how that works, right?

[Caller]

Yeah, basically.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Lots of energy and eye contact and smiles and people skills, right?

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's a good thing to practice, by the way. That works in the boardroom that works at the car wash, that works at the table when you're serving in a restaurant, that works just about anywhere you go. Okay. So that's a good thing to work through.

[George Kamel]

Those are soft skills.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, exactly. Now is the plan to continue to work there for a while or what's your plan right now?

[Caller]

The plan because I could be leaving the program earliest in June, latest in December if I get an extension. The plan now is to save as much money as possible. I'm around. I'm at 6,000. I want to leave with 10,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

But the plan now is to save as much as possible for when I have to pay rent and start living on my own and find a career. Like I can't even stress that enough.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, good for you.

[Caller]

I don't.

[Dave Ramsey]

I like that a lot. Okay. What are you thinking about doing as a career?

[Caller]

I'm not sure I can tell you the couple of certifications I have. I have a certification in Ocerton. I could join a union, be a welder. I heard that's a good thing. I have a forklift certification and I just got certified in being a personal trainer. I had an interview. I didn't get the job, but the people at the program are telling me just to keep going and keep. And stay positive. So those are the three certifications I have right now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

I have experience in other jobs, of course, but it was like on the short term.

[Dave Ramsey]

On the short term, I like the welding and the forklift because you're probably going to make 30 to 40 bucks an hour at either one of those. Those. And the personal trainer is going to take a while to build a book of business where you start making a living.

[George Kamel]

That's like a nights and weekends thing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, that might be my side hustle and I practice some of those soft skills we're talking about and you know, your interact, your people skills and so forth while they're. Meanwhile, I'm driving forklift 40 hours a week, making 30, 40 bucks an hour. I'm looking for that right now if I'm you. So the good news is welding and anything, the trades where you're driving something, those kinds of things. Of things. There's a shortage of help right now and it's a really good job market for you. So if I'm you, I'm going to start really looking for those two things right now. Even though you're not going to start today, you're still in the program. But I Want to know 16 people that are hiring forklift driving within a 30 mile or 40 mile radius. If you're going to stay in the Miami area or if you're going to move, you know, up into Fort Lauderdale. Where are we going? Where are we going to get that kind of a job? The good news is that's a big metropolitan market there, huge market, one of the top five cities areas in the nation. And so lots of things happening there in commerce, in welding and in forklifting. So I want you to go practice those interviews, a bunch of them, and stay positive. And anybody you can get a connection to that'll give you a chance and give you a job. And then when you get there and you land that first position, it's very important that you become the best employee that company has ever had. That they are so proud six months from the time they hire you that they gave you a shot because you're early, you leave late, you work hard while you're there, you're accident free. And careful, careful, you're kind to the people around you. You don't stir up crap. You get the work done and help everybody else get their work done. You're like a dream come true of an employee. That's your job. It's not just to do the job. You got to do the job plus everything else so that everybody's happy. They gave Chris a shot at his new life. And you know what will happen then? Five years from now, you'll own the forklift company. So a friend of mine owns a forklift company right now. He doesn't have any branches where you are, but they're in seven cities. Hundreds of millions of dollars. His father bought the forklift company, but he starts started as the janitor and worked his way from janitor to driving to management. Bought the forklift company. His dad passed away a few years ago. Buddy of mine runs the whole thing with his brothers. And that's your future, that's your grandkids we're talking about. But it starts right now with Chris changing his life. That's where this can go. And it can start with something as simple as. As you're the best employee they've ever had. And by the way, start practicing that at the car wash today.

[George Kamel]

Those skills will transfer right over everybody

[Dave Ramsey]

that's around you that's negative. Stay away from them. Everybody that's around you that's positive, you're going to become who you hang around with. When they're smiling and they're happy and they're grateful for the job. I'm grateful I got a towel in my hand. And I'm not in a jail and I get to clean this windshield right now. And I am the happiest human being that's free on the planet right now. And you know, you just gotta just attitude of gratitude. Who are you hanging out with, who you acting like? And then I want you to start reading books like a crazy man and applying yourself. I think you're gonna do really well. I'm excited for you. I think you're gonna have a great new future. And part of the reason I think that is a guy like you that calls a show like this, you got a real shot, man. The guys like you that don't call a show like this, they're going to be, they're going to be back in jail, they're going to have other problems. But when you reach out and you say, how can I change my life? What can I do? That's the guy that, that's the guy that goes and wins. You're the guy that they write books about later. That's what you can be.

[George Kamel]

So you have debt free screams are some of the most inspiring from those that have been incarcerated. And they come out, man, they'll get you some leaky eyes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Hang on. We're going to give you a copy of Ken Coleman's book Finding the Work youk're Wired to Do. It has an assessment in it. It's our gift to you. I want you to take the assessment. I want you to read the book. Remember, you become who you hang around with and what you read. So choose who you hang around with and what you read because 10 years later you're going to look just like them, buddy. That's how it works.

