Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. The phone number is 888-825-5225. My co-host today is best-selling author Ramsey personality and host of The George Campbell Show, the one and only George Camel. George, we're celebrating a little bit today One year ago, we started the George Campbell with a K show on YouTube, and it has blown up. We've now, in one year, you've had over 30 million total views on that channel, one and a half million unique viewers a month. Wow. 200,000 subscribers in the first year. That is wild. Pretty incredible.

A one-year-old channel. A one-year-old channel. Thank you. I think we need a little smash cake. Isn't that what the one-year-olds get at their birthday parties?

Yeah.

Okay. We'll work on that.

But no. Anyway, yeah.

It has been fun. I mean, three videos a week for a year is no small task for the type of content we've been making. Very entertaining, highly informative. We're trying to just, as you've called it, displacing all the filth that's out there on the internet when it comes to financial advice. I put that in quotes loosely. It's been a lot of fun riling the internet up, sometimes for good reason, sometimes with a lot of hate. I feel like I'm walking in your footsteps now. I get it.

This is what it feels like. The riling up part.

That's how you know it's working.

If you're not pissing some people off. I'll tell you what, obviously, the team and you are putting out a great product on the YouTube, the George Campbell show. You guys check it out. Again, 30 million views in one year. That's a lot of people.

I can't count that many people.

It's more than I got fingers. I know that. So there you go. 200,000 subscribers in a million and a half a week joining us. So thank you guys for supporting George, but also George and the team. Congratulations. I'm really, really thrilled for you. Thank you. Very, very cool stuff. Jessie starts this hour in Baltimore. Jessie, what's up?

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm just surprised that I got through, so I'm not completely prepared. I have to warn you, if my husband comes home, I'm going to have to hang up real quick.

Why?

Well, that's why I'm calling. My husband, I'm a I'm a get-home mom. I was a doctor before that, but ever since having my kids a few years ago, I've just been staying home. The deal was that I don't have to worry about money, and my husband will take care of everything, and he'll manage the big house and the cars and all that, and I just buy what I want, what I want. I started to notice that my credit card bill was not getting paid off in full. I would say around September, October, this was the second time that had happened. Then the first time, he paid it all off, and then this time, it was not paid off. I finally started asking him more questions, and I found out he has a lot more than I have of credit card debt. He has car loans, and I just wasn't paying attention at all. Now we're basically in trouble with debt, and we're going to have to move to a smaller house. I don't know how we're going to pay for the kids.

This whole thing of you buy whatever you want It didn't work?

No. I'm looking at our pool right now, and it's a joke. It's all a joke.

How can we help?

Sorry. My question for you is, I'm still discovering what's going on. How do I talk to him in a way that doesn't offend him or emasculate him or make him feel… Because he, I think, feels like that's why I was like, I'll have to hang up to get work because it would kill him that I'm even asking you this because he wants to be the man in charge, taking care of everyone.

Well, the proper man in charge shares the burden of running the household with his wife.

He's such a wonderful father.

No, stop.

There's nothing manly about secretly going into debt.

Yeah, there's nothing. That's not the man in charge. He's dealing with a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. He thought he was supposed to handle this all by himself, and he doesn't. That's why he didn't want to talk about it. But I think the two of you got to work. This is a relationship issue. The two of you got to sit down together and you just say, Hey, look, I screwed up by dumping this whole thing on you because you did. Okay? Yeah. You can apologize for that and say, And so whatever the mess is, we're going to face it together. And whatever the mess is, as two adults, we're going to work together to get it fixed. Okay. Let me sit down and let's walk together because I love you. You're my husband. We're going to walk together as adults in full disclosure. You probably made some mistakes. I made a huge mistake by asking you. It wasn't right for me to ask you to carry the whole thing by yourself. I'm going to sit down. Now, let's go forward, not backward. Let's go forward and say, How can we work together?

The first step of working together is for us to get everything out and put it on the table, put the kids to bed, and let's just look at it, and let's figure out a game plan of how we clean up the mess. I'm wherever Whatever that is, if we need to stay in a tent, I'm going with you.

Okay.

If I need to pick up some shifts or something, we'll do that. But we'll sit down together and let's look at it together. It's not condemning his stupid decisions. He made some stupid decisions, but he also had… It's all clouded in this shame, and that's why he doesn't want to talk about it. He feels inept. It's hurt his self-esteem, his confidence. Rightly so. That's how I felt. I felt like an idiot when I went broke. Because I was. Hello? I wasn't an idiot, but I had done some idiot butt stuff that caused us to go broke, and it really wasn't Sharon's fault, but I felt… She was scared to death like you are. That's why the tears are so close to the top. Because not knowing is more scary than knowing something hard.

Exactly.

Tell him that. Not knowing is more scary to me than knowing something hard. I'm worried about you, and I'm worried about us, and I want us to get on the same page and lock arms. I'm not here to beat you up. I made a mistake. You probably made some mistakes, but we can put all that in the rear of your mirror, and let's just go how we can go forward. Okay. Does that sound clean?

You have no idea how helpful that is. I mean, or maybe you do. I feel like I don't even... Oh, my God.

Let me tell you, my wife is a tough hillbilly woman, and she was so scared she couldn't breathe when we went through that.

That's what I feel like. Yeah.

Said she felt like she was driving a car and hit an ice thing and the car's spinning and she's going to hit something she just doesn't know what.

That's what I feel like.

Out of control.

Yeah.

Well, we want to help you take the next step, Jessie. We're going to gift you one year of every dollar premium, and you and your husband are going to sit down, lay out all the debts. If you're not even sure, go pull credit reports on both of you, find out everything on paper, then make that detailed budget with every dollar. List your income, list all of the expenses, all of the debts, and it's going to be scary at first. But then you're going to be able to make a plan together and go, How are we going to tackle this debt?

Thank you so much.

It's a little bit like one of my buddies got diagnosed with cancer the other day, and that just completely put you, it knocked you out emotionally. Then you know what's worse than that? It's like three weeks before they tell you anything else because they can't seem to get into what? Three Weeks of not knowing.

If you're going to die. The unknown is so much harder.

Not knowing is harder. Just sign me up for the chemo. Sign me up for the plan. Let's just get what's the plan? That's not as hard as not knowing. This is The Ramsey Show. Listen, everyone needs ID theft protection. It doesn't matter your age, how much money you have, or where you live. Once you're a victim, and it's likely to happen to all of us at some point, your personal and financial reputation gets to shreds, and it's a nightmare to clean up. Having the right protection and not wasting money are key, and that's what Xander's ID theft protection plan is all about. They bundle together the services you need at pricing that can't be beat. With monitoring that includes your home title, VPN encryption, unlimited recovery services, and even stolen funds protection, you're getting a great value and dealing with people you can trust. I could go on, but you can see for yourself. Go to zander. Com or call 800-356-4282 and get the protection you need. Whether you're ditching an overpriced plan or getting protected for the first time, Zander's team are the only people I trust and recommend. George Campbell-Ramsey personality is our co-host today.

Thank you for joining us, America. George, I'm so excited about this total money makeover weekend.

The month away.

Yeah, it's right here on campus at our Ramsey Events Center. We're going to walk you on Friday night and all day Saturday, George and Rachel Cruz and Jade Warshaw and me, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Kohn. We're going to walk you through everything you need to do to completely change your whole household. Not only how to get out of debt, not only how to create a proper budget on every dollar, not only how to get along with your spouse or those of you that are single, how to deal with those issues, When it comes to money and how to make more money for Mr. Ken Coleman is a good idea because more money helps us go faster. We're going to go through every bit of it, and you're going to leave here. Bring your reluctant spouse, bring your friend that thinks you're crazy, because by the time they leave, I promise you they will be crazy. We will convert them.

There's something about a live event, Dave. You've been doing these for 30 years, but it's so different than just listening to the show or reading a book.

It's an experience. We're going to do a bunch of Q&A. We're going to get to hang out with you guys. It's a whole weekend. We do this show on the glass from 1:00 to 4:00 Central Time. You can roll in here a little bit early on Friday, watch that, and then come on up to the event center. We're going to be speaking that night. You guys are going to do a live taping of Smart Money Happy Hour up there that night, and we'll do some other stuff. Then Saturday is buckle in because here we go, baby.

That's the game on day.

I love it. This is a great event. If you're already doing the stuff, it's your pep rally. If you need to get somebody on board, it's your method of converting them to this thing called common sense.

There's all the people who are ish. They were doing the plan. Maybe they fell off the wagon. This is their moment to get back on and actually do this stuff.

As you said, I've been doing it a long time, and we've filled theaters and arenas across the nation doing this material in different versions. I mean, this obviously is all updated. We're going to deal with current modern stuff on this. But the number of times I run into somebody saying, 10 years ago went to your event, not only we get out of debt, it saved our marriage. Not only saved our marriage, but now we're millionaires. I run into that.

The catalyst was that event, that experience.

Turned the corner. It was the pivot point. There you go. The hinge pin. Yeah, there you go. Man, so check it out. Get your tickets. Platinum plus tickets are sold out, but there are platinums, a couple, and a couple of VIPs and general admissions are still available. Ramseesolutions. Com/events. It is May 10th and 11th. On campus here, come to Nashville. You're going to have a great time in Nashville, and we are going to pour out everything we got to help you change your life.

We leave it all on the dance floor. There we go.

That's what we say. Nothing left except on the floor. That's it. Leave it all on the field. All right. Anthony is in Los Angeles. Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Hi, I'm George. I'm calling you because I'm looking for some hope. Actually, we have $29,000 of debt on a vehicle, and we made $196,000 this past year. Right now, our current year to date is $57,000 gross, a little bit over $57,000 gross. We have this $29,000 debt and $52,000, and '51. We're looking for hope. We want to I want to know if we can ever buy a home and be millionaires. I did my budget for this month, and it's a little higher than normal because we had some things come in that weren't planned. Normally, on average, our budget is about $8,300 a month. Right now, it's 11 something, a little bit over 11,000. But I'm really frustrated, and we're looking for hope. We want to own a home. We're not old, but we're not as young as we used to be, and I just want to be out of debt and own a home and have peace, and so just looking for some hope.

Well, what is your car payment right now?

I think it's 1,016 a month, if I'm not mistaken.

For one car?

For one car, yeah. The other two cars are paid off.

