Let Go of Others Expectations and Take Control of Your Own Future

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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. Jade Washaw, number one bestselling author.
Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. The number here is 888-825-5225.
Kathleen is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Kathleen.
How are you? I'm doing okay. Thank you for taking my call.
Sure. What's up?

Well, I'm dealing with a case of financial infidelity, unfortunately. And I'm a little lost in what I can do.
Now, I know that majority of it is going to be a marital issue and not necessarily a math problem. But until there is cooperation to solve our marital concerns, I want to know what is acceptable in my position to help, I guess, give us a little bit of financial security for myself and my children.
Well, what are you up against? Tell us a little bit more details about what the infidelity is looking like. Sure.
So my husband and I will be married almost 10 years next month. And a few years back, we've never had credit cards.
We've always been on the same page. We did financial peace.
And we did really good for a while. We had children, four children in about five and a half years.
And a few years ago, he opened up a credit card without telling me.

And what did he spend?

What did he run up?

What did he run up?

How much debt?

Over $6,000 in nine months.

Okay.

To do what?

What was he doing?

Buying hobby stuff. Are you guys not on a budget together? Are you doing a budget together at that point? We were.
You were at that point? We were. Now, I had just had my third child.
Okay, so $6,000 worth of stuff appears in your house, and you're doing a budget that didn't show $6,000. Did you not have a question about that at that time? I did.
So I found it, or I found out about the credit card a month after he signed up for it. I found a piece of mail in the mailbox.
And when I confronted him about it, he got super defensive and then proceeded to use it however he saw fit, which none of it went to any medical bills. None of it went to the house.
None of it went to me or the children. It was all.
So what was that conversation? Explain that conversation. What happened? Did he just say, you know what, we've been living this lifestyle.
I don't know if I agree with this whole debt-free lifestyle. I think it's okay to use credit cards, and I want to go forward with that.
Was there a conversation, or it was just, who cares what you think? I'm doing my thing. Unfortunately, yeah, it was the latter.
Okay, so how long ago was that again? It was about two and a half years ago. Okay, and so why would you have an expectation that it quit? You wouldn't.
So when he maxed out the card, he came to his senses. We had a heart-to-heart conversation, and he still wouldn't let me help.
He still wouldn't show me the balance. Let me, you know, let's try to sell some things.
Let's try to like, you know, I said, I'll be happy to help. I'll, I'll pitch in like, this isn't just your problem.
We're in this together. Let's, let's figure this out.
And he was super reluctant to still do that. Um, however, over the course of a year, he did not use that card and he did eventually, um, cut it up and cancel it.
So skip forward, because that was two and a half years ago. Tell us what's happening today that's making you call the show.
So in the spring, I felt he had earned some trust back, and I agreed to use 60% of our tax return to pay the card off in full. Three months later, I find out that he has opened yet another card.
Got it. Okay.
So he's... You started the conversation correctly.
I'm sorry, honey. This has absolutely nothing to do with money.
Right. This is an integrity breach in the most precious relationship on the planet, which is between husband and wife.
Right. You can't trust your husband.
And that's where you've got to go with this. Okay.
It has nothing to do with the fact that it's a credit card and Ramsey hates credit cards. It's he's lying to his wife and deceiving his wife about anything regularly as a pattern.

And this is a deal breaker eventually if you guys don't get this solved.

This is not a situation where marriages last.

