You're listening.

To a special rerun episode of.

Our annual Giving Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods, Moving, and Storage Studios, it's The Ramsey Show, where dad is dumb, Cash is king, and the paid-off-home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. The phone number here is triple-eight-eight-two-five, five-two-two-five. But before you dial the number, you need to know that this show today is dedicated to generosity. We're going to take calls from folks today that have a giving story, a generosity story. They were on the receiving end or the giving end of generosity because it is the season. Tis the season. This is, well, Christmas reminds us how important generosity is. It is live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else. Rachel Cruz, number 1 bestselling author, Ramsey personality. My daughter is my co-host today as we take your calls about giving. It's our annual generosity show, our annual giving show. We want to hear from you. If you've got a great giving story, you can jump in the phone number, triple-eight, 825-5225.

Merry Christmas to you. Triple-8-825-5225. Kim is going to start off this hour in Kenton, Ohio. Hi, Kim. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas.

Hello, Dave. Hello, Rachel. Thank you for having me on the show. This is my giving story. Back in February, my husband died of COVID, and I took a portion of the life insurance money and gave it towards my church's debt elimination. On November 26, my sons were there, and they saw me write the check, fill out the envelope. We laid hands and prayed over the check, and the boys put it in the offering. My husband, he was an amazing giver. He gave to people all the time. He gave cars and trucks and vans and cash to families in need. He gave wood and fuel oil to older people that needed heat in the winter. He just gave... It was who he was. It was such a blessing to be his wife. It's such a blessing to give in his honor and his legacy. Our church, they're down to $270,000 left on their mortgage. 12 years ago, it was a $14 million mortgage.

Wow. Wow.

That's so powerful, Kim. I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you.

That was the motivator for this. So I'm curious for you, when you received that life insurance, obviously his legacy was one of giving, right? The way you just subscribed him is just beautiful. So what made you choose this specific way to give?

Well, I felt that every year he gave to the legacy offering, and there's usually a project that the church is doing. And this was his life insurance money. I wanted to give a tithe of it to the legacy offering so that he would continue giving throughout all the years as a legacy. He wanted me to retire. He wrote these letters about me retiring and he had me call Dave. I actually wrote a letter because I didn't think I could get through the phone call. But Dave gave me a coach, a financial coach. Her name is Lisa Barber, and I worked with her for the last 10 months. And throughout that process, I came to I didn't want to retire. I want to continue to fulfill God's will for my life, which I'm a teacher and I love teaching children how to read. I love being at the school. I feel like I'm here for such a time as this. So instead of taking a portion of the life insurance and buying out so that I could retire early, instead, I decided to continue working, continuing following God's will for my life and take God's will for his life and pay, give it to the legacy of my husband for God's kingdom to grow.

That's how I came about that whole process. Lisa helped me make these decisions, but I did make them myself.

Lisa is a precious lady. You got a hold of a good one there.

That's good stuff. God, I love her. Yes, I do love her.

Thank you for giving me that.

Thank you for.

Giving me that. Yeah, what an eventful year you've had. Unbelievable highs, unbelievable lows. It's very poignant, very beautiful, great story. How old are your sons?

I have a 26-year-old, a 24-year-old, and a 23-year-old.

Okay, so these young men were able to sit there and see their mom write this check from their dad's life insurance into this and they get to have that imprint on the rest of their life, that thumbprint on the rest of their life. That was very well played.

Thank God that I was able to do that for all for all to see that.

Amen. Thank you for sharing, Ms. Kim. God bless you, honey, and a merry Christmas to you. That's a great story, a horrible start to the story in a beautiful end or a beautiful next step, whatever you want to call it. I don't know what you're saying there, but without saying something dumb and awkward. But yeah. But it's amazing that when people are in pain, that generosity is something that automatically comes.

To mind. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I think that the key is that there's a lot of these stories that we hear, and that we'll probably hear today, that there's some level of people's stories that pain is always a part of it. That is a part of life. And I think that that scale is different for everyone, depending on their specific story. But, man, the depths of that pain, in her case, was the depths of her longing in that selflessness. And I think that that's a way to even combat, and I'm sure, helped with the grief. There's a level, too, of when you're giving and serving.

You.

Are putting your eyes elsewhere. There's just beauty in that, absolute beauty.

Generosity is considerably underrated as a healing agent. It completely changes the chemistry of your body. It completely changes the set of your emotions. It completely changes your spiritual walk. It literally will change the way you walk when you become generous. The more outrageously generous you become, the more free you are as a person. You find very few people who are depressed who are outrageiously generous. Something to think about. Because what happens is chemicals are released in your body that you get a high from being generous. I mean, it's unbelievable. It is the most fun to have with money. There's so much to it. It's so much more than the math, so much more than the individual person that's helped on the other end of the check. There's so many layers to this subject. This is the annual giving show on The Ramsey show, and we want to hear from you. Rachel Cruz is with me. The phone number is triple eight, 825-5225. Call us with your giving story or your receiving story. We're celebrating generosity. Merry Christmas. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality number one bestselling author. My daughter is my co-host today as we talk about giving today.

This is our annual giving show. We're talking about generosity. If you have a story about generosity, giving or receiving, that is inspiring and will help everyone, all of us expand our vision for generosity. That's what this is for. The phone number is triple eight, 825-5225. Wayne is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Wayne. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, thanks for having me. Sure. Okay. After my first deployment, I came home in 2009 and was out running around, eating all the food that I'd missed and stopped at a burger joint. There was a homeless man walking along the sidewalk, so I just offered for him to come have lunch with me. We ended up talking for several hours, but he had gotten married in 1966. In '67, he was sent over to Vietnam where he was shot in the head and suffered some.

Severe brain damage.

He was unable to take care of himself. And true to their vows.

His wife.

Took care of him until the day that she died. For three years, he was completely homeless, had no idea what to do. We had lunch and I ended up working with some of my unit leadership and some local veterans organizations. This guy ended up getting full VA disability and now has a place to stay in a VA veteran's home in that Dallas area.

Wow! Man, you took it up. You took it up and ran with it. Way to go, dude.

But it doesn't take a huge act of money to completely change somebody's life. I think sometimes people get overwhelmed with that thought.

Yeah.

It often takes more time than it does money. In your case, that's for sure.

Time and effort. Yeah. And a lot of caring.

Yeah. That still is an act of generosity, maybe even in a greater way, because so many people don't have any time, they don't take any time. They don't have any margin in their lives to stop and concentrate on someone else for a few minutes. They're so busy doing themselves.

What's his name, Wayne?

Jared. Jared.

Okay, so for you, as you obviously have completely changed the course of his life, which is just absolutely incredible. And like you said, I love that it's more on that time and effort standpoint, not just money, right? You walked with him to be able to do that. So you changed his life. What ways has he impacted you on even a day-to-day basis? How has your life been shifted because of him?

Prior to that event happening, I had grown up with this belief that homeless people were lazy and drug addicts. There's a stereotype that's not always true. And after this, I started slowing down and really thinking, Well, everybody's got a story. Everybody's really got problems, and it's never what it looks like on the surface.

That's for sure. That's for sure. Everybody's got a story. Wow! Powerful, dude. Powerful. Well done, sir. Thank you for calling with your story. Merry Christmas to you, Wayne. Hey, everyone is calling in with their giving story today, and the phone number here is triple-8-8255-225, will receive the live and give bundle, the live and give box. It has in it a one-year membership to Financial Peace University. It has in it a total money makeover book. It has in it a Baby Steps Millionaire's book. That is on sale for $99, which is about 50, 60 bucks off of retail right now at ramseysolutions. Com. But each of these will be getting that live and give box as they call in today. Of course, if you got somebody that's just getting started with this stuff, you hand them the total money makeover book. Maybe you're down the road a little ways and you're ready to start really doing your investing and you're going to read the Baby Steps Millionaires book, maybe you've got someone that needs to go through Financial Peace University or maybe it's you. There's three different things there that apply to different situations, different places people are in their money journey.

The live and give box, be sure to check that out. Like I said, we're giving everybody that calls in today one. Mary is with us. Mary is in Atlanta, Georgia. Hi, Mary. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel. Thank you all so much for having me on the show to share our story. We have a small gift, but one that I hope has been having a big positive impact on my niece and nephew.

Love it. Tell us about it.

So just a little bit of brief background. During COVID lockdowns, my niece and nephew really started to struggle. They were both in middle school at the time. Their social life evaporated, their mental health plummeted, and they unfortunately started failing classes in virtual school. So at the time, my husband and I had just had our first baby. I was actually laid off in 2020, seven months pregnant. So we were living off of just his income and our budget was pretty tight. But we decided initially just to host each kid for a special weekend once a month to get them out of the house. They tend to do very fun, cheap things in our and generally just love on them. My husband's sister actually joined us in this. And so it became this really fun family affair. Later, the three of us decided to offer a grade bounty. It was pretty generous, 20 bucks for each A, 10 bucks for each B. And I am unbelievably happy to say that my niece has made a healthy return on the time she's invested in studying for about two years now. She just started high school this fall and earned a 4.0 her first semester.