Okay. Well, that's a problem. It's not the reason that you don't have hope, because that alone is not the factor. You also live in California. High cost of living out there. Homes are going to wildly expensive. So it might look different for you guys. But there is hope for you yet when you make $200,000. That's a good start. Yeah. So how quickly can we knock out this car? I'm sorry? How quickly can we knock out this car loan making 200 grand?

Well, I did the math. I know that I'm going to make more this year because I'm in sales. So the more I hustle, the more I can make. The issue is that I did the math in our average monthly budget is about 83, 100 bucks. Now, this year, after I net, I neted $9,300. But this month's budget- Are you guys investing right now? No, we stopped. We have a 401k, we have 17 grand net, and then we have 5,000 in an emergency fund.

Okay, so you have 5,000 in the emergency fund. You've paused investing. You have 29,000 left on the car loan.

Anthony, $9,000, 9,300. Let's just round it up to 10,000. That's $120,000 a year. If you make- Yeah, that's my- Just a minute. That's my- No, no. Stop. Listen. If you're bringing home 120 and you make $200, something's really wrong because there's not an $80,000 tax bill on a $200,000 income.

I forgot to mention that I get spiffs, too. That's the net from my regular paycheck, but I also get income for selling chassees from the OEM. Also, I get money spiffs from the body companies for building bodies.

Is that included in the 200 but not included in the 9,000?

Exactly. I have another $1,200 coming in in about a week and a half, two weeks from spiffs.

Okay. How big is your tax refund, Ben?

The tax refund, we're getting Eighty, 800 bucks, I believe, $1,800, I believe, or $1,800. Yeah.

So you're having way too much held out of your account.

About 700 bucks a month.

Out of your check.

Yeah. I'm having way too much held, okay.

Yeah, because a tax refund is the government giving you money back because you overpaid your taxes. That's what a tax refund is.

I understand. You've been overpaying by about $700 a month out of your checks.

Out of my checks on taxes.

Yeah, you're overpaying your taxes. You need to change your withholding by about 700 a month, assuming your income stays the same. You've got some things you need to do to adjust along those lines, and then that's going to help you get the car knocked out a lot faster. The second thing is that when you say you're doing a budget, you are doing a budget differently than we teach. We're going to upgrade your budget experience because your budget experience is you write down what you hope is going to happen, and then when you look back, it didn't happen. That's not how you do a budget. A budget is you're going write down exactly before the month begins where every dollar is going to go. It all has a name, and your wife and you are going to look at it. Both of you are going to agree to that number, and we're not going to change anything on this budget unless we come back together and have another budget committee meeting. You're not doing that now. When you say you're budgeting, you're just like, Yeah, I had an idea of what I thought it ought to be, and it That's a different thing.

I'm talking about exact. Like you were running a business unit for me, and I was going to fire your butt if you didn't get your number straightened out. You would look at every stinking detail, and you'd write it all out in detail, and you have agreement with your wife and nobody gets off the budget train without a ticket. Okay? Period. Hardcore. Once you agree to it, it's a contract. You pinky, swear and spit-shake. That's it, baby. Now, Once we're doing that, you're going to find a bunch of money because you've got this loosy-goosy idea of how life's supposed to work, although it's not working that way. You're letting all this happen to you, and I want you to happen to it. This It's proactive instead of reactive, in other words. We're going to plug you into the Every Dollar Budgeting app for free as my gift, our gift from George and I, and Financial Peace University, the class. You and your wife go through the class together. Watch every lesson. Don't miss a single lesson. This has helped 10 million people get their crap together. You can do this, and you can own a house on $200,000 a year in Los Angeles, California.

It's possible. It's not easy, but if it was easy, everybody would do it. This is the Ramsey Show. It doesn't take a degree in statistics to realize this one stinks. 93% of undergraduate private student loans are cosigned. So when you're delinquent and drowning, mom or papa or uncle Joe is stuck in that financial stress along with you. But there is a way out. Whyrefi? Whyrefi offers a custom refinancing option with a fixed rate loan based on your ability to pay. And the average interest rate YreFi offers is 3.9%, which can significantly reduce your monthly payment and decrease your total cost. Contact YreFi at 844 ramsey, or go to yrefi. Com/ramsey. That's 8442-Ramsey or the letter Y, then refy. Com/ramsey.

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Man, I got to tell you, we are thankful for you folks out there. The ratings and the numbers on this show, on podcast, on YouTube, on Talkradio, are just mind-blowing. We've had a billion and a half downloads on YouTube now. I can't even get my head around that. But the reason is you guys are spreading the word, and we appreciate you doing that. There's no possible way that we see the results we're seeing in all the rankings and things unless you guys are telling people about the show. It's not simple search engine stuff. It's good old-fashioned word of mouth, even if it is in digital form. Click the Share button on your platform or cut and paste the link or whatever and send it to your friend. Subscribe to the shows in whatever format you're using it, follow the show, whatever format you're using it. All of that stuff really helps push the show forward where people that are just coming in for the first time see it, and it pushes it out there into the light, so to speak. You are our marketing plan. So thank you. That's a good one. Thank you for that.

It's word of mouth. It always has been. The best marketing is somebody likes your stuff and tell somebody else. Always has been. We appreciate that. We don't have anything fancy. It's just that simple. We want to help you, and we'll help your friend if you send them over here, too. So thanks for hanging out with us. And again, we appreciate that. Oh, and those five-star reviews, they make a big difference in the algorithm, too. Greg is in Boston, Mass. Hey, Greg, welcome to the Ramsey Hey, Dave.

Hey, George. Long time, first time. How are you doing?

Hey, better than we deserve, sir. What's up?

I'm 27 years old, and I'm making a lot of money. I make about 220 grand a year. I've got about 160 in my Fidelity account and 70 in the bank. It's a great job. But last year, they sent me international for about 100 days of the year, and I really fell in love with it, made a lot of connections, learned the language. It was amazing. Now, I want to further that, but it seems like international is off the table for this year and the forthcoming. I want to move out there. I've applied to some university programs and got accepted, and it's a big choice if I'm going to quit this job to go follow that dream out there, or I take the gift I was given. I listen to this show a lot, and I almost feel guilty even thinking about this.

What What would you make in the new position that you've applied for?

It's not a new position, right?

I'd go over there. Okay, you said you applied at a university. I heard that, right?

Yes. What did you apply to do? To study the language more. It would be studying the local language more.

You can do that with Duolingo from the comfort of your home. Why do you need to move there?

And I do. You didn't apply for a job. You applied to learn the language. Exactly. What's That's going to be your job?

That's the hard part, right? If I can, I want to continue the job of Matt working remotely, of course, but I don't know. That's exactly it. I don't want to waste my young years like all my peers around me tell me I'm going to if I don't follow this dream, right?

Mom and dad, don't be stupid. It's not a dream. It's a nightmare.

That's what Mom and dad say.

They say, You should be buying a house. I don't care if you run to something, but you're running off into into the clouds and into the mist like there's a unicorn waiting on you. I mean, what the flip, man, really?

So play this out years later to learn the language.

If you told me you had a position doing something over there and you love that culture and you want to go get immersed in that culture and learn the language. You told me you had a position even making less than you're making now. Then, yeah, let's talk about that. But just absolutely nothing. I'm just going to move over there and learn the language? You're a little old for your gap here.

I know. I guess my thought was learning the language and becoming more professional in it. I could then transfer my business skills with that language to work over there.

Where's over there? Where are you talking about?

What's my country? Tokyo, Japan. Okay.

You called to ask our opinion, and it's really the only I'm an expert on, is my opinion. If you were my son, who's a slight bit older than you, and you came in and said, Dad, what do you think about this? I'd say, I like the whimsicle part of it. It sounds cool, fun. The Japanese culture is a great culture to learn. The language is difficult, but you can learn it, I'm sure. You've already had some runs at it and you've had some experience there. But it feels very disjointed and listless because you're not going to something other than Tokyo. You got to put one more piece in this. You got to put the career piece in this puzzle somehow. I don't care what that is. If it takes you six months to land something there through your connections and what you're already doing, and you find something, even if you're making 75% of what you're making, Tokyo is It's super expensive. It's one of the most expensive cities in the world. You're going to burn through 160,000 bucks in savings in about 20 seconds here. I want you to go to something that's more certain than the vague thing you're describing for you.

It doesn't matter to me, Greg. It's not going to affect me at all. But if I'm in your shoes, you are single, you do have a pile of money, you can go on an adventure, but make your adventure better. This is a low-quality adventure that you're describing.

I'm just thinking if I'm Greg, I'm just going to start applying for similar roles that are based in Tokyo. That would be a smarter move. Then you can learn the language here. You'll obviously learn it better when you're entrenched in the culture, but that doesn't seem to be the factor holding you back. It's, I need a job when I get there.

Wait a minute. Greg, are you with us? Hey, Greg, you're still with me?

Yeah, I'm here.

Is there a girl there?

No.

Are you sure?

I mean, hey, it's possible to happen, but not at the moment, no.

Okay, because that would explain how illogical all this is. Okay.

Dave's always digging for some rom-com.

A swing and a miss. Yeah, that's it.

Dave's looking for the hallmark and everything.

No, I'm not looking for the hallmark. I'm trying to figure out why this guy who otherwise seems very onto things and is so buttoned up on this one issue just lost his dead gum mind.

Love will make you do that.

I was trying to figure it out. I thought it was a girl. Okay, put a girl in it. Okay. We're swinging a miss. Okay, anyway. But yeah. Anyway, Greg, we love you. We want you to win. I want you to go on the adventure, but I don't want you coming home regretting that you went on the adventure. That's where I'm trying to get to. I don't want the 30-year-old, 35-year-old version of you going, What the heck? No, you don't want that. There's no anchor points in this. There's nothing It feels untethered. It feels very mushy. I want you to go do it, but I want you to do it better version of what you're talking about than what you're giving me. How does that sound? I like that plan. Okay. That's not quite a dream killer, but it's a nightmare killer. I'm big on I'm in nightmares. And some of you, Dave's a dream killer. Now, I've had a bunch of dreams that turned into nightmares, and I know what they look like because I'm old. So we try to keep you from doing that to yourself because we love you. So that's it.

Well, it's like moving to Mexico because I love tacos. I need a bigger dream than that, Dave. I can get, yeah, the tacos are better there, but it's not a great reason to move. You've been eating a lot of tacos in Mexico, so you're the expert on that.

Now you're just getting personal right here. I'm just saying.

I'm sorry. Has your Spanish increased as you travel?