And so you've got to sit down with a marriage counselor, both of you, immediately. It's your only chance.
Which he's not willing to do, though. Then he's planning his divorce.
Behavior is a language. Dr.
John Deloney says it all the time. And his behavior is, I do whatever I want, and I'm not willing to work with my wife on anything.
I'll do whatever I want. I'm going to walk around, act like I am not married.
And that behavior is a language. He's saying he doesn't want to be married.
So I'm going to call him on that. You go to a marriage counselor, not a radio show, and you get some advice from that marriage counselor immediately on how to begin.
When I've gone to a counselor, because the initial, I'll say argument, because it didn't end up being a conversation, led to him telling me that I was the one that needed counseling and not him. So I did.
Listen, we can't do anything about him. What I need you to do, listen, listen to me.
Stop talking. Listen to me.
You need to go to a marriage counselor, and you need to get them to teach you how to frame an ultimatum. How to frame of you're going to do this or this marriage is over.
Because, honey, the marriage is over if you don't. The counselor can teach you.
We can't make him go to counseling. We can't make him do anything.
But we can, and you can, make him conform to a set of principles, a set of behaviors in order to stay married. And those behaviors sound like go to marriage counseling, so we deal with why I feel like it's okay to lie to my wife.
Because if he'll lie to you about this, honey, he'll lie to you about anything. Well, that's the thing.
that that's where it is because i i don't want somebody to hear oh we're telling her to get a divorce because they don't agree on money there's no way that this behavior is only play but there's no way it's only playing out in that arena you cannot stay married to someone who deceives you right period about anything right it's that simple a liar is not a basis for any kind of relationship. Right.
But I'm saying. You can't have a business relationship.
You can't have a contractual relationship. You can't have a marriage relationship.
When my kids were little and they lied to me, they are out of relationship until their tail end cools off. Right.
And I'm just saying that behavior rarely compartmentalizes itself into one category. No.
there's often other things going on. You're exactly right.
If you're willing to lie and hide this, what else are you willing to lie and hide? And same thing is true with a team member here, an employee. That's right.
Okay. There's a few things that we don't work on a plan to help someone turn it around.
One of them is thieving.

If you're going to steal, I don't negotiate with thieves.

Right.

I don't want to rehab a thief.

You're just fired that day.

Your dad didn't do his job.

Your mom didn't do their job.

So you're just fired.

It's that simple.

There's a couple things like that.

And so these are integrity breakdowns.

It's nothing to do with money. Money is just where it's manifesting itself.
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Devin is in Midland, Texas. Hi, Devin.
Welcome to The Ramsey Show. How you doing, Mr.
Ramsey? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I needed some advice from you guys.
My wife, she works Monday through Thursday at a daycare. I work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
I take care of a patient who has cerebral palsy. But with my son's about to start daycare for the first time, I have my Monday through Thursday open to me.
We're living just about under paycheck to paycheck. So I'm trying to figure out if I should go back to work full time, quit my job and find a normal nine to five Monday through Friday, or should I go back to school? I'm thinking about getting my real estate license.
Yeah, I definitely think you need to be working full time to bring in money. The question is, what is it? What made you choose real estate? Do you know that's what you want to do? Or is it just kind of like, hey, I'll choose this?

Well, I've been in a lot of positions, jobs where I've always been good and having to do sales to the point where I was even working at an oil change facility.

And I wasn't even under the car anymore changing oil. I was literally just doing straight sales of selling, you know.
What is the most money you've ever made in your life in a year? Oh, Lord. I think my most paying job I've ever had was by $18 an hour, so I couldn't even check it.
So $40,000 a year. Yes, sir.
Okay. All right.
And that was doing what?

What were you doing at 18 an hour?

I was working in the oil field.

I was working for a safety company.

I'm licensed by the state of Texas to work on fire extinguishers, maintenance, inspections, things like that.

Okay.

How long ago was that?

About a year.

The reason i quit was

because um i was away from home quite a bit um yeah my my wife had just given birth to our second

son uh he's about to be two now february i'm old this is going to be three here about a week

um and i was missing a lot of time uh away from home um so yeah that was the main reason the

second is you know again like 40 hours a week away from home about 50 well no no no i