We're really, really proud of her. Here. All right. And so this is especially important because her parents do not have any money to pay for her college, but the state of Georgia will cover all of her tuition through the Hope Scholarship if she has at least a 3.0 GPA at the end of high school. So we've talked to her and she's just about student loan and how she could avoid them. And she is really eager to keep those out of her life. So we're very much encouraging her to do that. My nephews also gotten himself a part time job and his grades started to improve too. So I did want to just say thank you to you all for the teaching and encouragement that you offer around financial generosity because I struggle with the scarcity mindset sometimes. So it's hard to do for me on occasion. But I really like the idea of living with an open hand and just practicing generosity like a muscle until you're.

Good at it. Amen. Well done. Good job, Mary. That's fun. Hey, be sure to watch those kids. The Barrowed Future documentary is free to watch on YouTube now.

I know. We usually watch a movie when they come over for weekends, and I keep telling my husband, Let's watch Bar of Future. It has been very fun stuff on Disney Plus.

That'll seal in the no debt to college idea. If you watch that, you see how horrible the whole student loan system is. Yeah, that'll seal that in for sure. Hey, let me ask you something. You said scarcity mindset and you're practicing a new muscle. What does it do to the scarcity mindset? My theory is that it moves you from scarcity towards abundance the more you're generous. Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe after you move more towards abundance, you're willing to be more generous. I don't know which is the cause, which is the effect, which the chicken and the egg. What do you think, Mary?

I really think it's about perspective because I'm sitting in my little house in Atlanta that my husband and I own thinking, Oh, we don't have enough to give away. But there are so many people with less than that who really don't have enough that they could be generous. And so it's more about recognizing what's fear and what's fact and then deciding that you want to share what you have with people that you really love or just people in your community. And once we started doing that, it really has gotten so much easier and so much more joyful to do. I'm not going to lie, the first few times we did this, we started giving money away. I was like, Oh, God, how are we going to make the grocery budget this month? But really, it's been absolutely fine.

You hadn't missed a meal?

No.

Well, Mary, what I love about your story is you took the needs very specifically of what they needed in the time, right? So during the lockdowns, they just needed to get out of the house, and that's what you provided. And then as they were starting to not do great in school, then you're like, Okay, well, let's plug in here. So it's like whether it's the time, the money, all of it. But being so intentional, Mary, what you really are in their lives to see what do they need and what can you do to maybe help fill that gap. And so I think that's amazing. So really, really well done.

Yeah, extremely well done, Mary. Merry Christmas to you. Excellent, excellent job. That intentionality comes from real love, and that's tied into real generosity. This is The Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas America. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality. Number one bestselling author. My daughter is my co-host today. This is our annual giving show where we celebrate generosity, where you have been able to do something for someone or for something and you want to celebrate that generosity, or maybe you're celebrating someone did something for you. It's okay. Either way, we all love these stories. Generous people make a smile. Generous people make our eyes leak. We love generous people. All of us do. All humans do. I mean, you got to be a real weirdo to hate somebody that's generous. That's where we're celebrating this hour and this day on our annual giving show. The phone number here is triple-8-825-5and part of this giving show tradition is we always bring in some of our 1,100 members of Ramsey Solutions, our team members. Jess is on the stage. Jessica is with us. I've got a great giving story. Hey, Jess, how are you?

Doing good. How are you all doing?

Great.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Well, tell everybody about your story.

It's fabulous. Yes. You talk about people giving to you and you being able to give to other people. This story is a little bit of both. So about four and a half, actually five and a half years ago now, we actually met the sweetest, most adorable little baby girl. And she was a family member to some of our church members there, and she couldn't be with her family. And so she needed a home. She needed a parents. And I'm not a super cautious person, but my husband is ultra cautious and normally has to think through things, especially something very serious. It's usually weak, sometimes to.

Make it to the student. Yeah, parenting is like serious.

Parenting is pretty serious.

That's way up there on the serious scale, yeah.

But we just made eye contact at church as the request was being given to find a home for this little girl, and she's just adorable. We made eye contact and didn't even have to talk about it. We came together after that and said, Are you in? Yep, I'm in. Are you in? My husband said, Yeah, I'm in. And so we, at that point-.

That's a long conversation.

-30 seconds long maybe, tops. After that, we decided to get custody of our Gabby girl. It was about a four and a half year long process to actually solidify the adoption. A long process, I learned a lot of things about the legal system, some things I didn't really care to know about, but I feel like I'm a lawyer at this point after all of that. Yeah, I know.

The legal system is enough to... Well, just move on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But one of the interesting things through that is when we met Gabby, we actually were still in debt and we were working our way out of that. And one of the opportunities with that was not only getting out of debt, but finances was one of my biggest concerns going through this adoption. I was thinking, We got to get out of debt so that we can adopt this child. Well, finances was the least of my concerns. God provided, people were generous to us. We had the funds to pay for it. The emotional side was the hard part. And one of the stories with that was we were actually... We had custody of Gabby, but we hadn't adopted her yet. At her one year birthday party at our house, we had actually had all of our friends, all of our family at our house just hanging out. And we had some medical debt that was standing out there from my husband had had a medical emergency. And so we're working through that. We were going to get that paid off, but we have been served. We've been served at collections. And so we had to hear this knock on the door during this birthday party, and all our friends and family are there.

And I'm thinking, Oh, is somebody late? Are they arriving late? So they knock on the door and then my husband gets to the door and he says, There's a police officer out here. And I was like, Why in the world would there be a police officer? And he was trying to be kind to us, but I was like, What in the world is going on? And he said, You've been served. Your dad's going to collections. And my pride just dropped. I was like, What in the world? We're fine, we're okay. But that's the moment where I was like, I've got to get out of debt, and I've got to give this child a home. And so we were able to do both. Not only were we able to be generous to her, she's been so generous to us.

Oh, she's generous to everybody.

She's amazing. She's amazing kid.

Yeah, she's a great kid. Very cool. She's been with you how long now?

She just turned six this past weekend, and she's been with us since she was almost a year old. Yeah, all right. Yeah, a long time that year.

Yes. Okay, so there's been a lot of... A lot of people that listen have adopted foster. They're in that space as well with that parental role. So talk to the parents out there that maybe have adopted or are fostering, and you guys have walked through this over years. So what encouragements do you have for those parents? Because I know that there's really hard days through it all. You were talking about even just the emotional side, but, man, how that giving and consistency.

And opening.

Your home and your heart. I'm like, just that encouragement to parents that may feel discouraged this holiday season.

Absolutely, yes. Hold your kids close. That quality time, it can still be yours even if you don't have the title. We were parents before we even had the title. If we left it up to the government, we may never be parents. That's one of the things that we're like, you know what? We're going to be parents to this child. I would encourage all the potential parents out there, love those kids, hug those kids, give those kids everything that you can, because they don't know. They're going to be grateful for whatever you can give them, and they're going to give back to you tenfold.

Jess, you've been with us how long?

Almost 10 years.

I thought so. And tell everybody what you do.

I'm a senior customer success agent on Ramsey Trusted.

All right, there it is. Senior customer. That's how that works.

Hey, I'd claim that too.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You do a great job, and we're honored to have you as part of this family and honored to honor Ms. Gabby and your whole family. Kat, are you bringing her over for the camera? Good. Good. Yeah, absolutely. She'll love those girls. Yeah, she's coming up. Here we go. There's Ms. Gabby. All right. That way everybody can meet her on YouTube. Very cool. Good stuff. Hey, Jessica, thank you very much. Very well done. Proud of you. Thank you. Merry Christmas, Ms. Gabby. Thank you. All right. Very good stuff. The adoption and the foster system is a… There's such a need, but it's never an easy process. It's always difficult.

Yeah. I mean, that's... Even when scripture talks about widows and orphans, and you're just like, as a mom with three little ones, anytime there's stories like that, we'd just talk through. We have families that we know that foster, and you just hear... I mean, there's a level like the ultimate selflessness. I mean, you are giving your life away for a child that didn't choose that story. You know, You made me cry. I don't know. I think it's just beautiful. I just commend her and her husband so much because it's hard. Being a parent is hard, let alone having that other dynamic in there. But then the redemption and the beauty of these kids and just even with Gabby and how her story is completely different because someone chose to do something in a really radical way.

Yeah, very cool. Neat people. That's what this is about. Open phones. If you want to talk giving, this is your day. It is our annual giving show. The phone number here is triple-eight, 5-2-5. Rachel, you and I first wrote about this a long, long time ago in your first number one best seller, Smart Money, Smart Kids. You've talked about it even more since then. The idea of that contentment, generosity, and gratitude are all intertwined and they're all choices and they all end up affecting your wealth building. They all end up affecting your money.