George, that was just me. My Spanglish is excellent, so I can manage myself around, but I still don't know what they're saying about me, so there you go. That's the key. Loco gringo. What's that mean anyway?

I I would tell you, but I think we'll be taken off the air.

Yeah, you need to do some stuff like that. The good news for Greg's situation is he is unencumbered. He doesn't have a lot of stuff holding him here, so it is a good time to do this.

He would survive it.

But I think you're going to have a better quality adventure if it has another element or two to the plan.

There's a little more purpose to it. Yeah. More anchor points with your job.

Same purpose, just eating money. I just want some eating money. It's going to be doing something.

Going from 220 to zero, that's a steep decline in income.

That's how it sounds. This is The Ramsey Show. This episode is sponsored by Better Health. Hey, if you're like me at this time of the year, all of the school plays and meetings and invites from everywhere have completely drained your social battery. Or maybe you're like some of my friends who are bursting with energy so much that everyone may be telling you to just chill out a little.

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Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call, and I appreciate all that you teach. Thank you. Just wanted to give you advice on some problems. Well, not problems, but decisions you're trying to make. My mom may be step to being ready to liquidate my after-tax investment account, clean out my savings besides the $1,000 baby emergency fund to attack some personal loans. My question to you is, would it be worth it to take a loan out of my 401k just to clear out all the personal loans since the interest on the 401k loan is centrally paid to myself? No.

How much debt do you have?

Personal loans, about 22,000, and then steering loans, about 30,000.

Okay. How much are all these after-tax investments going to create when you liquidate them?

Only about 6,000 and another six or seven in savings.

Okay.

It brings your debt down to 40 if you do that.

From 52, yeah. You got 40,000 in debt. What's your household income?

Right around 155 before tax. Good. Okay.

All right. The problem with a 401k loan is several fold. One is, yes, you do pay yourself back the interest, but you unplug that portion of the investment from the mutual funds that would have been earning you 12 this year, maybe even more %. Maybe you would You paid 15, but you paid yourself five instead. Bad idea, number one. Number two, when you leave the company, and you will leave the company, when you die, when you get a better job or when they fire you, you will leave the company. If that loan is still in place at that time, it becomes due in full. If you do not pay it off in 60 days, it's considered an early withdrawal with all the taxes and penalties. That leaves you very, very vulnerable. It's a really bad loan. You still got $40,000 to pay off regardless of what we do, making 155, which you ought to do and What? Like a year?

Yes, if I were to talk to them.

If you get on beans and rice, rice and beans, and you tear into it, it sounds like you've studied our stuff and you're cleaning out everything, you're leaving $1,000. You're going to stop adding to the 401k. Yes, I would do that, but we never tell people to borrow on a 401k ever. I don't even offer the borrowing option to our team.

Couldn't do it if you wanted to here, which is good.

Stop people from doing stupid. It's not available. It's because I'm not going to participate in you doing something It's not stupid. It's that simple. But no, that's the problem with it is you just leave yourself very, very vulnerable as opposed to a regular loan, so to speak. If you went and got just another loan at the bank for 40,000 and paid off and cleaned them up, but you've got one big loan instead at 5%, that would be okay because you don't have all these other problems. You didn't unplug an investment that might have made you 12 or 15, and you didn't leave yourself open to penalties and taxes in the event you leave that particular position. Because pretend somebody came along and offered you double income. You got to think about not taking that because you got these golden handcuffs that you've created. Yeah, that's what people do. They go, I was going to take that better job, but then I had borrowed them before one and I was going to get hammered. Yeah, that's what you don't want to do, Gordon.

This is gone in less than a year. I mean, if you make 155 after taxes, let's call 110, you can live off 60 and pay off 50 in a year. And so it's gone.

Yeah, it's a $40,000 debt. And you're probably going to add to your income and you're probably going to find some other stuff to sell. Maybe it's 14 months, maybe it's 15 months, maybe it's nine months. I don't know, but it's somewhere in that range.

It's not a five-year issue.

And I wouldn't put all of this other stuff at risk for that. No, I've never told anybody to do that. And folks, it's a good idea. Aside from Gordon's question, let's just sidebar a second, George. The thing that we have figured out at Ramsey that a lot of people in the financial world are now acknowledging because we've made such a big footprint in the space. But most of the people, when I was growing up in the financial world, we thought all this was a math problem. It's all about the math.

Hey, the interest is higher here. Why wouldn't I do this with lower interest?

All I got to do is fix the math, and I'm going to be okay. What I've discovered in 35 years of doing this is it's not a math problem. It's a me It's a problem. It's 80% personal finances, 80% behavior, and 20% head knowledge. Now, why does that matter? Well, if you fix the math and you don't fix the behavior, you're going to be right back in the soup. That's why debt consolidation doesn't work. That's why we call it a con. Because you move all your debt from one place over to another into one big loan. In this case, he's using a 401k to do it. Now, in his case, it doesn't apply because he is actually changing. He has changed what he's doing. He's cleaning out these savings accounts. That's a big stuff. He's thinking about this. He's doing a budget. You can hear Gordon's really focused. This particular part of the discussion does not apply to Gordon, because I think he's beyond that.

He's willing to make the sacrifices.

But a lot of people that have called me over the years that want to do a debt consolidation. I want to move my debt over here. First thing is, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Bible says, and they say, I paid off my debt.

With the debt consolidation.

No, you didn't. You You moved it.

You put it in the junk drawer.

You didn't pay it off. But what that tells me is, is you took the pressure off of yourself and it's now okay because I paid it off. No, you didn't. You moved it, and you still got the problem in your mirror. This person is still not handling money. This person is still spending money like they're in Congress. They're not on a written plan. This person in the mirror is still impulsive. This person in the mirror is still not working with their spouse. They're They're still not thinking long term. They're still doing a bunch of other stupid stuff. And so the debt's going to grow back. We know from the debt consolidation industry that 88% of you, that's 9 out of 10 that take out a debt consolidation loan, your debt grows back after you move it. You end up with twice as much debt because you don't change the behaviors, habits, character issues that caused it in the first place.

Yeah, these are all shortcuts at the end of the day. It feels like you did something when you take a shortcut. But the problem is, like you said, you're going to be right back where you started. When people do these 401k loans or the HELOC or whatever the move is, they actually end up in the same place they were a year from now because the same person. You've got to transform if you want to see different results. Yeah.

Same thing happens with your marriage. How many times you know somebody, and I know people because, again, you go through enough life, you see this. But I know people who are in a marriage and they have a certain set of behavior problems in their relationship. They get divorced and go marry a new person with the exact same set of issues, and they didn't fix their own issues. So they just do it again because they thought the problem was that person, and it wasn't. It was the issues that were not addressed, the core things that were not addressed. You go with you. Yeah, the problem is you take you with you when you do all this stuff. And me, too, I'm the same thing. So The beautiful thing that happened when Sharon and I went broke was we didn't have a choice. We had to change. We didn't have any food. Electric was cut off. We had to change. We had to address the ridiculousness of our decision-making paradigms, our ridiculous set of assumptions, our stupid, intellectualizing, rationalizing, ridiculous financial concepts with my intellect that absolutely caused me to lose everything because I'm an idiot. I had to face all that.

I didn't have a choice.

You ran out of shortcuts.

Everything was gone. I just left with this mirror, and I'm stuck with me. I'm like, God, you are a problem. But the beautiful thing about something that dramatic and traumatic is you come away from it, change. You don't have a choice. When you guys are just everything's okay and nothing smacking the crap out of you to get your attention, you don't have to face it. Our job here is to keep you from having those extreme experiences and instead letting you choose to face it rather than all your choices are taken away.

Be the preventative medicine.

That's how this whole thing works, guys. That's why this Ramsey stuff works, is we have figured out the guy in your mirror, the girl in your mirror is the problem. That's the bad news. The good news is they're the solution. This is The Ramsey Show. Live Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author and host of the George Campbell Show on YouTube, which is, by the way, exploding. He's my co-host. The phone number is 828-825-5225. James is with to start this hour in Connecticut. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, just blessed, man. Doing good. Good. How can we help? Yeah, so I guess my question is, about seven years ago, I was a heroin addict, and I had $736, and now I'm a top performer in my industry, and I've done really well in that industry, and now I have a lot of liquid money, and we're just getting into real estate. My main question is very simple.

It's how do I go from being a multimillionaire to a decamillionaire? Wow. Well, congratulations. Thank you. You kicked one of the hardest ones out there. Heroin is a big deal. How old are you?

Yeah, well I am 43 years old.

Without Jesus Christ, I wouldn't be here. Amen. Amen. What do you do? I am in the solar industry. Okay. How much cash have you piled up? I have about liquid that's not attached to anything. That's just sitting in a 5% account. I got about 400,000. Okay, good. You basically earned a bunch of money and didn't spend any of it. That's an old formula, right? Yeah, I mean, I would say it was 70, 80% really good with my money. I've enjoyed myself a little bit, but I haven't been irresponsible. I've kept most of my money for me and my family so that we could live a life that everybody deserves. Yeah. Okay. The folks that I know, so your net worth is now what? Probably around a couple of million with investments, house money that I have liquid. Then right now, we're currently in the flips. We're doing flips. So between me and a business partner, we have about 300 grand into that. We got a good percentage off of that. But now we're looking into multiple-level multi-unit buildings, either flipping those or getting them and holding them and that thing. You're doing all of that with cash?

Yeah. No debt. No. I mean, that's what I would be utilizing the 350 to 400K. I would deploy that towards that. That avenue. Okay. Just making sure I understand the principles that you're operating on. That's good. All right. Yeah. Well, congratulations. I'm glad that I knew you would came on your part. Your story is amazing. Very well done. Well, my experience of working with and folks The folks that go from a $4, $5 million networth to a $10, $20, $30 million networth, it generally has to do with two main things. One is it's an entrepreneurial endeavor. You can't 401k yourself into 20 million. It doesn't work. The math doesn't get there. You can 401k yourself and pay your house off and get you to 5 million, but you can't get the 20 million doing that. The folks that I know that have, again, 10, 20, even up to 100 million, they almost all have some entrepreneurial endeavor, which you described, you're doing flips. That's an entrepreneurial endeavor. You can do it with that. You're doing something where the money is working a lot harder and the ROI on the actual deployed cash is a lot higher than a simple mutual fund or a piece of rental real estate.