I'll ask about 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., but then about two to three days out of the month I was doing overnights.
I do two or three days out of town. Welcome to working.
Yeah, for sure. Lots of people do that like everybody yeah that wants to earn a living so you weren't being overworked um so um yeah you need to get the best possible full-time gig you can get and then if you want to work on the real estate as a side hustle until you get it up and running that's okay but.
But we're not going to do nothing while we wait on the real estate license and wait on the first sale. It might be six months.
For sure. So you're working 40 hours getting paid, like starting next week.
Yeah. So we're waiting for a government assistance program to help us get our boys into daycare.
That way I can, you know, starting, you know. And I could go back to the job I was at.
It was actually probably a bit official to rehire me because I have my license for over a year now. I can actually start working on.
I bet they're paying more than $18 now. No, it's about the same.
It's a family-owned company. Just about every safety.
Why don't you check around? That sounds awfully low. I mean, stuff around the oil field usually pays a lot.
Yeah, especially here in Midland, Texas. Yeah, why don't you get one of those a lot-paying jobs instead of not paying jobs? I'm trying, sir.
No, I mean, really. I mean, working in the oil field, people make a lot more than $18.
Hello? You know that. Yeah.
and yeah what's wrong with can you get on with one

of those gigs i i could um i actually just applied to uh exxon mobile um but my i guess my uh application was no longer uh i guess sustainable for what they were looking for they denied me but i have a couple friends who are in the world film they're trying to get me on with that's them. That's how it works.
That's how it works right there. And that's $30 an hour, okay? Yeah.
Yeah. I think our biggest issue is we only have one car, and so trying to figure out how to get my wife.
Well, the difference in $18 and $30 will get you a cheap car. What about your wife? She's working Monday through Thursday.
My guess is she's not earning much. She earns $14 an hour.
She works at a daycare. She gets there by 8 a.m.
and gets off 5 o'clock with an hour break. So what I want you guys to do is to take a step back.
I'm going to send you two books, Ken Coleman's Proximity Principle, which is getting your buddies in the oil field to help you get on. That's the proximity principle.
And then I'm going to send you finding the work you're wired to do. I want you both to take that assessment.
Matter of fact, guys, make sure you send two assessments with the book, okay, finding the work, because both of you take it. Because here's the thing.
Both of you have jobs that you fell backwards into because at least it was work and at least I got paid, but both the jobs pay sucks. Yes.
And so I want you to start aiming at something high to get your pay up intentionally. What's my career moves? What must be true in my life? And that can be that you take the $30 an hour job that we're talking about, and then you get your real estate license and you go around and get your first house sold your second house sold part time on the side on the weekends which is most of the time when real estate's done anyway and then um and then then maybe you get where you can quit and go full-time real estate and make some serious money but you're gonna have to develop that skill the good news is you know you is you know you're comfortable with selling.
You told me that about the oil thing, right? The oil change place. So, yeah, but what we can no longer do that you've been doing is accept low pay.
Well, there's a wheel to that because if you are spending a certain amount of your time doing a task and the pay is not worth it, you're going to lose interest in doing it and you're not going to want to go to work, which is what's happened to you. And that's the second thing.
Yes. The second thing y'all have not been doing well is you've not been working much.
Uh-huh. I mean, parents that have two kids, most of them work.
And y'all just together barely have a full-time job. And it's because you're not getting paid enough.
So you need to find something that you feel is worth your time and you're excited about what you do. And then you're going to want to go to work.
It's fulfilling to you at that point. Exactly.
And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to go back to school. It probably doesn't mean that.
But what you've got to do is start aiming at this and saying, okay, what must be true that's not true today? What have I got to change in order to get that thing moving? James is in Chicago. Hey, James, how are you? Doing well.
How about yourself? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yeah, so I have my parents that love to death, super generous people, but to a fault, they have not been the best with finances in the past.
I don't believe they're in a ton of debt or anything like that, but they're reaching the end of when they will be able to continue working, and they have not planned for retirement. How old are they currently? They're 67.
Okay. Are they bad health? No, decently good health.
Yeah, not a huge concern. Has they come to you for money? I was going to say, what's your game on this? No, no.
So they don't come to us for money. They have, from what I understand, quite a bit of equity in their house.
It's probably worth a little bit north of a million dollars. But my wife mentioned the other day that her plan, all along, along with her siblings, is to support them into their retirement years.
What does that mean? It'd be nice if you'd mention that plan before we got married. Well, I mean, she had kind of hinted at it and threw clues along the way.
She was a very good saver even before we met and managed to save quite a bit of money that would be enough to execute on their plan. But basically, they're talking about buying their house from them or figuring out how to put it into a trust and then giving them an allowance.
So normally, it's tough. I'm kind of in a bind because like I mentioned, they're super generous people.
They help out with kids, etc. But I haven't really witnessed a lot of financial literacy on their end.
And I'm a bit concerned that, um, we would be, you know, not teaching them how to fish, so to speak. Yeah.
I'm concerned that your wife doesn't care. That's, that's my concern as well.
Um, I think that's your issue. I don't think your in-laws arelaws are your issue i think you got a wife issue agree so the two of you got to sit down and decide what our family is willing to do for that family and this assumption you made that we are just going to support them and you and i hadn't talked about it that's not cool at all you just come in and surprise me that's like honey i just bought a 60 000 bass, you know, we don't surprise people like that when we're married.
We talk about things before we do them.