[Caller]

Sam.

[Dave Ramsey]

Welcome back to the Ramsey show and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey. Your host, George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co host today. Dave is with us in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi Dave, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm doing well, thanks. Thanks for taking the call.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure.

[Caller]

My, my question is a financial question and I guess a spiritual question.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

I was raised to respect both my parents. When my parents got divorced when I was nine, my dad never ever let me speak ill of my mother. He passed away in June. She's still alive and she's going through struggles right now. And since December, December we've come out of pocket almost $13,000 to pay for things for her. And it's starting to put a dent in our savings and our planning. And I'm wondering where that line between respecting your parents and putting yourself in jeopardy where it ends.

[Dave Ramsey]

Well, you're a good man. You take after your dad. So what does your mom gotten herself into this $13,000. What's the. The deal?

[Caller]

Well, she went into the hospital in December with it with an illness. She got out. She retired from her job at 52. And instead of taking the life life cycle pension from her company, she took a cash lump sum option and she spent all that in about six years.

[Dave Ramsey]

How old is she now?

[Caller]

She. She's 76.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

So she's been living off of Social Security and any amount of money that. That I've been able to provide her and.

[Dave Ramsey]

And Medicare and.

[Caller]

Yep. And that as well.

[Dave Ramsey]

And so the 13,000 was what Medicare didn't cover on the hospital stay.

[Caller]

So. 13,000. We're trying to move her up to the Raleigh area where we're at in Florida. So we've. We tallied up how much it costs for the U Haul. She's in the hospital again down in Florida. So we tallied up like U hauls, flight doctors visits that they weren't covered. So yeah, it's. It's starting to become kind of a.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so she's currently in the hospital and so the 13,000 not happened yet. But that's what you think it's going to take to move her and clear up the mess?

[Caller]

Oh, it's happened already. That's what we're at so far.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, but and then. So there's more to come if you move.

[Caller]

Yes, Correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Is her. Is. Does she own a home there?

[Caller]

No. No, sir. She's been written since she moved home Florida.

[George Kamel]

What's her Social Security? Every month or income?

[Caller]

Around 2100.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. All right, well, so we pan back just a second and then we'll come in and actually work on the mechanics of how you can actually help her. Okay. But let's pan back from the thing of honor your father and mother. The Bible says that does not mean that we honor dad doing cocaine. Okay. It means that we honor the position of father, not the misbehavior of the individual who holds the position. It's the same as when we pray for our leaders. We don't necessarily have to like them personally or their politics, but we're still supposed to pray for our leaders. Leaders pray for the president. Right. And so I agreed with almost nothing Joe Biden said, But I believe in praying for the President, so I prayed for Joe Biden. Okay, you follow me and then you could go. You can go wherever you want to go with that. But the same thing's true here. So we want to be honoring of the position of mother, but that does not mean we participate in dysfunction or allow it or enable it or something along those lines. So having said that, now, how does that play out in your situation? I think you're already onto it. What do you guys make a year?

[Caller]

We're about $250,000 a year.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much money do you guys have saved in your nest egg?

[Caller]

Close to 2.2 million.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you don't have a financial problem due to mom. You have an aggravation.

[Caller]

And it's an aggravation as well as, you know, a lot of our, our short term savings where, you know, you build up.

[Dave Ramsey]

You have $2 million. Shut up.

[George Kamel]

The next paycheck will refill that.

[Dave Ramsey]

No. Thousand dollars is not a problem. Okay? We'll figure this out. All right, so. But having said that. So you're really not going to go hungry because of this, but we've got to put something reasonable. So I would move mom up there, write a check. Honestly, if I got $2 million, there ain't no U haul involved. I'm paying somebody else to do the move. But you do whatever you want to do. I'm not, I'm not taking my pickup down there. But you do whatever you want to do. But that's, that's me. So anyway, I'm going to get her up there, get the hospital bills cleaned up and then say, okay, mom, you are dependent on us to be able to exist. So that means I am now managing your budget. So your $2,000 that comes in, we're going to put you on a budget to live on that. We're going to find you a one bedroom apartment that you live in near us so you can come over and see us on Sundays after church and we can have dinner and whatever. And you're going to be in a nice little apartment that you can afford on $2,000 a month. We're going to manage your medical events with Medicare. And mom and I, my wife and I, we're going to help you a little bit here and there as we need be. But this is not an open checkbook. We're not in Congress. And we're actually going to manage this thing. And you're going to live on what you have to live on because you've spent all your money. And then I'm going to help when I have to, but I'm not going to help because you misbehave.

[Caller]

So.

[Dave Ramsey]

So mom, I'm going to help you with this Budget. And you're going to have this much for food, and you're going to have this much for lights and water. And we're going to pay your rent and you're going to have. Is she still driving?