Because most of those are going to be 10% to 20% rate of return, depending on how you're playing it. But an entrepreneurial endeavor gives you margin, not return, and margins where the things go serious. It sounds like you're on to that. The second thing they do, the thing that allows them to get there is the ones that I know that have made it and kept it. I'm not talking about people that are high rollers and they lose everything again after they made it all. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ones that… It's sustainable. It's a sustainable set of principles. They don't ever do what I call James Bond investing. In every James Bond movie, somewhere towards the end of the movie, sometimes at the beginning of the movie, he is at a card table with the evil person who's trying to destroy the world. This hand of cards that he's playing, if he loses the hand of cards, then somebody's going to die and all the rest of the human race is going to collapse. You know the scene. It's in every movie if it is. What happens inevitably is it comes down to not just a card game, it comes down to one hand in the card game, and the sweat is breaking out on everyone's forehead, and he slides all the chips to the middle of the table on one hand.

We all hold our breath, right? That's a movie. That's not how life works. So don't do James Bond. That's what these guys do. They avoid the James Bond move. No matter how good the flips are going, You always hold a foundational three or $4 million dollar net worth that is not involved in all this crap. It's over there. The chips that are on the table are not your only chips. In other words, you don't lose your home if this goes sideways. You don't lose your last dime and you're back to $756 if this all goes sideways. That's a James Bond move. People think that that's all romantic, but it's not. It's just stupid. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. I have it diversified. I got about a million on the market. We got 400 in cash. Don't touch that. No deal. No deal that comes to your plate on these flips is good enough to get you to risk that foundational piece. Because I got to tell you, it'll show up. I've had deals at Ramsey come in front of me that if we did the deal, it was going to be the biggest thing we'd ever done.

And if it went sideways, it would have closed the place down, and I've walked away from them on the James Bond principle. I look back and I go, It caused me to have to grow a little bit slower, but I also didn't have to start over. That's what I don't- You have no attention in starting over. You're looking for margin, not just investing. You're looking for entrepreneurial endeavors of some kind, whether you're starting a company, whether you're doing flips, whatever it is where you're making spread, not just return. There's a difference. When I sell a book for $20 that I paid $2 for, that's spread. That's not return. You don't get that return on a mutual fund. That's one of the businesses that Ramsey is in, is the publishing business. That's part of where my wealth has come from, is growing this business. But if you look through the Forbes 400, by the way, folks, this is interesting to look at. All the Forbes 400 now, George, are billionaires. A billion is a thousand million. The vast majority of them, I think it's 80 or 71% last time I looked or something like that, are first-generation rich.

They're not trust fund babies. You can name the companies that they did. Even Oprah. Oprah isn't one of them, and she's a company. The companies that they did, you can name them.

A lot of that is shares, valuation. Exactly. Go zoom, zoom, they cash out or they don't, and that's part of their networth.

It's Dell, it's Walmart, it's Gates, and you go through it, it's companies. That's where that level comes from. But you can have a great life, folks, and never do that and still get to the 5 to 10 million range. This is The Ramsey Show. George Camel Ramsey, personality number one, best-selling author of Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Everydollar is our world-class budgeting app. It helps you manage money the Ramsey way. It works wherever you are, iOS, Android, or online on your desktop. You can Start Every Dollar for free and immediately see where you stand with your money. Get organized, personalize your budget, stop overspending, save more money, be in control. If you're new to Every Dollar, you got to know that we all show you a long-term financial roadmap. We'll track networth, your debt-free date, your retirement date, show you your baby step progress, and even more. We're going to proactively coach you to build wealth and reach your goals. Download the world's best free app for iOS or Android, or go to everydollar. Com and get started. George, you and Jade are going to be hosting a budgeting live stream tomorrow on YouTube.

That's right, tomorrow morning. We're going to be taking questions from the chat, which is something we never do here on the Ramsey show. It's going to be really cool. We're taking a few phone calls, Taking questions from the live chat on YouTube, and it's totally free. All you have to do is just hit Ramsey Show on YouTube. You can hit the Reminder button, and we'll let you know when we're live, and we're going to go live for about an hour.

About 9:00 AM central time tomorrow, for those of you that are catching this in time, be sure you jump out there and do that. If you have a question, you can jump in and, again, make it part of the chat. How do I get started? How do I combine finances? How do I budget and still have a life? I've got changes coming up. How do I deal with that? George and Jade are going to walk you through every bit of it.

We'll show you every dollar live on the screen. We'll actually tactically show you.

You see how it works. Again, the whole experience is free. It doesn't cost a thing. So jump in and check us out. Tom is in Hoover. Hi, Tom. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Honestly, you probably get this question a lot. I'm married, been married for a year, been with the same girl for about five years before that. We didn't combine finances before we were married. Now we've been married, and I'm having trouble bridging that conversation with how to use our income together instead of separately to try to battle against our joint debts that we have.

So you've been married for how long now?

One year.

One year? How much? That's a total debt. A year, yeah.

Our mortgage is about 375, and Then outside of the mortgage, it's about 150,000. A 75 is a combination of my student loans or other student financing for my CFP. Then 75 is a family debt that we owe my parents.

Certified financial planner?

I am, yes. Okay.

I do private wealth management. What does your wife do?

She does coordination for a health care company.

Okay. What does the conversation sound like when you say, Hey, I think we ought to combine forces now that we're married and combine all of our assets, our liabilities, and attack all this together as one unit? What does she say?

She was willing to contribute what's needed to a joint account, the house account that we use for things like that. But she is not really interested in having everything flow through the one account. Why? Both of our income, all of our expenses out. I can't say we really dove in into a big reason why.

I would be the first thing I would ask when she said that. You don't want to combine your life with me? That's a little disturbing.

Where's the other money going that she's not contributing to the joint account?

She keeps it in her own account or into her tax-free savings account.

Basically, you guys are typical, by the way. You're right, we get this question all the time. But my rebuttal to her and people that believe like her is that all the data we have on wealth building indicates that what you're doing is not going to work. When we study 10,000 millionaires, the vast majority of them in the 80, 90 percentile said that one of the reasons they were able to get there was they had a spouse that they had joined arms with and were fighting against all odds together to get there. It was a unified approach. It wasn't, I've got a roommate. Marriage is not a joint venture. That's my rebuttal to her on that. I think you need to get under that because she's still acting like you all live together. Yeah, basically. It's time to move on to the next stage once you're married. It's the old-fashioned preacher said, And now you are one. Now, one thing that might be happening, and the reason I was asking about your careers, one thing that might be happening is you might be math and she might be art and healing.MeaningYeah, that's very much so. Yeah.

Meaning that the last thing she wants to do is turn over her last little bit of autonomy to a control freak math nerd. Yeah.

I hear you. He's nodding in agreement on the other side of the phone there.

Here's the way you combat that. I know that because that's what happened at my house, okay? I am a control freak math nerd, and I'm good with math, and you don't get a CFP unless you're good with math. You and me are the same dude. At my house, it took me a while because I'm hard driving, overbearing control freak, all that. It took me a while to heal that part of our relationship to where Sharon actually believed that her vote counted in the discussion. Now, George, however, is a nice guy, so Whitney already believed that her vote counted with George. But Sharon's like, You're going to do whatever you want to do anyway. Why do you want me to talk about it?

That's a pretty good impression.

It's about right. It's about what it sounds like. But it took me We do not make decisions and have not for 30 years since bankruptcy, without making them together. Sometimes I have to force her to place her vote just to remind her that she has an equal vote because she sometimes will go, Oh, do whatever you want to do. But I know how that ends up. That story doesn't end well. I don't want to do whatever I want to do. I want her input, number one, but number two, I want her agreement so it doesn't come back on me later. Part Part of what you're battling is she's not convinced she gets a vote.

Okay.

You might just talk about it out loud like that and go, My personality, my makeup that allows me to be an excellent wealth manager, an excellent CFP, even pass the freaking exam for CFP, which for those of you out in the world don't know, that's like passing a CPA. It's a real serious test that Tom has passed. That tells me a lot of things about Tom. But Tom, you just say, Hey, the things that allow me to be good at this could be working against our relationship. I want to reset the table on our finances to where even though I'm an expert in finances, we have to have equal footing in deciding about our money. You have to vote half, and I have to vote half, and we have to combine them. We've got to learn to work together because the benefit is going to be, in our relationship is going to be a bazillion times better. The other benefit is we're going to end up with more money.

Okay.

All of that, as you can tell, had a lot of humility and empathy. It was not attacking and aggressive and combative. That's not going to get you far.

Yeah, he's You're not aggressive. You're just a math nerd. It's just the way it manifestsates itself.

It's like-Your excitement comes across as aggression.

Yeah, you just enjoy the whole thing. She's I'm like, Who? I'm afraid if I get over there, I'll get that on me. It's like- It's like cooties. Yeah, it's math cooties. But that's what goes on in a lot of the stuff out there. The spender feels like the saver is not going to let them have a vote. Yes. The math nerd doesn't let the artist have a vote. It could be man or woman. It's not necessarily it happens to be the man as a math nerd. It happens to be at my house, I'm the math nerd. But it's not unusual at all for the lady to be that person, and they can be intimidating.

Well, then you show them, Hey, what are your fears behind this? Because you're still going to get to enjoy life. Here's a line item that says Whitney's fund money in the budget. But we have transparency and accountability, which, by the way, is what a relationship is built on. Trust.

There we go. Lots of increased communication. When you handle your money together, you're handling your life together, boys and girls. It changes everything. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Today's question comes from Ben in Nevada.

Ben asks, When you give to charitable organizations, how do you ensure the gifts are being used appropriately? Are there ways to vet organizations, or can you track what they do with donations? Great question.

Very good. The way we vet it with the Ramsey Family Foundation, which my daughter runs, is that we do due diligence on the whole organization because we're going to be giving a reasonably large gift. It warrants the time to look into it. One of the things we look for is to see operational excellence and efficiency. One of the gages of that is they'll usually give you a copy of their budget, and you can see what percentage of their budget goes to administration and what % actually goes to feeding hungry kids. If hungry kids is the ministry or taking care of the homeless, if the homeless is the ministry, whatever it is. You can see what percentage of the budget. They take in a million dollars and they spend $900,000 on salaries. We got a problem. But they take in a million dollars and they spend $100,000 on admin and another X number of dollars on salaries. Now, we still got the vast majority of the money going to the actual cause, which is what happens.

Which is what stops people from giving a lot of the time is the skepticism that any of this money will actually go to the cause I'm passionate about.