And then we would develop a game plan on that. We're both comfortable with.

And then that may involve you guys helping to educate them or

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Joseph's in Long Island, New York. Hey, Joseph, how are you? Good.
How are you guys? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I just wanted to ask.
So I come from like a rather

poor European household. And being that since a young age, I was kind of told that, hey, when you

grow up, you have to be a doctor or a lawyer. And I kind of believed it and still did believe up

until a few years ago that that was my only real option. But if we fast forward now, I'm about to

turn 22 in a month and I'm a senior in a community college. I've accumulated already $24,000 in debt.
And I don't know if taking out another $100,000 to $150,000 for law school makes sense. Right now, for a few numbers, I work part-time while in college.
I make $20,000 a year and I'm currently going through a real estate course. So you've been told you have to be a doctor or

lawyer. You don't want to be.
And not only do you have to be a doctor or lawyer, but you would be the one to pay for or be on hook for the debt for obtaining a degree that you don't want to get. And you're asking us what we think you should do.
Correct. I think you should not go into debt for a degree that you cannot afford and don't even want.

Let me make sure you don't want to be a lawyer. Is that what you're saying? If it was free, would you want to be a lawyer? If it was free, I'm kind of unbiased.
I have no problem being a lawyer. I have no problem with the job.
I don't think it's bad. I don't think it's great.
But at the end of the day, my outlook on life is whatever makes the money.

I don't know about that outlook.

Yeah, I know it's a little skewed.

Well, it's so much money.

It's so much money to go in with no passion.

And I don't think the prospect of I could make a lot of money one day is enough to keep you.

Is anyone in your family a lawyer?

No, my parents are immigrants, and they work paycheck to paycheck, so they kind of just

So they wanted the good life for you.

They wanted you to have the best possible life.

And for them, that was doctor or lawyer.

That's the way they saw it.

So they have a good heart, but maybe their methodology is bad.

Yeah. What's your degree in your undergrad? It's business management.
Okay. And you think you want to do real estate? Yeah.
So I work in the restaurant business now part-time, and a lot of my local regulars are real estate brokers, and they have expressed to me several times that if I go through the course, get the license, I can totally work for them right out of the gate. So I thought that might be promising.
Okay. Well, that's true.
what I think I want you to do is I want you to figure out what you want to be, and then let's reverse engineer how to get there rather than just going, okay, I can make money in real estate or I can make money as a lawyer. I haven't heard anything yet about what I want to do, who I want to be, what sets my soul on fire, what makes me really, really excited.
Instead, you're just gravitating where I can get a paycheck gotcha yeah so i want you to i i don't mind you getting paid you know eight hundred thousand dollars a year that's perfectly good with me as a matter of fact i think working your passion and making no money is a bunch of crap okay because if you work your passion you ought to actually get good at it and make money so um i just don't buy that stuff but on the other hand working is something that you to jade's point earlier that you don't have a lot of passion for certainly don't want to go into debt for that so you're living your parents dream and you're having to finance it to the tune of 150 on the lawyer thing so i'm with you on that one joseph i think we're going to tell mom and dad hey i'm to go live the American dream. I just found out it's different than you thought it was.
It's not a lawyer. And they might push back on you.
They likely will. But you're going to have to.
That's something that you're probably going to have to power through as an adult now. They want the good things for you.
They want good things for you. They're not bad people.
They just don't know how to define it. So I'll give you an example, Joseph.
My grandmother, my grandpa worked for Alcoa Aluminum and Accounting, and when he retired, he was head cost accountant in Alcoa, Tennessee, okay? And so he had one job his whole working life. I go broke in real estate, lose everything.
My grandparents think I'm going to be living in a box on the side of the road, which was pretty close, but not quite. And then I write a little book.
And the day my publisher called to tell me that we had just sold the millionth copy, my grandmother was the next call. And she said, honey, I was praying this morning.
I'm worried about you. When are you going to get a real job?

