Hey, guys, this is James Giles, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. Dave and the team are out spending time with their families for years, but we'll be back soon to help you take control of your life and your money in twenty, twenty one. In the meantime, we put together some of the best clips of the show for you to enjoy. This is the best of the Dave Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollars Car Rental Studios, that's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king and a paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. My co-host today on The Dave Ramsey Show, Ken Coleman Ramsey personality joins us. And, of course, the number one bestselling author and he's the host of the Ken Coleman Show, heard on 50 plus radio stations, Sirius XM podcast, You Tube, everything else all over America. So be sure you check him out. Open phones here. We're talking about your life and your money and your careers and your jobs.

That's what Ken speaks about as well as everything else here. So we're just here to help you with everything. Jump in eight eight two five five two two five. Tony starts off this hour in North Carolina. Hi, Tony. Welcome to The Dave Ramsey Show.

Thank you so much and appreciate you guys being there. I just got back from vacation and listen to your mike over twice and many of the podcasts. I quit watching the news and just listen to a podcast now. Thank you. Well, it's a whole lot better in the news today.

Well, everything is in place. That's true.

In the final sign up for Financial Peace University, actually this afternoon. I just started because it just, you know, really got into this, started maybe step to molasses, a little nervous, but I think she's on board to credit cards will soon be gone and I'll pay more and hope every month. But I've heard you say something on one of your podcast that it doesn't matter. Get rid of it because it's too easy to use. And you're so right about that.

I work at home right now because of the covid, but I'm starting to see the freedom that won't. I'm 68 years old. I enjoy what I do, but I think I would really like to either either retire or at least just go part time someplace. Again, I love it. But in and I know the money is there, but I'm still nervous. And you say playing involved. And once I started putting stuff on a spreadsheet, I started making some sense of how much interest I was paying total debt, including the House of 80000 dollars.

And you always had 7000 dollars of checking account. And I have five thousand dollars in the starter emergency fund. I did that as soon as I got back from vacation. Now, some people wouldn't understand. I got one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in mutual funds.

And there's going to be another hundred coming as soon as we get rid of some property that is a family member from an estate and it sounds like a no brainer, but my total income right now is around 80. So that includes, you know, the job and Social Security.

So what's your question? What I'm trying to do is just decide is a smart thing, just to go pay everything off and then, you know, sit there and then, you know, get control of expenses. And since I won't have the house, I would love to move to where my grandchildren are. Well, why wouldn't you just have to get. Well, I'll tell you, the reason I haven't so far is because financial people that I've dealt with keep telling me, no, I'm not going to ask about what they think.

I said, why wouldn't you pay off your debt? You got 100000 on the way when it comes. You could just pay off everything or and never even touch your mutual funds, right?

Correct. Well, wouldn't you? I guess because I've been nervous about things like that, because I'm always worried about the future.

I wouldn't if I was worried about the future would make me be debt free.

Yeah, you said the money was there, Tony. You said the money's there. What are you truly afraid of?

I guess not being there in case of an emergency. Yeah, but one thing one thing I will say this, you know, from listening to your podcasts and stuff, it's made me at least I think I'm on my way to doing that. But I guess that's what I want to run. Well, I. I know it doesn't make sense at all.

Well, if you if listen, if you pay everything off and you're miserable, you can go right back into it.

It's a great point. You can always try that again. Somebody will give it to you. Oh, God.

I don't think you're going to be all right, sir. You are finding your way through this.

So I want to ask you this because you've done this for so long. So here he is. He's got the money and he's still scared. If I take this big chunk of money and I pay off my house or excuse me, pay off the 80 grand in debt, which is house and everything, that's everything.

He's going, what if an emergency happens? And I think he fails and got a chunk of money. You still got a chunk of money, but you have no bills on emergencies. It doesn't cost much to live when you don't have any debt.

Right. So your your you know, your burn rate, your survival rate is very, very low.

And so you can survive for a long time when you don't have any payments.

