Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey. Your host, Ken Coleman Ramsey, personality number one, bestselling author and host of the Ken Coleman show, where he helps you have a better life at work and at your career and all of those kinds of things. So we're going to talk to you about your life and your money, as we always do. The phone number is with us in St. Louis, Missouri. Hey, Josh. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hey, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. I just want to take a second, and I appreciate all that you do. You've truly changed my life over the last few years.

And I just want to take a.

Second to say thank you.

Sure. What's up?

Awesome.

My question is, how should I feel about a prenup? I know your stance on prenups, and I know kind of extreme circumstances, and I believe kind of like my circumstance is kind of extreme on both ends. So a little bit about my background. I am currently 28. I followed the baby steps through and through. Currently on three b, I make about 300,000 a year. And that's divided up into about 100k in retirement, 100k for a down payment, and 25 to 35,000 in just a bank account, checking account for an emergency fund. I'm getting married in June to my wonderful fiance. And her family is extremely wealthy. And although I do not, her parents and grandparents are extremely wealthy.

So.

Apparently, I'm supposed to be signing a prenup, obviously, before the marriage. And kind of, we're going to go over that. And my question to you is, how should I feel about that, as well as what to look for in a prenup? I don't necessarily know what questions to ask my lawyer. And just one last thing is my income could be going from 400, 500 plus over the next two to three years annually. So, yeah, that would be my question.

Yeah. Wow. How old is your fiance?

I am 28. She is 25.

Does she have any money? No. And you didn't ask her for a prenup?

I have not.

The prenup was for the potential inheritance.

The prenup is for the potential inheritance. I have not had a sit down discussion.

When did the prenup discussion come up? After you were engaged?

It was after we were engaged, yes. But I kind of had an idea. I don't know the specifics on their net worth, but they are extremely, extremely wealthy.

Yeah. Okay. All right. The only way I know how to answer a question is, what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? Okay. So when my children were married, my net worth was in excess of $100 million already at that point. And none of them signed a prenup and we didn't ask them to. None of my in laws sign a prenup, and we didn't ask them to. Now, I have my estate plan set up to where certain things are controlled only by Ramsey blood in trusts. So you can't get to them in the event of a divorce. Thing number one. Thing number two, I just. Not that guy. So I'm not worried about it. This is God's money. I'm managing it. I figure he can take care of it. I understand their concern. If you're making $30,000 a year or something, it would be more of a concern. But frankly, it's a little bothersome if I'm in your shoes. Not enough to cancel the whole thing. But it's troubling that these people, obviously, they want to protect what they built and make sure it goes to their kids. Let me ask you, here's another thing I would want to find out, and I don't know.

In most states, the divorce stuff we've been involved in, on the financial side, an amount of inheritance, generally in the event of a divorce, goes to the person that inherited the money. They don't split it in most states. So if you inherit your mama's house and you get a divorce, you get your mama's house, you don't split it with your ex in most states. Okay. Now, I don't know Missouri law, and I'm not a lawyer, but I've experienced that in being called in the middle of divorce situations when we're helping negotiate and all that. I've experienced that to be the facts that the judge or the statutes award that that way. So I would learn about that in Missouri. Number one, they may have that protection built into the law, is what I'm saying. And then you've just got to decide how much you care about this issue, because I don't think, and what this issue means. What does it mean to your relationship? What does it mean to the family you are marrying? Because you're marrying her and her family. And so it's really low class that this came up after you made a contract to get married.

They bring up, oh, but by the way, after you've gotten a contract to get married called getting engaged, we're going to add something to the terms of the contract after you've already signed it. That's low class.

I'm curious, Josh, what does your fiance think? How does she feel about this? Is she completely in line with the parents, or does it make her feel weird? What's going on here?

To be honest, she's the oldest of four daughters total. And they're awesome families, super down to earth people, but they've never really had to work or.

You're not answering my question. And you're being really nice because you're a classy dude. I'm going somewhere with this. How does she feel about it when it came up? What was her comment on this deal?

She understands. She understands it. What I was getting at is she just doesn't really have, like, she doesn't know.

So she's okay with Marnie? My point is, it wasn't a head tilt or a red flag or yellow flag. It was just like, oh, okay. Is that what I'm hearing?

She does what she's told.

Exactly.

Okay. Yes.

She listens to her parents. Yeah, she listens.

That makes this relationally a little bit more difficult. Had she had the same feeling, the yucky feeling you had? I assume you have a yucky feeling about it. Am I making the wrong assumption?

Well, I just go back to what you guys feel about prenups. And it is an extreme situation. But.

It doesn't feel good.

Yeah, it doesn't feel good. Do I need to do anything on my end?

What else is going to come up after you're married that they tell her what to do?

Well, the one other thing. Exactly. Yeah, the one other thing is, apparently the family are in development. So they're big into real estate. And they build houses and have a lot of land. Another thing is, apparently they're going to be building us a house and putting it in a trust to where we don't have a payment.

Apparently, yes.

Has all been decided.

Apparently. Wait a minute. This is my freaking house. There's no apparently. I'm involved in the decision.

I think this ought to be premarital counseling.

I bring it up with your fiance shooting up flares. Now I think the two of you need to sit down with a premarriage counseling. And you're getting married in June. This family has problems with leaving and cleaving.

That's right.

This is the Ramsay show. I saw some recent financial statistics, and there was some pretty troubling news. When families were asked how long it would be before they faced financial hardship if a spouse died, nearly one third said they'd be in trouble immediately. Another 44% said they'd be financially drained within six months. People. It does not have to be this way. Term life insurance plans are just plain cheap. And companies have made it even easier by not requiring exams. In many cases, there really is no excuse to leave your family in this situation by not having life insurance. This is why I talk about Xander insurance every day. They're committed to protecting families with the only products that I recommend. And their team keeps the entire process simple and affordable. Go to xander.com for quick online pricing or call 803 564282. This has to be a priority if your family is in this situation. You need to get this done. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 Ken Coleman Ramsay personality is my co host. Ken, I know this about me. I really like to be in control.

I think that's a fair assessment.

Yeah, I know this about me, and I know this about wealth, that as you add wealth, it makes you more of what you already are. And so having some money has given me the ability to control a lot of things in my life. The variables. I don't have cars that break down anymore because they're nice ones. I used to drive crap when I was broke, and I was broke down on the side of the crappy road in the crappy car and my crappy life. And I hated it. I hated it because I felt out of control and desperate and freaked out. And so now I drive cars that don't break because I got some money by doing the stuff we teach here. And I also know that that control, in that sense, controlling the variables, control the controllables, that's a good feature. But I'm also well aware that it can be a bad feature. You've probably seen that.

I cannot recall. I cannot recall.

You are so full of crap.

Well, that's also a great demonstration of what you do in that situation. Just go Congress, act like a congressman. I cannot recall.

Do nothing.

Yeah.

No. Yes. But in a situation like that, where we've seen it, you snap back because you are healthy.

Well, what I'm making is what I had to face. The hardest parenting I've ever done in my life. Because when they're little, you just freaking tell them what to do. And if you don't do what I say to do, I'll take you out and make another one looks just like you. Okay, so you're going to do what I say to do. I'm in charge. The inmates are not in charge of the asylum when they're, like, grown and paying their own bills and stuff. You don't get to do that anymore. I heard it's a rumor. So, like when they leave and get married and stuff, it's a problem for control people. Right. And control people with money, like me. Sure. It's a real problem. So I've had to read, like Henry Cloud's book, Boundaries. It's like every weekend I have to read the whole book again because otherwise I invade my grown children's boundaries because I have the money to control and tell people what to do. And I'm used to people doing what I tell them to do. And my grown kids don't always do what I tell them to do. It's just shocking. It's just shocking.

It's called reasonable relationships. And sometimes when people get money, maybe the last caller situation, sometimes when people get money, it makes them more of what they already are and they learn to control the variables. That's how they get money. Which is good. It's a good part of control. But then you try to control your kids lives, and we're going to give you a house, but we're really not going to give you a house. We're going to put it in a trust so we can take it back if we change our mind. And we're going to give you some money, but we're really not going to count the fact that you got married because you don't really get to count that. You just are you and you could real simply, in any state, leave the money into a trust. And the only people have access to the trust are blood relatives. And so the spouse, or soon to be ex spouse, if there's a problem, you have a built in. Yeah.

That's wise.

You have a built in thing there, like the stock for the Ramsey solutions company. Okay. It's held in the Ramsey family children's trust. And the definition of that trust, one of the absolute pieces is that if they get divorced, they're not going to get the company, which know they shouldn't. That's right. Okay. They shouldn't get it. But that does away with the need for a prenup. And so I guess I'm still controlling, but I'm not over there in their daily business telling them how to pay their bills. Okay.

So as the outsider here on the.

Scenario, I don't know how that's different than what I just griped about. Maybe it's.

No, it's not. No, it's very different. I'll tell you why. Because what you did was you put it in a trust. And this is the Ramsey family business. It's a family business and it takes it off the table. What you did not do was force a signed agreement. See, this is a boundary issue.

It didn't do it after the engagement, that's going to thump one of them. It would have been when they were sitting at coffee going, can I marry your daughter? Right? I'm like, no. Right.

Here's the problem with the last call. This is a 25 year old. I believe she's 25. He's 28. I believe somewhere in that range, or maybe 23. 25. Here's the deal. They should have. Being super wealthy the way they are and having controlled the environment and they've set her up and all those assets.

They should have crap.

They should have already let her just grow up. And the thing is, she's got to learn how to figure life out on her own. And the fiance very kindly said, she's pretty much just had everything dictated to her. Like a menu like, this is what your life is going to look like, and that's not reality. So I think the concern on that last call, Dave, is less about the money. I think it's more about their role in her life, which is what I'm talking about. I know you are, but I just think it's that simple, that the money thing is the smallest piece of it. They're very out of control with their influence.

It sounds like they are. My point is that I could do that. I'm one eyelash away from being the same exact thing. I mean, I'm not that far off, really.

That's right. Because it could teeter to unhealthy.