[Caller]

Yeah, she's. She's capable of driving.

[Dave Ramsey]

Does she have a car?

[Caller]

Yes, she does.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. So we're going to keep the car up. We're going to keep insurance on it. You have to put gas in the car. Mom. And so you're going to live on that, which means you're going to have a fairly meager life. But that's what you signed up for in this process. But I will make sure that you're not homeless or hungry.

[Caller]

And that's been. That's the road we've been on. We got the apartment two weeks ago. We moved her stuff up from Florida last week. And unfortunately, during the packing process, she had to go into the hospital unexpectedly. So. Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. But that's. That's, you know, and so you've got X number of years to manage the relationship and the mathematics, and that's the way you will honor your mother. But that does not. But it is not honoring to her for you to open up a checkbook and she gets $10,000 a month to blow.

[Caller]

Yeah, definitely. I definitely agree with that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Nor were you planning to. Yeah, you weren't. That wasn't why you called. But yeah, I'm just. My point is this philosophical thing I hear sometimes people say in the name of honoring my father and mother, I'm going to justify my enabling. You're not doing that. You're not wanting to do that. But I'm. For everyone else listening, I'm trying to put that out there. That is not what the Bible means on that. And so. Nor what your dad meant, that you were to not speak ill of her. And you have done a good job of not speaking ill of her. You gave facts of things where she's messed up, but there was no drama in your voice. You just got this thing I'm carrying. And I want to be a good person and be kind to my own mother. And that's good. You know, you should. That makes you a good guy.

[George Kamel]

Yeah. You're there to make sure she's not homeless, prevent the catastrophe.

[Dave Ramsey]

No.

[George Kamel]

But you're not there to also make her super comfortable and have a lavish lifestyle. And so there's a balance there. And I think that boundary is hard to set when it's your own mother and father.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I just think you say this is what it is and she doesn't have a lot of choices.

[George Kamel]

You don't get a vote at this point.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's the life, she said because she started taking my money. Once you start taking my money, it's my vote. And so now I'm going to help you. Now I'm going to love you. Well, and you may or may not like the process, but I'm going to love you.

[George Kamel]

You going to protect her from herself at this point. That's the way you honor her.

[Dave Ramsey]

Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Rams. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple and free to use. Go to ramseysolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's ramseysolutions.com. Bill is in Rochester, New York. Hey, Bill, how are you?

[Caller]

Good, sir. How are you doing?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Oh, I wish I could say that I retired beginning part of the year January 1st, growing my job. I've been doing part time real estate for a couple of years now. I'm doing it full time, but it looks like I'm going to be making over the threshold for Social Security administration to start taking back some of my income through the real estate.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, you mean, you mean not taking back the income. You mean taxing it, Correct? Yeah.

[Caller]

Where they tax it $0.50 on the dollar.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And I'm just wondering that by the money has started coming in from Social Security yet, do, do I cancel the claim and just stay with the real estate or do I keep that? Social Security is like a security blanket, but then I'm going to end up paying a lot of money if I do as well as it looks like I'm gonna.

[George Kamel]

You've already claimed it.

[Caller]

The claim is in. Okay. But it hasn't started yet. They lost my paperwork.

[George Kamel]

Oh.

[Caller]

So.

[George Kamel]

Well, I mean, if there's a way you can back out of this because of that, that's the way to do it. Because once you start, there's no stopping.

[Dave Ramsey]

So how much, how much are you making in the real estate business Bill?

[Caller]

Right now? This year I haven't made a lot of like 700 bucks for one deal. But I've got one that's close under contract. My listing goes live this weekend and I've got Two other ones that I.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much do you think you're going to make in the real estate business?

[Caller]

Well, I. At least $30,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. I don't think $30,000 is going to break the means test, does it?

[Caller]

24,000 is what they're saying.

[Dave Ramsey]

4,000. Okay. And the taxes, they tax half of it, but they don't. The tax is not 50%. Half of your Social Security becomes taxable.

[Caller]

Bull.

[Dave Ramsey]

Which is 30% of half or 20% of half. Okay, so what. How much is your Social Security supposed to be?

[Caller]

$2800 a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so 1400 becomes taxable if you break the means. Is that right, George? Is that how it works?

[George Kamel]

Yep. I'm looking at the table here. It is up to 50%. If you're making 25 to 34k as

[Dave Ramsey]

a single person, up to 50% is taxable, not tax. Taxation.

[George Kamel]

Exactly right. The benefits.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you're in a 20% tax bracket, that means 20% of $1400. So $280 a month. So $3000 a year is the tax bill. Whoopee.

[Caller]

And then I can make.

[Dave Ramsey]

You can make it whatever you want to make.

[George Kamel]

Make.