You can look at it. Most ministries or charities of size will have those ratios readily available and even their budget readily available. You can look at...

I mean, the tax forms are public. You can see.

Was it nine? What are they called? Nine something forms.

Yeah, Form 990.

990. That'll show you. You can tell what's going on with that.

They have a high ratio of overhead expenses.

That could be a red flag. But again, you're investing some time now, so you're not going to do that for a $50 gift. This is a gift of some substance because you're going to put some time into it before you do that. Then we do some things with a foundation, and certainly some things just out of my left pocket that are just random acts of kindness, random acts of generosity. There's absolutely zero investigation or expectation or anything else. It's just like God said, help the lady at the gas pump. So we did something.

We're not doing background checks here.

Yeah, we're We're not checking that out. We're going to leave a $500 tip at a cool little restaurant that a waitress or waiter has never gotten a tip that size. That's just a God thing. But that's random. That's not the planned, diligent, careful, wise giving that you're asking about, Ben. Here's the other thing. The last piece of it is, and you can depend on this too much, so don't depend on it too much. You need to do the wise investigation on large sums, and you need to be wise about investing God's money into his kingdom because some of his people are sweet, but they're dumb. You don't want to put money in there. It's a mess. They got good hearts, but it's a mess. All you're doing is if you give them a bunch of money, you're making a bigger mess. It doesn't fix the mess. But at the end of the day, the other thing you need to... I remember about giving her I have two principles. One is it's not mine anyway. I'm managing it for God. What I'm doing is I'm giving away God's money. Okay, that means I have to be even more careful.

I got to report to the boss about what happened with his money, and that thing. Then the second thing is the biggest benefit of generosity is not the receiver. The biggest benefit is to the giver. It changes your psychological well-being. It changes your spiritual walk. It changes your relational. Lowers your blood pressure. It changes. Generosity affects the giver. Jesus even said that. He said, It's better to give than to receive. Sometimes people hear that from Jesus's words, and they think, Oh, well, that's very noble. He wasn't noble, it was instructional. It wasn't like, Oh, you're better if you're a giver than if you're a receiver. No, that's not what he was saying. He was saying, It's better for you. You change. When you give, your generosity muscle is built. It makes you into a better human. For instance, I talked to an old Baptist preacher one time. I was speaking to this Baptist church in Kentucky. It was a great church. It was wonderful. This was a long time ago, and several thousand people there that morning. I was talking about the tithe in the Christian world. That was my talk that morning in his church.

He said, The interesting thing, he said, I've been a pastor in 45 years. I've never had a couple that tithe get divorced. I said, Why do you think that is? Is it some mystical spiritual protection over tithers that they don't lose their marriages? He said, No, tithing represents giving, and giving represents generosity. Generosity means you're thinking about other people, not yourself, and people who think about other people are really easy to live with. Wow. It's common Kentucky sense there. That was just good. That's powerful. He didn't woo- woo spiritual on me. He just Hey, if you're generous, you're easier to freaking live with. I mean, you're not a self-centered twerp. He didn't say that. I did. But I mean, that guy would never say that.

There are sites, to Dave's point, you're saying do the research, like Charity Navigator. You can utilize sites that help you do the research as well.

In the evangelical world, the ECPA or whatever it's called, there's an organization that will- Vet those. Well, they vet the accounting systems and the finances, make sure the finances are run correctly. You'll see their little emblem on there, or they'll put it forward. If it's a ministry in the evangelical world, you can possibly see that. I forget what it stands for, but anyway, it's a good organization, and they do check it. But even if it's got that stamp on it, we still look at it. We still want to do that. But we're giving... There's three things you can do with money. Enjoy it, invest it, and give it. You hear that from Ramsey's all the time, Ramsey people all the time. But you always want generosity in your plan, again, because it changes your life. Your life, not theirs. You give a $1,000, a $2,000 car to a single mom, it changes her life. But if you do that, it changes your life. It changes who you are. You walk around smiling all day. You can't stop it. It's the best thing you can learn to do with money is generosity. It's a really good question, Ben.

No, we don't track what they do with the donations afterwards unless we're buying them a particular item. We bought a truck one time for a delivery for a food bank thing, and they were delivering food. So the foundation bought a truck, a big truck for them, a refrigeration thing and all that. We wanted to see that the truck happened because we didn't buy it. We gave them the money to buy it. We followed up on that. But in terms of just, do I put a fishing line on every dollar and try to follow it all the way through every trans? No.

That'd be exhausting. You know what's cool? Charitywater. We've been friends with Scott Harrison, founder of Charitywater. What they do is- He's been on the show. Yeah, and they've been very transparent. What's cool is that with theirs now, they go, you can actually track the water project your dollar went to. They have different ways now of innovating.

Scott got on to something when he started Charity Water. He spoke at Church Sunday, and he's got a wonderful story. I've been emailing this weekend, again, just because I was telling him he did a great job. But he was brilliant, and then he came up with a different model. Charity Water gives clean water to people all over the world don't have clean water. It's what they do. It's a wonderful ministry charity. A hundred % of your dollars go to get clean water if you give it to charity water. He has a separate nonprofit called The Well that pays all the overhead.

Overhead is privately funded with a specific set of donors, and me, the consumer, when I give, 100% goes to the water project.

You can give to The Well and support their overhead, or you can give to Charity Water 100% goes to clean water. Drilling a well, putting in a filter system, whatever it is, they've got them into various methods. Then he does a wonderful job of reporting back with webcams and everything else, showing you what happened because you were able to give this number of dollars to charity partners.

I hope that catches on with more charities. It's really cool.

It's a good model. It's a great model. It's a good model. It's brilliant. He's a brilliant guy, but he's impacted the world, literally. But that's just one of them. There's lots of good people. They're doing good work. But that's what you're looking for is some accountability. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, it's Rachel Cruz, and I'm beyond excited to tell you that my new kids' book, I'm Glad for Where I Am, is available for pre-order. And there's more. When you pre-order, you'll have access to a live event that I'm doing from my home. Story Time with Rachael. Join me as I read this news story about gratitude and the gift of home to you and your kids. Plus, we'll do a live Q&A. So go to ramseysolutions. Com/store and pre-order your copy today. That's ramseysolutions. Com/store. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He is the author of the best-selling book, Breaking Free from Broke. It has been a huge seller, the ultimate guide to more money and less stress. Ken Coleman, our fellow Ramsey personality, developed with our team a GetClear Career Assessment. A couple of years ago, it is a huge best seller.

You take the assessment and you get clear about what you're doing with your career, what you're doing with your work. We've had almost 100,000 people take that now. It's a hugely It's a really popular assessment because it's excellent. We're really excited to announce Ken's latest book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do, which will show you how to use the results from the assessment to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy. The assessment, it comes with the book. The assessment and book combination will answer four of life's biggest questions: who you are, why you are wired that way, what you want to do professionally, and how to get there. You can pre-order the GetClear assessment, find the work you're wired to do book. You're going to get the audiobook and the e-book free, and each of them come with a code for an assessment. You're going to get three of the assessments. If you pre-order, it comes out the first week of May, so you're going to be ready to get that then. Now, the other exciting news next week on the 16th, Rachel's brand new Kids Book, I'm Glad for Where I am, all about gratitude, is coming out.

It's her second Kids Book, the first one, I'm Glad for What I Have, which was about contentment. Great storytelling, amazing It lights out illustrations in this book. Fabulous kids' book. We know that kids that are read to have a higher IQ, have a higher likelihood of exceeding academically in all areas. Kids that are read to, it is magical what happens when you read to your little children. I read to the grandbabies all the time, even though I still have trouble getting through Dr. Seuss with my tongue twisters, but I can still do it. I don't like Green Ekes and Him, Sam I am, I'm just saying.

You've memorized it by now.

Yes, They learn pretty quick which ones are the long ones so they can stick. They love that. This one is not a long one. It doesn't take long to get through this. That's good news. Parents love that. The other thing we know is that kids that are grateful and kids that are content grow to become excellent adults. As my friend Andy Andrews says, We're not trying to raise great kids. We're trying to raise kids that become great adults. That's the whole process there. All of this is at Ramsey krisleonsolutions. Com. Check it out at our store. You can get any of these books, pre-order, order, whatever we're doing here. It's all good.

I did the math. If you pre-order both of those books, you get free shipping right now on the site. There's a little bonus because I love a good deal. Wow. There There we go. Get Rachel's book, pick up Ken's new book, pre-order both.

There we go. Crystal's with us in New York. Hi, Crystal. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Thank you. Thank you so much for taking my call. How are you? Sure.

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

I really need your advice. To give you a little background, I have a full-time job, and I take care of a sibling that has mental disabilities. Now, last year, I started my LLC because I wanted to supplement my income while working at home. Now, so far, I spent close to $10,000 on my LLC, and I haven't made any money yet. I put off creating my website because I had to save $4,000 to have it created because I'm not tech savvy.

You don't need $4,000 to create a website. You can use Wix and do it for free. I mean, there's no need to go spend all this money on this business that has no revenue so far. But continue. Okay.

Now, Because I am very bad with budgeting money, as you probably already know. But now the icing on the cake is I have a medical condition that's going to need long-term care. When I reached out to different insurance companies, The underwriters, they don't want to touch it. My question is, should I continue to pursue my small business or take that money and put it in a banking account for my long-term care that I know I'm going to eventually need?

Okay. How long from now do you think you're going to be needing long-term care?

The doctors are unsure because they don't know why I have my condition.

Twenty-five Twenty-five years or 25 months?

I'm sorry, what happened?

Twenty-five years or 25 months?

It could be five years.

Okay. All right. You got some time. This is not imminent then. Okay. Well, I think the answer is if the LLC is making money, it's going to make you more money than a bank account will make. But so far, it's not done anything but take money. So we've got to get it making money or we can't You depend on it, right?

Right.

What is it? What is your side gig? What are you trying to build here?

Voiceover.

Voiceover?

Yes.

Okay. All right. And you've done that Did you ever work before?

Oh, no. I've always wanted to do something with my voice, but never knew how to go about doing it. She took a class in the summertime. Really enjoyed it, loved it.

What did you spend the $10,000 on?

The actual course, which was like $6,000, where they train you. Then creating my actual LLC, I had a company do it for me because they walked me through it step by step, and then turning my bedroom into the actual studio. I had to sound proof it.

Do you have the equipment to do the work now? Yes, I do. Why do you not have customers? Did they teach you how to get customers?