But the truth is, it's so easy to be who you is in spades. When you got a few dollars, you get to be who you is. Nobody bother you on that. And if who you is is telling everybody what to do, including your grown kids, then wow. And so now I told Winston when he married Rachel, she's your problem, man. That's it. This one's got drama, man. You just better be ready. And so she's your deal, man. And don't come crying to me. And they come crying to me, Rachel. Don't you come crying to me either. You talk to him. He's his problem. You're his problem.

And let me tell you that I've done it. I mean, they're good friends.

We do don't.

They're legit.

They're legit.

They're standalone, they're healthy, and they're figured out if I was this young man, I would bring it up as a, we can't go forward. And then I'd bring it to a therapist, and I'd say, babe, I can't do this. That's how strong of a position I would take. Because she needs to decide what she's doing.

Yeah. And I guess the point is scary. One of the things that always comes up when I'm coaching with wealthy people, I was with about 60 of them in a room for a day and a half the other day, and the main concern they have is how do I keep my wealth from destroying my kids? I've worked so hard to get this, and now I don't want this wealth to destroy my children, to make them useless human beings. Okay? And so my answer is, don't raise useless human beings. Raise human beings who know how to work, who know how to sacrifice, who know how to serve, who are humble, not self centered. They're not entitled. They're not brats, by the way, they know how to work. Did I mention that? And they know how to work. Did I mention that?

By the way, a simple way to.

Get all of that joy and dignity comes from work. So raise kids that do that and then be ready for this. Very difficult. And I'm saying it's hard for me. Almost daily or weekly, I don't get a vote in their house. And it pisses me off down inside. I really want to tell these people what to do. I feel it right here, actually.

The energy is coming, but I'm just.

Saying it's a human thing. My point is, the other family, whoever they are, they're probably great people. I completely can resonate with their motivation. Their tactical implementation of their motivation sucks.

Which I want to weigh in on that. All the things that Dave just said to raise good kids, can I tell you, it starts with just allowing them to experience hardship and pain. The data is coming out. I'm reading like crazy. I'll spare you all the data. I could nerd out on it for 20 straight minutes. But I'm telling you over and over, the message is coming back. We have removed the obstacle of hardship and suffering. We, meaning Gen X, my parents, the boomers, Gen X, we're all guilty of it.

We wanted to make it better for our kids.

I know, but to make it better is to make them tougher and what you do with your kids, and I can speak to all three of them because I know them.

They need a callous.

You allowed them to experience hardship. They had to work for it. They went through stuff. And so all of a sudden, see, here's the deal. Massive money creates massive ease. And massive ease absent of hardship, makes soft, entitled people. And that's where the money can really be dangerous in this situation.

God, I feel soft and entitled right now.

No, you're not. You're the antithesis of it.

Completely soft and entitled.

You're like a human callous, Dave. You're tough.

You're tough, man.

You're tough. You've been warned by failure. It's good. That's a compliment.

We'll be back with a human callous, folks.

I'll have to explain that to him on the break.

Pray for me. The Ramsey show. I might be back. We'll see.

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Ken Coleman Ramsay, personality is my co host, number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, meaning you can have purpose while getting your paycheck. There's an idea. Maria is with us in Detroit, Michigan. Hi, Maria. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

I'm sorry I'm so nervous. So what happened is we have worked so hard to have basically everything we have paid off. And we had this condo that was still, we still had a loan, and the loan was kind of low interest loan, so we thought we're going to keep it for a little longer in case we need an equity loan. Or something. So we decided to rent it. And now we're facing where? Well, before everything, we were told always to open an LLC, and we never did. Everything is under our names, personal names, everything. So we rented this place, and now we're facing a very possible lawsuit from a lawyer that just does this for a living, for evicting them for non payment.

Have you evicted them?

Yes.

They're gone?

Yes.

Great. Okay, so here's what you do. Here's what you do. You start interviewing attorneys, and I want you to find an attorney who has one eye in the center of his forehead, who slobbers and has sharp teeth and is so angry and mean that you don't even like him. And I want you to hire him and turn him loose on this Jack leg who's thinking he's going to jack you up for some money, and I want you to go after him and pound him to dust. You don't sound like you're going to do have Maria. You sound like a victim. Why don't you sound like a victor, throw your shoulders back and let's get in a fight, girl. They're trying to take your stuff. Yeah, and they're jack legs, okay? Freaking attorney is. He's trying to get some easy money, and once he understands it's not easy, he'll go away. I've taught a couple of them a lesson in my life. I like it. I just take them all the way to dust.

Is there any way we can protect what we have?

Not now. It should have been in an LLC, like you were told, and you didn't do it. You can't buy fire insurance after the fire, honey. You got to buy it before the fire. So the way you protect it now is you hire an angry, mean, nasty attorney and you turn him loose off his chain and let him go. Bite. I'm dead serious, kiddo. You think this is like a joke? This is how you do it? The way you handle a bully is you hit them in the nose hard.

So the problem is we tried to hire attorneys before we even were in the middle of this, and there are.

No attorneys in Detroit.

Yeah, they are.

Okay.

What happened? You don't have any belief in this? So what happened before?

Did you do something wrong?

No. So we waited for payments. We tried to communicate.

No, I didn't ask that. I said, did you do something legally wrong when you evicted them?

No. Well, no, that we know.

Okay.

No.

What happened with the other attorneys you tried to get? What's the rest of the story?

They all say we didn't need an attorney for this.

Why?

Because the ones we tried to hire, they say it's going to go away because you have an order from the judge to evict.

Okay, then what are you worried?

Then why are you stressed out?

Because they file some paperwork to. I know they're doing something because this lawyer that they hire.

All right, I disagree. I think you don't know nothing about nothing on this. And I think every little thing, every time some dog barks, you run to hide in a cave. So you need to get an attorney that represents you, that knows what's going on, and you need to give them $1,000 for peace of mind. And you need to tell them to put this people in a stranglehold till they tap out.

From the beginning. We try to give them money and they didn't want.

Darling, are you listening to me?

Yes.

Okay. Go get an attorney. You're trying to make me convince me that crazy can be dealt with. Crazy and bullies can't be dealt with. The only way you can deal with crazy and bullies is smack them and not physically. Darling, don't go hit somebody. But I am saying get an attorney and put these people down. Put them down and shut them up. And then go. If you need to go. Take the attorneys fees that it costs you from them to teach them a lesson. I'm in the middle of doing that right now myself just to say you shouldn't do this to me. It's not going to work. You picked the wrong hillbilly. Right. I'm not trying to pick a fight. You didn't pick the fight, they did. But you got to finish it once it's picked because you're sitting around wringing your hands, worried you're going to lose everything to some jack leg attorney that doesn't even have a thing because you don't even understand what's going on. Go get a lawyer.

And if a lawyer tells you, or multiple lawyers tell you, there's nothing to worry about because you got the judge's signature, then show up at the court, throw those shoulders back and go, I got a letter from the judge. But here's what's going on. We've got a lot of fear in this call, and everybody can sue anybody. But just because they can sue you doesn't mean that they can win. So stand up to them. I think she's got a couple of options here. If a lawyer won't take your case, go. I'm begging you to take my case because I'm not strong enough to stand in the courtroom and wave the judge's letter in the air. And what he's saying, maria, if you can't do it yourself, then force some lawyer to go, all right, I'll take your money if you're that scared, because that's where you're at, they got nothing to worry about.

You need to hire the guy on the football team to take on the bully. That's what it amounts to. Because this is what happens. These people will sue just because freaking get away with it. And these lawyers, some of them, they think that you're just going to settle just because you're weak. And if you send off weak signals, then they really start thinking that. So you got to, uh uh. Wrong choice. You're going down.

See, do you know what it reminds me of? It's the rattling of the saber. It's that scene from Indiana Jones. I forget which movie. The guy's in the alleyway, and he's, ah, he's waving the swords. And Indy just kind of looks at him and then pulls a gun out.

Yeah. And just shoots him. Rachel's in Austin, Texas. Hey, Rachel. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

All right, so my husband and I have about $75,000 in our bank right now.

Cool.

We're kind of at a loss for what to do with it.

Send it to Po box in care of Dave's Bahama fund. I'm kidding. All right. Are you debt free?

Not yet. I hate this. We have one $5,000 student loan, and the only reason we still have it is because it's at a 2.75% interest rate, whereas our bank is at a 4.6% APY.

Yeah. And that's making you rich. 2% on five grand. You can't even go to Burger King. Okay. Pay off the student loan. What else?

Okay. We have a mortgage that has, I just checked it today, 262,000 left on it at a 3.25% interest rate.

Okay. Do you have an emergency fund other than the 75,000?

No.

What's your household income?

I make 108,000. He makes 85,000.

So you're making 200k. Good for you all. Well done. Good for you.

Thank you.

Okay. What we teach folks, Rachel, is a thing called the baby steps. I'm going to send you a copy of the book, the total money makeover, that outlines them in detail. Baby step one, save $1,000 as a beginner. Emergency fund two is be debt free. But the house. So pay off the student loan. Three is have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. Any money beyond that, we put them on four, five, and six. I want you to be putting 15% of your income away for retirement. Five is kids college. If that applies, they may be grown and gone. And six is pay off the house. I think you're going to pay this money down on the house after you pay off the student loan. If you have that emergency fund set aside and you follow those baby steps, that's what I would do. Hey, guys. Whether you're starting on a card table like I did or well on your way to becoming a multi million dollar company, Netsuite can help your team communicate and plan ahead better, like they do for Ramsay. Let me tell you, Netsuite really helped us get our systems together.

And more than 37,000 other companies also use Netsuite to know their numbers and their business better. So check out Netsuite today and find out how they can help you become the business you want to be five or 30 years from now. And right now, you can download Netsuite's free KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance@netsuite.com. Ramsay, Ken Coleman. Ramsay personality is my co host today. Ken, I'm going to be doing something I've never done before, a brand new event, Dave Ramsey's investing essentials. I'm going to dive deep into investing. First time ever. I'm going to go into my personal investing playbook, what I do, how I buy real estate, how I do all my other investments. And so this is not theory that someone taught you that you ought to do. It's actually what I do. Then you can decide if you want to do it or not. But this is what I do. It's a two night virtual event. We're going to cover one set of subject one night, another subject the next night. So it's not the same stuff over and over. It's two different nights. You need to be there.

