Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the car rental studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show work that is done. Cash is king and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Dr. John Boloney. Ramsey personality is my co-host today, author of the best selling book Redefining Anxiety.

So we're taking your questions about family, about anxiety, about any issues you might have, including your money. Open phones at triple eight eight two five five two two five. That's triple eight eight two five five two two five. Ben is in Nashville. Hi, Ben. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, Mr. Ramsey.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I've been to Financial Peace University and I learned a lot through that. And I started paying off some debt. Basically, I made some bad decisions here in the last five months and I don't want to try to validate it with excuses. So I'll just tell you where I'm at. I make about ninety four thousand dollars a year. It's an unstable market in construction management, so I'm not really guaranteed that job two months from now.

But that's what I've made in the last year. And I've got nineteen thousand dollars in student loans and eighty three thousand dollars mortgage, and that's all my debt. And then this summer I decided to go buy a sixty nine thousand dollars vehicle. And I'm a single man, thirty six years old. And in that time I met the woman of my dreams in the last three months that as she listens to Dave Ramsey as well. So it blew my mind and I'm just like, what have I done?

I had a mentor that I told what I was doing and bought a vehicle. And obviously I said, I know this is not a smart decision. It's almost as much as my mortgage, but I can afford the payments right now. I'm good. So that's my situation. I know I've made some mistakes and I'm coming to you now because since I've met her, I kind of kind of want to get out from the debt even faster. And I don't know if you would recommend maybe just selling this vehicle, getting out from under it, paying off what?

What I'm going to leave on selling on it and then move on. Mm hmm. So what did your mentor say when you told him you're going a sixty nine thousand hour trip? Well, I didn't tell them until after it was done. We just saw it in the parking lot and I could see his eyes kind of raised, you know, like, oh, OK. Well, you know, it's almost like secondhand embarrassment that I could steal from him.

That's fair. So, you know what happened in that?

Hit that domino that made you go by that. Happen in your life, you get tired, you get burnt out, you exhausted. What happen?

Well, if I look back, I was in a long relationship about nine years, and I just got out of that in March. And I bought this vehicle about three months ago thinking, hey, I have very little debt. My nieces and nephews were two and a half hours, three hours away, and now they've moved within 30 minutes and they're being home schooled. And I like to be near them. So I was like, you know, let's get a vehicle that can get the whole family involved, including those three kids and, you know, mom and dad to you and.

And for sixty nine thousand, they all want to be able to live in it. Yeah, I agree.

OK. All right. Well, here's the thing. How old are you? Thirty six, you said that earlier, I'm sorry I have done so many stupid things in my life that have cost me so much money and embarrassment and shame, and when I do something stupid, I call it stupid tax that I have to pay. And part of the stupid tax money. And part of it is just I look in the mirror and I go, yea doofus.

And I kind of hear that's what you're doing right now. Am I missing something. Now summed it up now for making her realize that, no, you knew it all along. She just made you admit it. You knew it when you drove it off the lot. You were just holding your nose hoping the smell wasn't going to go away. You knew it there, you knew it because you had been trained by us, you've been through financial peace university, you knew it.

You knew when you called me what I was going to say, you hit it from your mentor.

That's the big you made it into a secret. That's how you really knew. Yeah, you knew.

You knew all along. So here's the thing. Any time I do and I'm not picking on because I've done dumber things. I've done six hundred ninety thousand dollars, stupid things. You only sixty nine thousand. You'll survive this.

But the trick is not what to do with this.

The trick is to do enough of an autopsy on your psyche and on yourself to where you freak can never do this again.

That's a big deal. But because it's a pattern and if you don't change the pattern, you're screwed.

Because if I engage in a pattern of stupidity, that then makes me called stupid.

And, you know, you got to you got to no longer do that. So to be worthy of this girl is what you're the noble calling inside of your heart. You want to be a wise young gentleman, not a not the doofus that you saw in the mirror after you bought the truck.

And so but if she dumps you in three months. Yeah, it's still the right thing. Did not have the motivation is very noble.