Okay.

So what that means is my grandmother loved me a lot and I loved her and she wanted what was good for me.

But her definition of what was good for me was 38 years at Alcoa Aluminum.

And meanwhile, I just sold the millionth copy of Financial Peace.

Okay.

And I thought it was doing okay. I had Financial Peace granny, but she couldn't get her head around that.
Even though she wanted good things for me, she wasn't bad. Okay.
But, but it didn't fit. And that's where you are.
Your, your mom and dad wants you to be a lawyer. Cause for them, that's the 38 years at alcohol aluminum.
That's the great American dream. It's something you can count on.
All lawyers make money. All doctors make money.
That's what their eyes see, although that's not true. But that's what their eyes see.
And so you convincing them may take a while with your success. You may have to become successful before they become convinced that this was a good idea to not go to law school.
But I think you shouldn't go to law school. I agree with you.
Gotcha. Okay.
But I want to honor their hearts, because they got good hearts. My granny had a good heart, okay? And we don't need to be disrespectful, but it's just because from where they came from, that's the definition of success.
If you time warped them back to 1950 and you were in small-town America in 1950, you need to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a banker.

Well, God help you if you're a banker today.

You know, I mean, but yeah.

And that was who was in the Chamber of Commerce in the small town and the people that went to the country club.

And so that was the definition then.

And that's what they've got in their heads is that 1950, 1960 persona. So anyway, now let's go on to Joseph.
I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book, Finding the Work You're Wired to Do. I want you to take the assessment, and I want you to start thinking about what I can do that when I'm 40, the 40-year-old version of you is going to look back at the 23-year-old version of you and thank him.

Thank you for doing the soul searching to find out where I can make a lot of money on something that sets my soul on fire.

And that's where you need to be, sir.

And so the answer is probably neither one of these.

But it could be real estate.

It's okay.

I don't mind real estate.

If you do real estate, by the way, it's going to be tough.

22-year-olds selling houses have a problem.

You're going to have to grow a mustache because you look like you're 12 and nobody buys houses

from 12-year-olds.

I know.

I got my real estate license when I turned 18.

It was hard, hard wearing my disco clothes and show houses, right?

So complete with Mr. T starter kit, gold chains.

I'm just saying, man.

You were wearing gold chains, Dave?

The OG.

It's disco time, man.

Yeah.

A while back.

It was a minute ago.

All right.

So hang on.

We'll send you all that stuff out, honey, and we'll help you out.

But your mom and dad are sweet people.

They're good people.

We're not going to dishonor them.

They just want the American dream for you.

It's why they fought to get to come here.

And that's why a lot of people want to live in America, because it's the best place on the planet to live.

They fight to get to do it. Thank you.
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Maddie is in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hi, Maddie. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, it's such an honor to speak with you both.

You too. How can we help?

Thank you.

Me and my husband are currently on baby step number six.

My question is, I am wondering if this is something I need to prepare for. My father, he owns about $12 million in rentals and apartments.
My siblings, there's about four of us, and they are not interested in inheriting them when that time comes. And I am wondering what I would need to do to buy them off when we get to that point.

Like, do I need to start saving now?

Sounds like you'd need $9 million.