Yeah. I think people sometimes are like, It makes no sense when you guys encourage us to be giving even while we're getting out of debt or while we're saving up for the emergency fund. As we're going through our process to get a solid financial foundation under us. You're wanting us to let money not go towards the debt and get it paid off faster, but to actually give. And so we'll hear those conversations sometimes or those questions with people. And the answer always is yes, because not only what it changes in you, but creating that habits of generosity and the change of your heart of what ends up happening. And suddenly, when your generous gratitude flows through, when you're generous, you realize, gosh, all the stuff I thought I needed, I really don't. I don't need to be fulfilled by that. There's a joy out of living with that open hands that really does bring a level of contentment that I think, in turn, allows you to get out of debt even faster and save even more.

That's the weirdest thing.

And it's a beautiful formula that I feel like we've cracked in a great way. So it's wonderful.

The triad of generosity, contentment and... Generosity, contentment and gratitude, the triad. Yeah. And all of these are things you can just choose to practice and they build on each other and they take you where you want to go with this money stuff. This is the annual giving hour or giving show here on The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us America. Open phones at triple-888-855-225. This is your last day to enter the Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway. The giveaway ends tonight at 11:59 PM Central Time. So if you haven't yet, go to ramseysolutions. Com/giveaway, enter for your chance to win the $5,000 grand prize. Of course, no purchase necessary. And of course, you have to be 18 or older to win. That's ramseysolutions. Com/giveaway. Don't forget that our $10 sale is still going on, and you can get our number one best-selling books like all of Rachel's. Number one best-selling books, there's three of them. A couple of mine, The Total Money Makeover. Number one, $10. Baby Steps Millionaires. My latest number 1, $10. Speaking of total money makeover, when you get the book, we often tell people to flip through and read the stories first because that's where the hope is.

It's in the stories of people who got free from debt, changed their family tree because they finally dealt with the person in the mirror. These stories are powerful. This stuff works. Be weird. Head on over to ramseysolutions. Com and check the $10 sale out. This is our annual giving show, and we're talking to you about your giving story or your receiving story that is inspiring. Open phones here at Triple Eight, 825-5225. Leslie is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Leslie. Merry Christmas.

Hey, Dave. Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for letting me talk to you today about my story.

Well, tell us. We'd love to hear it.

About seven years ago, my son, Jackson, was diagnosed with Hotchkins lymphoma. He was eight years old at the time, and we were very blessed. He went through treatment pretty quickly and was pronounced good to go after about nine months. Well, at the end of his journey through that, the hospital referred us to an organization called A Wish with wings. They're a wish-granting organization here in Texas. And any kid who goes through a situation like Jackson where they face a life-threatening condition can be granted a wish. And they granted his wish and he got to meet dude perfect, and we got to go to Disney. But that wasn't the most important part. Like you are, Dave, they are dealers in hope and they gave our family hope. They were just such a sweet organization full of loving people. And when you've got a kid with cancer, even family members and friends don't always know how to help you and how to be there for you. And this organization of people did, and we fell in love with them. So about a year after Jackson finished chemotherapy, he wanted to do something special. So Jackson and I did a 200-mile hike and raised $25,000 from family and friends who pledged to wish with wings for him doing this hike.

How old was he then?

He was nine years old.

Oh, my gosh. You did a 200-mile hike one year after chemo with a nine-year-old.

And he did it in 14 days. This kid is a stud. He is a tough, tough little man. Well, now he's a tough bigger man.

But still. Nothing to stop this guy.

Wow. Yeah, yeah.

But still.

Our family wanted to do more because we just love these people and we started volunteering. When they had events, we would go volunteer for those events. I launched a business not long after that, and the business has started doing well. In the last few years, our family has been able to donate $65,000 to wish with wings, and that's enough to grant eight wishes. And then my wonderful children have gotten their friends involved. Every time my kid has a birthday party, he's collecting gifts for other kids who are sick, who have cancer. Every time their school has some fundraising opportunity, they plug this organization because they care about them. So you talk a lot, Dave, about changing your family tree. And to me, this changed our family tree because someone gave us hope and taught us that our number one goal should be helping other people have hope. We are just totally sold out on helping this organization that is for kids with cancer.

Yeah. What's the name of it one more time?

A wish with wings.

A wish with wings. Very cool. Yeah, this whole situation was a force multiplier. One plus one doesn't equal two in this deal. One plus one ended up equaling 100.

Well, and you can take a bad situation and you can let it gnaw at you or pretend it didn't happen, or you can decide you're going to make it into something better. While I'll never be grateful that my kid went through cancer, I am so grateful that now we understand what it's like to be the people who are the recipient of bad situations that are not their doing. And it's taught everyone in our family, including both our kids, compassion and love. And we really, now in our family budget, we put giving as a top line item. There are so many things we just don't need. And we thought we did, we would much rather give back. I know that sounds so cheesy and over.

The top, but.

It's true because when we see these other families, they don't have it easy like we did.

Well, yeah, when you face something, Leslie, like that, when your child is sick, and I'm sure the ultimate fear of what if we lose him? I'm sure you go through all those emotions I can't even imagine. I think, too, it's that perspective that when you realize, Wow, he came out of this. And life is so short, and all the stuff that we think is going to make us happy in this life that we go out and try to purchase and experience all this stuff that we're just like, go, go, go, go, go in the consumeristic aspect of our world that we think is going to give us joy. You, in turn, are like, you realize, Oh, my gosh, no. It truly is this giving back out of this pain and this story that you guys went through. But it's this perspective that you have that you're like, okay, we could go buy a bunch of stuff with this money, or we can give it. And in your life, you are putting true value on where value should be. So, Leslie, that's absolutely incredible.

Well done, Leslie. Merry Christmas to you. What a great giving story. What a great giving story. Yeah, so it turns out pushing by now, by now, by now, filling your cart is probably not what life's about. Yeah.

Who knew?

Sorry Amazon, but there we go. It's a giving show today here on The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz is my co-host. You hang with us. We'll be here. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studios. It's The Ramsey Show where Debt is Dumb, Cash is King, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Thank you for joining us, America. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, three times over. My daughter is my co-host today. As we take your calls today, we're talking about giving. This is our annual giving show. If you have a great giving story, some outrageous generosity that you received or that you caused to happen, meaning you gave, hey, we want to hear inspiring, giving, and generosity stories. The phone number is triple-eight, 825-5225, Merry Christmas America. Tis the season for generosity. This is the place where we celebrate that. We teach you to live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else.

Generous people make a smile. Generous people make our eyes leak. That's what this show is all about. Open phones at triple-eight, 825-5225. Starting this hour with a giving story, Ben, in Birmingham. Merry Christmas, Ben.

Merry Christmas. Thank you for.

Having me on the show. Absolutely. So tell us your giving story.

This is actually a receiving story about what my siblings got. But my parents and our family have been missionaries for the past 20 years.

My parents moved overseas.

In early 2000. But prior to that, my dad, while he was in seminary, was working at FedEx, and they met some friends who.

Basically became.

Really close family friends. And as my dad was working, he made his way up in the ranks at this job where he was working. And when they decided to go overseas, this family friend basically said that because my dad was willing to give up his career and go overseas to serve, that they were going to basically purchase cars for all of their children whenever they came back from college. There's five of us, five children. So whenever we ended up all coming back, he essentially bought a $15,000 to $20,000 car for each of us. He paid for the insurance for the first year for that car. He paid for basically all the maintenance for the first year on those cars. So over the course of, I would say, probably 10 years as each of our siblings came back, he ended up probably paying about $100,000 worth of money that he put into buying cars for us to essentially get established and have a way to be transported while we were back in the country and our parents were still overseas. So it's a pretty incredible gift on his part and a pretty awesome story that I've actually never really gotten to tell a lot of people.

That's very cool. I love that. I love the way the whole thing went down. It's a friendship, and they just admired your mom and dad. Listen, if you want to do something for someone and to blow their minds, do something for their kids. Exactly. I mean, that touched your mom and dad more than if they'd have gotten the money directly or if he'd wrote them $100,000 check to underwrite their ministry or their mission work, it wouldn't have been near as much as what he did.

Yeah, exactly. And basically, it provided, because they were still overseas when we would come back for college. So essentially, it provided us transportation to get to our school during the semesters, our summer jobs during the summer to basically go and see our extended family in different parts of the country. Because without that, I mean, my parents definitely couldn't have afforded to buy cars for us whenever we need to come back to the states for school. Yeah, absolutely. So pretty tremendous gift on his part.

For sure. Okay, Ben, this might be a weird question in the middle of your giving story, but some calls we've taken on the show, some people have a really hard time receiving gifts. So how did your parents, what was their posture when this friend came forward and said, Hey, I want to give your kids cars when they come home, was it a hundred % just they accepted it in this humble spirit? Or did they have any level of like, oh, man, we couldn't do it. We can't do that for our kids and that receiving. Because I want to speak to that in encouraging people to receive the gift, because sometimes I think people struggle receiving as well.