Right. And that can cause you to go. I'm going to break this pattern. When I went broke, the motivation was noble. I said, I am never going to be here again. I'm never going to be a situation. I can't feed my kids again. I'm embarrassed. My stupidity has caused my family to have the lights cut off, the water cut off. My wife is ready to leave. I because of my stupidity, I have to stop the stupid.

And I had to do a CSI on why I did the things I did that set me up for the fall and I had to never do them again. So that's what's important. The truck is just the symptom. Does that make sense, Ben? It does so if you dig this out and this is like the dumbest last thing you ever do in this category, that's a huge win. If you just sell the truck and you don't dig it out and you go back, next time there's something going on, you go by boat and you go, wow, I just want to get a boat.

And I just thought walking forward the payments, you know, the same thing you did last time, then you're going to just replicate this and you're going to be what's known as normal in America. And you just don't be normal. My normal sucks. That's why you called us, so I'm not spanking you. I'm going with you on this. I'm saying the answer to your question is not about the truck. The answer the questions down inside of you.

You fix that and then you already know you've got to sell the truck. The truck was just off the chain.

It's got to go. But that's a side issue. Of course, the trucks got to go.

It's dadgum almost as much as you make in a year. Of course, the truck has to go. It was a stupid idea to start with. Of course the truck has to go. You don't rationalize. I'm going to visit people three hours away and spend eighty thousand dollars to do that.

You go rent a car, you go rent a house over there.

Cheaper than that because they can rent a house for five to ten years. And yeah, it's cheaper than they were over there. Exactly. You can charter a jet cheaper than this and go see them twice a year, you know, I mean, it's just so know there's a lot of stuff you could do, so you can't use that. You got to go. OK, that didn't work. That didn't work. That didn't work. I knew Dave wasn't going be happy with this.

I knew my mentor wouldn't be happy with us. Is it because it affected Dave or my mentor? No, it's because they love me and they want good things for me. And this wasn't good for me. And I got to not do stuff. It's not good for me anymore. And I know why I'm doing it and break that cycle and sell the truck. Let this be the last one. I know a lot of stupid stuff.

I just try to not do the same stupid stuff over again. And then if you do that long enough, eventually they call you wise. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

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You know, whenever people do, they're debt free screams, I always ask them what the key was to getting out of debt and they almost always say budget and they almost always say communication and being on the same page. And that's because a budget puts you in control of every dollar that you bring in every month.

You tell it where to go instead of wondering where it went when you started Ramsey plus membership, you follow a step by step plan that we give you where you budget.

You learn how to manage money the right way, and you get fired up as you make progress towards your debt free wealth, building outrageously generous giving journey. And that's why we include every dollar, the best budgeting tool in the world, in your Remzi plus membership, you get custom reports on your spending habits and you'll connect straight to your bank. So your transactions show up right in your budget the right way, right away.

And you could try it all for free with a trial to Ramsey, plus a free trial. Don't wait another day. Start your free trial of Ramsey. Plus text the word begin to thirty three 789. That's thirty three seven eight nine text begin two three three seven, eight, nine. So Zach Bennett here at Ramsey Solutions is on our radio and video team. One of our producers around here has been with us for a decade.

Plus, he does all the video on the John Delaney Show, too. He's a Savan. He's awesome. Yeah. So he sends me the statistics here. He stats. He says I'm a nerd like you, Dave. Thanks, Jack.

Two hundred and forty seven debt free screams on the air this year. This is a slow year because of covid. The lobby was shut down here and we spent a month and a half not doing debt free scream, just taking calls from people that were struggling with getting laid off and all the craziness with the lockdown back in the spring. So desperate, free screams were suspended for a little while. So it's an unusually low year. Usually, Kelly, there are about 45 to 50 million a year roughly.

Is that about right? That's about right.

In debt free screams of total for the year of the people doing the screaming this year, it's going to be a little less going to be about twenty eight million, one hundred eighty four in the lobby. Sixty three on the phone, heavy lobby scream.

So go figure and. Average debt paid off per caller, this is interesting. This one, this is numbers I haven't seen before. Take the average of, you know, per debt free screamer was one hundred and fourteen thousand.