Total of 4 hours, 2 hours each night, May 21 and 22. It's online. You can watch it from the comfort of your home. Investing is something you guys ask me to dive deeper into all the time. And there's all this garbage on these social media platforms, these people who just have an idea, an opinion, they're just trying to get your money and all that kind of stuff. We don't actually do investing. So we're just going to teach you because we're not trying to sell you anything now. We are going to sell you a ticket to this, but we're not trying to sell you any investments. There's no free steak dinner, and I'm going to put you in a bad life insurance policy crap. All that thing. You all got those right? Everybody gets those right. Now. How to maximize the course. That's kind of a baseline. And then real estate strategies and what other investing trends are out there, which ones are bogus, and so on. Tickets are $199 ramsaysolutions.com events. To get your tickets today. Today's question of the day comes from Angela in Maine.

Angela says, I'm up for a promotion where I would return to a unit I worked in years ago. I've heard the team has already been talking poorly about me. What? And have actually said I should watch my back if I get the job over one of their current team members. It's been a very toxic environment in that unit for decades. My question is, it may only be a three to 5% raise, and I don't think I want twice the amount of work for only $55 more a month. But I like the work in that unit and have about seven years till I retire. Do I take the job or stay put?

Oh, no.

If what I'm hearing and reading is absolutely true, this is a no brainer. Why would you want to go?

So do I stand neck deep in a septic tank for $55 for seven years?

They're already talking bad about you and threatening you to watch your back. You're not joining a job. You're joining a gang. No. I would say no, thanks.

Pass.

Hard pass.

God, Lee. Angela, it bothers me that you should have to know there was more to how. Here's how bad these people are. They already sent word to her.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, these aren't just. These are not passive gossips. These are active gossips. They sent a little messenger person over. One of those little messenger people that's kind of trying to be Switzerland. They're trying to be in the middle, but they're really not. This is because they kind of enjoy being in the middle, but they kind of don't. A little Switzerland person. Yeah. They bring that message over and just deliver it.

This is the metaphorical horsehead in the bed.

Watch it back.

Don't dare come over here. It just feels like a mob shakedown. And it is a mob, by the way.

No, let me tell you what this is. This is horrible leadership. Yeah. It's not even leadership, because it's not even a good. Yeah. What they need to do is fire a whole bunch of those people and start fresh with some good ones. Gross. Patrick's in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Patrick. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

Yeah, I was just wondering. I'm on baby step five, trying to go into six.

Good.

I'm out of debt. I'm trying to stay out of debt.

Good.

We have our fully funded emergency fund. No debt other than the house, but we have major expenses that are foreseeable. Coming up, HVAC unit, septic tank. Both our cars have over 100,000 miles. My emergency fund won't.

It's not an emergency. Those are foreseeable. Emergencies are unforeseeable. Okay, so you're not on baby step six. You don't put the money on the house until you get some money set back for these things that you know are going to be done. And you need to prioritize them and put a number beside each one of them and start attacking them and building a separate savings account for the septic tank, a separate savings account for the car replacement. A separate savings account for the HVAC. Okay.

And so should I still be maxing out my 401k while doing this?

You should be putting 15% of your household income in baby step four into your retirement, not maxing it out.

That's what we're doing now.

Is that maxing it out doing now?

Well, I'm putting about 800 a month towards my 401k.

Is that 15%?

It's a little under.

Okay, you should be putting 15%, and then you ought to look at the rest of your budget. And instead of paying extra on the house, whatever money you squeeze out of your budget goes into the next item that you are going to fix first. Car replacement. HVAC. I'm sorry.

Treat it as debt like the snowball?

No, just going to save for it. It's just a savings account. I'm going to save money to pay off. What's the first thing we're going to do? HVAC? Car or septic? Probably.

The septic is coming out of my emergency fund. I'm have to rebuild that.

Oh, you're already doing rebuild the emergency?

Yeah.

Okay, then the first thing you're going to do is you got to rebuild your emergency fund.

Yeah, well, it's enough to where we're still at three months.

The first thing you're going to do is rebuild your emergency fund. You didn't think three months was enough last time? Correct. So you need to put it where you think it needs to be. You think it needs to be at six. Put it at six. Once you get that, then save up and fix the HVAC. And then save up and replace Mama's car because mama gets the good car. That's federal law. And then we save up and we replace your old truck, right?

Yes.

Okay. So we have an order of attack, and we're going to put our money towards that very intentionally and very directly while doing 15% of your income into retirement. You can do all that and you may have to work extra a little bit. You may have to sell some stuff. You may have to do some things to keep it moving. But these are very predictable items. And this normally does happen, by the way, when you get to this stage, because you've been fixing nothing and driving beaters while you got out of debt. Way to go. That's what you're supposed to do now. You got to fix crap and replace the beaters. Once you get out of debt and you get up to maybe steps four, five and six, this is the perfect place to do it. You did it exactly right. Way to go. Good job, Patrick. Good job. Well done. Patrice is with us in Canada. Hi, Patrice. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Am I pronouncing that right?

Yes, it is.

Patrice, how are you? Perfect. Better than I deserve. How can I help? Good.

My question is, how do I tack the next few baby steps of four, five, and six? Because it's kind of complicated for me. And then how do I sell my home? And sure, everything is 50 50 between my sibling and I, legally and ethically. Long story short is that I'm out on my own paying 2500 a month in rent. I make about one hundred k a year. Ten years ago, I had bought a home with a sibling and we had a verbal agreement that my mom and the younger sister would chip in for my part of the mortgage I went through, a lot of life happened between that time. I got a divorce, moved back, and ended up paying a little bit more. Then I moved out on my own again and my sister volunteered to chip in more. And she said, I don't have to pay anything. But now I'm thinking that probably wasn't the best decision. So it was long before I knew about your teaching. So I'm just wondering right now I'm heading towards baby footsteps four, five and six.

Where do you want to end up with this house in five years?

I would prefer to sell it, but I'm thinking about my mother.

How old is your mother?

She is in her mid 70s.

Is she broke? Yes. Okay. And so she's living in your house that you own part of because you're taking care of your mother.

And my younger sister lived there as well, too.

And how old is your younger sister?

She is 38.

And she pays the bills like the payment.

So my older sister pays half of the $1,500 mortgage. That's all that's left per month. And basically, the three of them are splitting $1,500 in the mortgage cost.

Okay. So you're not paying anything out of pocket today?

No.

Okay. And you own this with the older sister?

Yeah. Correct.

God, this is confusing. Okay. All right. I think you talk to your older sister that says, at some point, I want to be out of this deal. I want it to sell. And then you talk to your younger sister, and you tell her what the timeline is. Okay. And then you figure out how you're going to take care of your mom. If that's before mom passes, it might be that we run this until mom passes, and then younger sister gets out on her own and we sell the house. That would be clean. Okay.

And is that ethically okay, since it's kind of wishy washy? Like, my sister may be paying more, and then they're covering my portion and they're not paying well, I think you.

All need to get clarity. The wishywashy is where people get pissed off for life. I know. And spoken to my brother in ten years because he didn't do well. Yeah, that's because you all need to write it down. This is our timeline, and this is our agreement. In the interim of that timeline, you three are going to pay the bill. When mom passes, we're going to sell the house, and little sister's going to go have a life. And that's probably a good plan. Something like that. I don't care. But write it all out, and everybody sign it. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman Ramsay, personality number one, bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at. One of the great joys, Ken, of being me, is that from time to time, our team helps me out by sending me the things that people say about me on YouTube, comments, and other social media, because I don't look at any of that stuff.

And so my team here, they're generous and charitable in that they want me to know what people are saying. Dave is an idiot. A poor man's smart man. German Drummer 13 booster 69 69 says use a debit card and not a credit card at the gas pump is some of the most idiotic and dangerous information I've ever heard, especially considering there are so many people that actually follow this guy's quote, expert advice. Ben Jammon 85 81 says, what a stupid waste of money. Dave Ramsay is too rich to give advice to anyone. Yeah, because you'd want to listen to a poor person's advice about money. If I went broke and lost it all, which I did and started again and stayed broke, that would give me credibility. You're not bright, are you? Okay. Thomas Marlowe 1254, says it's not bad to use credit cards if you pay them off. When you get paid and don't accumulate interest and then use the credit back. Davis an idiot by saying, don't use credit cards. It's free money if you pay it off. Hey, Thomas is not free. You had to pay it off. Remember that part? There's no free money helping you with this.

This is my favorite. Psychiatric psychatic. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I like that. I like that. That's a good handle. I don't know. What is this? This is, I guess, YouTube or something. Dave Ramsey gives dinosaur monetary advice. Don't listen to these idiots. Buy bitcoin. There it is.

Well, there's a pattern, folks. If you're listening and watching.

I saw a pattern. Idiot is mentioned several times as a pattern. I saw.

Yeah, but you know what the pattern is? Never listen to the comment or advice of anybody with a dumb username followed by four numbers, every one of them. German drummer 13 booster 6969. Ben Jammin 85 81. Honey Badger, 29 80. There's a pattern here, folks. These people aren't creative enough to come up with a username without four random digits. You shouldn't listen to those people. That's my takeaway.

Really?

Honey Badger 29 80. I'm giving him a lot of coverage.

Wonder if it was. Honey badger is pretty. That's a cool name, though.

Yeah, but stop there. You ruined it with 29.

You probably couldn't get it through. There's probably 73 of them. Exactly. Again, so you got to get lack of really original. Yeah, exactly.

These people aren't creative enough, and yet they're criticizing your financial.

Aristotle said, there's one way to avoid criticism. Say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing.

Isn't that true?

And we say a lot all the time, rather loudly, to 100 million people a week. So it's kind of a problem. Yeah, that's what it is. So it just goes with the territory. Hey, it's the price of admission to be me, and I'll pay it.

It's a good gag.

It's a good gag.

I'm going to create a new username, dipwod 64 37. And I'm just going to go start commenting everywhere the people in the audience like that one.

Dipwad.

Dipwad 64 37. Watch for him at a website, news.

He's a neutral. A new troll has been born.