Yeah, I think it was honestly easy for them because I think that they knew that that was something that they weren't going to be able to provide for us whenever we came back to the States. So in a.

Way, it.

Was maybe a relief for them and a burden off of their shoulders in terms of having to provide for their kids in that circumstance. So I think it was honestly a relief.

For them. Yeah. No, I love that. That's what I pray people's heart is. But I think sometimes people need to hear that to say, hey, it's okay to receive, and you can do that. It doesn't speak to who you are if you're the one giving something. I love that. That's so great.

Very cool, Ben. Thank you for sharing that story, man. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Merry Christmas. Good stuff. Open phones here, triple-8-825. 5, 5, 2, 2, 5. Patricia is in Connecticut. Hi, Patricia. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas, by the way.

Hi, merry Christmas, Dave and Rachel. So good to talk to you guys.

You too.

Thank you. I was actually the recipient of outrageous generosity that I wanted to be able to share with you guys. I haven't really told many people this story because I felt like it wasn't my story to tell since I was the recipient. But it's been two years, and I think it's time for everyone to know that the business that I run was given to me in October of 2020. I was given a small business, which is actually a self-serve frozen yogurt shop.

Oh, wow.

So how did that come about?

Yeah. So it goes back a little bit further. I got laid off from Corporate America back in 2014, and I decided I didn't want to go back to that. So I picked up a part time job at the local Pro-O shop right in town in November of 2015. And then my husband and I actually started the baby steps January of 2016. And then we finished our baby steps, we paid off all our debt. And then somewhere along the line, the owners had asked me, because I was still working at the frozen yogurt shop, to purchase the store. Or they had numerous stores, so it had been discussed. But they also knew I didn't borrow money. So I would always tell them no, because I couldn't afford to own a business, of course. And then COVID, of course, came in April 2020, we had to close the shop down. So I was actually unemployed. It was self-serve, frozen yogurt, so it just wasn't sustainable, which was devastating. But we actually did reopen in July of 2020. So my bosses decided to reopen, and that's what we did. And then a month later, one of the bosses pulled me aside into the back kitchen, which is never a good sign, right?

I was nervous. And he had asked me if I wanted the store, if I wanted to take the store, be the store owner. I said, I don't really know what you mean. What does that mean? And he said, We're going to give you the store, but you're going to get this store with equipment that is 11 years old. They've been in business for 11 years.

Yeah. I'll tell you what, I want to hear the rest of this, and I'm up on commercial because I don't want to run this to the end of the ground. It's too good. Hang with us through the commercial. Patricia will hear the rest of the story here on the annual Giving Show on The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. This is our annual Giving Show here on The Ramsey Show. We're taking your calls with giving stories, receiving stories. This is all about generosity. Live like no one else, and later you can live and give like no one else. We were in the middle of Patricia's story in Connecticut. She left corporate America, went to work for a frozen yogurt shop, and they offered to sell it to her a couple of times. Then during COVID, after going back to work, the owner walks in one day and says they are offering to give it to her. Now, let's pick that story up there, Patricia. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, that's pretty much how it went. Like I said, they offered to give me the store, and the store had been in business for about 11 years already. So, of course, the equipment, the machines, all that stuff was 11 years old. So that happened in about August, and sure enough, October 14th of 2020, we closed on the business. I started an LLC, I opened a new bank account, and I did all that. And we actually closed. And here I am two and a half years later as a small business owner in a very small town, but enjoying every second of it.

Wow. What prompted them to do that? Like I.

Said, they'd offered a few times, I think. When customers would come in, I was always there. Customers would say, Oh, is this your store? And I would say, No, no, no. But they would always say, Well, you treat it like your store because I had so much passion for what I was doing. And it sounds silly. People think it's silly. But at my interview with the store owners when I started, I had told them I treat every job like it's a career. So I'm going to have a lot of passion. I love being around people. Of course, our clientele is generally kids. So I think that after COVID, there was a lot of restrictions, and they actually own a hardware store in the same plaza. So they were really... We all know everyone was stuck home during COVID. So they were just slammed over there. I mean, they were every day, all day. Everybody was home at a hardware store. So I think it was just time to figure something out to let it go.

Okay.

All right. But through your diligence of being so excellent at your job, you're the person that shine through to receive that, which is amazing.

It really is. And it's been amazing. And it's more than just a small business here. It's definitely a family business. I'm actually looking inside the store right now. My husband is covering for me while I'm on the phone with you guys. My mom does all our shopping at Costco every day. So my retired mom gets to go to Costco every day. It's basically a joy for her. And my son does all the heavy lifting when orders come in or takes the garbage out at night. I have a bunch of great employees also, but it's the customers that really make it just really worthwhile. It's definitely what I feel I was called to do.

Oh, I think you were. Yeah, you're the backbone of America. Small business people like you, that's what makes this entire place run. It is not large corporate goobs and it's not the government. It's people like you that make this country great. The free enterprise system causes people like you to shine, and people like the former owners that were generous to you to shine.

Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. Just handed over a business.

Yeah, pretty cool. That's awesome. Very, very cool stuff. Hey, Patricia, thank you for sharing that. Merry Christmas to you. We appreciate you hanging out with us today. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author. My daughter is my co-host today. This is our annual Giving Show, the show where we talk about the power of generosity. If you've got a great story that's inspiring on where you've given or received, we would love to hear it. You can call us at triple-8-825-5225. Speaking of giving, this show is free for you on podcast, on YouTube. It's free for you on 680 radio stations all across America. Tens of millions of you join us every week. Thank you. We appreciate that. We are grateful for you. It's time for you to give back. You need to go and leave a rating, a five-star rating at wherever you listen. Don't leave a one-star. They're not valuable at all. That's why they call them one-star. Put a five-star on there. Thank you. We appreciate that. You need to subscribe. It helps other people be notified by all the algorithms and the various things that the wonderful people on the internet do to allow you to know that these things exist.

It's caused by you subscribing. So subscribe, leave a rating, and share the show. Tell people where you listen to it on Talkradio. Send a link to your podcast off a Spotify or Apple or wherever it is, or YouTube. Say, Hey, you ought to check these guys out. The information is real and we're not on here whining and crying and angry every day. We're here helping people. It's an unusual show in that regard. You ought to spread the word. We ought to get more of this thing out there in this world today. Open phones at triple 8, 825-5225. All of our callers today will be getting the live and give box, which has in it the total money makeover book, the Baby Steps Millionaire's book, and a one-year membership to Financial Peace University. This allows you to break this up and give it away, a book, a book, a book, a class, however you want to do it, or use the whole thing yourself. The live and give box. By the way, if you want to buy it, it's only 99 bucks at Ramsey Solutions, and that's about 50, 60 bucks under what all of those items retail for.

So it's a good deal. The live and give box. One of our traditions on the giving show that we do is we bring on a few of our Ramsey team members, a few of the 1,100 folks in this building who all practice generosity at different levels and have great stories. But no question about it. Nathan is with us, and Nathan's got a great generosity story. Hey, Nathan, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you doing? Good. Merry Christmas.

Same to you. Merry Christmas.

Little nerve-wrecking putting on that microphone, isn't it? Just a little bit. You're doing good. You're going to make it. Tell us your story, man. My mentor is.

A guy by the.

Name of Stan Frees. Super nice guy. I worked with him for 10 years.

Over the years.

He's.

Just been so.

Generous with.

Me, but there was.

One instance that it completely floored me. About 10.

Years ago.

I was working for him, and I was actually dating...

She is actually now my.

Wife, Lauren, over here.

I wanted to.

Propose to her, and I was just.

Casually.

Talking to.

Stan about it one.

Day saying, Because back then this was actually.

Before Dave, and so I was very stupid with money. I didn't have the.

Money to buy a ring.

For.

Lauren.

I was.

Just venting to him about it.

One day, didn't really think anything of it. And then.

Probably about two, three days later, he.

Actually drags me to one of the.

Conference rooms. He says.

Come here, come here, come here.

We go.

To one of the.

Conference rooms and.

He.

Gives me a.

Box and he says, Here you go.

I said, Okay. I open it up.

And it's.

A really nice.

Ring.

And he just tells.

Me, You marry that girl right now.

Oh, my gosh. Whoa. Just like that. Yeah. He gave you the engagement ring.

Yes, he did.

Wow, that's cool.

Yeah, he was...

Because I was just floored.

And I said, Stan, did you buy this?

He said, Oh.

No, I upgraded my wife's.

Ring, so you can have.

That one. I'm like.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness. Wow, that's very cool. Yeah. How tempted have you been to do something like that for somebody now that you're out of debt and doing well?

We just try to find.

Just like every opportunity.

My wife's.

Very good with discernment.

And so.

When.

She.

Tells me we need to.

Give somebody money or to help them.

Out, help them move, I always listen to her and say, Okay, you.

Know what you're doing. Smart man. I was about to say the.