[Caller]

Oh, I thought it was taxed on how much I make over the 24.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, you. You said 50% of the Social Security becomes taxable, right, George?

[George Kamel]

Yes. So under 25K, 0%. It's that 25K to up to 34K is what's taxable. Up to 50% of the benefits.

[Dave Ramsey]

The 50% of the benefits become taxable. So if you go make $100,000, are you going to make 70,000? In the real estate business, $1,400 a month becomes taxable. Right, George? Yeah. Okay. And if your tax bracket is 20%, your tax amount on $1,400 would be 20% of 1,400, which would be 280 bucks, which is about $3,000 a year.

[George Kamel]

So I don't think it's going to be as awful as you think it is if you continue this.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's my point. Go make a bunch of money.

[George Kamel]

And I'm also seeing you can withdraw the application within the first 12 months. So I think you're still good. If you don't need it right now and you want to work, then don't take it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, if you're going to go make a bunch of money and you don't want to deal with this, that's fine. But my point is, it's mathematically not that big a deal. Don't miss out on making an extra 40 or $50,000 because you got $3,000 in taxes if you do. That's not, that's, that's not.

[George Kamel]

We're stepping over dollars to pick up a nickel. So it's not worth it.

[Dave Ramsey]

Don't, don't, don't. Don't let that be a demotivator to you. So if you want to pull it, George is saying that he's reading up on it right now while we're on the air. I don't know this, but he's saying you can pull the app up into the first 12 months. So pull it if you want to pull it, but otherwise go to your tax person and sit down and make sure the calculation I'm doing in my head on the air is correct, because I could be screwing this up. It's possible. And you can connect if I understand right. If you sit down with one of our tax Pros, go to ramseysolutions.com they'll tell you what it is and you can figure out exactly what it's going to be. If it's what I think it is, though, it's about $3,000 a year. If I understood the detail right, if you go over $40,000, say if you go make 40 or 50 grand, it's going to create an extra taxation on half of your Social Security becomes taxable. And if you're in a 20% tax bracket, then that would be 20% of $1,400, because 50% of 2,800 is 1400. So that's how I'm doing the math. But if, in case I'm messing it up, double check it with a professional and then you can decide what you want to do, whether you want to pull the app or not. I'm pretty sure that's an accurate thing that you can pull the app up to 12 months. So.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[George Kamel]

And it sounds like it didn't. Haven't even gone through yet.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. So.

[George Kamel]

So you're fine. I'm not super concerned about that.

[Dave Ramsey]

I dial it back and not fool with it if I were you, because

[George Kamel]

this real estate stuff could take off.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Sound like you got it up. Sound like you're fooling around and making some money. That's awesome. That's fun. That's cool. I like that. Andrew is in Indianapolis. Hi, Andrew. How are you?

[Caller]

Hey, Dave.

I'm doing well. How are you?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

Up. That's good. I have a question about some student loan payoff strategies. I currently have about $170,000 in student loan debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good lord. Are you a doctor or a lawyer?

[Caller]

I'm a software engineer, but I had a stay on my loan due to a co signer bankruptcy and interest racked up on private loan.

[Dave Ramsey]

It's a private loan.

[Caller]

Very unfortunate. Yeah. Yeah. So about 135 is a private, and then around 30 or so is federal.

[Dave Ramsey]

What are you making now?

[Caller]

1 7.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, good. Okay. So when we get through with the call, I'm going to put you on hold and Christian, our phone screener is going to pick up and put you in touch with the why refi people that we advertise for. And they specialize in student loan private student loans that are in default, recasting them, resetting them, and getting a lower interest rate rate. They also have a possibility check on this of a lump sum discount on your loan. They know how to buy your loan out at a discount and let you buy it out at a discount. And so if it's 130, let's say you could buy it for 80. I want you to scrape together the 80 and take it out if that could happen. So when we get done with the call, that's going to be your other assignment. But let's go ahead and go into what your question was.

[Caller]

Great. Yeah. So I actually already refinanced. So I was with one provider at a 9.85% interest rate and I just got it down to 5.81. Okay. And my question is, I'm going to pay off the federal student loans in about eight months.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

I'm paying off very aggressively about $5,000 a month.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good.

[Caller]

And after I pay off my federal loans, I was wondering if you think I should aggressively pay off the private loans at $5,000 a month or if you think it would be a good idea to pay off the. Or pay the minimums every month and invest about 4,000 or so into the S&P 500 earning investment. Because I understand after three years, take out the sum for the remaining private student loans and pay that off and then have potential upside for market gains. I understand that option one, just aggressively paying off the student loans guarantees an equal rate to my or equal return to my interest rate.

[Dave Ramsey]

You've left. You've left some math out of your equation.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

The math you left out of your equation is risk.

[Caller]

Right.