Well, I have to do the website first.

You have to have a website to get customers?

Yes, because I have to put the demos on the website to send it to clients so they can hear me on the website.

You could send that over email if you knew the people to contact.

Just send them an MP3, yeah.

Oh, okay. Right now, you need to know the right people. I don't think the website is the thing holding you back.

Yeah.

Okay.

I need you to go get a whole bunch of customers, and George is right. You can put up a real basic website for almost nothing or nothing. After talking to you for a few minutes, you're smart enough to do it. What's the name of the site you would recommend, George, again?

Wix, W-I-X is a popular one. I've used one called Squarespace. Again, all of these, you're talking zero to $100, not four grand. And truly, you can do it yourself. I could teach my mom how to do it.

Squarespace or Wix, W-I-X. We're not endorsing either one of those. I'm just giving you some ideas that this is... It's a lot of cut and paste because you're not really trying to create a complicated piece of programming here.

You're making a business card.

You just need an electronic business card where you've got some of your demos up there, where somebody can push play and play an audio file. That's all we're looking for. Then, of course, you're going to deliver most of your stuff by email? Yes. Okay. You can deliver demos by email. Have you got demos laid down in your computer? Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. What I What I need you to do is I need you to go find a whole bunch of customers in the next 30 days ready, set, go. Okay. I want you to be overwhelmed because you have so much work you can't breathe. You're a little bit frazzled because there's too much coming at you. I want you to get that many customers.

Got you.

Because that's the weak spot in what you're talking about. So far, all you've done is pay other people for this dream.

Yeah.

Now it's time for you to get paid for this dream.

And go find people who are doing it. Maybe they pass the ones they don't have time for. You get your start that way.

Okay.

But what do you do full-time?

I'm a correction officer.

Okay.

How much do you make doing that?

My take on is 4,300 a month.

Okay, good. Well, the voice world has dramatically changed like everything else with a microphone in the last 20 years because of the digital space that we're in. It used to be that you had to be a proven product to be able to sit in front of a microphone. Now, if you want to be a podcaster, you can be by the end of the day.

Now AI can do voiceover.

Yeah. You got to compete with that. It used to be that we would mail the sounders for the radio station to the voice guy, and he We would send the tape through the mail, and we would load the tape. We're a long way from that. This is a very easy business to get into now. I want you to go get into it big time in the next 30 days. Ready, set, go. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Camel Ramsey, personality, number one best-selling author, host of The George Camel Show, celebrating one year of excellence on YouTube. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888 5225. Celeste is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi Celeste, how are you?

I'm great. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

Okay. My husband and I are property managers a self-storage facility. We make $4,000 per year together, and we don't have any housing expenses because one of the benefits of the job is having an apartment with utilities included. My husband has a side household that makes an extra $500 a month. We're projected to be debt free at the end of May. And with this income, we will be done with Baby Step 3 by the end of December of 2024. And then we're wondering, how do we meet the manual underwriting requirements if we stay in this job for the next two years while saving up or down payment?

Well, I mean, part of your compensation is housing, and that counts as part of your... When someone's looking at it, because you're making this net of housing. So a pastor, for instance, that has a parsonage furnished, that housing cost is included. If you're looking at someone that's in the military, has been in the military for the two years, and they've been living on base. You look at their income, but they've got housing. That's part of the calculation when someone's looking as to whether you're financially able to take out a mortgage. Now, The trick is this, what are you going to be doing when you don't live there anymore that creates income? That's what they're going to want to know.

Right. That's a great question because honestly, we love what we're doing right now because it has so much flexibility. I personally am trying to build an online business right now that helps people optimize nutrition and to reach their fitness goals. That's what I'm working on now in the hopes of hard work for two years of that, it'll supplement the income that we have now. Then for my husband- If you bought a house and moved out into a house, you'd have to have a job, right? Right, exactly. That's That's where I'm stuck, too, because I would love this business already to be running to the point where that is my job, my full-time job.

That may have to happen or something else is going to have to happen because, again, you're just asking what the mortgage company is looking at. So pretend like you're the mortgage company for a minute. Do you want to loan someone money that doesn't have a job? No, I don't.

Yeah.

They're going to look at tax returns for the last year or two and make sure you have consistent income. They're You're going to look at your savings, your bank statements, all of that, seeing what money is coming in and out, and then one or more regular monthly expenses as an alternative trade line. Something like a phone bill or utility bill could count.

Yeah, but part of you buying a home is you don't live on the warehouse site anymore, so you don't get to be the warehouse manager anymore. That you are changing careers as a part of this purchase. That's what you've got to solve for more than really looking at the income, because that income that you're making now doesn't even really apply. But if they wanted to look back two years and say, Have you made an income? Yeah, I did. And I had this plus I got free housing. They could make that part of the equation. But they're also going to want to know Since you're not working there anymore because you're moving out, what are you going to be doing?

You have consistent income in the future.

That's part of our process here. All right, up next is going to be Eric in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Eric. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Hey, George. Thanks for taking my Sure. What's up? Well, I wanted to get some feedback from each of you on my situation. My wife and I are 47, and I just started listening to the show quite a bit in the last four or five months. Ironically, I backwards had some of the baby steps covered, but not. I had some debt, so I aggressively cleared that. Other than the mortgages, I don't have any debt presently. My wife and I have a cottage in a house, though, and Our goal is to retire at 55. And we're looking at right now, in four years, the plan is to move up to our cottage and sell the house and then take the equity in the house, pay off the remainder of the cottage. However, in terms of where I'm at and following the baby steps, I would be, I guess, at the state where I would be at step six. And I'm wondering if in my situation, we're trying to build up as much wealth right now so that we have enough, obviously, to live between when we start drawing off of per pension, our 401k and Roth and things like that.

The opportunity I have, though, is the organization I work for is an S Corporation, and I recently was given the opportunity to start buying in on that. Would it make sense for me to invest the extra, I guess in the terms of the debt snowball, would it make best to invest in that right now, which typically, historically, it's about a 14 to 18 % return. My mortgage on each of those two mortgages I have is only 3%, but I could certainly start paying that off more aggressively, but I just can't understand if it would If it would make sense to do that, given my goal of trying to retire at 55.

Why are you investing in a sub-S if you want to retire? That's who you work for.

Because the dividends, by investing in it, are, like I said, It's the best investment that I can make. I have a 401k and everything that I'm investing in.

No, I'm saying when you quit, are you not going to divest?

I will, but that'll be at 55.

Yeah, five years from now, right?

Eight years from now.

Okay. All right.

It's just the feeling of, should I- There's a lot of different subjects going on at one time here, so let's break them apart and address them for a lot of different reasons.

Let's Let's call it a single-stock investment, for a second. If you said, I want to invest in single-stocks or I want to invest in mutual funds instead of paying off the cottage so that I've got a big nest egg when I get ready to retire, I would say, Now go ahead and pay off the cottage, because that sets you up to move into a debt-free situation that you don't have that payment anymore. You can use that increased cash flow to invest. Then when you do sell your house, instead of selling your current residence, instead of using that to pay off the cottage, you use that to create the next dig. It's just flip-flopping it. That's what I would do. In lieu of the- Now, the other subject is this sub-S. What I think I'm hearing is this is a privately held small business of some kind, and they're letting you buy into it, and you will be a minority shareholder. That's absolutely correct. Okay, that's what I thought I was hearing. A lot of problems there. You got no liquidity. They set the stock price somewhat by an accounting system, but somewhat arbitrarily. You don't get to decide what the expenses are that drive profits.

You don't get to decide on dividend distributions. You're a minority shareholder. Your vote doesn't even count. You're not in control. Let me tell you how much money I put in stuff like that. Zero. I can't get out of it. I can't control it. Someone else arbitrarily controls it, and No way I want in that deal. No way. I'm going to go with traditional investments where I can control them and where I can get liquidity. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, folks, Dave here. What does your dream retirement look like? Do you want a house on a lake so you can fish every day? Want more time with your grandkids? Whatever your dream is, you need a plan to get there. At our brand new virtual event, Investing Essentials, I'll show you how to build your investing plan with confidence. First, we'll the basics of maximizing your 401k and choosing mutual funds. Then you'll get a peek into my personal playbook for investing. I'll share the strategies I use to analyze my investments, including real estate. Listen, you can do this, and I'll show you how to do it the right way. It's all happening May 21 to 22.

Our special early bird ticket price ends April 11th, so get yours today for just $199 or get a limited VI VIP pass that includes two sessions with a Ramsey Preferred financial coach to help you set and meet your financial goals. Go to ramseysolutions. Com/events. Well, the beautiful thing about Nashville is that sometimes some of our famous friends drop by, and that's the case right now with Andy Irwin dropping by. Andy's a famous filmmaker, for those of you that don't know, and has become a good friend and has done a whole bunch of things over the years. Anything from music videos starting out with artists like Skillet and Switchfoot and Michael W. And Amy Grant and all that. Nowadays, he's been making big-time movies. The latest one that just went zoom-zoom was the Jesus Revolution movie. It went fabulous, and it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I Can Only Imagine film, of course, with our friend Bart Millard from Mercy Me. That one did... You all made good money on that. That was a good movie. My investors were happy. I know a couple of the investors, they were very happy that Bart was smiling.

He was. Everybody was. We were giving high fives.

Yeah, it was a good thing. A new film coming out by this fabulous film producer. It's called Unsung Hero. It'll be in theater's April the 26th. Andy was nice enough to send Sharon and I a link, and we were able to watch it in the comfort of our home, a pre, whatever you call that. A pre-screener? A pre-screener there, my own private version, just me and Sharon. It was absolutely fabulous. This movie is... It's got one of the more powerful story arcs for the protagonist. The screenplay is excellent. It's well done.

They did a great job. I'm happy to fill in until one of your famous friends show up, so I'll just be a stand-in for whoever that is. But yeah, Dave, the reason why I sent it to you is I felt like this story would really click, just knowing your story and knowing what you all's story came out of, it's very similar in that regards where this guy, David Smallbone, who his kids are the kids from the band for King of Country, so Joel and Luke Smallbone. Joel He's his father in this film, and he directed it. It's their story that they came over from Australia as this young immigrant family chasing the American dream, got over here with six kids, a seventh on the way, and lost-after having gone broke.and lost Everything. Lost everything. They were this close to being homeless and didn't have any furniture, didn't have a car. The local church rallied around them and tried to help get them on their feet. They did everything from cleaning houses to doing yard work as a family. This whole thing, David thought that his family was in the way of his dreams until he finally understood that his family was the dream.