We've watched the birth of a troll rescue us.

From this day, John is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. What's up, John?

Hey, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call.

My pleasure. How can we help?

Okay, so I'm selling a business I've had for 27 years.

Wow.

And I need to know what to do with the money on top of what I have kind of going on already.

How much do you sell it for, man?

Well, I'm going to be selling it for a million dollars.

Wow. Good for you.

Thank you. Started it with $100 bill, actually, and a pickup.

That's a good return.

And 27 years of freaking sweat.

Yeah. It's been a lot of work and a lot of listening to your shows and reading your books. I've been applying the principles, but I'm at the place where I've got about 625,000 between mutual funds.

Ira.

Simple plan that I've had at work that we basically set up for ourselves to have a savings plan. So I'm going to sell this business. I don't really own real estate, except my house is paid for, of course. Don't know what to do with the money when I get it.

I can't put it in the bank. Well, you can't.

I'm a tither.

So I've been supporting the church for years. I believe in it. I believe it's the right thing to do. I enjoy that privilege, but I'm not going to give it all away either.

So what do we say? Very good for you, man. So what kind of business was it? Electrical.

Electrical? Contracting.

Love that.

How old are you?

I'm 59. Started in the work when I was 17. I started the business when I was. I forget what year it was, but it was 27 years ago that I started the business.

For any of you out there that heard somebody say, you can't be a millionaire in America anymore, I'm just talking to one. He's worth 1.65. He's 59, and he's an electrician.

That's right.

So just to help you out. Oh, and parents don't tell me America's dead. Okay. Way to go. I'm so proud of you. Good job. All right, so you're baby steps millionaires. So, on the money part, I'll step in, and then I'll have Ken talk to you about the career kind of side of it in a minute. But I always tell folks when you get a windfall like this, a big check coming to put three names on it. After you paid your taxes and your tithe, okay? After you do that, then put three names on the rest of the money. Lifestyle. In other words, enjoy some of it. Additional charity, additional generosity, and then invest it. And I don't care what the percentage is. You put a percentage on that. So I want you to. Are you married?

Yes.

I want you to blow your wife's mind with the best trip that you could ever think of. You've worked with $1.6 million, and you've never traveled enough. You've never enjoyed enough of the good things. And, budy, you've earned it. So go blow her freaking mind. Do you hear my instructions?

Yes, sir.

Have some fun. Have some fun, dude. You've earned it. You're a good man. You work hard. You've watched your pennies. You know what you're doing. So pick out something, and you all go do something fancy, okay? Now, so that's the lifestyle percentage. And you could say, I'm going to spend x percentage on lifestyle. And that can be upgrading a car, fixing some stuff on the house, going on trip. It could be all of those things. I don't care. We're going to put another percentage, and you decide what the percentage is into generosity, and we're going to put another percentage into investing. I only invest when I'm using that formula for Sharon and I in two things. I invest in real estate that I pay cash for, and I invest in mutual funds. Okay? And that's where I would go. And, Ken, as we head in the break, tell him right quick, what's some.

Good advice from a career perspective once the deal closes? You've worked really hard for this, and Dave already talked about the celebrating part. I would make sure you rest and just take some downtime and just rest and do something that is restful for your mind and heart. And then I would do some good, take some downtime, and just do good work for free. Bless some people, use that skill set, mentor somebody. And then finally, after all of that, I'd let your mind begin to wonder and dream again, and you've got some time left. Statistically, I think that's a good way.

You're probably going to start something else season. Yeah, you could start something else and be very successful again. This is the Ramsey show, guys. It's no secret that the real estate market is weird right now. So go with a mortgage company you can trust to have your back. Churchill mortgage. Churchill is Ramsay trusted because they're stable, reliable, and focused on you. At a time when a lot of companies are being bought out or going out of business, count on Churchill mortgage to stick around. They've been doing things the right way for over 30 years, and they'll keep doing them the right way for 30 more. Get started@churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLs id 1591 nmlsconsumeraxis.org equal housing lender.

1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100 Brentwood, Tennessee.

37027 the money and marriage getaway is back this fall, October 24 through 26. Dr. John Deloney and Rachel Cruz join them for a weekend away here in Nashville to focus on your marriage. It's right here on campus at our Ramsey event Center. You'll participate in two and a half days of teaching focused on communication, intimacy, money, all the stuff you need to do to win at marriage. Lots of q a. You get answers to your real questions. It gets a little dicey in there sometimes. Yeah, I was a little bit embarrassed, but John Deloney, he tackles that stuff head on. Platinum tickets already sold out, but there's a few vip tickets left, which include meet and greets with John and Rachel. Get them before they're gone. Tickets start at 799. It's a whole weekend on campus here with us. Get here early on Friday. You can watch us do the show. It's a lot of fun. That's free, by the way. It's worth what you pay for it, too. Visit ramsaysolutions.com events. Yeah, we're on the glass here. We've usually got 50 to 200 folks out here watching the show, eating our homemade cookies, drinking our coffee, all for free.

And we're here from one to four central time Monday through Friday. Two of us will be sitting here doing this show for 3 hours a day. We invite you. There's a good crowd out there today. So thank you guys for joining us and thanks for stopping by on your spring breaks and everything else you're doing out there. Good stuff. Melissa is in Atlanta. Hey, Melissa. Welcome to the Ramsay show. Hello.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

Well, I have a 2012 tahoe that I might be a little bit emotionally connected to. And my husband is telling me that it might be time to sell. So I'm wondering, when do you sell versus when do you repair? I haven't heard it discussed on the show since I've been listening.

Interesting. How many miles?

About 170,000.

Okay. That old Tahoe raised your kids, didn't it?

Yeah.

I'm telling you, my kids, even sentimental to my children.

I mean, they're goldfish from 1972. Were in the back.

It's the truth, essentially. And I can't tell you how amazing this car has been. The only thing we have ever done to it is an oil change. Religious oil changes.

What's wrong with it now? Any mechanical issues?

So. There are not currently any mechanical issues. However, my husband, who is a mechanic, can fix these things themselves, albeit he doesn't really have the time, says that it's looking at a transmission in the future and is starting to have some suspension problems, just with things being worn out. And so he's telling me that the value of it is starting to approach the cost of repair.

Yeah, well, when the husband's a mechanic, Dave, we pretty much don't have a discussion here.

I'm afraid he's right. Yeah, that's a good formula. When the repairs are worth. When you spend $3,000 on a repair and when you finish the repair, the car is worth less than $3,000. That was a bad move. Agreed.

Okay.

Like, if you change the tires on the car and the car is worth more, that's a problem.

Yes.

That's where you get to. Right. I've done this. This is how I know. Now, technically speaking, if you want to run the numbers, you could repair a car cheaper than you can buy a new one the rest of your life. But it reaches a point that it's just not worth the. So, yeah, I think you need a new car. Yeah, I'm with him. You do not a brand new car. But, I mean, I think you need to buy a better mean. You've gotten the life out of this one. It's served you well. Oh, Bessie. It's time for her to go to Tahoe heaven.

Well, and we're on baby step number two, so not a lot of cash set aside.

Yeah.

Then you got to sell it and use that cash.

Yeah, you got to wait, then. I'm not going to trade $3,000 car for $3,000 car.

Well, that's what we would be doing, essentially.

No, I'm not doing that. I'm sorry. I made an assumption that was wrong. I thought you were in better position. You get out of baby step two and you get your emergency fund. Then you save up and move up in car. I'd drive that one until then? Yeah.

Until the wheels fall off.

Yeah.

No, until you get out of baby step three. How much debt you got left, kiddo?

Yeah, we only have 30,000 left and we are scheduled to pay that off within the next 15 months.

Okay. You're going to be fine. This car will make it a while longer. It's just you ask a question of when it makes no sense to keep the car. Now when we put that into the context of I got $30,000 in debt to pay off and it's going to slow down the debt payment. If I go buy a $10,000 car, I'm going to wait and drive the old beater. That's what I did. It's what Ken did. We drive the beater until we get out of debt and you just keep patching it together with duct tape and baling wire and you keep it running. And the good news is you got the guy there that knows how to do it.

That's right. Yeah. You got some sway with the old mechanic. So I tell him, hey, look, what's the transmission going to cost if you have to take care of it? Because you'd be surprised how much less expensive it is when you're not paying.

For lay down to it. We're down to it. That's it. He's got.

He would be the guy that have to put the new transmission in, which.

Is a pain in the butt. Okay. Exactly. Sophia is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Sophia. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Ramsey family.

Hey, what's up?

Okay, first of all, thank you. I am living with my mother or my mother and I are living together and she is 88 years old and I just found out that she has whole life insurance. It's 6700 face amount and 23 42 cash value. I don't know how to advise her whether she should cash it in or continue paying the $50 a month that she's been paying. And it's been a while.

Yeah.

She has $4,033 in her savings.

If I had found her years ago, I would have canceled it in a heartbeat at 88. How's her health?

She had some issues, but in fair condition.

Okay, well, what the life insurance people use is they use an actuarial table where they statistically try to predict death. Okay. And that tells them how to price these things. So here's what you've got, you've got a $6,700 life insurance policy that has a $2,500 cash value. Did I get that right?

2000.

302,300. Okay. Yeah. You actually have $4,000 worth of insurance because they're going to keep the 2300 and they're going to give you the 6700. So the net is all that the insurance is worth. Does that make sense? Yes. You put $2,300 in your hand today and not have the policy anymore. Cancel it. That's one option. Okay. You did away with $4,300 worth of insurance that you're paying $600 a year for. So if she lives seven years, you lose money. That's the math.

Okay.

If she lives less than seven years, you make money. In no case are you going to lose or make much because it's not got zeros on it. It's just a couple of grand.

Right.

So it's nothing stress about. How does she feel about it?

Well, at first she felt that she should cash it in because she's already paid.

Like, she's paid for it 60 times. I mean, there's no question she was ripped off. But the only question now is from today forward, what makes sense? And you're paying $50 a month, $600 a year to get $4,000 worth of insurance in your 88. So if you make it past 95, you've lost money on this transaction. If she dies tomorrow, you're not going to make much. You can make $4,000 is all for $50 a month.