Yeah. It's like you don't need it. Your emergency is a lot less of an emergency when you're debt free, depending on what kind of emergency. Well, that's right. I mean, I should have an income emergency that. Right? True. You know, if you lost your income or something like that, what's what happens in people's minds. And it's mine and yours, too. And it is we we're drawing security from one thing and then we start thinking about how to get to the future and we can't see or feel the security.

He doesn't feel the security of being debt free like I do because I have been for thirty years. And so he instead he's getting security from one hundred sixty eight thousand mutual funds, one hundred thousand on the way. And so that is three hundred sixty eight thousand minus eighty. Still leaves you a quarter million dollars. That's right. And so you're going to be OK. You're going to be fine.

Just the question is, you know, it's just you're transferring the sense of security to debt, freedom away from a pile of cash, and that's an intellectual exercise on a spiritual and emotional exercise and all of those things. And that's the that's that's the journey he's on. He's wandering down the path. He's heading in the right.

It's so good you just outlined it's really the unknown there. He just doesn't know it. Yeah. So once he feels it and now, like I told me, once you're dead free, you won't ever if you if you had to pay a price to get there, if you had the crap scared out of you.

Now if you just got out that you don't think I think about, you go back in. But that's everywhere. Right. But if you went through like what we went through, losing everything.

And once we got out that there's no way I'm going back to the security that that gives me is greater than a pile of money.

And he's got a pile up pretty quick running through his numbers. Oh, yeah. He's going to have twenty left over right after that. One hundred. He could go part time. He wants to retire. He's a part time take that part time cash. You just keep standing.

Grandbabies. I heard that. I heard, I heard him say that. Yeah, that's important thing right there. I don't know how great grand babies are going to be. I have been nicer to their parents.

All right. Open phones at eight eight two five five two two five. You guys jump in and we'll talk about your life and your money. This is about life transformation.

Romans One of the things I saw in my Total Money Makeover book is Romans Twelve to be not conformed to this world. Don't be normal. Don't be like everybody else.

The rest of that versus good. Don't leave that out. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Yeah, means you think differently. Then you can act differently things once you see things differently because you've gotten your brain wrapped around them, you've got an intellectual grasp of it. Then you can make that step. And that's exactly what's happening with him. He's being transformed by the renewing his mind. He's got new stuff. And so you can start growing a security from the dead freedom rather than from the money versus the debt left on a pile, still knowing at him like a bunch of mosquitoes.

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You're listening to the best of the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be back soon with more live content. My co-host today on The Dave Ramsey Show, Ramsey personality, Dr. John Baloney. Be sure to check out his upcoming article on Dave Ramsey Dotcom. The Truth about anxiety. Also jump on his YouTube page. He's put several things about the on the air, like everything you know about anxiety is wrong, painful and hopeful conversations about racism. Let's talk about your stress levels.

That's a couple of them. And that tens of thousands of you visiting that page already. And John's just getting going.

So thanks for that. We appreciate the support. Appreciate you checking out. And if you want to send him a question, you can do that. Ask John at Ramsey Solutions dot com.

We're getting some new questions all over the country. Tons of them. And it's so good. Very cool. Keep sending them. Also, we're going be doing a millionaire theme our soon.

If you are a networth millionaire, which is the only kind of millionaire there is your net worth, your assets minus your liabilities, what you own, minus what you owe equals a million dollars are greater than you are by definition a millionaire. I don't care how you feel. It's a math thing.

If you would tell us your story of how you got that, you hit the lottery, you inherited it at all, or you've worked like a dog for 30 years, I don't whatever your story is, we want to hear it. E-mail Kelly at Dave on air. One word, no spaces, no dashers, Dave on air at Dave Ramsey dot com and put millionaire theme our in the subject line. Tell us a little bit about your story. She'll get you set up to be one of our callers because we want to talk to Real Millionaires on a Millionaire theme hour, which was the genesis for the whole research project that resulted in the largest ReachOut research project on millionaires ever done in North America.

That resulted in a number one best selling book with Chris Hogan called Every Day Millionaires.

So up next is going to be Christopher in Tennessee. Hey, Christopher, how are you?