Excuse me? Sounds like you'd need $9 million. Their portion.
Excuse me? Sounds like you'd need $9 million. Yeah.
How old are your parents? My dad is 66. My mom's 65.
What's your household income? Me and my husband make around $ make around 230k a year well i mean mom and dad gotta live a while because you're not ready right exactly yes yeah um but that's a lot of money so why why are you so interested in owning these particular apartments um they run very well me and my husband, we managed them for years while we were setting up a house. We lived in the apartments so that we could put a down payment, a good down payment on our current home.
So we know how to run them. We know the numbers.
We know the books. We know what it takes to run them, and we would love to become landlords.
Yeah. Is there any debt on them? No.
Okay. All right.
Well, they're going up in value every year, so the longer your parents live, the larger the number is. But the longer your parents live, the more time you've got to save up to get ready to do this.
If you have $9 million and that's your entire net worth, I would not tell you to buy them out. I think it would be unwise to have your entire net worth in one apartment complex, even though you like it.
So you're going to need $20 million for this to be wise, which I'm not real hopeful of. What is your net worth? During baby step six.
Yeah. So, I mean, you got some equity in the house, but still got a mortgage, and you got some money in your 401K.
But you're making good money. That's good news.
So the only way to buy them out is one of two things, either have the cash or go into debt to do it.

And so I'm going to have the cash, and if I have the cash, I wouldn't personally tell you to keep an investment property that one investment property composes almost your entire net worth. I think that's really dangerous.

Okay.

Yeah, that was going to be my question is if we should jump into a investment property sooner and that way when this comes we can sell that and use that money no we don't get in a hurry you still go you still go build wealth you make good money get your home paid off let's pile up some cash if you want to buy some other properties as as your baby step seven goes so that's okay pay cash for them as you go but i'm not going to panic and do something silly to try to get rich quick so that i'm ready to buy papa's apartments i mean worst case scenario is when this day comes and you get your split of whatever the money was when you sell off these apartments you take that money and go buy your own piece of rental that you're doing. I mean, that's worst case, right? And you're still doing the thing you want to do.
Yeah. You're just.
Let's pretend that this is a few years from now. Let's just make up some numbers just to kind of give you an example of what Jade's talking about.
This is where I would see it coming down. If I was your dad and I'm your dad's age, okay, and I've got a bunch of real estate, this is how I would tell my kids to look at it, okay? Because you've got a single asset here.
It's not diversified. You have the single asset.
So I would say if you guys, if it's worth $24 million when I'm gone you'd get 6 million each and by then you've probably saved up four or five million yourself with your 200 000 income it's 20 years from now right okay so you got four or five million and then you sell off the apartment complex right which makes your heart flutter a little bit i heard that that. That's okay.
I'm still doing it. And it's $24 million.
So you got $6 million to go buy your property that does for you what you thought this one was going to do for you. And you pay cash for it.
And it's not 90% of your net worth then. It's 40% of your net worth, which is a little scary, but not nearly as scary as something single asset being all your net worth.

Okay.

And the best part is all of this is kind of figured out ahead of time.

It's not you after your dad goes to heaven,

trying to chop this up with your siblings.

It's already kind of decided, you know what I mean?

It's not you hounding them to buy out their portion and all this stuff.

I think the real estate is going to go up so much in value that you're not going to be

able to catch up with buying out the other 75%.

I see.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

That's what I'm afraid of.

It feels out of reach.

Yeah.

There are different units, so different buildings.

Are they parceled?

There's like eight of them, eight different buildings.

I know, but are they parceled or is it on one piece of property?

It's parceled.

Oh.

So it's not really a single complex.

No.

Okay.

Well, you could just take your portion of it.

Okay.

The equivalent of that.

But if they're not even interested, but we are.