I just want to make sure that her final expenses are covered. She's concerned about leaving something for her kids.

She's not going to leave anything.

No kids. We're grown.

She doesn't have anything. I mean, 6700 plus a savings account, small like that pay for a funeral and that's about it, right? Final expenses are covered and that's fine. There's nothing. No shame in that. But emotionally I'd probably keep it. I hate the stupid things. On principle, I'd cash it in in a heartbeat. But I just kind of think it makes this lady feel better that she's got this laying there to take care of her funeral.

Okay. And Dave, can I. Thank you for getting me to four months of emergency fund?

Oh, very good.

I am on my way as well. I'm so proud of you for all that you're doing.

Thank you. Thanks for being a listener.

Yeah.

This is the Ramsey show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality is my co host today in the lobby of Ramsey solutions we have the debt free stage. On the debt free stage would be Juan and Arielli. Did I say that? Even close. Close enough.

Arieli.

Arie.

Arielli.

Arielli.

Arieli. It's hard to say it in hillbilly. Okay, good. Arielli. I got it. I'm close now. Way to go, guys. So where do you all live?

We live in Clearwater, Florida.

Fun. And how much debt did you pay off?

We paid off a little over 37,000.

Very cool. And how long did that take?

Five months. In 19 days.

I love it. And your range of income during that time?

We were about 103 to 150,000.

Oh, wow. Nice. Jump in just a little bit. Good. What do you all do for a living?

I'm a registered nurse, and I'm an.

Area manager for a gaming company.

Okay, very cool. Good to have you guys.

Yeah, thanks.

Proud of you. What kind of debt was the 37,000?

Sure.

It was everything from car loan to credit cards. We even financed a dog.

Oh, wow. What kind of dog?

Yellow lab.

Yellow lab.

Oh, they're good dogs.

He's great.

They're better when they're debt free, though. And that's their little dog. Yeah. Can't be repo. I love it. Good for you all. Very fun. So what happened five months ago? What was the wake up call put you on this Ramsay stuff?

Well, back in January of 2023, Juan ended up losing his job. And so we didn't realize how much debt we were in. And having to be on a single income really just shook our world.

I can still hear the fear in your voice right now. It's all gone. That's all in the bass. She's just remembering it. You could hear her vocal cords tightened up. Do you hear it?

I know.

That's just me. No, that's good. That's the truth. You were feeling it.

Yeah. It was a really rough time.

And then I want to say it was one day at church that came across someone that I was just venting. It was a dark time for us just because we were fighting a lot, and we were just like, man, how are we going to go? This whole while? I was going to the next job. And then someone at church mentioned, hey, that Ramsay guy. And we were like, all right, cool. I checked it out, and I'm, like, a zero to 100 type person. So I came home and kind of freaked her out. I'm like, we're doing this plan, and we're selling everything, and that's how we got into it.

Yeah. And the smart conference that you guys did in April really just helped jumpstart that. We were like, you know what? This is when we're going to start budgeting. This is when we're going to get our life in order. And we did zero to 60. We both got two new jobs. We both were working two jobs at the time. Literally seven days a week.

That took you from 103 to 150. That work thing.

Yes, there was that. And it was the first time that we started tithing consistently. And just things that we couldn't really explain just happened. Like, we ended up getting some refund money from a collection agency.

Yeah, refund from. That's a tithe story for sure. Only God can make that happen.

Exactly. And I want to say, more than halfway through, initially, we were scheduled to be debt free within, like, I want to say, 1213 months. And then in the beginning, when we were in the program, shout out to Vanessa Fields, by the way, she was an awesome coordinator.

Oh, you went to financial peace University.

We went through SBU. And I remember she was asking us, like, hey, do you guys have anything to sell? And of course, I flat out lied. And I was like, no, I have nothing. And I have a whole game room just full of stuff that was worth a lot of money. And just, I want to say, halfway through, just, God really tugged in my heart and was like, hey, this is stuff. It's not worth marriage. It's not worth. Not worth your future. So I sold it all. It was worth between twelve, $13,000.

What was it?

That we got? Video games, stuff that I collected over the years, stuff that I had from when I was a kid.

All associated with gaming, though. Yes. Okay.

Yeah, the second hand market, it's really hot right now for stuff like that.

You can get big money for that. Atari, right? I'm kidding.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Super Nintendo, regular Nintendo, all that stuff.

Really? Okay. But just watching your body language. He did something for his wife that was meant the world to him, but did it for the good of the family. That's what's called a man right there. It was so proud of you. You sacrificed for your family. Because I can see you in your face. It's still a little painful.

I'm curious. You mentioned you guys were arguing a lot. It was dark. You took us to the church moment. You said it was a dark time. I'm curious how quickly the tension and the arguments went away once you guys got unified and got gazelle intense. Can you remember?

So, first two to three weeks, and for anyone that's listening out there, getting on a budget, that monthly meeting that Rachel talks about, it was not monthly. It was daily. It was daily because we didn't know how. Even though we were married on paper and in the faith, we didn't realize how separate we were in that area. But I want to say, after a month, especially when we started tithing, I mean, that's where just slowly but surely, things just started changing. And then we realized, man, there is a lot of peace in this.

Yeah.

And so now, on the other side of this, about ready to your scream, how would you say the tension around money is now at this moment?

It's doing better.

Yeah.

At the end of the day, we're not perfect by any means.

I like that. I want people to hear that it's not perfect. But the point is, you're on the same page on this stuff.

Yes, we are on the same page. And we worked really hard together to get through this, so it definitely grew us together in our marriage, but also individually as well.

Yeah. Good for you.

Thank you.

You guys are incredible. I'm so proud of you because I'm watching a whole bunch of stuff happen right here in front of my eyes. This story is riveting because you mentioned tithing twice, so you've done a complete flip where God is now first, your relationship is second, and everything else is after. And it wasn't that way before. You lined up on this stuff. It forced you to face that and flip it.

Yes. We didn't realize how selfish we were, especially in our spending. So this way, we, oof. Yes. We got it in order.

The Lord said that out loud.

Preaching. Now, I was telling you that hits.

Everybody ready to go. That's what I was observing. I wasn't going to say it that way, but, yeah, that's very well done. Very well done. So you got to have some folks that are watching you from the outside that are just going, you guys, your transformation is amazing. You got to have people cheering you on.

Yes, we do. We have an amazing church family, our families themselves. My brother is a huge Dave Ramsey. Like, he literally looks like you. He got bald hair, and he's got the goatee going too.

Oh, my gosh. Bless his heart.

So, yeah, he's big like Dave Ramsay. And so he really encouraged us. So that was really helpful.

All right, way to go, guys. What advice do you have to somebody who's in a dark place and has $37,000 worth of debt? How do they get out?

Start. Don't quit. Yeah, don't quit. No matter what, no matter how tough it is. I mean, God's with us in the dark time. He's with us in the high time. He's with us all the way through. Just keep going. No matter what. Don't stop. And if you're married, you got a spouse. Communicate over communicate. Doesn't matter how tiresome it gets. You keep going.

And two big things, budgeting, for sure. I mean, you all talk about it all the time, but staying in the budget really helped. And then also using cash. It is inconvenient when you have to go to places that it's easier to use a card. But I will say, using the envelope system, using cash, it helped us stick to our budget way better.

Yeah, it's a lot easier when the envelope is empty. You quit.

Exactly.

Especially when you're in the new training program, like, yes. Very well done. You guys are incredible. I'm so proud of you. Hey, we've got a couple of every dollar one year subscriptions for you, one for you guys to use to stay connected to every dollar on the budget and stay signed up. We'll pay for it now. And you can give it away to somebody else. We'll give you two of them. So thank you, guys, for making the trip all the way from clear water. You're absolutely heroes.

Thank you.

Very well done, man. We watched that happen right before our eyes.

Really special.

Very cool. All right, Juan. And say it again.

Arielli.

Arielli. Juan and Arielli from Clearwater, Florida. $37,000 paid off in five months, making 103 to 150. But most importantly, a complete transformation of their relationship and their view on life. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream.

Three, two, one.

Yeah. That's how that's done, boys and girls. I love it. This is the Ramsey show.

Listen, I know a lot of you would rather watch paint dry in slow motion than file your taxes, but thankfully, you don't have to dread filing when you've got Ramsay smart tax. It comes packed with everything you need to file online before the big deadline. That means all major federal forms and deductions are covered with no hidden fees. Plus, with Ramsay smart tax, you can save up to 70% compared to other tax software out there. It's a no brainer. Just go to ramsaysolutions.com smarttax and see how simple tax filing can be. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash smarttax.

Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Carol is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Carol. Welcome to the Ramsay show.

Hi, how are you?

Better than we deserve what's up.

So I'm going to try really hard not to cry. My husband lost his job three years ago, and I had an accident. So we started at $10,000 a month. We are down to $2,400 a month. I have sold everything. I own nothing. I don't even own a car no more. We live in a house. My husband farms now with his dad, and his dad's like 83 years old, so he feels like 24 is. Wow, that's a lot of money. And we are very thankful for that. Don't get me wrong. We are so thankful for what God has given us. We have a house that we live in because John farms the ground. We get it free. So God is definitely providing. However, I'm out of savings. I'm out of money completely. I'm barely making my bills. I had an accident. There was an accident three years ago. I've had eight surgeries.

Oh, my. Like an automobile accident.

No, I don't want to go there. Let's not go there. But I don't know what to do. I can barely make my bills. I don't know.

What bills do you have?

Utilities, Internet for school.

How many children do you water propane?

One.

What age?

Eleven.

Okay. All right.

And I. Home school.

What was your husband doing before he lost his job?

He was working for a power company. He was making really good money.

What's really good money?

Well, we were bringing home ten grand.

He was.

No, he was bringing like, six.

Okay. And you were making four somewhere in there. And you're unable to work now because of the accident.

And now I don't even have a car to even make it to work.

No, that wasn't what I was asking. Are you physically unable to work because of the accident?

No. What I did previously, yes, because my body, I don't have the grip in my hands no more. My whole right side, basically. They've tried to reconfigure it or fix it. I can walk.

If your husband can make $6,000 a month at the power company before, why could he not do something like that again? That's three times more than he's making now.