They were the way. It's a beautiful, beautiful story.

Unsung Hero is really referring to mom. Yes.

The glue of the family family was Helen, the mother. She was this one where while her husband was off chasing grandeour, she was the one that held this family together. She was the glue. Then at the end, he realized the treasure that he had in his wife, fighting for the family, and that became the dream.

And the kids, for that matter, because the oldest was Rebecca St. James.

Rebecca St. James. A lot of people don't know that. I remember when I was in college, she was a force of nature.

Oh, yeah. It was just amazing. Christian artist that was on fire. Yes. She just got going.

She just redefined what Christian music sounded like. She was that round. The whole time, her little brothers were helping out behind the scenes, and that became Joel and Luca for King & Country that are setting the world on fire now. It's Their whole family's story. Joel telling it and playing his father. When he came to me, he said, I want to do this movie. I was like, okay. He's like, I want to do it in the next three months. I was like, all right. He's like, I want to direct it. I was like, all right. He said, I want to play my father. I was like, you're But you're crazy enough.

I'll go with you. Yeah, that's counseling therapy stuff right there. Exactly. Oh, my goodness. Wow. I know what Sharon and I walked away. We not only were entertained, we were inspired and reminded, I guess, the power of the human spirit and the power of God showing up in the middle of a family and showing that he had a plan for him. That's what we came away from the movie with. What are you guys hoping that the audience gets?

I think right now, the most rebellious thing we do is tell stories of hope that lift up the family. I think the family has been pushed down by a lot of societal messages for so long that the idea of telling a story where the family gets to be the hero and keeping the family together, I think it's a rebellious story. I want to lift up the power of the family, the power of parents, the mother's influence on this family, and ultimately understanding that it's not about chasing the American dream, it's about chasing your family being the dream, and that's where you find the bigger purpose. It's one that I think really registers, reminding people the importance of their family.

It was interesting to me to be watching it and having been around Nashville all this time, and I knew who David Smallbone was, and I certainly knew who Rebecca St. James was. I didn't know the boys story. I found that out a little bit later, but just because I'm the old guy. But I'm watching this thing and I'm going, I know these people. Wait a minute. Because I didn't know who it was at the beginning of the movie. I had to get down into it before it clicked who the story was about. I didn't set it up well, apparently. No, you didn't need to set it up. You just sent me an email. It was fine. I wasn't complaining about it. But it was from somebody who's… These guys, they all live within 10 miles of here. I mean, they're all right here in their neighborhood. And yet they're all world-class talents at what they do and fabulous people.

And you didn't even know that it was Joel playing his father.

No, I didn't until you and I had breakfast.

Yeah, we were having breakfast. You're like, Who was it that played? That was Joel.

That's from the band.

It's like Daniel Ramsey playing Dave.

Exactly. That's pretty wild. That's just creepy.

I'm here to pitch you that story. That's next.

A boy can dream. No, that'd be a short film. You don't do short films. No, I don't do.

You're doing something really cool. For a limited time, our Ramsey listeners can go to this link, unsunghero. Movie/ramsey, and they can get free tickets.

How in the world? The exciting thing about it is this is really a grassroots story. It's so important opening weekend to have just a strong presence because that's where Hollywood doesn't ever see us coming. What they predicted with I Can Only Imagine was it was just going to do a fraction of what it did. They're like, What in the world happened?

Jesus Revolution. Jesus Revolution.

Same thing.

Hollywood didn't know what to do with those numbers. Those numbers were amazing.

It was amazing to watch. For this one, we had a group of businessman donors come along and say, We'll sponsor some tickets. There's a donor that sponsored tickets specifically for your audience. I was saying today, while it last, as soon as the tickets are gone, they're gone. But for a limited time, if you go to that unsunghero. Movie/ramsey, it'll have information on how to reclaim your ticket codes for opening weekend. Take your family on us. Just for being a listener of the Ramsey show.

You can get up to two tickets, and the show times are between 4:24 and 4:28, and the code is Hero Free at checkout. That's really generous of you. Thank you for doing that. We're excited. Our listeners are going to be excited. I think they're a great target audience for this movie. We're all about hope around here. I don't know if you've listened to the show for three seconds, but great crossover there.

Talk about the cast. That was interesting. Obviously, Joel played his dad, but there were some other issues.

As we did it, Joel really wanted to make sure the casting was authentic. He was really picky about who played his mom. I would be, too. That's a tremendous responsibility. He found this one actress in Australia that we knew through some friends, and he loved her body of work named Daisy Betz. She had taken four years off acting to be a mom and had gone into retirement. He called her and talked her out of retirement. She absolutely steals the show. She does. She's amazing. Then we have some familiar faces like Candice Cameron-Berre and then Lucas Black, who's amazing. He's the only guy that has a thicker Southern accent than me and you. He's amazing. They play this couple from the church that...

He played in one of the other films. What was that called?

Yeah, he's been in a lot of stuff. He's been in the Fast Furious movie. He started with Sling He was a little kid in Sling Blade.

Yeah, but I saw him in something. Was it the golfing movie?

Yeah, he was in the golfing movie. It was the one with Robert DeVall. Yeah, he did that one. He's amazing. It's a great cast. Then Hillary Scott from Lady A, the band, she plays a part, but it was a lot of fun. We had a good time. What part was she? She played the choir director. We snuck her in there. If you look, she's the choir director.

I'll have to go back now. Okay, I drove by that one. That's the reason to see it a second time. I know Hillary, but I drove by. Makeup and hair. Exactly. There we go. The movie's called Unsung Hero. It is about a family that overcomes and you will leave smiling with hope. You'll be stressed before you get there. That's a good story arc. Check it out, Unsung zero. Movie/ramsey. A donor has provided you guys a free ticket. Go get it, go watch this movie and support and raise this thing up. We need to raise up hope and family in this country. It's a good thing to do. Andy Irwin, you're a rock star, man. We appreciate you. God bless you. Appreciate you. This is the Ramsey Show. Listen up. Trying to reach your money goals without a rock solid budget is like trying to climb Mount Everest in ice skates. It isn't going to work. That's why we built the Every Dollar app to help you win with money. It's the simplest, most straightforward way to track your spending and give every dollar a job. That way, you can stop letting your money push you around and start reaching those money goals.

Download Every Dollar for free on the App Store or Google Play. George Campbell-Ramsey personality is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Keaton and Kennedy are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing great. Doing great. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you all live?

Austin, Texas.

All right. Welcome to Nashville. Yes, sir. Thank you. How much debt have you two paid off?

181,000.

All right. How long did that take?

Right around 51 months.

Good job. And your range of income during that four years?

Started at 105 and ended at 195.

Excellent. What do you two do for a living?

I'm a full-time firefighter with a lawn care business on the side.

I was in retail operations at a bank for about 10 years, and now a stay-at-home mom. Excellent. Well done. What debt's the 181,000?

It was auto loans, student loans, personal line of In our house.

In our house.

Paid off your house? Yes, sir. A couple of weirdos. Yes, sir. Way to go, weird people.

I like it. Yes, sir.

What's this house worth?

About 300, maybe a little shy of 300.

Very cool. How much When are you in your nest egg?

We've got about 20, and then another 80 to 100 in retirement.

In retirement? Okay. Excellent. Very good. All right, so you're almost halfway to being millionaires already with a paid four house. How old are you?

I just turned 30.

Oh, wow. And I'm 28. And you have a paid four house? Yes, sir. You all are really weird. A little bit. I love it. Yes, sir. I love it. Tell us the story. What happened? How did you get connected to all this Ramsey stuff?

Well, in 2019, we were engaged, about to get married, and a guy from the fire department I work with invited us to do Financial Peace University. We signed up for it, and we paid off our consumer debt, and then bought the house that we have now. Then we saved up down payment for some land that we thought we were going to build on, and we prayed about it, and God had other plans. Real estate got expensive. Building got expensive back in '21. We sold our land and put some of that money towards our house and helped pay it down, but we still owed almost $80,000 on the house. After that, we really just kicked it into gear and got on the budget and prayed about it and paid it off.

I love it.

How long has he been When were you married?

Four years. Four years.

Was this as soon as you got married, you were like, All right, let's clean some debt up?

The bank that I worked for, we actually taught your principles. I was familiar with the Ramsey plan for a while before. Then, yeah, I guess we've just always been in sync on finances. It's never been an issue. We've always been on the same page.

It just became, Well, this is the plan. We both agree on the Let's do the plan.

Well, you get married, and then you go through the whole thing again with the fire department, right? The Financial Peace University again, right?

Yes, we went through there. We both went through the same class with other firefighters and their spouses. That's cool. That really helped us stay focused.

It was just a reaffirmation of what you already learned at the bank, but now I'm doing it with my husband. Yeah, very good.

It's cool to have a crew doing this all together. Was it cheering each other on, ribbing each other? What was the support like?

Both, yes. It was cheering other on. Still, we have guys that are interested in doing it and still trying to cheer them on and also ribbing each other as well.

That's part of it. Yeah, you beat them. You got your house paid off first. Yes, sir.

What a cool testimony. I'm sure I'm inspired by you guys as well being so young with a paid-for house in this economy. How do you even do that? Are people just thinking you're weird around you that don't understand?

Yeah, weird or wrong. One of the two. It's not right.

So 28 and 30 in a paid-for house worth over $300,000. Someone watching this wants to know, how do you do that? What do you think, Tom, the key to getting out of debt is? For me, it's contentment. We had awesome incomes, both of us. I wouldn't say we talked about sacrifices. I didn't really feel like we had to sacrifice that much. We just had to live within our means. It was really- It was paying attention to what you had.

And discipline. We already had way more than we needed. It was just cutting out the little things, the restaurants, and not eating out as much. The new vehicles, we always buy used vehicles with 20,000 to 40,000 miles. We drove here in a four or five-year-old vehicle. A six-year-old vehicle, actually, was 60,000 miles that we paid for in cash. So it's discipline. Yeah.

Way to go, you guys. Yeah, it's interesting. The word Contentment and sacrifice. The more content you are, the more other people would say you're sacrificing, but it doesn't feel like sacrifice. No, not at all.

If you're not striving to live outside your means.