Hey, how's it going? I appreciate you taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? I just want to get your opinion on what was a better retirement plan. I'm twenty three and then baby step six and have some paid off in the next year and a half. Two years. Wow. And I was wondering what would be the better plan. Would it be to just continue to invest my 50 percent well after my house is paid for, pay cash for rentals and eventually have 10 to 20 rental houses and rely on cash flow in retirement from my baby, step for baby, step for somewhat goes away or is accelerated or expanded when you get to baby step seven.

So when you're at seven in which your house is paid off, then it's build wealth and be outrageously generous as baby steps. So that means you would max out whatever retirement planning you want to do or investing you wanted to do. I would continue to put at least 15 percent into your mutual funds, into your Roth IRA or your company retirement plan. But above that, if you didn't want to do any more there and you want to start saving to pay cash for real estate, that's certainly OK.

OK, I say just depends on what you want. All right.

Well, I would love to do real estate. My parents did real estate the whole time I was growing up and I loved it. I would love to get real with real estate wise or to just enough to max out our retirement going, you know, and stuff like that. No, it's not. That's not true. It was.

Mutual funds pay a smaller rate of return than good investment real estate does, but they have no hassle compared like I had to evict a tenant this week.

I think that's I don't have to do that with mutual funds.

OK, so, I mean, you know, have to deal with the crazy, right. So you just look at the mailbox or look at the email coming in and tells you what your balance is.

But you make so a well purchased, well managed investment property will make you a greater rate of return, but it has more hassle. But you grew up in a real estate family like I did. You like real estate. My portfolio is way more real estate than it is in mutual funds.

I've got a lot in both by my standards from growing up in any activity, but way a lot in real estate. I mean, when you consider the building we're sitting in is 70 million dollars. So but, you know, I got a lot in real estate.

So there's an old an old wives tale. An old line.

David, I've heard that is if you have to pick between investing in the markets, retirement programs or real estate, the line is invest in dirt because they stop making that a long time ago. Is that a truthful statement or is it a value statement?

No, it's just a there's a lot of dirt. OK, go to North Dakota, OK? There's a lot of dirt. All right. OK, so that's. Yeah, yeah. They stopped making it. But there's a plentiful supply. And besides that dirt itself doesn't give you a right of return. There you go. There's very few pieces of farmland that unless you are.

Farmer and farming it, that actually give you the kind of right of return that an office building will, an apartment, a rental, real estate?

Well, so what you're looking for is income producing real estate, not just sitting on it, not just a I've got I've got a nice farm that I bought, but just to hold the earth together kind of thing. But I had no expectation that it was going to give me a huge rate of return. I got a great buy on the acreage and it has gone up considerably in value. But I didn't really have a lot of hope when I bought it that that was going to do it.

But when I buy an office building or we buy even a rental, a single family rental property, we expect we're running the numbers, expecting that thing to give us a cash on cash rate of return. And then, of course, it's a shelter. And, of course, the increase in value, we're going to get three rates of return on it and we expect that. So but the concept of, you know, they keep making houses and they keep there's a lot of dirt.

So it's not like a short supply real estate. Right. So it's going to shoot up.

But but real estate is a it's an imperfect market, meaning that in mutual funds, bazillions of people have the same pieces of information to make the exact same decision. And a limited number of people comparatively have information about this piece of real estate. So you can slip up on a deal, on a piece of real estate way more often than you can on a mutual fund. There you you're pretty much just going to pay for the mutual funds going to go up.

You don't do that in real estate. You want to buy real estate below market, pay cash for it. So he's doing good stuff. They love it. Good stuff. Bethany is with us and Bethany is in Tennessee. Hi, Bethany. How are you?

I'm okay. I'm a little nervous, so.

OK, we've never lost a patient. How can we help?

Well, we are on baby step three. We are renting people from my husband's mom and we have kind of a rocky relationship with them because of boundary issues. And we are going to be living here for about two and a half years when my husband goes to college. So I was wondering how I could deal with my anger and resentment now so that later in the later years I don't end up exploding and hurting my marriage.