Average time that they took to pay off their debt, thirty point one four months.

We had 18 Ramsey team members who did debt free screams totaling a million for that school, 41 states and two Canadian provinces. Were represented in the debt free screamers, California 18, Florida 17, Texas 16, Illinois 14, Indiana 13, Ohio 12, Pennsylvania 11 and Tennessee 10. That's the top 10 of the hundred and sixty seven or was 167. That wasn't it was where to go. Two hundred forty seven. OK, and and he goes month by month through the whole thing.

And of course we see the drop off there in April when there was almost no debt free scream and that dropped us behind our averages. But that's interesting, 114 over 30 months all over the United States and one hundred fourteen thousand on average. So that kind of gives you guys that are working on your debt snowball some encouragement to get through it.

And we have this little stage here that at every stage it's waiting on you two and a half years.

So well over 30 years. Dave, what is the secret?

When somebody gets fired up and take off sprinting, them and their husband take off sprinting to the woods like a good gazelle.

Three months in from what's the shot in the arm, it's going to go two and a half.

Two and half years is a long time. And I'm thinking through it like fixing your marriage, fixing your relationship with your parents. I'm thinking like weight loss. I know the stats. There are two and a half years is a season. That's a long time, Tom.

The motivation shifts on the ones that make it OK.

When people start out, they all of us do this. Me included, you included. We start out like a cold shower, just screaming Braveheart.

Right. A cold shower, screaming Braveheart. No talking about get that on a t shirt. I'm talking about you just go run. It's going to Grynet. I'm going to I'm going to I'm just going to run into this concrete block wall until it falls over.

That's right. Right. And that gets you started.

That sets a new groove in your brain. It causes you to sell the car, have a garage sale, sell so much stuff. The kids are next. Stay out of restaurants, you know, take the extra job it causes you to do the stuff right to get moving. And that will last 90 days. Some people can do it for nine months.

Mine is about ninety days, about three months. Very few people can do that for a year. They're very, very unusual. It's a psychological disorder. If you could do it.

I mean I mean, it's just it's just just the sheer raw emotion, the guttural scream. Right.

But what happens is as they start to win, they start to believe and it's not just this sheer desperation, sheer anger, sheer disgust, raw emotion that's driving them now.

It starts to be hope. Hmm. Hope that I'm really going to get out. And when you start to believe, then you start to look past the debt and go, I'm going to change my family tree.

I'm doing this for these babies I'm looking at. And that's a different kind of emotion. That's not a screaming Braveheart emotion that comes deep from within. And that's the kind of emotion you die for. That's right. That's the kind of honor, nobility, dignity, change my family tree higher calling. I want to be generous like I've never been before. And the emotion starts to come from caring for others rather than self.

Gotch And when it shifts off of you that 90 day, nine month mark, six month mark, whatever it is, that's the ones that complete. Hmm. If you just keep it on you. I want to be rich. To be rich for me, because I'm Richie Rich and I want to have the bling and I want to have the car. It's a hollow, low life, shallow, and there's not a lot of energy in it. That's right.

And it runs out. It runs out. People don't make it selfish motivation. In other words, I'll get you started, but it won't keep you going. And there's a switch that flips.

It's not a switch. It's go over the hill. Whatever it is, it's a smooth or it's rough or whatever. But you go over and all a sudden there's a Green Valley and it's all about others. And it's a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

I remember having the thought, I'm going to make so much money if my kids are screw ups, they can't go through it all.

And that means the kids, the grandkids are going to have something. Yeah. You know, not I didn't wanna do that. I really didn't want to be screw ups. I want leave money. If they were screw ups, that's dysfunctional. But I remember having all the mathematical thought of I mean, you really I mean, you think about the Standard Oil, you know, JPMorgan, those guys.

And they made so much money that for generations later they still can't go through it. They can't burn through, they still can't go through it. And it's ruined some of them now.

Some of them didn't make it. You know, and I remember I remember when they became trust fund babies, but with a workout plan when I went from yeah, I want to look great, too, from vanity. I want to be able to roll around on the floor with my grandkids.