Yeah, but the less content you are, everything's a sacrifice. It's like so, but that changes the whole equation. That's a very good point. Very good point. Good job, you guys. Yes, sir. Thank you. How does it feel to be completely free? Amazing. I get to be a stay at home mom.

Yeah, the same day we paid our house off, it was her last day at the bank.

Was that coincidental or did that happen that way?

No. We timed it.

She gave them a good two months.

A good two month notice. Hit to submit button. Submit my resignation and submit that last payment. There we go. That's cool. I like it. Very, very good.

Good for you guys. These kids don't know how good they have it, how incredible their parents are.

Yeah, you guys are heroes. Well done. What's the first big thing you do now that you have no dad?

Well, she's staying home, and then we want to get back on a house on a few acres outside of town. Back in the area we were.

Make that move that you'd plan back there. Yes, sir.

Lord willing.

Yes, sir. That's a good move. It's a good move. I think he's willing. Yeah, that's good because you are.

It's going to be easier now with no payments. You guys are going to do that so quick.

Yes, sir.

Very cool. All right, you brought the kiddos with you. Let's bring them up. What are their names and ages? This is Crawford. He's eight months, and this She's two and a half. All right. We're ready. You guys, you got a good job there, mom. Well done. Well done. Good stuff. All right, it's Keaton and Kennedy, Sutton and Crawford from Austin, Texas, $81,000 paid off. House and everything at 28 and 30, making $105 to $195. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt-free. Wow. It's strange for me, George, because this is the world I live in. Occasionally, you or Rachel will bring me something from the other world, the world that's not real, the virtual world, where there are people in the virtual world who say that it's impossible possible for a Gen Z or a millennial to prosper in today's economy. The world I live in, I meet them like these guys. There they are. I meet them every week that are paying off their home. They're going to be multimillionaires. They've got a beautiful family. They were able financially to make a choice for her to quit the bank and go home. How can that be done? He's a firefighter. He's not a rocket surgeon. What I want. I mean, it's like this guy, you know what they have? They have a superpower, common sense. They have a superpower. It's just, you know.

I mean, you heard the secret sauce.

We were content. I didn't hear a single line of victim language or entitlement language or, Oh, the world is so rough out there. There was no whining, no cheese needed with the wine. But in that virtual world where Are you guys running around over there? It's like, that's just a thing now. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's exhausting. They're all excuses, and they spend more time editing TikTok videos about how bad they have it than they do going to work and paying off debt. This is a couple, I mean, 28 and 30. They're not saying, Well, the boomers ruined it for me, Dave. Or put a shower cap on their head and do a Dave Ramsey impersonation. Now, that one I saw. That one went viral. That was a good one.

Yeah, there's some pretty funny ones making fun of me. I'm just saying. You all brought me one of those. That guy's Trey Kennedy. Yes. Is that who's his name? Don't give him a name. Don't promote him.

That's fine. No one go look at the video.

No one. You won't like it. It's hilarious. There's a lot of stuff making fun of me out there, and I'm okay with that part. But I tell you what, I'm okay with people like Keaton and Kennedy.

Oh, yeah.

They give me hope. This is why I come to work every day.

If you watch the headlines, you got the world's falling. If you watch this debt free scream, you go, It's going to be okay.

If you're Keaton and Kennedy, I'm here for you. If you're a winer, I'm going to be a problem for you.

Stick to the TikToks.

It's just my job. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 34:19, The righteous person may have troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all. Don't dodge difficulties. Meet them, greet them, beat them. All great men have been through the Ringer. A. A. Milne, however that is. I like that. I'm with you. I I get it. I get it. Just go at it, baby. Go at it. Lisa is in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. I can't believe I'm speaking with you. I really admire you and what you teach.

Well, thank you. We're honored to have you. How can we help?

Well, my husband and I are in Baby Step 6. One of the things we knew we had to do is replace the vehicle that I had been driving for over 16 years because it was becoming unreliable That's reasonable. Two weeks ago, we found a vehicle and we purchased it. We paid cash. Now, I'm feeling very guilty. I'm having a hard time getting over feelings of guilt from making such a large purchase. Is there anything I can do to just get over the guilt?

Why do you feel guilty?

Because it took so long to get out of debt. That making such a large purchase, I think it's hard for me. My husband is fine with it. It's just I'm feeling guilty over it.

What is a large purchase? What'd you pay for the car?

Just under 23,000.

You saved up in paid cash Did you all steal the money or did you earn the money?

No, we earned the money. We saved up in paid cash.

This purchase didn't violate any of your personal values? It didn't hurt anyone?

No, it did not.

You're driving the car? Yes. You were driving the hoopdie that was worn out before? Yes.

In fact, it left me stranded a couple of times in the last few weeks, so we knew we really needed to get on replacing It's good.

I'm going to call this Live Like No-One-Lse syndrome. Is that fair? You've sacrificed so hard, and now you're on the other side, and now it feels strange to let go and enjoy.

It does because I never I paid cash for a vehicle before.

You wouldn't have felt guilty if you got it on payments at $400 a month.

Because that would have punished you. That would have counterbalanced it. I think That you are a classic, noble mom, and anytime someone spends money, you feel like they're spending money on you, that bothers you.

Yeah.

We don't have to- It's not about the car. It's not about the car. It's not about the car. It's like that you feel like the family spent $23,000 on you.

Yeah, that is how I feel because I'm the one driving it, and it was specifically purchased For me, my husband, his truck is paid for it.

How many kids you got?

He drives his truck. How many kids you got? We don't have any children.

Okay, so you're just driving a car?

Yes.

After 16 years, you finally got a decent one. Yeah. I think that's all it is. I think you're just a person that doesn't want to look like or feel like that it's about you. You don't want to be out front. You want to be in the background. It feels like that this is ostentatious or flashy or something like that to you, even though it's not, by the way. It's really, it's nothing. Nobody really noticed, I promise. You're the only one that noticed.

Is this a very flashy car?

No. Lisa No, it doesn't buy a flashy cars.

People aren't turning at the stop light.

Wow.

What car is it? I'm curious.

What did you buy?

The one we just replaced in 2008, I bought a Jeep Wrangler brand new, and this one is another Jeep Wrangler a Jeep Wrangler used. I had 155,000 miles on my black Jeep, and I found this one. It's white.

Let me tell you, the only people that see a Jeep Wrangler at a stoplight are other people driving a Jeep Wrangler.

Yes, that's true.

It's a cool car, but it's not flashy. No. You're not pulling up in a Lamborghini or Corvette or something, right? Hey, I'm kidding around a little bit, but the truth is, if you just need us to tell you, George and I can both tell you, what you've done is very reasonable. It is not selfish. It is not irresponsible. You're not out of control. What you did here was a wise thing. Making such an extreme jump because you waited an extreme period of time and were driving an extreme piece of crap, and you moved up out of that, the distance of the move is what gave you a little bit of whiplash.

Yeah. Truthfully, I experienced the same thing as Lisa. When I upgraded to my little Beater Honda Civic that Dave was making fun of me for, and I got my little old Tesla.

That now I make fun of you for. We have a theme here.

It still took my breath away to write that check and pay cash a little bit. Then the next car that my wife got was even more expensive than that, and it took my breath away again. Over time, you get used to flexing that muscle and going, Okay, it's stuff.

It should cause a little gasp. It wouldn't be normal if it was the first time you've ever done something that size. If you do it without-It was thoughtless. If you're thoughtless about it, that would be irresponsible. You need to feel it, a physical reaction to the emotion.

You save up for months for this purchase. It hits different.

You should feel it the first time you do that, whether it's an act of giving, and you give an amount you've never given before, that should catch in your throat a bit. Or when you're purchasing something, you go, What? You have that moment. That's different than a lingering... Guilt. Sense of, I did something You didn't do anything wrong. Yeah, never felt that. You didn't do that. You didn't do anything wrong. Except you bought a Tesla.

I knew that was coming. I knew it.

Bozeman, Montana. Liz is with us. Hi, Liz. How are you?

Hey, Dave. Thank Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's up?

I wanted a little bit of advice. My husband and I, we got together when we were really young. We're relatively young parents. When we first got together, we didn't have any really big goals, except that we wanted to start a family together. That first kid definitely set us in motion. We were like, Okay, we need to have some professional goals. We were just working at grocery stores and stuff, just enough to get us enough money for our next road trip type thing. But now my husband is working in construction. He does HVAC, and I'm stay at home, just because we found that it wasn't quite worth the money to put them, there's two babies, into daycare. Got you.

How can we help you today?

I'm curious as to whether or not I should go to college this upcoming fall. My thought is that we're out here in Montana all alone. It's just my husband and I, and I'm not trained in anything. I'm not qualified in anything to make as much as he does. So if anything were to happen to him or if he wasn't able to work his job, I don't know how I would provide for the girls. I don't know whether or not I should go back to college this upcoming fall and try to get a degree to make me as much money as he makes. Or if I should have faith in him and continue to be a stay-at-home mom and just write that out.

I don't know if faith has anything to do with it, but I would get term life insurance on him if you don't have that already, and on you. Do you guys have that in place?

We have it on him. We do, yeah. Mine is I'm not a lot as a spouse, but his is good.

If you want to develop a career and you have a passion about moving into a career, and you have a very specific thing that requires a college education to move into that, and you want to do that, that's fine. But generally, I want to get an education because generally I want to be more valuable. No, I would not do that. If it's a part of a very specific plan to execute that says, Okay, when the kiddos hit kindergarten, I'm on go and I want to be a XYZ. I want to be an ER nurse. I want to be a whatever. I don't care what it is. Then you start asking, Okay, what education, what certificates do I need to be one of those things? I would go do that. But just generally, I'm fearful because I feel underprepared for life. No, that's how you go spend the wrong money on the wrong degree. I would not do that.

I'm going to be honest, I want to be a stay-at-home mom. I love being with my girls.

But when they're in school, do you want to do something?

I don't know. I want to support them. My husband was homeschooling. He wants me to homeschool. I just feel really bad with him. There's nothing wrong with that.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You're not doing anything wrong. Don't go get an education just to say you got one as a fallback because it won't work. It won't accomplish what you're trying to do. Hang on. I'll send you Ken Coleman's materials just in case you want to read through them. It sounds like you don't, but we'll help you get the career assessment going and get you a copy of the Paycheck to Purpose book. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the Bucks. 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 Ramsey here. You know budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind, and that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to ramseysolutions. Com/everydollar and download the app today. That's ramseysolutions. Com/everydollar.