Who are you angry and resentful towards? A little bit of everyone that I'm stuck in this place, so it's not a good place to admit.

Well, the physical place is fine, but the mental place, it's kind of rough because I'm far away from my family, their old family home. So when they come over to work on it, they feel very, very opinionated about it. They own it. Yes, they do. Why would they not be opinionated about it? Oh, I don't know.

It's just not well, they're opinionated about your housekeeping, your cooking skills, your relationship with your husband, or the fact you painted the walls in a house that you don't own.

My cooking cleaning skills, OK.

Hmm. So why why do you have to live here?

I know you get to know you get a good deal on it.

Something I often ask people is what's the total cost?

Well, OK, so when my husband wants to go into being a police officer and so he was working, he's currently working as a security guard, as a temporary job because he had to drop out of the academy for personal reasons a little bit when I was pregnant at the time. And we currently don't really make enough to be saving money towards our emergency fund and paying a normal rent. So we had agreed that we would stay here, even though I'm not happy here for two and a half years.

OK, tell you what, you hang on. We're going to bring you back from this break. And John, I'll give you a good, thorough answer. I don't want to try to answer something as deep in ten seconds with Dr. Standalone, my co-host today I. Listen, there are some basic things that you should be doing to take care of your family, a roof over their head, food to eat, a car to get you from A to B and term life insurance, term life insurance is an immediate need no matter where you are in the baby steps, since your family is at no greater risk than when you're in debt.

The only place I send you for this is to Zander Insurance. They shop all the top insurance companies and they're committed to serving you. That's why I use them and have recommended them for over 20 years. Go to Zanda Dotcom are called eight hundred three five six. Forty to eighty two. You're listening to the best of the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be back soon with more live content. Thanks for joining us, America. Anthony O'Neal Ramsey personality, is my co-host on the air today.

Danielle is with us in Athens, Georgia. Hi, Danielle, how are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm doing well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

I need your help settling a lively marital discussion on the tarmac for about a year.

And he actually encouraged me to call in because I've been very dogged and what I think is the right thing to do.

You said your husband there say that again. We've just been discussing it for about a year.

And he encouraged you to call this show.

Yes, answer. OK. Yeah, and Anthony, glad to hear from you, too. So broadly, our question is, should we buy and flip a fixer upper or Anthony is gonna love it, pay off our student loans?

Well, you know what I'm going to like. We actually know what both Dave and I are going to like. But what's the argument? I mean, what are you saying? You. Would you like some context, please? My husband and I have been we've been married for seven years and actually take over the wedding and we've only been dating if I'm not up to date. He's the oldest of six. There's nothing to fall back on if we totally fail.

So we've always been fairly conservative in our spending and have student loans and no credit card debt. But my masters is in nonprofit management, business and social work. So. So we have to be creative with how we fill our budget. So in essence, we bought our first house in twenty fifteen. It was like eighty two thousand dollars. It's like thirty five hundred dollars down payment. And he renovated the house himself so we bought it for 80 to put 14 or so into it over two years.

Sold it when we had an 18 month old and I was seven months pregnant, sold it for one twenty eight five and then took that thirty five thousand dollars profit put as a down payment on our current house. OK, so we want to be able to use his skills that his dad built there, one of his houses when he was 12. He and his brothers can all tile and they've refinished floors and built roofs. And so he really wants to get into where in Athens.

It's a college town. He wants to get into rentals. I want to be completely debt free and very low risk before we consider that.

How much student loans to nineteen thousand five hundred eighty three dollars spent. Our net is about 17 and mine fluctuates. Last year, I was coaching a lot at a local boutique fitness studio and we've always used his as the foundation and then I kind of part time breaks. But then we have a three and a five year old. So we my work doubles around.

So explain to me why during the year you've been talking about this, you couldn't have already paid off the student loan. Excellent question, Dave. We refinanced to a 15 year with cash out in actually on March 15th of this year, which was two days before our county locked down with the intent to pay off the student loan immediately. And because everything locked down, we decided to give it six months while there was a break on student loan interest rates and build up our emergency savings.