Before he went to the power company, he farmed. And then he went into the power company. Well, he didn't ever want to go into the power company, but his ex wife made him, I guess. Or she wanted more money.

I don't think she's evil. You called me with the same request.

Right.

So he wants to farm. He's always wanted a farm. And it's his daddy's farm, and it's the daddy connection. There's a couple of things going on here. Does your husband think that your father in law should be paying him more, or is he hunky dory with what he's getting paid?

Well, he's not going to go to his dad and ask for more. I had to write a letter to his dad and point it all out, and then he gave him a little bit of a raise.

Yeah.

Your husband needs to step up right now and step up in a big way.

Right?

Yeah. So here's the thing. The language you're using tells us that I can't make my bills, which means your husband is not involved in this at all, which is wrong. Okay? So you need to sit down with him tonight at the kitchen table and say, I cannot be the only adult in this house anymore. I need some help, bubba. You about to help me. You don't have an option. You're going to help me figure this out because I can't make this math work, and you don't want to do anything about the income side of the equation. So you show me where the magic's going to happen, because I can't figure this out. I'm not carrying the stress and the pain of this anymore all by myself while you go out there and play farmer and act like everything's okay, because it ain't okay. Bubba, you need to have that talk tonight with the television off and the kid in the bed. This is very serious because this is not going to last. This is how he got an ex wife. The last time is he did not attend to the needs of his household.

Well, I don't know about that.

I do. I've been talking to you for five minutes, and I believe it. That's exactly right. He's not a bad man. He's just absent emotionally and financially. He works hard during the day, comes home and does nothing at night.

Well, I agree with that.

Okay. He's a good, hardworking man. He's an honest man.

Yes.

But he does not understand. And let me just tell you guys, I'm one of them. We're pretty thick. You got to explain it to us.

I don't know.

Tonight is going to be the.

Got it.

You got to use a verbal tuba for and hit him in the face. This is stopping tonight, Bubba. I'm done. I can't do this anymore. The surgeries and the stress of the finances, being the only person in this household making adult decisions is over. You're going to have to sit down, look at these numbers with me and decide with me.

I've already given them that. I took my name.

No, you did.

Yes, I did.

No, you did. I don't believe that.

I took it off the bank account. I told him I wanted no more to do with the bills because mentally I cannot handle.

What was his response?

But I'm the one that pick up the mail.

What was his response?

What?

I'm going to choose to believe you. Dave doesn't. I'm going to believe you for the moment. What was his response when you laid it out that way?

He was upset, but nothing. He goes, well, how do I pay this bill online? Well, I went and I showed him and I said, but it's this amount.

Don't ask me how much I'm talking about.

He's talking about money. You got to make more money.

I'm talking about the two of you sitting down and adding up what it is coming in every month and what's going out every month, and both of you looking at it. Just get a yellow pad out and write it all down. Here's what it costs.

Last night we did with a friend.

With him.

With him, your husband with him, yeah.

And what did he say then?

Well, we have like $5 left over. So he's just not.

He's detached from reality. That's the bottom line. Dave nailed it. This is a guy who's playing farmer, and it's a fun role for him. Yes, he's working hard, but I will say you got to work, too. You said earlier that you felt like you could still do something. It's time for you to do something, too. You can't do what you did before, but maybe you're going to have to model the way. And I'll be honest with you, sister, I'm not sure that your relationship's got a lot of hope if he doesn't wake up to this. I'm serious. You got to get self sufficient.

I think the two of you need to sit down and get some help with your marriage to where you start working together, because you're not. And there's like, I'm going to make him do this. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about we need to agree that we're going to carry the weight of this together. Last night we sat down and went through all this together. The next day you call me on the radio crying. So last night didn't do any good. So you didn't get there, that you got more work to do. So the two of you have to sit down together, lay out a game plan, and then there's a wake up call that says, I'm going to have to get a job. You're going to have to get a different job, or you're going to to have talk to your daddy about a raise, because this is not going to work anymore. These numbers don't add up, and it's freaking me out. And I'm not going to live my life in terror, and I'm not going to take responsibility for something that you won't participate in. We're going to do this together.

Two grown adults. I'm not your mama. I'm your wife. That's what's going on. So you don't need to write a letter to his father. You live in his house. Walk yourself up into the living room and go, hey, me and the kid over here, we're hungry. We can't pay the bill because you don't pay your son nothing because you're living in 1950 on your wage rates. And so we got to do some changing here, pops, or we're going back to the power company like the last wife did. This is how this works. This is the Ramsey show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 Ken Coleman Ramsay, personality, number one, bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose, is my co host today. We're talking to you about your life and your money. Twin cities, Minnesota, Chris is calling. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave and Ken. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. Yeah. I was calling to seek wisdom and advice from you guys. I've been a listener the Dave Ramsey show and trying to intentionally get on same page as you guys. Just breaking the cycle of my own personal life. I have done a lot of dumb within these last several years. I'm in the midst of a storm right now, and I'm trying to get help from you guys.

What kind of storm are you in, Chris, right now?

Well, I'm the person that you guys have talked on your platform that you shouldn't be cohabiting whenever trying to do the financial peace university.

So you're living with somebody and it's a breakup. What's happening specifically?

Yeah, so I basically separated and we had children in it. We weren't married. And basically we're going through the court system at this point, and since 2023.

The court system to establish child support and so forth.

Yeah, child custody and everything. And basically she's being vindictive at this point and putting a wedge between the children. And I, my lawyer thinks it might come down to me getting the children full time. I'm not for certain on that. Our next hearing is coming up in April. I'm trying to think of set goals, I guess, during this time. I think I know what you guys would encourage during a storm, just bunkering down and putting things on hold. I don't know if.

Chris, I feel like you're talking around your question. What can we specifically help you with?

Well, I guess I need to create more margin in my budget. I see that's going to be a problem. And I think out of the life domains that you guys talk about, whether I feel like my family is being.

Hit.

My health and my finances, and I picked up a side gig whenever all this started going down because I knew I was going to use up a chunk of my emergency fund and so I was able to rebuild that back up. But I feel like I'm going to get hit again coming in 2024.

So you need more income. You need more income and soon. How much more income do you need? Give us a round number that you feel like would take care of some of these upcoming responsibilities. Is it three grand, five grand, seven grand more per month? What's your goal?

So my goal is you guys talk about 78,000 being the average income.

What's your goal? How much do you need?

I make 54,000 a year.

Okay.

How much more do you need per month?

Probably a couple of thousand.

Okay. And you're working a side gig to get that. How are you doing on that?

Yeah, so, yeah, I did the side gig and I did make a couple thousand and that really did help. But I felt like with all everything that's kind of going on, it wasn't sustainable. I was kind of running low at the very end. It was able to help me get my emergency built back up.

Okay, so if you're sitting at home at night after work, instead of working the side gig, what are you doing?

I'm either taking care of my children.

Okay, so you get part custody?

Yeah, I get temporary custody.

Temporary full time. They live with you?

Well, no, they don't live with me.

Okay, so how many days or nights a week have you got them?

Every other night.

Every other night. Okay, so then the other night you're working, right?

Yeah.

And why is that not sustainable for the short run?

I guess it is. I mean, I was working all weekends. I was just kind of tiring out, and I didn't know whether I need to start looking for another job as an option.

Sure, it should be an option. You don't have to put all your eggs in that basket, but you absolutely need to be working right now, stacking cash. And I know you're tired.

If you had $20,000 in the bank and you retired, you'd feel better.

That's right.

Yeah. I was working on your material, Ken, and I got clear on that.

Okay.

All right, so hold on. So, Chris, I'm going to walk you through really fast. I need you to give me the fastest answers you can. You cool? Don't think. I just want you to react.

All right.

What did you get clear on? What job or what career path did you get clear on that? Boy, you sure would like to have it. Just say it.

What is it?

Be an entrepreneur in a glamping business.

Okay, so glamping. So we want to start a glamping business. I could tell you right now, I don't care how great your idea is, you need to put that on hold. You are in a season of flex right now and flux, which means you got to be flexible. That second job right now, you need to be back at that. It sounds like you're not doing it anymore, but you need to be doing that. Stacking cash, working every available hour. You have to put this money away to be able to take care of these kiddos and pay these legal bills. Now, the glamping idea, and any entrepreneurial idea that's going to cause you to spend time and money we don't have time and money to spend right now. Correct?

Okay.

Correct.

All right, so I love the dream. I'm putting the dream on pause. We will get to that once we get stable. Stability, stability, stability. Those are the top three words in your mind. And the way we get stability is more cash, more savings, and get through this custody issue. Then we start to build. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense.

All right, brother. Thanks for calling.

Yeah. You're running about 43 directions at one time. Pick you two kids, lawyer, stack, cash, that's three. Kids, lawyer, stack, cash. That's three. And just think about those three things all the time. Nothing else. Right now. This is the Ramsay show.

I know you work hard for your money, and the key to keeping more of it in your pocket is by making a plan for your spending with a budget. And every dollar is the budgeting app that I use personally because it's perfect for looking every dollar you make in its little president face and telling it exactly where you want it to go. Just like you told that guy in traffic, exactly where you wanted him to go. And even better, everydollar walks you through the entire budgeting journey. So you always know your next right step. Download everydollar for free in the App Store or Google Play today.

Oh, I hate taxes.

Me too.

Tax season gag. A lot of people got questions about taxes. You know why? They're freaking complicated, that's why. There's enough paper in that IRS code to choke seven horses. It's unbelievable. So one of our listeners sent this question in about taxes. I want to avoid overpaying taxes each month. What do I need to change with my paycheck? Well, let's change your question. To start with. You're not overpaying your taxes. Well, yeah, you are. You're paying too much towards your taxes. I guess it's the same thing. You actually are not overpaying. They don't charge you more. You just get it back. So you don't want more coming out of your check. You're right. Than you need to pay. So you need to figure out what your actual tax bill is. And that should be the amount coming out of your check divided by 26 or 24 or twelve or however many paychecks you get, right? So you divide it into that. And if you don't know, there's a couple of easy ways, a couple of cheats, hacks that you can get to on it. If your situation hasn't changed, you haven't moved, you don't make more money, you didn't get married, you didn't have a kid, nothing has changed.