And then suddenly you get up every morning, right from vanity to I want the pants to legacy. Yep. Too.

I am tired of being tired when I'm playing with my three year old too.

My son got quarantine and had to do a couple of weeks at home on a Zoome class. And Dave, we don't talk about it, it's not something that we beat in, it's just something you get up every day and we're going to be stewards of our body and take care of ourselves. And he said, I've got to go sprint dead. And he walked out the door and took off running down the driveway. And I thought that's how legacy change happens, not by barking and yelling, but I'm going to do it.

We're going to do it. And then this Christmas, it's been I think my sister's really going to love this gift.

This is this is when it turn. It's not about what am I going to get? What am I going to get? It's hey, can we go can we go to the store more time be some for mom. Right. And it starts to shift some maturity. And it's just it's just a nickel and a dime for nickel and dime.

It's maturity and it's by degrees. And that's why I say it's not all of a sudden you're going along in Braveheart quarter mode and then you just switch to Noble Grandpa.

Well, that's not it doesn't happen in one fell thing. It's but there is a movement in the spirit to where and I think it is associated with hope. When you first start, you're not sure this is going to work.

I'm just going I got to do something. Something's got to change. I got to bust into this. But then when you knock off and you go, man, I paid off those first six debts and it that snowball this the snowball is actually rolling in the concrete. Really the evidence in front of me indicates that I should have hope the steps get firmer. Right. Yeah. And then you're like dadgum that we can run baby. We're doing this man all game on baby, you know, and all of a sudden that hope kicks in.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. But when desire comes, it is the tree of life. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. As we continue to face challenging times, I hear that a lot of you have been calling Zander Insurance to see if term life plans are still available. The good news is that the insurance companies are starting to loosen up the restrictions. So if you haven't dealt with this yet, do it now. Let this crazy season motivate you to get your priorities in order and check the big things like life insurance off your list.

Rates are still low. Cal Zander Insurance today, hundred three five six, 42, 82. Or visit Zander Dotcom. Dr. John Boloney Ramsey personality is my co-host, open phones, a triple eight eight two five five two two five derricks in Kansas City. Hi, Derrick. How are you, Mr. Ramsey? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Oh, good. Hey, I got a question on my grown up.

I wasn't super financially responsible. And yes, I think that's how we are turned out to be. I've gotten a lot better over the years. Credit score high. I end up moving from San Diego to Kansas City about three years ago. I have some credit card debt that I turned into being irresponsible. Again, probably, I don't know, five years ago, I ended up getting charged off and I owe about nine hundred dollars. Well, I got a notification in the mail the other day about a court hearing on the 30th of this month, obviously, to get their money back, which is fair.

I guess my question is, what I've done is I called them and tried to do a settlement for a percentage of the total amount. They agreed to it. I just agreed to a higher rate than I was comfortable paying at the time. I mean, I'm left with the decision or do I pay that amount or I also have a truck that I only eighty two hundred dollars on. If I pay that off. Do you have any money? I do.

So I have about twelve thousand in savings.

OK, what can you get the credit card company to agree to settle for right now. Five thousand. OK, that's pretty high. How old is the debt. Oh, gosh, I would say five years before they were here, they paid about a nickel on the dollar for it. OK, so on a ten thousand dollar debt, they paid 500 bucks for it. OK, roughly. Would you recommend getting an attorney? I got a lot of emails and I just want you to know I just want you to beat on them a little harder and get them down to about three K.

OK, I offered thirty five. After doing some research online and there's like 60 percent and they said no, that that company will never go that low and but yes, they will. I know. So what you've got to do is just keep messing with them and just go. Well, I you know, I have four thousand dollars. If you want to settle this today, we can settle it today. Now, here's a couple of rules.

Number one, you can tell the credit card collector is lying.

If their mouth is moving, it's scum that you're dealing with. Sure. Bottom feeders. And so and if you're a credit card collector out there and you don't like me saying that you should get a different job to prove that you're not scum. So because nobody stays in that business is not scummy. It is a nasty but business. They lie. I am not kidding you.