Same thing. I was like, Smart man. That's amazing. Okay, that's what I love about the show, though, is I'm like all the different ways that people will step into people's lives and intersect them and their stories where they're at and be able to help. And even something like a proposal to be able to say, Hey. Go marry that girl. Yeah, here's the ring and all that. So Stan. Stan, well done. Is it still the ring you have? Your wife's sitting over here? Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Absolutely amazing.

There it is right there. I like it. It's so great. All right, Nathan, how long you been with Ramsey? Since January. All right. Tell everybody what you do here.

I am a...

I'm.

A.

Senior writer with the content team. Absolutely. Very cool. Well, thank you, brother, for sharing that. You did a great job, and that's a wonderful giving story, a wonderful, generous story. Absolutely awesome. Yes. Thanks, Nathan. Very cool. Merry Christmas, you all. Very good stuff. Fun, fun, fun. That's about as good as it gets. I love it. Hey, open phones here at triple-8-825-5255. Theresa wrote in from the Baby Steps community on Facebook group. If you didn't know, there's an official Baby Steps community with, I think it's over a million people in it now on Facebook. That's the official Baby Steps, Ramsey community. I don't know, it's called something like that. Today, a family member reached out asking for help. They're truly struggling, receiving food stamps, but we're desperate for items you cannot buy with food stamps. In less than an hour, I was able to go through my stockpile and fill a giant Ikea bag with every possible item they may need. I'm gifting toilet paper, cleaning supplies, toothpaste, deodorant, napkins, air freshener, laundry soap, dryer sheets, tissue, trash bags, and about a dozen other household necessities. On my way over, I'll be picking up dog food, a gas gift card, and some gifts they can give each other for Christmas.

I'm so thankful for being debt-free and that a bunch of recent overtime is allowing me to help them without it impacting my budget at all. I'm finally in the season of giving, and I couldn't be more thankful.

For that. I love that. Isn't that great? And even just that a little bit of that convenience where you're like, All right, I'm going to just go through my pantry and see what I have here and be able to fill up a bag and be able.

To give it away. Well, and you can double up. A lot of people do the Costco thing, and they buy six jars of peanut butter, and so they've got plenty. You're not going to go without. That's right. It works out. But just to be able to do that spur of the moment and catch somebody. Katie says, For so many years, I hated December, my husband, son, and sister's birthday plus Christmas. I could never do what I wanted. This year, I'm taking five of us to Florida to my parents for Christmas, doing house projects for them while there. Everyone can have what they need and some of what they want for Christmas. Birthdays, plenty for giving, but the hardest part is keeping the list straight. Checked the bank a few minutes ago because it felt too spendy, and I had only spent 5% of what was allotted. That's weird, but good weird. Keep going. It gets fun.

Yeah, there you go.

Well, you know what? It takes a stress off at the holidays. One of the biggest elements of stress is the financial threat of a hangover, a financial hangover that lasts till May when you've got your money.

Under control. In the name of generosity, right?

Yeah, all in the name of generosity. I hated December, she says. Yeah, I get it. I completely get that. This is the annual Giving Show here on The Ramsey Show. Folks, changing your family tree takes more than rice and beans and side hustles. It's also about transferring the big financial risks off your family by having the right kinds of coverage in place. That's why my team created the coverage checkup quiz. It only takes about five minutes to find out what types of insurance you need and don't need to protect your finances. Make this quiz one of your regular checkups starting right now at ramseysolutions. Com/checkup. That's ramseysolutions. Com/checkup. Well, it's our annual giving show and all day we've gotten to hear some incredible stories of outrageous generosity, the stuff that gets us fired up it never gets old. Guys, if you've learned anything from the stories we're hearing today, I hope you've learned that giving is the most fun you can have with money, and you'll never have more fun than helping someone else change their life. One way you can do that is the live and give box. Everyone today has been getting the live and give box that calls in with a giving story.

This is the box we gave everyone. Today we're offering it, I thought it was $99. This is even more. $79.99. That's $20 off a normal. That's half price for these items. It's an entire year of Financial Peace University, a copy of The Total Money Makeover, and a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires. If there's someone in your life who needs this, and there is, then you give it to them, you're going to show them hope. You're going to show them freedom. They might be the ones calling in on the next giving show because you changed their life. Get the live and get the liveandgivebox@ramseysolutions. Com, super sale on this thing. 79.99 today. You'll get it in time for Christmas if you call in today or click on the website today and get it. Nobody calls in anymore. And again, that's ramseysolutions. Com/box. We used to have people call customer care and order stuff.

I bet there's still a few that do.

There probably is.

But majority go on the internet.

I mean, it's just a foreign.

Thing to do. The internet. I said plural. That's what John Delaney always says, the internet.

The internet's like there's two of them.

Feels like there's a lot.

There's a lot of them. All right, Andrea is with us in San Diego. Andrea, happy Christmas to you. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Dave and Rachel. Thanks for having me on the show.

Absolutely. Tell us your giving story, please.

I have a receiving generosity story. My husband and I got married last year, November, in 2021, and we went through Financial Peace University together, and we're on baby step 3B. And he is active duty military and is deployed this year. So last month on our one year wedding anniversary, since he's gone, I invited one of my best girlfriends to go out to dinner with me. I said, come to dinner with me. This is my treat. Let's just have a good meal and good conversation. Get whatever you want. Don't read the menu from right to left. And so we went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant, the type of restaurant where the manager is roaming around talking to people, making sure everything's satisfactory. So the manager comes over to our table and he asks if we're visiting from out of town because it was a pretty touristy area. And we said, no, we live here. And so he said, Oh, what's the occasion then? And I said, Well, it's my wedding anniversary, but I'm just here with my friends because my husband is away for work. And he had a pretty good guess. He said, Oh, is your husband in the military?

And I said, Yeah, he's a big military community here. And he said, Oh, I'm sorry that you guys are apart, but hopefully we can make your meal enjoyable. And he asked me what your wedding anniversary was. And I just held up one finger and his jaw.

Dropped and.

He said, Oh, my.

Gosh, I'm sorry.

And he said.

Which dessert on the menu were you girls eyeing? And so we looked at one and picked one.

I can't remember.

What it is now. And so, of course, they bring out that dessert, which was really nice. And my friend and I are finishing our meal. And a waiter came over, the server from the next section over, it wasn't our server, and he comes up and taps me on the shoulder. And he said that the couple sitting in the next section over the table behind us overheard me telling the manager that my husband was deployed and it was my first wedding anniversary, and they had paid for our entire meal.

I love it. As they should have.

Well played. That's amazing. I thought you were going to say it was the manager that just picked it up and just said we got it. But it was another customer there that did that. That's amazing.

Yeah, I.

Saw it.

When the manager was asking like, Oh, which dessert did you like? I thought that maybe they were going to comp the dessert. Right. And then my friend and I were just so shocked. And luckily, the couple was still there. They were finishing up. And so I was able to turn around and I just said, Thank you so much for your generosity. And they said, No, thank you. Thank your husband for his service. And yeah.

I didn't.

Really get to talk with them much.

But I asked if.

They were visiting.

Or local, and they.

Said that they were visiting on vacation and they were flying home the next day.

And that.

Was it. And yeah, just the spontaneity.

And the impact.

I.

Feel like.

That just has such a bigger impact on.

Me than.

It did them.

That makes my first anniversary so memorable.

Absolutely. How long you've been married now?

Well, last month was our one-year anniversary. Oh, this just happened.

This just happened. Yeah, it just happened.

Wow, okay.

I love that. I love the picking up the bill at restaurants. Dave, you're really good at that. If you see someone you know. But I think because I've been the recipient of that. Not to that extent, Andrea, your one year anniversary with your husband deployed, I mean, that's just like over the top. But anytime someone does anything that you think, Oh, my gosh, it's so shocking to be on the receiving end, and especially with you and all those circumstances, that literally makes you smile for weeks and weeks just thinking about that. Yeah.

Very cool. Absolutely.

Very cool. Hey, and do tell your husband we appreciate him, too. We love you guys. We appreciate what you do for America and all the men and women like him and like you and the sacrifice that you do for him being at work, in quotes. If it's out of San Diego, then that could mean a whole lot of things. Yeah, that's right. So yeah, wow. Thank you. Thank you very much. Open phones at triple 8-825-5225. I had the honor of doing some things with SEAL team. Of course, they're based out of San Diego. When they're at work, that means they're down-range. Yeah, that's when it's getting real. Some bad guy somewhere is in trouble. That's what that means. So it's pretty serious. These men and women, their level of sacrifice, their level of honor, their level of training is otherworldly. It's pretty amazing. Anytime you've got the opportunity to bless someone in uniform, please do it. I don't care if it's a police uniform, a firefighter's uniform, or a set of scrubs sitting there, or certainly a military uniform. You just reach over and do that every single time. I watched a guy the other day, somebody beat me to it.