Then just adjust it by your refund for the last couple of years. So the last three years, I've gotten $3,000. That's $250 a month. Nothing has changed. Then you just need to have $250 less taken out of your check. So just go to payroll and say, change my w four by my w two, whatever, by $250 per month, please. And they can do that. Okay? That's the easy way. Now, if something's changed, then get like Ramsay tax smart tax software and run your taxes out and figure out what your actual tax bills is. And then based on your actual tax bill is $12,467 or whatever it is per year, what is it you actually owe? Have that amount taken out per year out of your check. And so again, divide it into the number of paychecks until payroll. This is the amount I want taken out. Now, that's exact. That's going to hit it perfectly. Or within $50.01 way or another, and you'll be just fine. So you just got to go to HR, fill out another w four that has the amount withheld. Here's the stupid thing. 70 something percent of Americans get a tax refund.

That means seven out of ten of you people are sending the government more money than you need to send them. And then you dance around in April like Santa Claus sent you a present. Well, I know Santa Claus. I'm old. He's a personal friend. He does not live, nor does he stay anywhere near Washington, D. C. He has nothing to do with that place. Good people don't go there. I'm kidding. But not much. It's awful. It's horrible. No, he has nothing. This money was your money. You gave them your money. You loaned it to them. You put it in a savings account with the federal freaking government at 0% interest, and they sent it back to you with no interest. And you act like you did something smart. Seven out of ten of you. What is wrong with you? Stop this. Was I unclear, Ken? No.

I think I got the message.

Okay, good. So. Ramsaysolutions.com tax. If you need help with your taxes, you want more great information like this, we'll help you. The Ramsey smart tax. If you've got an easy return, it's not complicated. Ramsey smart tax software is very inexpensive. It's not like those other guys. We're not going to try to sell you six ways from Sunday. We'll sell you. We'll loan you money on your refund. Oh, my God. Payday lender. What is wrong with you people? No, we'll issue you a credit card. What? They want to sell you debt. We're not going to try to sell you debt. We're just going to help you do your taxes. If you've got a complicated return, you can get with one of our thousands of Elps endorsed local providers to help you with your taxes. They're tax pros. They can help you. Bethany's in Dallas. Hi, Bethany. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi. Thank y'all for taking my call.

Certainly. What's up?

So I am very underwater in two vehicles and trying to figure out if it's worth to keep them and just paying them off or if I should try to sell them before starting my debt snowball.

Okay, so you're married?

Yes.

And your household income is this year.

Should be right at 140.

Good. Okay. And vehicle number one, you owe how much on 50,000? What do you think it's worth?

Kelly? Blue book says private party of 35,000.

Ouch. You must have rolled negative into that puppy.

I didn't.

Oh, it just sucks. What is it?

It's a 2021 Yukon.

Really? Sucker doe?

Yes.

You put a million miles on it or what?

I bought it last year in April. So I've had it almost a year. It had 65,000 miles on it, and I just rolled into 105,000 miles.

What did you pay for it by.

The time I didn't put anything extra down. So after taxes and fees and all.

That, it was 57,001 year later, it's worth 35.

Yes, sir.

So you overpaid?

I did, yeah. That was market price for that month. No, still too expensive.

The car did not lose $15,000 in one year. Okay. Something's wrong with one of these numbers, but anyway. Okay, next one.

It's a 2018 Dodge truck. It's my husband's truck. And we owe a little under 30,000, right? Like 29 and some change. And Kelly, Blue Book says it's only worth 18,000.

Okay, so you have $80,000. No, that's $80,000 worth of debt. You have $53,000 worth of vehicles. So based on the 140, you wouldn't have to sell it. You're making 140. How much other debt do you people have?

18,000 total. We have 5000 in medical debt, 6000 in credit cards, and 7000 in student loans.

So 72 clears you and you make 140, right?

Yes, sir.

36 a year is $3,000 a month. Are you willing to do that?

Yes, sir.

If you can do that, you can keep them.

Okay.

But I probably would rethink how I'm doing car deals based on the way you did this Yukon deal.

Absolutely.

Something's wrong with that deal. Okay. Because those numbers don't drive. But if you want to keep it, it's a fine vehicle. There's nothing wrong with it as far as I'm concerned. So our rule of thumb is if your vehicle's value, everything with motors and wheels that you own is less than half your annual income, you're okay because you don't own too much. That's going down in value. Everything with wheels and motors goes down in value. So your boat, your sea do, your camper, all that crap. Okay. It all goes down in value. It is the ultimate depreciating asset because they're all large, too. And all that. So you own, basically the value on your stuff is $53,000. You make 140, so you're under half. So that's fine. The second rule of thumb we use is can you be debt free, not counting your house, in two years or less? You can be if you pay $3,000 a month towards debt or more for the next two years, which means you're not going out to eat, you're not going on vacation, you ain't doing nothing but getting out of debt. But you'll be clear and keep these two cars.

If you're going to dump one of the two cars, you're going to have to borrow the difference, either 12,000 or $15,000 per car, and then you got to go get a car. So you're going to be like, if you got rid of your yukon, you got to borrow fifteen k to cover the hole, $5,000 for a hoopdy. So you're going to be 20k in debt instead of 50k in debt. So you're going to move the needle about 30k on that, which would move the needle about ten months in this program. So if you wanted to step all the way down, you can be out of debt ten months faster.

Okay.

That's an option as long as your credit is clean enough to go do to borrow that money to get out of this thing. That's how you do it. But again, it's just, how much do I love these things? Do I love these things enough that I'm willing to have zero life for a little while? Yeah.

And I'm the guy that goes with option B. Dave, I've already realized I've made a bad purchase. I want to get it out of my life emotionally. I want to attack it. I'd rather drive a hoopdy to remind me of my mistake. Now, that's just me. That's my approach. Either way works.

Yeah, either way. In four years, you're going to be back in a paid for niqon.

That's right.

Either way. And there's nothing wrong with that. You step back, then step in, or you just hang on, push through. Either one works. With these numbers, it's a tough two years you're signing up for really tough. And you and your husband got to lock arms and go, we don't do nothing but pay debt right now. We're getting out. Game on. Game on. This is the Ramsey show. If you've taken financial peace university, you know how life changing it is. And there's no better way to share that hope than by leading an FPU class at your church. Because right now someone you know in your church is struggling bad. They're drowning in debt. They're scared to death and don't know what to do. And you can be the one to step up and give them hope, just like your FPU coordinator did for you. Start making a difference as a coordinator by going to FPU.com lead. Hey, folks, we want to say thank you to our listening audience. Last week we got some of the highest ratings in the show's 32 year history. Thank you very much for that. Our podcast numbers, our YouTube numbers, our radio numbers are all through the roof.

We really appreciate you out there. Thank you very much. And we could use your help. We continue to need your help. Spread the word for us. You can share the show. Click the share button on your platform or subscribe or follow. Those are big helps. Leaving a five star review is a big help. We really appreciate you. We don't own any football stadiums like sofa, excuse me, it's the allergies in the spring and we don't own anything like that. It's just you guys out there and we appreciate you. Tribe. Spread the word. Help us. Help us spread the word. Subscribe, follow, share, let people know, send them the link, that kind of stuff. Dave and Bobby are with us from Kalamazoo, Michigan, on the debt freeze. Scream. Welcome.

Hi, Dave.

Hey, good afternoon.

Good to have you guys. How much debt have you paid off?

230,000.

230,000. How long did that take?

38 months is when we got focused.

Love it. All right. And so your range of income in that three years and two months?

We started at 140,000, and now we're currently at 240,000.

Nice. Very nice.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're enjoying your work and what you can achieve.

Yeah. There you go. What do you do?

I'm a project manager in the renewable.

Energy field and I'm a registered nurse.

Very good. So you brought that up. So what happened to the income? What drives it up 100K in three years?

COVID never waste a good crisis. And so during COVID right, when everyone was kind of sheltered in, we were both kind of working or I was mostly working a job I didn't really enjoy. And that's when I chose that time to start focusing on what I want out of life, especially with a career. I used a lot of that time to start searching for jobs that made sense. A lot of employers were starting to offer remote work from home. I took advantage of that and was able to increase our income significantly.

Good for you. And scary time for being a nurse. But you could make all the money you wanted to make, right?

Yeah. I mean, the pay increase was definitely.

Haul him. Okay. Wow. Way to go, you guys. Congratulations. So what kind of debt was the $230,000?

That was our house.

Looking at weird people. How old are you two? I'm 41, 38 and 41 in a paid for house. What's the house worth?

About 440.

I love it. Very cool. And how much in your retirement accounts?

We've got over 600 and 5700 in retirement.

All right, so your millionaires are 40 years old?

Yes.

Way to go, you guys. Baby steps, millionaires. I'm so proud of you.

Thank you.

Very neat. Very neat, man. That's impressive. Okay. 230,000 is a lot in three years. How in the world did you do that? Go ahead.

No, I mean, it was mostly him with a pay increase, and I think we just were really motivated to sell off our debt.

Yeah, I mean, we stuck to the budget.

Right.

So that was obviously the big thing. We actually have been on the show before, back in 2015, when we did our first debt free scream with you, Dave, over at the other location. And so, obviously, we experienced the gazelle intensity at that point. And then we took a little bit of time to what we decided to call appreciating life and having children.

Yeah.

So, actually, we were just a couple of months pregnant when we were on your show. And so just a couple of weeks after that, we got a diagnosis. We had a 20 week ultrasound with our daughter, and we got the diagnosis that she was going to have some medical complications throughout her life. And because we were debt free, though, at that point, we were able to focus on things that mattered the most and not really worry about having to clock in every minute to capture that paycheck. So then we just kind of enjoyed life, expanded the family, bought a house, and then it wasn't until we started refocusing again. Like I said, COVID, never waste a good crisis. We started looking back at, hey, we were in a really good spot. We don't have any of these student loan debts. While everyone else is freaking out during COVID Right. And you have to do all that pausing of the student loans. We didn't have to do any of that. We have to worry about that. We said, okay, look, there could be another crisis coming up at some point in life. Let's focus on getting this mortgage paid off, and then we never have to worry about anything like that again.