We've dealt with them for 30 years. Major household names like American Express, Bank of America, Citibank will lie to you. It is unbelievable.

OK, it's hard to believe. And you think I'm being melodramatic. I'm not a done this for a long time. First time or two it happened to me. I was shocked, but just the way it is. So get it in writing or it didn't happen, OK? And it can be an email. That's fine, but an email from that organization and the account number on it and it says this account is settled in full if you pay four thousand dollars by January 15th or whatever.

OK, so then you do not rule number one in writing or it didn't happen. Rule number two is they do not get electronic access to your checking account under any circumstances, but they will clean you out. They'll take 80, 900 out of your account if you give them the account that's got 80, 900 in it and then try to get that back because you owe it, you're not getting it back. So you need a prepaid debit card that is transacted one time and then closed.

A wire is fine, but I wouldn't give them electronic access to a bank account under any circumstances, a traditional bank account, because they'll take your money out there and you will pay your rent. OK. In writing, no electronic access to your checking account, got it? Yes, sir. And you ought to be able get them down to four anyway. You already got them to five. I'm really surprised they wouldn't take thirty five hundred. I really am.

Yes, I guess.

Is that normal for it's not at this agency anymore. I don't know if I'm allowed to see the company.

They bounce it around all over the place. They've probably sold the debt for a nickel on the dollar to people collecting it or sitting in a boiler room with, you know, there's a whole room full of cubicles with people with headsets on dialing people like you, OK?

Yeah, that's right. It's an attorney I ended up calling. Now I work for an attorney and they sell 72000 of them in this one room. It's a boiler room. They have one attorney in there and you're just you're just a widget.

This is not Matlock. So do you think the three thousand or thirty five hundred. I should be good with that, or should it be three to four?

If you can settle this for three or four and you've got the money and you can get it out of your life, finally get it out of your life. But again, in writing, no electronic access to your checking account. OK, you're dealing with a debt buyer, they bought a million dollars worth of debt for a nickel on the dollar and they're out there collecting it and they finally found somebody that their phone number actually worked. Sure, are you call them so now they got your phone number, do not give them any information, by the way, on you, like where you work or anything else about you.

Yeah, that's too late. So they had asked that I'd like to know. I didn't know if I should have called you sooner.

Yeah, well, they're going to use that against you, too, because they're going to garnishee your dadgum wages if they take this judgment now or they'll call you where you work. But the crap out of your admin or your boss.

So settle this three, four or five thousand somewhere in there, get it settled, you know, and you know, I would just tell the guy, listen, I have money in my hand if you want credit for this account before Christmas so we can do the deal right now.

You want to play, let's dance, baby, and just mess with him because he's not used to actually talking to people, used to leaving voicemails all day long. And he actually is talking to a person. He doesn't he's about to wet himself. He don't know how to handle this. And you're dealing with a guy who's not been on the job even 90 days. Their turnover rate inside these collection companies like this is about 40 days. Most people make it a month and 10 days and then they're gone to something else because it's job.

It's the worst job in the world. It sucks. How would you like to call people all day long and mess with them? Oh, God. I mean, you've got to have psychological disorder to do that as a career.

And so anyway, that's how you're dealing with some kid in a cubicle 500 miles away with a headset on. Think of every movie you've ever seen. You've got it in your head, right. That's the deal. And just, you know, just mess with them and that it's not a lawyer. There is a lawyer somewhere in the background. But there's there's you're not talking to a lawyer. You're not even talking to a paralegal. You're not even talking to anybody who could pass the first week of a paralegal test.

So not even close. So just mess with them and push on through and you'll get there. Emery is with us in Rome, New York. Hi, Emery.

How are you? Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So we're in baby steps seven days. Oh, yeah, we're pretty pretty good, actually. We were going to go to your calls and then you got canceled.

So, yeah, it was going to be my first cruise memory and such. It is. Oh, my God.

Yeah, we were going to do are actually screening extreme and everything. But so my question is for my husband and I are ten years apart. He is he already retired from the military, but we both work for the still for the military as civilians. And we're having a little bit of a disagreement on when should we retire. I still have 10 years to work for the federal government. He's already eligible for retirement. And we don't know how to negotiate a state on how how do we fight.