I was in a nice restaurant, and this guy walked in with a Vietnam veteran's hat on, just a ball cap. He was elderly. I had served early in Vietnam, probably. But it wasn't 30 seconds before people started lining up to buy that table's food. It didn't take but a second because you could just look at that guy and go, That's a guy that needs to be honored. Yeah, absolutely. Pretty cool stuff. There's something that happens, Rachel, you're right. When somebody buys your dinner like that, regardless of whether you're in a position of honor like that or not, you're just in maybe position of need, whatever it is. But there's something about food and that transaction that makes the receiving person feel very special.

Yes, absolutely. I hate to even say the story because it's nothing compared to the call we just had. But when we had been married about three months, had moved to Nashville, I guess it had been about four months. And we were starting off our jobs once in our early 20s, just doing it. We had our budget, and we couldn't really go out to eat. We were in the Franklin area, that I am living outside of Nashville. And we were like, Okay, we can go out to dinner twice a week. It's our rhythm. And so we went out on a big date night to Puckets, downtown Franklin, one night. And some friends that we knew, family friends, they're a little bit older than us. And again, we had just been married about four or five months. And I remember we got waters because we didn't want to pay for a drink. We were in that season of life, and they paid for our meal. And I felt like I won the lottery. I was like, It's not coming out of our budget. Oh, my gosh. But yeah, it takes you off guard. Yeah. There's something that.

Makes you feel special. I know.

There's something that makes you feel special. I know. But you do that great. You always are paying for people's meals at restaurant. And I just love that. I think it's a beautiful thing.

Fun stuff. It's our annual giving show here on The Ramsey Show. Man, I love generous people. They make a smile, they make our eyes leak. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods, moving in storage studios. It's The Ramsey Show, where dad is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they actually love, and create real, amazing relationships. This day's shows are dedicated to giving, to generosity. It's our annual giving show in honor of Christmas time. Merry Christmas America. Hey, we're glad you're with us. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality number one, best-selling author is my co-host today, and we're taking your calls all about giving. We want to hear your stories that are inspiring about giving and about receiving. Generosity is the best thing you can do with money. It's the most fun you'll ever have with money. We teach you around here that you will sacrifice to win. You will live like no one else, so that later you can live and give like no one else.

Check it out. We want to hear your story. Open phones here at triple-8-825-5225. Jay in Washington, DC is with us. Merry Christmas. Jay, how are you?

Hey, Merry Christmas, Dave and Rachel. It's a real pleasure to talk with both of you.

You too. Tell us your giving story.

Yes, sir. I'd briefly like to share today my family's progression of our generosity over the past couple of Christmases and what we have planned this year. The first, my why. My three siblings and I were raised by a single mother who's a real hero to all of us. All four of us are successful adults, and so I have a real heart for helping single moms however I can. Over the years, course, we were helped by family and friends and strangers in many ways, and so I feel compelled to do the same. In 2020, my wife and my first Christmas after completing baby step three, we were finally in a position that we could expand our generosity to beyond our Church, and we opted to find a deserving stranger to help. So I chose a diner type restaurant a few days before Christmas, walked in and asked for the manager. I asked him if he had any single moms working that day who could use a little hand up with a money gift for the holiday. Someone came to his mind right away, and he was able to help me hand an envelope with a little over $200 to a grateful mom, two little ones.

Last year, my family and I became a little more strategic than that. I called a different restaurant about a month before Christmas and asked for the manager. And if she had any single moms who could benefit from a monetary gift there. She immediately thought of one mom who had recently successfully completed rehab. The manager and I skied for a weekend shift when this particular waitress was working and my wife and my kids and I visited that restaurant for a drink and a slice of pie that afternoon. We wanted to be anonymous, but evidently every employee in the place knew besides the waitress that we were about to give the gift, they were all smiling and watching us the whole time. In about 15 minutes into our visit, we left the waitress $400 tip and walked out. This year, Dave and Rachel, I'm a public school administrator, and I get daily reminders of how blessed my family and I are through the course of serving my school community. Unfortunately, this year, I learned recently that two siblings who attend my school lost their father to an accident. Our school team reached out to this newly widowed mom to see how we could support.

And she shared that, among other things, she was struggling with finances because her husband handle all financial matters. I immediately thought that my family and I could personally them a subscription over at Emzy Plus that she would really benefit from the financial coaching aspect of that. So I called your company and Rick, one of your long time agents, shout out to Rick, answered. I explained the situation on behalf of the company, he generously gifted the Year of Ramsey Plus to me to give to the widow. I'm really grateful for your company for stepping into help. And of course, my family and I have been talking about how we will outrageiously give this year, and it will go to our widow and our school community. We have to help our single moms, especially those who are widows. All these ladies are superheroes.

Absolutely. Yeah, they are. They do wear a cape, every one of them. Most of them work multiple jobs just to get by. Absolutely. It's a very real thing. So you've touched a nerve. You really have. That's fabulous. Well done, Jay.

Thank you. I love that, Jay. Thank you so much for the inspiration. We will continue.

Amen. Keep it up, brother. Merry Christmas to you. Absolutely.

Very well done. What an amazing heart, Jay, you have. You and your sweet family. I love the intentionality of calling the restaurant, talking to them. You build it up. And then his kids, Jay's kids, going along on that as well. There's just life-changing things.

Playing all around. Well, if you can more carefully identify the target, you're more likely to hit the target. Yes. Random things. Sometimes when you're doing this generosity stuff, you get a little nervous and you start thrashing around and get a little bit random, and sometimes you missed the target. Your giving doesn't do what you hoped it would do. But in his case, he's being very selective in helping someone go, Okay, that's a person. I love that. Now I've got that dialed in. That's very cool. You know what? I'll brag on Rick, our guy here, because I know he's talking about over in our Ramsey concierge team. All of you folks out there that own and run businesses, that's a leadership lesson right there. The way our team is led, we teach them to have a self-employed mentality, treat this place like they own it. Treat the books that you sell like you own them. Treat the stuff around here like you own it. Rick treated that like he owned it. He said, That's somebody. This is something that if I own this company, I would give that. And so he gave that. By the way, if you're running the company, your leadership style needs to equip and empower your people to do that.

To be generous. To be generous without asking. They don't need to check in. Just do the right thing. He didn't give away $10,000. He gave away one-year membership to Financial Peace University. We'll be okay. It's okay. He's equipped, he's empowered to do that all through people all through this place. Matter of fact, there are more than that. It's like we demand that they do it. It's part of their job to be generous and to take care of people as a one-offs. Now, if you call in and make up a lie and try to mess with us, we'll charge you double, okay? We do that too because we treat it like we own it. We don't want to be conned, but we do want to be generous. There's a difference, right? I mean.

That's the thing. Yeah, totally.

Absolutely. But way to go, Rick. That's very cool stuff. That's how it's supposed to be done. My point of that is if those of you that run small businesses out there and lots of you do your entree leaders, meaning your entrepreneurs and leaders, you can magnify your generosity just by empowering your team to do it because they have more touch points sometimes than you do. So it gives you a lot of ways to do it. This is an annual giving show here on The Ramsey Show. Here at Ramsey Solutions, we're on a mission to bring hope to the hopeless. We've helped millions find peace in their money and their life. We need people like you to help us. We have open roles in our sales, marketing, and technology teams. We offer financial, developmental, and health benefits to help you live a balanced life while doing life-changing work. You want to join the crusade? See our open roles at ramseysolutions. Com/careers and apply today. That's Ramsey Solutions. Com/careers. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. As we do our annual giving show, we are taking calls from those of you telling your giving stories.

Open phones at triple-eight, 825, 5225. Harmony is in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Merry Christmas, Harmony.

Merry Christmas. I am thrilled to talk to you. It is such an honor to participate in the Giving Show.

Well, thank you. Tell us your story.

Okay, so my Giving Story started a few years back. I got a really nice bonus at work, and I love my job, and I know I'm good at it, but I also know I am nothing without my team. So I wanted to share. And it was a little conundrum because I wasn't really supposed to advertise that I'd gotten a bonus. I don't think there were a whole lot of them given out that year, and I couldn't just give them money because I don't think that would have been appropriate. So I did my Secret Santa idea. I just made up some envelopes with cash in them and the person's name and they said from Secret Santa, thank you for all you do. And I snuck around and I flipped them under the office doors. And it was just so much fun that I decided right then and there that I would just go ahead and add a line item to my budget so I could have a Secret Santa fund and do it again. So I did it again next year. Then I also noticed how great our janitors are where I work. Of course, everything we do would come to a screeching halt if they didn't do their jobs.

Amen. They're just always so friendly and cheerful, and they say hi to everybody and they knock on every door of every office every day and empty the trash and all the other things that janitors do. I decided they would be a part of it, too. And then the most amazing thing that happened was that it went viral. One of the janitors sent an email to the all-employees distribution list that said, Thank you, Secret Santa, whoever you are. And people started asking her what was she talking about? She took a picture of the envelope and sent that out. And then, yeah. So this is like the entire staff gets these emails.