[Dave Ramsey]

And peace of mind. And so here's the data point that I'll tell you. We studied and interviewed, researched 10,167 millionaires. Nine out of 10 of them became millionaires. Starting from nothing. The number of them that said I became millionaire became a millionaire by not paying off my debt and instead investing to more quickly pay off my debt. The number of millionaires that actually did that plan was zero out of 10,000. So no one that has money tries crap like you're trying to pull. Instead, they just pay it off and are free. And then take a wonderful $170,000 in income and get in attack mode and go build some wealth. Cuz I got rid of all my stupid debt.

[Caller]

When I talk to people on The Ramsey Show, 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing. Not having a plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money's going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. And guys, that is so normal. But it doesn't have to be normal for you. And that's why I want you to go download our EveryDollar budget app. EveryDollar not only helps you tell your money where to go with a budget, it also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. And the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you call the show and it's right in your pocket. So don't keep living normal. Go download the everydollot app, answer a few questions and get your plan. Today,

[Dave Ramsey]

Roman and Jennifer on the debt free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Hey, guys, how are you?

[Caller]

Better than we deserve.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love it. Where do y' all live? Jackson, Tennessee. Jackson, Tennessee, just up the road. Well, welcome. Good to have you guys.

[Caller]

Thank you, sir.

[Dave Ramsey]

And how much Debt have you two paid off?

[Caller]

$154,000.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love it. And how long did that take you?

[Caller]

23 months.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good for you. Whoa, that's quick. And your range of income during that two years?

[Caller]

I went from 148,000 to about 140.

[Dave Ramsey]

Good. What do y' all do for a living?

[Caller]

I'm a teacher and I'm a district manager for a local convenience and QSR destination.

[Dave Ramsey]

Excellent. Very cool. What kind of debt was 154,000?

[Caller]

Boy, it was one car, one credit card, and 11 student loans.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow. Did you sell anything to do this? Because 75,000 a year, everything. Sold the car.

[Caller]

I thought we were going crazy.

[Dave Ramsey]

Like they literally sold the car.

[Caller]

We did not sell the car. We had enough equity and we decided she loves the car, so we decided to keep it. But we went through and realized we had a whole bunch of stuff in the house that we didn't need.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

So just decided what are some of

[George Kamel]

the big ticket items you guys sold?

[Caller]

A couch, a chair, Just a bunch of furniture items. We had multiple living room sets and had one and a half living rooms. We just figured it we were had accumulated a lot over the years and never really gotten rid of anything. So we thought it of was kind time to.

[Dave Ramsey]

But there wasn't any 15 or $20,000 items.

[Caller]

No. No.

[George Kamel]

Okay, so most of this was cash flow through your income we picked up. Both of us picked up second jobs.

[Caller]

He was door dashing and I worked at a tea restaurant.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, look at you.

[Caller]

And we cut our expenses to the bone.

[Dave Ramsey]

I can tell. Yeah, because I mean you made 150, but you paid off 75,000 a year and paid taxes. Gee. And ate food and stuff. We ate at home, Dave. Yeah, I'm.

[Caller]

We quit the restaurant. I'm telling you, people thought we were weird.

[Dave Ramsey]

Because you were. Because normal is broke. You don't want to be normal. You want to be weird. Alright, guys, so how long have y' all been married? 20 years in May. Okay. But two years ago, something happened. What happened that cut this loose?

[Caller]

Well, it was about two weeks before our 40th birthday. She's four days older than me.

[Dave Ramsey]

You married an older woman?

[Caller]

I did marry an older woman. That's right.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wiser.

[Caller]

We were doing our taxes for 23 and we realized that we had the best year we'd ever had and we had nothing, nothing left. It was all gone. And so I just thought, you know, I got a very good year end bonus and decided, you know what, this credit card is gone, we're going to get rid of it. And so paid off the credit card. And it took us a couple months to really kind of get on track with the entirety of the lifestyle after we paid that credit card off.

[Dave Ramsey]

How'd you plug into the Ramsey stuff?

[Caller]

Well, we through. My company actually offers a Smart Dollar program.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, your company offers our stuff?

[Caller]

Oh wow. Absolutely.

[Dave Ramsey]

And what company?

[Caller]

I work for Dodge's Chicken.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Caller]

We have the Smart Dollar program and I'm a very big advocate of it. We have monthly meetings at all my stores and every time we have one of those meetings we play a little Dave video and we watch some of the stuff and trying to get them engaged in the program so that hopefully we can help not just do this ourselves, but share it with the other folks that we're working with.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Way to go, man.

[George Kamel]

Now you're the poster child. You've actually lived it.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love it.

[George Kamel]

Your story is the most inspirational part to them. They're going, this guy did this plan.

[Dave Ramsey]

We need a Dave video. We need a Roman video.

[Caller]

But it's been a great blessing. God has been with us the whole way.

[Dave Ramsey]

So that showed up at your company about the time you guys made this decision?