So we're at a three month now. We didn't want to have only a thousand dollars in the bank during covid just in case, because his job is pretty secure. But we've always done a lot of. So are you back to accommodating with my extra? I, I am not. There's no fitness jobs. So why why are you.

So you get enough cash out of the refinance to pay off the student loan.

Right. Correct. And you're still sitting on that. That's right, Dave. OK, and so while you sitting on this egg, he starts to go, I want to buy a house with instead. He's been thinking that since about May. That was not the agreement when we refinanced the House, that I refinanced the house. We were going to pay off the student loan. The reason we did it was covered, converted. Right. And so while here we sat on this egg and is starting to correct now and he's starting to lose his mind and go on to buy a house.

Yes, that's accurate.

And what was he still working during? covid? Yeah. Oh, he's never quit.

Never quit. So. Yeah, so she worked in it for the university and works remotely. So his income followed.

But then you let me help you out. This is, this is Anthony will be more commo version of day for you. OK, I want you to get the get the money and go pay off some those. I mean just just just get the money, go pay off the student loans. And then once you pay off the student loans, go back to the three months. Then after three months then I mean, we just don't work the baby steps.

You know, I think a lot of people right now just are getting like money hungry. Oh, I can I can use my skills to make more money. And that's fine. I want you to make more money, Dave. We both want you to make more money, but do it on a solid foundation. So what does he do for a living now?

He went back to his bachelors. He's in I.T. for you today. How many hours a week to work program for his 40 hours a week salary?

Perfect. Perfect. OK, so let me tell you, I got a buddy of mine that's good with laying tile and putting up trim and doing carpentry work and fixing a gutter start a little remodel business. And last year he made three hundred thousand dollars profit. Oh, man.

So these are skills that are valuable. I'm not sure your husband necessarily wants to leave the field, but I think on the weekend he could build some decks and do some other stuff and he can make more money doing that than he can screwing around and flipping houses and bankrupting you people.

Thank you.

I'm someone else's dime because they're in and they're hailo no risk. They just write you checks. Yeah.

For your work. Correct. With my face to face.

And we get to use and we get to use our skill that mom and dad are the dad taught me, which is a wonderful skill my dad taught me to swing a hammer to. It's a wonderful thing to be able to pick up a screwdriver and know which end works, you know?

And so it's a good thing. I'm glad he has that skill, but it is it's leading you guys down a bad path. You need to write a check, pay off the student loans as soon as you talk to him tonight. I want you to hide it from him. But Anthony's advice is exactly correct. Interesting discussion. It is. So it's almost as if you're heading in the right direction. And if you pause instead of going ahead and doing what you're supposed to do, it gives you the opportunity to do stupid.

Yes, that that was a problem. You can almost you could you know, you're going down the interstate and you get your foot off the gas and the car starts drifting towards the exit. Yes. And exit says land of stupid. Right. Right. And that was the interesting. And I've done that before, Dave. You know, I you know, I'm going to do this then when I get it actually in my hands. Yeah.

You look at that pile of money, I'm like, oh, you look, maybe I'm a go over here now rather than going over the line sometimes. Just don't even see it, get it and do exactly what I was going to do with it.

Execute your plan. Yeah, develop your plan. Execute your plan. And they know they did have a valid reason for tapping the brakes because of covid. OK, I'd have to argue that. But it is interesting that when you have a moment to think about it. Yeah, I've done that too. I that's what I could relate to. I thought, you know, when if I just would go ahead and do what the flip I'm supposed to do instead of stopping and thinking about it.

It really because when I think about is when I get dumped, I'm just that that's exactly what happened there. Yeah. So interesting, very interesting discussion. Now we got to say this to Dave. Now, when you're going into your emergency fund, you do want to stop and think and make sure that it is emergency. So we're not telling you don't think. But we're saying when you say you're going to do something, do it.

Well, you know, I've got I'm executing on a plan. And the next step of the plan is X. And if you pause and start gazing at that pot of gold, yes.