And how many is that, Harmony? How many people are getting this?

About 500.

Okay, okay. That's amazing.

Yeah. After about a day or so, someone replied to the email chain saying, I got one of those two, and then another one, me too. And these weren't the ones that I had given. Oh,. And Secret Santa stuff started magically appearing all over the facility.

Oh, my gosh, Harmony.

Sounds like Santa got in on it.

I can't believe it. It was so fun, and I can't wait to see what happens this year, because we're not quite... We worked right up until the day before Christmas Eve, so it's going to probably be next week when things really... I'm expecting to see it again this year.

Wow.

It's right what you said. This is like therapy for me. I get so much more out of this than I would from any stuff or even any experiences that I could buy with the same money.

Well, the fabulous thing is you inspired somebody else to start doing it, too, and didn't even know it.

I think it was her email that really got the word out. I was tight-lipped. No one knew unless some of the recipients that I gave had said something to somebody else. But then when this email went out, that was really what got it going, I think.

That's so perfect. That's awesome. Well done. Well done. Great story. The original Secret Santa, if there is one, there's a guy named Larry Stewart from Kansas City. We ended up connecting with him, having him on the show several times, developed a friendship with him. He's passed away of cancer since. But Larry was quite an interesting bird. He was down on his luck decades ago, didn't have any money, was hungry, pulled his pickup into a diner in Mississippi, a little meat and three diner, went up to the counter and sat down and ate. With the idea that when he finished, he was just going to act like he forgot his wallet and just try to talk because he had to have food, he was hungry. He started talking to the cook behind the counter, who turned out to be the owner of the diner, we find out later in the story. The guy realized that he was broke and was running a scam. He walked around behind him and reached down on the floor and said, Hey, I think you dropped this, and handed him a $20 bill. He gave him the money, in other words, so he was able to pay for his dinner.

Larry never forgot that. He later goes on to be in the cable TV business and goes on to become a multimillionaire and started a tradition of Secret Santa, and nobody knew who he was. He would go to areas of the country where something had happened. He was in New Orleans after Katrina. He was after a shooting around Columbine. He was there after that. He was in New York City after 911. He would walk around in a Santa Claus suit with his friends who were policemen would go with him, and he would give away tens of thousands of dollars. He'd walk up and just hand people $100 bills, $200 bills, $300 bills, $400. He would walk around all day long just on the street and just randomly coming up to people and just going, Ho, ho, ho. Who are you? And he said, Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. Over his life, he handed out millions of dollars as Secret Santa. When he got sick, he created the Secret Santa kit to franchise it so that other people could do it. To keep it going. You could go to his... I don't even know if the website's still up.

He died several years ago, but the website was like secretsana. Com or something, and you could go there and learn how to be him. Because finally, no one knew who it was. It was a big mystery. All the media was trying to track him down, trying to figure out what it was. He kept it a secret for many years. The Kansas City Star, finally, in his own hometown, tracked him down, figured out who it was. He came out. When he got sick, he came out and told everybody who he was and started telling his whole story. We had him on the air. He was just a piece of work. He was a lot of fun. But he would dress up as Santa Claus and go into the areas of town where people were struggling or go to towns where something had happened, and they just needed encouragement. It wasn't like $5. I mean, he's giving away hundreds of dollars and $100 bills and tens of thousands of dollars on a given trip in a given day. It was very cool. He was a great secret Santa like Harmony. Harmony is a great secret Santa. I know.

Well done, Harmony. The weird thing is that just like Larry Stewart's legacy lives on and people are now doing Secret Santas all over in his memory. Harmony wasn't tracking on him. I'm sure she just had her own idea there. But if you're tracking that wholeidea. They don't know who he is. You never know what you inspire. How many of those Gen Two, Gen Three, Generation Three, Secret Santas are popping up all over inspired by you and what.

You created. I would say I have enough hope and humanity that if someone has given a gift like that, that somewhere in their life, they will give as well, right? It's like when you are given to, you can't help but then to pass that on, right? It may look different than the original gift given to you, but that's where the generosity butterfly effect can happen. And it may not happen every single time, but I have enough faith in humanity that I'm like, I think it does. But something is given to you in a act of generosity, your life has shifted and it changes, and then you, in turn, want to be able to give to you. So I love the.

Passing on. It's inspiring, this thing called generosity. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Go to ramseysolutions. Com/store. That's ramseysolutions. Com/store. Rachel Cruz.

Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today. This is our annual giving show here on The Ramsey Show. We like to inspire generosity and particularly here at Christmas time. Merry Christmas to you, America. We want you to be givers. We want you to enjoy money. The greatest joy you'll ever get with it is the joy of generosity. One of the ways we also celebrate this Day of Giving on the show is we get some of the folks that work at Ramsey, one of the 1,100 team members, to come in and tell their giving or receiving story. Sarah is with us on the Debt Free stage to tell her story. Hey, Sarah, tell us your giving story.

All right. So about a year ago, and just in the past few years, my grandmother has been such an incredible blessing to my family and myself. Towards the end of last year, in August, my grandfather unfortunately passed away due to COVID. But around the same time, my grandmother had made the decision to sell her home and move in with my parents. So while this was all happening, I was still living at home. And as a family, we were like, You know what? We're going to go through FPU. So we did. And every single video that we watched because it was a remote class, my grandmother was just sitting on the couch quietly, just listening and absorbing all the information. And I really believe that something just changed in her heart that 10Xed her generosity. And she was already an incredibly generous person. I mean, she'd be the first one to pay for your food. Every time I went out, she'd be like, Oh, can I slip a few dollars your way for coffee? Just the sweetest little person, a religious giver. And she also didn't just give her time or give her money, but she also gave her time.

And part of the ways that she did that was every single week for as long as I can remember, she would spend a ton of time making just a ton of food for her local church youth group. And every single year, she also host our Thanksgiving family, our Thanksgiving feast. She would spend days on end cooking. She would invite her family, and not just her family, but the entire church congregation. Oh, my God. It was a whole feast. She'd spent days preparing this. And she was older in age, so she had a weaker heart, and she couldn't even just cook it all at once. She literally had to break it apart that far just to do this. Wow. It was just an incredible, just inspiring woman that she did all of this. And through this time, towards the beginning of this year, unfortunately, her health did start declining. But she wanted to make sure that her daughter's family, my mom, was well taken care of. So as she was learning all these principles and your teaching, she had made the decision to pay off her vehicle. And a few days later, she had told my mom, You know what?

I want you to put this in your name, because she knew that it would be her vehicle when she passed and she didn't want my mom to have that burden of a car payment. And that just helped so much. And on top of that, my grandmother was my biggest cheerleader and my biggest prayer warrior as I had made the decision to move from South Florida to Tennessee to pursue my dream job here at Ramsey Solutions. Oh, fun. Yeah, she would pray with me before and after every single interview. On top of that, she also helped fund one of my grad school tuition semesters, and that just helped incredibly as someone who was on Baby Step Three. And a few months after that, she actually gave me $5,000 towards purchasing my first car. As I moved up here, I needed a reliable vehicle to get around. And I actually moved up here without the job, using the proximity principal to get the job. And I couldn't have done this on my own, but with her support, I was able to get my day of car. I got my dream job here. And just last weekend, I walked for my graduation for my master's degree, all debt-free at 21.

Oh, my God.

I'm super grateful for the impact that she's had me on that way. But in that way, but it gets even better than that. And as she was continuing through financial peace towards the end, we have that generosity video. And she actually asked my mom one day if she would drive her to the bank. Now, my mom had no idea why she wanted to go to the bank. She thought, Oh, maybe she wants to open an account. But on the drive over, she actually revealed that she wanted to pay off my parents' house.

In.

Full, completely like $200,000. It was insane. There was nothing stopping her from doing this. Wow. She went ahead and she paid off my parents' house. Without that mortgage payment, such a huge weight was just lifted off my parents' shoulders. My family and I are just so incredibly grateful for the blessing of that from her and just her lasting legacy of generosity. And as I've moved up here now, there was a weekend since I knew that her health was declining that I had decided to go back and visit her in South Florida. And I flew in really early, I think 6:00 AM that day, and I got to the home and I was sitting at her bedside holding her hand. My mother was on the other side also holding her hand. And I got the privilege to spend the last 20 minutes of her life by her side. And just the lasting impact of generosity, I hope that I can carry that on. And this place helps me do exactly that. So I really am so grateful to be a part of this crusade.

Wow, you're incredible. What a great story. That's amazing. I love your granny.

She's awesome. I think too. Yes, she's-.

Man, she's incredible.

-how old was she when she passed?

She was 76.

76, okay. How many grandkids does she have? Is it you and- It's actually just three. Three, okay. Yes. But I was thinking like, that's what I love about within a family unit, right? How that trickle effect is so real. Absolutely. And as you're standing here, you're like, Oh, yeah, your life is completely different. Not just from the monetary gifts that she's given you, but it's the spirit, right? That generosity. Her character. Yeah, who she is.