[Caller]

A little bit before, but I didn't really dive in until about that window

[Dave Ramsey]

when I realized when you looked at the tax return and then you paid off the credit card, you go, okay, I'm gonna do that Ramsey stuff at work.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. Because for those of you who don't know, Smart Dollar is our program that companies buy as an HR benefit for their whole teams. So, like U Haul, Costco, all their employees have been through our Smart Dollar program or had it available to them anyway to go through and learn how to get out of debt, be on a budget, all the stuff we teach.

[Caller]

So.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, man, way to go. Proud of you. Thank you. Very cool. How's it feel to be free?

[Caller]

Weird. Like, it's.

It's.

I had to change my perspective because

[Dave Ramsey]

how long ago were you. A hundred percent. You're debt free? Everything but the house now.

[Caller]

Yeah, correct.

[Dave Ramsey]

How long ago were you debt free? Everything but the house. Do you remember December 20th? No. I'm talking about before, when you first got married.

[Caller]

We weren't.

No.

[Dave Ramsey]

You've never been debt free.

[Caller]

This is the first time.

[Dave Ramsey]

We've already your whole lives.

[Caller]

We were the ones who kept those student loans around like a pet. We thought it was just something we're gonna hang on to for the rest of our lives.

[George Kamel]

Just make the minimums and let it ride.

[Caller]

Yeah, unfortunately.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, yeah. So you come out of school, get married with student loans. So you've been the whole time with debt? Yes. Up until 23 months ago, you turned it on and now you're debt free? Yes, sir.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

Wow, that's so cool.

[George Kamel]

Did you guys have a goal if we're gonna do this in under two years, or was this just you guys went so hard you didn't realize it?

[Caller]

We watched a video, and anytime that I. I would make a bad decision, he would remind me.

[Dave Ramsey]

He would say, cheetah, and I would have to stop.

[Caller]

We had to watch out for those cheetahs.

[Dave Ramsey]

We had to watch out for the cheetah from Dave. And FPU was Cheetah.

[George Kamel]

That's burned in your memory after watching those videos?

[Dave Ramsey]

Yes. Cheetah. Cheetah.

[Caller]

And I would. I'd know what he was talking about, and I'd have to refocus.

[Dave Ramsey]

I love it.

[Caller]

We. We took FPU in the fall 24. Just want to shout out our director as Bonnie Droter. She was awesome. She really helped us out.

[Dave Ramsey]

So very cool. Very cool. All right. Now that you've done it, you sacrifice really deep. I mean, you went. You went hard in the paint, man. I mean, this is hard. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

[Caller]

We were just discussing on the way up here, we almost don't even know how to make decisions based on what we want to do. It's always been what we had to do. And so it's going to be a big paradigm shift for both of us, figuring out how we do, how we live our lives at our direction at this point, because it's always been just doing what we can to get by. And so that. It's changed a lot for us.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. Yeah.

[George Kamel]

That's.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's interesting.

[Caller]

What?

[Dave Ramsey]

I wanted a different part of your brain. Yeah.

[George Kamel]

That's incredible.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what will you do? What's the next first big thing to celebrate?

[Caller]

Well, Dave, first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go play some golf.

[Dave Ramsey]

I like it because I gave up

[Caller]

golf right after I picked it up, and because it was too expensive, I realized that's the first thing I got. Get cut.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

And so we cut the golf. So I'm going to pick up golf again. This is our fourth time here being in Ramsey Solutions, and every time we've seen one of these, and it just really inspired us to. Hey, that's just.

[George Kamel]

It's not.

[Caller]

It's all about the little things in life, you know, and so we don't have to do a big, big thing to celebrate. We're. We're free. We're here together, and this is the start of something new for us now.

[Dave Ramsey]

Amen. Amen. So, Jennifer, who was the spender? Who's the saver? I'm the spender. Okay, me too.

[Caller]

Yes.

[Dave Ramsey]

I'm the spender.

[George Kamel]

He's definitely.

[Dave Ramsey]

He's.

[Caller]

He's my nerd, and I love it.

[Dave Ramsey]

So now that's. Now that you're free, can you relax a little bit and enjoy it a little bit?

[Caller]

I can. I'm gonna go get me some cozy.

[Dave Ramsey]

Our sheets now.

[George Kamel]

Yeah. Rachel and I talk about those. They're the best sheets I've ever owned.

[Caller]

I'm excited.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's all I've talked about. Are they still advertising with us?

[George Kamel]

Oh, yeah. They're fantastic.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. No, they're actually. We're gonna get you a set. We're gonna take care of. George will take care of that.

[George Kamel]

I'll make. Make sure it happens for you.

[Dave Ramsey]

If they're an advertiser, I can get you a set of sheets.

[George Kamel]

Dave can just make it happen like that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Just like that.

[George Kamel]

Not for the kids, though. The parents.