Your eyes will cross. Yes. And you'll go into a gold coma. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's well, that's what happens. And that's very interesting that and they did it for the right reasons because they should have paused because of covid. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. You didn't wanna have a thousand dollars in the bank. What was her point? And that follows what we were teaching people right in the middle of it. Yeah. You know, just calm down, you know, pause.

You don't have to do a bunch of moves right now. However, it is also an interesting principle that here's what I'm trying to say. But he sometimes we overthink it. Sometimes we overthink it.

James, we overthink. How do you how do you lose weight? You eat less and you work out, you know, what makes you look thinner than wearing black, being thinner. You're listening to the best of the Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be back with more live. Dr. John Dulaney Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show, Open Phones and triple eight eight two five five two two five. Our Question of the day comes from Blind's dot com.

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Our question today's question comes from Michelle in Ohio. She visits Dave Ramsey dot com to ask, can you go over the differences between enabling somebody and helping somebody?

Hmm. That's a good, short, insightful question there. What do you think, Dave?

Well, I think you have the Ph.D. in counseling, but I've got an opinion. Of course I've got an opinion about everything I do.

I think enabling somebody is for you and helping them is for them. Enabling somebody paying somebody rent makes you feel good versus I'm trying to help somebody out of a spot that's going to actually benefit them in the long run. That's how that's just off top my head.

What do you think?

I think most enablers would think would have a hard time realizing they're doing it for themselves. Right.

So, you know, you're doing it for you. I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing it to help him.

And so, you know, the thing I always think about when enabling is the classic, giving a drunk a drink.

Are you participating in their misbehavior, causing it? You look at it on the back end, causing it to continue.

Are you are you are you, like, joining up for crazy? And if you're participating in their misbehavior, then you're a helicopter mom coming in, the kids misbehaving in your Byliner, you know, you're saying, well, the teachers are all, you know, versus my house where I grew up. The teacher was never wrong, even when they were never right.

Even if the teacher was a toxic abuser, they were on my parents team, you know, it was like so, you know, there's just no chance that you could have a helicopter parent coming out of my house. So which is good. I mean, but versus. And so. When you're enabling, you really are not helping, and if you'll stop and realize that, then it'll help you not be an enabler. Right. And when I have been when I been in a situation and I'll tell you the other thing is there's something about enabling.

I think it's harder to help and requires more effort, emotional energy and time than it does to enable more intentionality.

Yeah, it's kind of like the guy standing on the side of the road. Well, you know, we'll work for food.

Hmm. OK. It's hard. To put the guy in a car and take him and have him cut grass and then pay, right then it is just give him some money, right? And if you just give him some money, you're probably really, you know, participating in something that is not helpful.

Whereas if you take a man, teach him skill. Now, if he really just needs food, take him out of the restaurant, buy more food. Right. And of course, you know, we all know the story. Sometimes you find out that when what they're after and whether they're just running, they're just running that corner. That's their corner. But aside from that, are you really helping?

And it's almost a cheap you're cheap out when you're enabling it. It's easier. It's quicker. I'll just throw some money at it right outside out of mind.

I'll just throw some whatever at it.

So if you are participating in things that at the end of the story have caused them harm, which kind of got a pan back and do that and, you know, you sit down with somebody, they come to you and they say, you know, I need money, money for rent y and you dig into it.

You're also got a drug problem. So when you pay the rent, basically you bought the drugs. Right.

So you've got it's harder to take that person by the hand, lead them to a 12 step group, you know, go pay for their counseling. Right. Are there coaching or whatever they need to pay for the rehab? It's harder to do that.

And I'm assuming all things are equal with the money, you know, but but it just takes more effort. And, you know, I found this also to be true about giving just your generosity. It takes more effort to do giving, right? That's right. That's going to actually have a demonstrable effect, help people in the long term and not just be a Sivewright, you know.

So these aren't real. That's none of that's a real good. Clinical definition or even not even a clear definition? Well, is just observation, and I think you and I are coming at it just once on the front, ones on the back is like, what's this money? What's this money? What's this opportunity? What's this what's this thing you're you're giving somebody what's the what's the fruit going to be after you plant the tree? And I like to look up front if somebody asks me for money.