Absolutely. It's beautiful. Absolutely.

My mom was like, I hope that I can do that for you guys one day, too. I'm just like, As much as we can do, we're trying to be generous in not just the big ways, but the small ways as well.

That's right. That's pretty cool. Very cool. Very, very well done. Good stuff. All right, Sarah, tell everybody what you do here and how long you've been on the team.

I am an email marketer with every dollar, and I've been here about eight months.

And you said you're 21. Yes, I am. And you just got your Master's in what?

In strategic communications and leadership.

Wow, very cool. That's awesome. Well, you're a great team member, and that was a wonderful, generosity story. Very, very.

Well done. Sweet grandmother. I love it. Thanks for sharing it, Sarah. Thank you.

For having me.

Thank you for having me. Good stuff. Generous people make a smile. Generous people make our eyes leak. I was crying on that one. That one got me. That was good. Right there? That was powerful. Yeah. Papa Dave. Wiping my tears away. Yeah, that was good.

That's so sweet.

Well, the grandmother kicking in and just going, Boom, I'm going to do this, and boom, I'm going to do that, and boom, I'm going to do that. The other thing that just occurs as I'm sitting there, we've got so many millennials and Gen Xers on this team, and they get such a bad rep as - Being selfish and shallow. Stereotypically being Snowflakes, not having hustle, not having grind, not having that. Like so many stereotypes that are just inaccurate, there's certainly a segment of Gen Z and certainly a segment of millennial that's awful.

And a segment of the boomers and a segment of every other generation.

Exactly. There's no question. But I got to tell you, we work up close and personal with a bunch of Gen Zs that are like her. That lady right there is brilliant. Beautiful. Yeah. 21, great. She's articulate, just finishes her master's degree, and is a proud member of this crusade and so on. They're out there. They're out there. When you get to meet people like Sarah, you know that we're going to be okay. The Gen Zs, there's enough of those like her in Gen Z that are in good shape. That's right.

That's right.

That's right. Yeah, good stuff. Hey, this is our Giving theme hour. Thank you for our theme show today. Thank you for being with us on this. It's absolutely incredible to share these stories. If you've got a great giving story, jump in, and we'll try to get you on the phone numbers triple-eight, 825-5225. How our lives have changed? Trudy is in the Babysteps Community Facebook group. How our lives have changed since finding the Ramsey Financial Peace University at our church six years ago before FPU. It would be weeks before Christmas. We'd be scrambling to find money to pay for gifts, make payments on credit cards. Today, my husband called to tell me it's giving Tuesday, and we still have a sizable amount of money in our charity account. I stopped decorating the house and started a poll in our town for people's favorite charities. This is the most fun you can have with money. Before dinner tonight, we are delivering checks. There we go. That's great. Good stuff. That's the way it's done. Intentional giving, intentional generosity. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, the point is this, Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.

That's a good one.

Yeah. He might have a future in that writing stuff, that Ralph Waldo Emerson guy. You never know. This is a giving show for The Ramsey Show. We do it once a year. We should do it more. But we're here celebrating the power of generosity. Grace is in Tyler, Texas. Merry Christmas, Grace. Tell us your giving story.

Merry Christmas, you guys. It's an honor to come on air today to share my story. Well, my story was back in 2020, 20, during the height of all of the COVID shutdowns in the world, spinning, it felt like. My husband and I were both fortunate enough to keep working and keep our jobs and actually have overtime opportunity as well. And so we were doing really financially during that time when we know a lot of people weren't. So when those rounds of stimulus checks started coming in from the government, my husband and I both agreed that we wanted to use those checks to bless somebody who was struggling during that time. We were praying about it, like Lord, lead us to how you would have us use this money. And since there were so many needs, we didn't know which need to meet, there were so many. And the Lord put on my heart to just reach out to a friend of mine who the year prior had moved to Uganda with her family to oversee and operate a children's home there. It's basically like a foster home for babies, newborn through age five who either don't have a family or for one reason or another aren't able to be cared for by their families.

And they take care of these babies and love on them and provide for them and care for them until they're either reunited with their family or placed with some permanent placement or in some cases, domestic adoption. And when I reached out to my friend, I found out that they had been really hurting because of all of the lockdowns there in Uganda. The lockdowns were extremely strict. It was really difficult for them to be able to leave their facility. They had strong regulations regarding that. And even when they were able to leave, it's not like all of the markets were open and bustling. And so they were running quickly out of supplies for their clinic, medications, equipment, as well as clothes for those growing babies since babies grow like weeds and they needed clothes in the neck sizes up and we're not able to get them. So I asked my friend for a list of everything they needed for their clinic in terms of clothes, the office, everything. And she sent that over to me. And my husband and I went to Walmart and completely cleared the list and packed up five very large boxes and expressed to ship them internationally to Uganda for them.

That's.

Fun. Grace, that's amazing.

That is great. When they got those boxes, they must have thought Santa had shown up for sure.

Yes, it was so sweet. My friend, when the first boxes started to arrive, she opened it. And with some of the older babies, the toddler age, sent me a picture with some of those babies holding some of the new clothes and items from the boxes. And that just... It made me cry just from the joy that I was feeling that we got to be a blessing for them because we were doing fine financially. We didn't need that money to be able to bless them in that way. It was just so incredible. Oh, life-changing. It's the most fun I've had shopping ever.

Amen. That is the most fun ever.

Oh, Grace, that's amazing.

Well done, Grace. Very well done. Well, like it. Ian is with us in Milwaukee. Merry Christmas, Ian.

Merry Christmas. I haven't slept because I've been so excited to be on this show.

Well, I'm sorry we didn't mean to have that effect. How can we help? Tell us about it. Tell us your giving story.

I'm currently 37. When I was 35, I had been a police officer for 13 years, and I just recently been promoted to sergeant. Up until that time, I had never had any inkling of heavy mental health issues. I had extremely healthy. I'd done everything I ever wanted to do at the department. And all of a sudden, something just clicked and I was completely debilitated by a form of OCD where you think you're going to or you think you did harm your kids. And my little girls were two and five at the time. And I love being a girl, Dad. I was at work and I'm constantly around all these bad people. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, that's me. I did something. I hurt them when I was changing their diapers. My doctor is like, No, Ian, you have OCD. You have it so bad, you need to contact Rogers Behavioral Health because they're the best in the business. I called them and they're like, We need to get you in our residential program now. You are one of the most severe cases we've seen. And so I'm like, All right, let's do it. I called my insurance and they said, no, we're not covering it because it's not worded impatient, even though that's what it was.

And so I'm thinking, my gosh, we have... We were in baby steps, still are four, five, and six. And I said, we can cover this. But what happens if my treatment runs past 12, 16 weeks and the Department says you're not fit for duty, we're going to leave. I was just so scared because that had been my life. Their foundation says, Look, we will cover 100% your stay and inpatient. Wow. And we will make sure you get treated.

Now, whose foundation? The mental health organization's foundation or the department's foundation?

No, the mental health organization, 100%. Oh, wow. 100%. Wow. When I came out and did their partial program and daily therapy, we cash flowed that without touching our emergency fund. Wow. I did the disability process for retirement all by myself, and I was able to retire full pension. I could not thank them enough because they really did save my life 100% and my family's life. Now I get to be a girl dad. I get to talk about this. I actually just wrote an article. I talk about this at churches and leadership conferences and schools. You guys are my inspiration to do that, and that's what I get to do now. Wow!

Well, very well done. It's a powerful story. Sounds like you're doing good, are you?

I'm doing good. Actually, there's a couple of people in your organization, Tristan, Dawn, and Aesha, they're listening today. Actually just filled out an application for one of the positions with you guys to give it a shot and maybe share my talents with you guys. Wow.

Very cool, Ian.

Very cool. That's a powerful story, though. Yeah, the generosity, that piece is what a burden that's lifted off when you don't have to pay for something like that. I mean, that's absolutely incredible.

There's things that are definable and you can put your finger on mental health things often aren't as easy to define. I mean, if you need heart surgery, that's a very definable, objective thing. If you've got, in his case, a form of OCD, that's a little tougher to diagnose and to define that goes, Oh, there's an end to this treatment. Those people stepped up and, as he said, literally saved his life. That's pretty incredible. That's amazing. Very cool. That's the beauty of having around healthcare, mental health, or physical care, either one having foundations and things that support and move that is absolutely vital. Yes. Well, guys, that's a great giving show. You folks out there did it again. You inspired each other. You inspired America by calling in and giving your great stories. Rachel, this whole generosity thing is a big deal.

Well, it is. It's a huge piece of why we do what we do here every day, getting people in a place where they can be freed up, where their money doesn't control them so that they can truly live and give like no one else. And this is that piece that we get to celebrate today.

So thank you guys so much for calling in. Great job, Austin, Zach, Ben, James, Andrew, in the booth. The booth dudes, they make the show happen. That puts this hour in the booth, in the whatever. 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.