[Dave Ramsey]

I think. I think you ought to celebrate, man. I mean, this is good.

[George Kamel]

I love that.

[Dave Ramsey]

This is great. If they get a shout out, they ought at least give you some sheets. 32 million people just heard this, so.

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Dave Ramsey]

All right.

[George Kamel]

That's good. Fantastic.

[Dave Ramsey]

Way to go, you guys. I'm proud of you. And you brought the kiddos. And what are their names and ages? Have them come up, join you.

[Caller]

All right, we got Caitlyn, who's 19. Kayla, who's 7. 18. Sorry. And then Carrie, who's 10.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay. And they survived this two year. Two years of sacrifice.

[George Kamel]

They did.

[Caller]

We caught their senior years with it, so it was tougher for them than they should have been.

[Dave Ramsey]

But Caitlyn has cash flowed her first year of college, so she did not

[Caller]

sign a loan her first year.

[Dave Ramsey]

Live at.

[Caller]

Where's she in school at Freed Hardman University.

[Dave Ramsey]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Very good. Okay, perfect. Well, congratulations, you guys. We're proud of you. You're heroes. Look at this family. This is a family that's free right here. Man. They are free. Change that family tree. They busted it. I mean, you busted it. $154,000 paid off in 23 months, making 148 to 154. They didn't do nothing except get out of debt, man. That's impressive. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream, guys. Ready?

[Caller]

Three, two, one.

[George Kamel]

We're debt free.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah.

[Caller]

I love that.

[George Kamel]

Incredible.

[Dave Ramsey]

That's how it's done, ladies.

[George Kamel]

And they're getting two every dollar subscriptions and some sheets from cozy earth. Man, they won big today.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, well, you got to make sure that all that connection happens and get this done.

[George Kamel]

Who needs game shows? Just come to your debt free green. That's how you win big around here.

[Dave Ramsey]

Get games and prizes.

[George Kamel]

Hey, George Camel here. So you're thinking about buying or selling your home? It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about and all those decisions can feel overwhelming. Well, here's the good news. You don't have to tackle the process alone. Ramsey's real estate home base is the place to find all of your free tools and resources for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence. You'll find calculators, start to finish guides, a podcast, and even an in depth video course hosted by yours truly. What's not to love? So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com realestate that's ramseysolutions.com realestate.

[Dave Ramsey]

Our scripture of the day, 1st Peter 5, 10 and the God of grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. Theodore Roosevelt said, courage is not having the strength to go on. It is going on when you don't have the strength. William is with us in Birmingham, Alabama. Hi William, how are you?

[Caller]

I'm excellent, Dave. Yourself?

[Dave Ramsey]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[Caller]

So I've got two kids in college. I'm going to get them out both debt free. But when I'm going to go on to med school and I don't have that money set aside. God.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

For some directions and some advice.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[George Kamel]

What's the conversation been like with them? Did you promise them, hey, I'll cover your, your undergrad but the rest is up to you?

[Caller]

No, there was never that, that promise one way or another. I mean we've, we've talked about it and they are willing to take on the debt. And of course I don't want to see them take on the debt, nor do I want to take on the debt.

[Dave Ramsey]

I wouldn't for sure if they want to do it. It's of course up to them. They're grown at that point. Well, I mean we have talked to more than 20 people over the last several years that have gone to med school without any student loan debt. And they've used several different methodologies. The first thing is to get over the idea that you have to go to the one school that accepted you that happens to be the most expensive school in the freaking world. Because when you go in to sit down with your md, no one asks where you went to school. You ask kids, can you fix my broken body? That's what you ask. Can you help me heal? That's what you ask? You don't ask. I honestly, one of my good personal friends is my personal physician. I have no idea where he went to med school and I've known him 15 years. I don't care.

[Caller]

He's going locally.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah, I don't care. So the point is I want him to go where the least expensive possible med school. That's thing one. Thing two is look into what are called MD PhD programs and not all med schools have them. Some of them that have them are famous like Duke, very difficult to get in. But if you can get into the PhD program, you become an employee of the university and then med school is free. Free. But you're working as you're working as a TA and working on a PhD as well while you're working on the actual MD. And so it's a complicated process, but the bottom line of it is you get med school free because you're an employee. And that's how the programs work, those types. And it falls generally under fellowship programs, those types of things. So I want to learn about that. I want to look at that. And an obvious one that is not necessarily popular, but that is obvious and everyone knows about, but not everyone elects is the military will pay for it. If you join the military and you know, but you're going to give up a few years of service to the military in return for graduation, in return after graduation and after you're an md, you're going to serve, as you know, in the, in the medical field within the military. You're going to serve your country that way for a while because your country pays paid for your education. But you can go free. That's the ways that I know of. George, do you have any other methodologies that you can go and not take

[George Kamel]

on the debt similarly to the military? There's one called the National Health Service Corps and it's similar where you serve in a underserved community after graduation and

[Dave Ramsey]

they'll cover your tuition, but that's a reimbursement in it.