Does somebody want to keep working or to somebody want someone to stop working? I just think I want to keep working. He wants to stop. He should. Why can he not stop? And you keep working.

What will be wrong with that? I you know, I didn't feel like that was correct. You know, that said that he that I get to keep working and he doesn't, you know.

Well, how old are you?

Forty seven. How old is he? Fifty seven.

OK, so if you have enough money and you're in baby steps seven and he doesn't want to work and you want to. Why is that not OK? He can find out you. He can find a hobby.

I mean if you want to. I suggest at 57 that you probably got a few good years left doing something. Maybe you don't keep working there, but you probably ought to do something right. It's not good for you to just go fishing for 42 years, you to do something with your life. But that's just my opinion. So, you know, if you can afford it, I don't care if you work or not.

It's up to you. But I think there's great dignity in work. I mean.

Our scripture, the day first, Peter, for above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Merry Christmas. That wasn't part of the scripture. That was me. Hamilton, right. Mabel's maybe said blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. Oh, that's good. Blastoise with us and Indianapolis High Blast.

How are you? I'm great. Yourself. Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, so here's the deal, I'm currently engaged to my fiancee. We've been together for five years, but she has three wonderful children, one of which has a lot of special needs. The biggest issue with us getting married is that he's on Medicaid, and if we get married, he loses that.

So they lose your household income being too high. That's correct. What do you make? Well, I make seven New Year. What does she make? She's a stay at home. OK, so that's why she has no income right now. Exactly. That's correct. Well, well, well, sorry, she does. She's got child support and she does get exercise perhaps her monthly.

But I mean, as far as the calculation for his SSI, she's allowed, if I remember, it's about three thousand dollars a month that she can make without canceling out his SSI. It's about your household income going to 70. It cancels it out. He'll lose the SSI and the Medicaid. She, SSI and Medicaid are set up for not special needs. They're set up for welfare. Right. Right. For people that are too poor to eat.

But but the problem is, is because of his needs, he was born with a heart defect. So his bills get really, really, really high. And I went down to his last surgery by the millions. Do you have.

Do you have health insurance through your work? I do, yes. And you not add your family to it?

I could, but I'm not sure how that would affect a preexisting condition. It's Obamacare, dude. You can add them. OK, pre-existing or not, you need to you need to talk to your health insurance people in your H.R. benefits and make sure, but I think you can add them, your whole family to your health insurance plan. You make seventy thousand dollars a year. And this family of with three kids and this lady or your family and there might be taken care of by your health insurance plan and by your income.

And so they're getting off of welfare. Right, right, right. OK, that's what it means. I mean, I'm not being cold, that's just what it means. Medicaid is for people who don't have an income, it's welfare. Right? Right. And there's not it's not evil.

It's not horrible. It's where she was. But we're not going to not get married and live in the same house so we can keep her on welfare.

Right, right, that's that's that's morally wrong. So, so so then by just getting married, I can put them on my insurance and his medical condition should be covered in full or should be.

Should be. But double check that, you know, take a radio that's, like you said, a million dollar question. You don't take my advice. You check it out for yourself. But it should be the pre-existing conditions can be added under Obamacare.

Now say that it's not covered fully and we still wouldn't be able to cover the difference, like if there's like a copay or you cover the copay, you can handle a Coke.

Yeah. What about like the 70 80 split or stuff like that? That's the copay. OK.

OK, let me tell you, OK, insurance has three numbers, health insurance. And learn about these three numbers when you talk to your H.R. group. OK, ok. No, no one you're familiar with is the deductible. Right. And you pay 100 percent until you meet the deductible. You know that, right? Right. Right. No.

Number two is the copay and it's typically 80, 20. They pay 80 percent. You pay 20 percent once you've hit your deductible.

The third number is the important one in this discussion. That'll give you a lot of peace. And that's called stop loss. And that's your max out of pocket pocket. What is your maximum out of pocket?

And typically it's going to be. Who do you work for?