Right.

Then we're in complete control, and that's.

Where we came from. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. Quick math. And I'm not very good at math, so double check me on this. But basically, almost all of your raise, you just put it completely to the house. Is that what I'm understanding?

Correct.

No lifestyle creep. Yeah, no lifestyle creep at all, which is really huge.

I mean, a lot of people don't do that when they get a raise. And you got a nice bump. I mean, it's $100,000 bump, and you just said, no, I'm putting it all to the house.

Correct.

Tremendous discipline.

Yeah, well, I mean, I've got. She's being modest, but, I mean, I had her as my anchor for all of this. Right. And focusing. And then the kids, too.

Right.

Every day I look at the kids and we're trying to establish a future for them, and that was a constant reminder.

Yeah, that's impressive.

Very cool. So you're 40 years old. Not yet, he's not. I round up and you got a paid for house approaching a half million dollars. You got over $600,000 in retirement. How's that feel?

It feels surreal. It's been a long journey for us, but it feels great. I mean, the biggest thing is being prepared for the unexpected.

Yeah. That changed your issues and everything. You dealt with the first child changed your look on everything. You look at everything through a different lens after that. Don't then just do a little overlay of a Fauci pandemic. And now we got real vision. Real clear vision. Yeah, exactly. Good for y'all. Good for y'all.

Thank you.

Y'all are heroes. Yeah. You're great moms and dads. Well, thank you.

We try to be.

You are. You're the right kind of people. You're the people who give us hope for the future. That's right.

Dave, we got to admit that we are human. In 2020, we refinanced to a ten year note was 1.99%.

Right.

And so. Yeah, that gets people excited.

Right.

It's so low. And then now with interest rates, with a high yield savings account at being over 4%. Right. You're net positive as far as making money and beating the man and being the system. And so there were a lot of months where we were saying, hey, listen, let's just put the money in the bank instead of paying it towards the debt, because we're going to make a couple of dollars extra. And then when you look at the math and it's not really that much, that's not life changing money that we're making there.

Right?

I mean, it's a couple of month. That's great. I would love to have that, but it's not life changing at all. And now, people that are using that argument, we can go around and say, well, you've got a 1.99% interest rate. That's great. We've got a 0%.

Mic drop.

Yes, I see your math and raise you more math.

Yeah, that's good. Don't be math with the math people. Right. Very good. Good job, you guys. Thanks. Very cool. All right, bring the kiddos up. What are their names and ages?

We have Peyton, who just turned eight on Friday.

Beautiful.

Everly, who's four, and Sawyer, who's six.

Way to go.

Look at that.

Good looking kiddos. Well done. Well done, you guys. Well, we're proud of you. Congratulations, heroes. Excellent job. Not only they pay off their home, but they're baby steps millionaires. And he's not even 40 yet. See? There we go. I got it in. Oh, my God.

He's holding on.

I appreciate it. That's it. All right, Dave and Bobby, Peyton, Sawyer and Everly, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Proof it works if you work it. Count it down. Let's hear a debt free scream. Ready?

Three, two, one.

We're debt free. Yeah. I love it. That's about as good as it gets. Well, we've got a couple of every dollar subscription cards for them, one year subscription for free for them, and they can give away a friend. One year subscription. Because that's exactly how you get here. You know, Ken, no one accidentally wins the final four.

Never does.

No one accidentally wins the Super bowl. It's a series of thousand cuts, death by a thousand cuts. One element at a time, one movement at a time. And it's a series of intentional acts. And that's how they got to be where they are. So that's what a budget is. It's doing it on purpose. And the every dollar budget will help you do that. Dave and Bobby, way to go, your heroes. This is the Ramsay show, our scripture of the day, ecclesiastes. Five, three. A dream comes with much business and a fool's voice. With many words. Elizabeth Elliott said, never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shuts. For bad radio, it makes for a bad show, but we should follow the advice.

Dave, I feel like that was every report card I ever got in the elementary school. He talks too much in class.

Dave talks too much. Now he makes a living talking too much. Mike is in Tallahassee. Hey, Mike. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hey, thank you for taking time to talk with me. I appreciate it.

Sure. What's up?

Well, all right. So my question is, I'm a minister. I'm over different ministries in our church. I'm not the head pastor, but I'm on staff and I'm 37 now.

I haven't put a lot of money.

Away for retirement at the time. When I graduated not too long ago, I just got into ministry. Full of energy, full of life. Didn't think much about it. Now I'm 37, praise God. I'm married, we have two kids. And I'm like, man, I realize I'm getting tired more, and I know that I need to put money away for retirement. So I put away, I think, 24,000 now in a 403 b with guidestone. And I know it's not enough, and I know I need to do something different. So I'm just trying to figure out the best thing to do. Love my church. Don't want to leave or nothing.

What do you make on your pastor salary?

So, after taxes, it's 880 a week.

And is your wife home with the children?

No, she was just a nurse. She makes about the same.

She makes $800 a week. So, like $45,000 a year?

Yeah, I think that's after taxes are taken out. I think I'm 53,000 maybe.

Okay. And she makes what?

I think she makes about 70,000 maybe.

So that's a household income of, like 120,000 a year?

Yes.

You guys are going to be okay. What is she putting away?

I think she's maxing it out right now. What she can do.

And you have. No.

We have just our house, and I have a master's. I got that paid off. Just our house. Maybe we have, like, an interest free couch and bed or something. Maybe $2,000 that we're paying off.

Sounds like you're not very involved in the money.

Well, some things. We have our car, too.

We have her car debt paid off.

I think my jeep has $18,000.

Okay. That's pretty substantial. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Other than that, the first thing. Proverbs says, be diligent to know the state of your flocks and herds. Solomon wrote that in an agrarian economy, when flocks and herds would have been any representation of wealth that one had. So be diligent to know the status of your money is what that says, pastor. So the first thing I want you guys to do is you and your wife to sit down and say, this exactly is our income. This exactly is how much I owe on the jeep. It's exactly how much we owe on a stupid furniture bill and the borrower is slave to the lender and I don't want to be slave anymore. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to clean up this debt. Do you have any savings other than your Gladstone?

We have about 9000 in a savings account.

Okay. Then we're going to sit down. I'm going to send you a book called the total money Makeover that's going to walk you step by step through how to apply biblical financial principles to your situation. Okay. The first thing we're going to do is clear off all the debt except the home and keep $1,000 in the bank. We don't want to be below that. Then once the debt is all gone and you should do that pretty quickly with your income then you should be able to build an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses because in the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil. Representation of wealth. In other words, wise people save money. And of course we're going to have a detailed written plan because Jesus said, don't build a tower without first counting the cost lest you get halfway up and you're unable to finish. And all who see you begin to mock you. So we're going to have a plan. The mind of man plans his ways, the Lord directs his steps. These are all familiar to you, right?

Oh, yes sir.

Okay. So my point being that God's given you a pretty good handbook on how to do this. We'll give you some ways to apply the ancient scriptures which odly enough, are common sense to your situation and help you clear through this and then get your retirement going with making the money you're making. You should be debt free and have your retirement going in about a year, year and a half. And you should really have a good clear vision about where you're going because where there is no vision, the people perish. We're going to have an exact detailed dream in high definition laid out. And then the next time I ask you numbers, it's not going to be, I think, I don't know, maybe sort of. You're going to know where you are and you're going to clean the freaking mess up you made so that you can get on with having a good high quality life. Because you guys make $120,000 a year. There's no reason you should be broke or retire broke. None whatsoever. You've got the ability to do that. I'll tell you what, I'm going to do better than that. Go ahead and put him just all the way through financial Peace University.

He's a pastor trying to make it out there. We'll help him. Just go through financial peace University and put him in the every dollar premium, so the whole package. So we'll just love on him and help him. And Mike, you're a good.

You know, it reminded me when I was a kid, we'd watch Saturday morning cartoons. That's how old I am. That'll age me. But there was always this public service message about knowing is half the battle. There was just this little commercial they'd run, knowing is half the battle.

And in this knowing what?

Well, they would tell you some, just basic.

Oh, it was a little factoid.

Yeah, I got it in between commercials. The point I'm making is that in his case, and I think in all of our cases, when it comes to really getting control of our money, you got to know what your situation is before you can fix it. And he was a classic situation. We're not picking on him at all, but just not a clear picture himself of what their reality is. And getting clear on that all of a sudden allows us to go, oh, now we can actually see a path to the future.

We took our four wheelers up in the mountain, and the roads were a little unclear, to say the least. And I was real glad the GPS thing said, you are here.

Right.

You got to know where you are before you can know how to get there.

That's exactly.

And you are here. Oh, based on that, I can turn left up here and I'll be okay and not get my throat slit up here somewhere.

Exactly right. That's exactly right.

Yeah.

Wind up in a deliverance.

Get out of this neighborhood. Yeah. Oops. Yeah. You are here. You got to first know where you are and then know where to go next. Right. You are here. And then dream in high definition, like your high def television. Real high detail. Exactly. This is what I want it to smell like. This is what I want it to feel like. Five years from now, ten years from now. I want to be in this situation when I get in that car, I want to feel a different feeling than I feel right now in this hoopdy. You want to lay it all out in detail. And this is how I want it to be when I'm walking my grandson down the street and he's four, and you can look out there in the future and go in detail. This is where we want to do it. This is the feel of how we want family to look like and all that. And that then gives you very clear motivation, because your brain immediately starts saying, now what have I got to do to get there?

That's right. So here's a fun little thing. Clarity leads to confidence, and then confidence leads to courage. The courage to actually be gazelle intense. The courage to take the comments and the snide remarks from friends and family. The courage to live completely like no one else, as Davis said for decades. That's the formula here. And Davis drilled this into all of us here in what we're offering to every one of you in the area of money and work and relationships is a clear path because clarity is the key to everything.

Yep. Ken Coleman. 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. Christ Jesus.

Hey, folks, Dave here. You want to hear even more life changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place, like the Ramsey show, smart money, Happy Hour and the Dr. John Deloney show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic, like debt, business or selling your home. Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.