[George Kamel]

They'll provide scholarships and there's loan repayment options. But the scholarship route would be the one to go obviously to go debt free. So the key is doing a ton of research, cheaping the picking the cheapest school possible and then doing your best to cash flow it. And they work part time if they can. And if you want to pitch in to help cover that, you can, but you're under no obligation. So I wouldn't feel guilty for it. But this is going to. You're going to help them come up with a plan.

[Dave Ramsey]

If you've got cash that you can throw out to help them get through and you want to do that, there's no nothing wrong with that. If you can find room in your budget or room in your asset base or something to help them and you want to do that, that's okay. There's nothing illegal or immoral about that or even against the Ramsey plan. I don't Mind a parent paying for grad school if that's what they want to do and you have the money. But I would coach you, William, as the dad, not to go into debt for your kid to go to school under any circumstances. No parent plus loans, no single time. I would do that. And here's the problem. We automatically assume I'm going to go $250,000 in debt to go get an MD, that I'm going to become an MD and I'm going to make a lot of money as an md. Those are negative assumptions because everybody that goes to med school doesn't graduate.

[George Kamel]

Hell, same with law school. We see a lot of that.

[Dave Ramsey]

Some people don't make it out. And you know what does graduate? Whether you graduate or not, those loans

[George Kamel]

are there no contingency of, well, if and when you graduate, then you can pay us back.

[Dave Ramsey]

Otherwise. Yeah, it's nothing like that. And so, you know, try flunking out of med school and having $150,000 worth of debt, that'll piss you off. That's a bad plan. Or come out and you know, the type of medicine you want to serve in is, you know, been taken over and socialized and it's very difficult to get a job making over 80 grand. And you could have made that driving a, you know, as a diesel mechanic and you wouldn't have been $250,000 in debt. So, you know, you don't want to go there. That's not the direct, that's not how we want to build this out. So we don't build this out on, oh, I'm automatically going to make $400,000 a year for the rest of my life. No, you're not. There's no automatic nothing. All right. Kerry is with us in Spokane, Washington. Hi Kerry, how are you?

[Caller]

Hi. Good. Thanks for having me.

[Dave Ramsey]

Sure. How you can we help?

[Caller]

So I we accepted placement of a two week old little foster baby. Very unexpected as we had closed our license a year prior, but she was directly related to our adopted kiddo. So we're just feeling really discouraged and because our plan came to a halt then and now we're kind of, this was back in November. Now we're kind of picking up the pieces and just wondering for any advice.

[Dave Ramsey]

Why did your plan come to a halt with a two week old?

[Caller]

Well, we, because I needed a leave of absence from work and I still was making an income because we own our own business. So I was still working, doing some work from home. So.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay, so you gave up your job to Take in a foster child.

[Caller]

I didn't. I still can have my job, but I'm having a hard. So we own our own business. So I can go back to. I have gone back to work already. Just only three to four days a week. And it's just really hard finding that family balance.

[Dave Ramsey]

Does the state of Washington pay anything for foster care?

[Caller]

They do. Yeah. Which is helpful.

[Dave Ramsey]

How much?

[Caller]

It's just. It's just less. It is for her because of her needs. It's like around fourteen hundred dollars.

[Dave Ramsey]

Okay.

[Caller]

A month.

[Dave Ramsey]

But you were making a lot more than that.

[Caller]

Yeah, but I am still making some. I work from home and I go in a few days a week. It's just her with her needs and the lack of child care, the balance is just.

[Dave Ramsey]

So what is the timeline on this foster care?

[Caller]

I probably won't know. I mean, it's going to be a while. At least 18 months of her age. And then at. Actually at 18 months, if she's still with us, she can go into daycare full time. So that will be helpful. And it's because they don't take spots. There's not very many spots for infants

in my area, so.

[Dave Ramsey]

But I mean a two week old. So it sounds like the parent is gone.

[Caller]

Yeah, yeah. So the. The likelihood we have her will be a few more years if. And then, you know, we just don't know what will happen. But we felt really obligated to take her in like we wanted to. And it's so special. But I just feel like our plate. We were doing.

[Dave Ramsey]

Yeah. There's a direct cost to this call on your life. And you chose the call. You answered the call and with that goes the cost.

[Caller]

Yeah. I just feel so guilty going in more than I probably could go in one more day a week.

[George Kamel]

So this is not a financial question. You just want to be there more.

[Dave Ramsey]

No, it's a financial question. She cut her pay substantially to take on a foster care. That's $1,400 a month. There's a problem, but you just have to accept that that's what I chose to do. You can't say it's so special and not take the math with it. The math goes with the special. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace crowd. Christ Jesus.