OK, let me give an example.

How does this play into your definition? My friend who mishandles money and that's our only sin, right? They're just disorganized, impulsive, immature.

And they call up and go, you know, I need 200 dollars. Mm hmm. I said, no.

You know, if I say, yeah, you're right, I'm an enabler. There you go. OK, if I don't and I say, listen, I'll give you two hundred dollars, but only if you're enrolled in Financial Peace University. Only after I look at your budget with you and only after you agree to stop these behaviors that are causing you to be broke in the first place. Right. One's an enabler. One's a helper. Same amount of money.

And I don't know how to describe the difference in those two.

I would if I just gave him two hundred dollars. How's that about me? Because you can it's dismissive. It gets you out of the you don't have to have the hard conversation of saying, no, I don't want to do emotionally right or it feels good to somebody comes to me because I've taken care of my business.

The way you describe that, I think you you've got to be careful because it can be judgmental, which is somebody ask you for two hundred dollars. I'm going to read into why you need it, what you haven't done and what you're going to do with it versus a man. I'll just help you out. Yeah. And sometimes I will go too far down the road and saying, oh, you don't have to dollars because of this. Because of this.

Because of this sometimes detour bucks. But I think you should come up front is I'm going to say don't have a hard conversation with you for to give money to you. I don't want to still drop. That's exactly right. And that all comes back to intentionality.

And that's that is real love. Right. Is actually caring enough about them to not not necessarily be judgmental and confront every issue, but just start asking too much question. That's why are you here? And then you're starting to ascertain am I really helping or am I funding crazy? That's exactly right. Because with enabling, you're almost always funding some kind of crazy, some kind of dysfunction, some kind of misbehavior, some kind of toxic. The kid misbehaving, the helicopter.

Mom, it's your funding it right then.

And sometimes people get in a bind and they just need some help. Yeah. And I don't mind doing that. That's exactly right.

But that I think you were saying it over and over, but may just be intentional and get involved. Yeah.

Ask the extra question. Hey, what happened? Are you doing OK? Is there a bigger thing I can be supportive of?

What else what else is going on in your world that the twenty eight year old that lives in his mother's basement and games all day long and won't get a job right?

Mom, mom is an enabler, an absolute enabler. And so because she's participating in allowing him to not become who God designed him to be and how that helps her is she has to keep her baby around.

She gets to not have a hard conversation. She gets to not do the hard parent job of constructing boundaries and holding them up, holding them firm. Right. And so this whole thing just protects her, her fantasy world. And she just keeps perpetual right down the street.

I have never thought about it until today. In this way, that enabling is emotionally lazy.

Mm hmm. You your character lazy.

It's just not investment in other people not willing to, you know, to do or do the stuff that's good for them. And so you just you throw something, you know, you you just allow it or even ask the that.

Next question. The next question. How are you. It's just it's it's easy. It's emotionally lazy. It's character lazy. It's it's spiritually lazy. It's yeah. It just treats a person as a transaction instead of a relationship.

Yeah. It's not really loving. No. Absolutely nothing of the day. It's just because you didn't love them enough to help them to truly get into what's going on in your heart, you know. Twenty eight your lives in your basement and they have absolutely no ambition and you still do there, you still make their clothes failure to launch a movie, you know, that kind of stuff. It used to wash their clothes. You still cook their meals.

They don't pay anything. They basically are operating emotionally to a fourteen year old level and they're a full time gamer down there, you know? I mean, it's just that that's, you know, what you have done is you have done it, the emotional growth of your kid.

Right, by allowing this. And so my friends know when they call me for help, there's going to be the first in line. Yeah. But they also know they're going get a whole bunch of questions. How are you doing? OK, what's going on. Our kids OK. Why are we here. Yeah. How are we not going to be here again. I love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If, if I'm going to help you, I don't want you to have to be here again because otherwise I was an enabler.

There you go. Wow. That's a good question like that. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about it, a 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, dot com.

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