What do you what kind of company? Just don't tell me who. But what kind of company do you work for? I'm a truck driver, OK, for over the road or into our regional, regional, local.

OK, is the company a trucking outfit. Or do you drive for somebody that's like a Wal-Mart or something like that? Yes, exactly, exactly. OK, so they probably got good insurance, which means your stop loss, your max out of pocket is probably in the neighborhood of 10 grand, maybe 20 grand.

OK, and so that if this kid goes in and has a million dollar surgery, you're 80, 20, your deductible, everything added up. When it hits that stop loss, it stops and they pay 100 percent after that. And so if it's a million dollars and you have a stop loss of ten thousand dollars, you pay ten thousand dollars, they pay nine hundred ninety thousand dollars. And that's what that's the three numbers you need to understand.

And then the last thing you need to understand is I'm getting married to a lady who has a child with some special needs. What you know, what pre-existing conditions are. How is that work with our policy here at work? And let me tell you that and let them send you the brochures showing you in writing that this kid is going to be covered after three months or this kid is going to be covered after a year or this kid is going to be covered from day one.

Somewhere in there is probably what you're going to find. I suspect you probably can solve this problem.

And that actually is my concern, Dave, is. I just hear him doing the math in his head on this relationship, and he's marrying somebody with special needs child. He's in love with somebody saying, I'm pledging myself to her and the kids, for better or for worse, and those kids. And if at the end of the day, before he pulls the trigger and gets married, if he says, well, that just gets too expensive, then fill in the blank that he needs to get out and back out and walk away.

Well, that's a possibility.

But I didn't hear that. What I heard was I want to make sure I can do my job. I don't want to set myself up or I can't take care of this kid, I said I'm going to take care and then if it's a million dollars, I can't do it. That's exactly right. OK, and I will make sure I can do it.

OK, I'm giving you a much more noble approach than this. That's right. That's OK. It could be either way, you know, if it's if it is dollars and cents than Mark. And this is the problem, though, with the Medicaid SSI.

The whole welfare system is it encourages people to not be married or disincentive ises people from.

Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, same thing isn't the incentive is not to get married because it screws up everything and or it's seen as a forever instead of a stopgap.

Right. Yeah.

Well, and you know, if you don't have another way to cover a child that has a potential million dollar operation, it is forever until you find a way to cover it. So you've got to you got to take care of the babies.

And but I'm pretty sure that he can get this child insured. I might be wrong, but I don't think I am. And especially if he's working for a big regional or a big national company that he happens to be driving a truck for. And they probably have a sweet plan. That would be my guess. And even if it's a little bit expensive, do it anyway, right? Do it anyway, even if it costs you, you know, 300 dollars more a month.

And that hurts a little bit. Do it. Right. That's good. That's good. That's because the family that is married and committed economically will prosper. The family that has shocked shacked up. Hmm. Statistically every time. Right. Economists call it the marriage benefit. It actually causes economic lift to be married because on average, married people make more than shacked up people, household income on average nationally.

And it could be socioeconomic. It could be the you know, what's the cause? What's the effect? You can argue that if you want to. But we do know statistically married people make more than shacked up. People make, on average, a lot more throughout their life. It's the marriage benefit that's talked about. And so that's what I want for your family long term. But in order to do that, we have to solve the short term potential issue and make sure that this child is cared for, which is a noble thing.

Absolutely. It is very, very good stuff. So.

There is I have never in 30 years been on this air shame someone for being in Medicaid. And that includes a nursing home for Medicaid.

But I will tell you that when you have the opportunity to not be in it, it is your calling to not be on it.

So when you have the opportunity to buy long term care insurance so you don't have welfare nursing home, which is the only way the government pays for Medicaid, then you should do that. If you do that, you should take care of yourself so somebody else can have take care. That's pretty basic personal responsibility stuff. And I've said that all along. But where those options are open, that puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show on the books. We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the prince of peace. Christ, Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about an mint product or service, it didn't have a chance to write it down. Don't worry. We list everything you heard about during this episode in the podcast. Show us or head to Dave Ramsey Dotcom.

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