Well, then they're going to sell off the other ones because you can't afford them but if you can or maybe you can afford to buy some of them but not all of them and you take your portion plus some of them that kind of a thing okay but um but i i there's two things i don't want you to violate i don't want you to go into debt to do this when it happens later. And I don't want you to use every dime you've got to and have a single asset be the 90% of your net worth because that's too dangerous.
That's two things. And I'll add a third one.
Don't get desperate and stupid trying to pile up a bunch of money, get rich quick in order to make this deal happen because it's not that important. You're going to mess up the whole thing trying to get in a hurry.
So work your steady plan to build your wealth. Then you're going to inherit $6 million worth of real estate, give or take, depending on how long mom and dad live.
And maybe you buy out your brothers and sisters for some of it. But those are the three things.
Don't get desperate and fast. Don't go into debt.
And don't let when this end of this story comes, this single asset be 90% of your net worth. And Jade, something just flashed through my mind, so I'm going to say it.
This is one of the problems that we have when we're coaching entree leaders in small businesses. They don't have any investments except their business.
So 90% of their net worth is tied up in the value of the heating and air guy who's got 30 trucks and he has one company and he didn't do his own 401k and he has no rental properties. He doesn't own anything but that company.
Yeah. And then there, you know, you.
It's the equivalent of a single stock. It's exactly, exactly.
You know, I put all of my all of my retirement in one company. Yeah.
And that's that's not a good plan. Y'all.
We fuss at the small business guys all the time. Do your own 401k.
Do your own side investing. And then that sets you up to do a different thing.
For instance, Ramsey Solutions is a very valuable company. One hundred percent of it will be given to our children.
Yeah. And honestly.
They will not pay a dime for it. With AI the way it is too.
If you think that, you don't know what the future holds. So it's really great to have those diversifications.
Because something that is a business that's popping right now, you don't know in 10 years what it's going to look like. That's true.
Very true. Yeah.
Very true. And the reason we're able to give the 100% to our children is we have other investments.
That's right. Our only investment is not this company.
Okay. We do on the real estate that is sitting in, which is pretty sweet in and of itself.
So there you go. Yeah, you'll be all right.
It's a separate asset. We're going to be okay.
And since I'm supposed to die before Sharon, Sharon's going to be okay. So that's how I'm having to sleep with one eye open these days.

Not sure how she developed this estate plan.

I'm a little worried about it, but there we go.

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That's 20% off with code RAMSEY at MamaBearLegalForums.com. 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.
Thanks for joining us, America. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today.
John is in New Jersey. Hey, John, how are you?

Hey, guys.

Thank you for taking my call today.

Sure.

So I have, I'm in baby step two right now. I read Total Money Makeover, you know, last year,

changed my perspective on finances and things.

So, you know, changing things around.

And my wife is, I would say, 80% on board with the plan. But we have two debts left.
We basically paid off about $100,000 this past year of car notes, you know, things around the house, student loans. and our last two debts are her student loans and a 401k loan that we took out before I knew not to do that.
How much are those? So the her school loan debt is about $6,500 and the other one is $40,000. And I know that you're supposed to be the smallest debt It's the largest debt.
But in this situation, my wife doesn't want to pay off her student loans first because we get a $50 statement from her company, which is basically, quote-unquote, free money. How much? I'm sorry, what was that? How much did you get? $50 per month.
$50? $50 to keep a student loan around? That's $600 a year. That means 10 years to pay it off.
No, no, no, no. So we're paying over $300.
I know. If you want to keep getting the $50 and that's your rationale, then you're going to pay it off at $600 a year, $50 a month, which is $6,000 for 10 years.
Right. So, you know, my thing is like $50 is nothing.
We should just pay it off right now. Yeah, because interest is back, you know.
Right. With these student loans.
I can't really seem to budge her on this because she's just like, well, it's kind of, you know, it's just kind of like free money. What's your income? How about if I give her a nickel? What would she do for that? I know, right? So our income is just like our base income is just shy of $300,000.
$300,000?

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

$300,000 and this woman is keeping a $6,500 student loan for $50?

That is, that's you going, that's Chick-fil-A.

What are you saying?

Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying.

I mean, you know it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, she doesn't want to budge on this.

Well, no, we have to stop. Okay, we have to get past stupid this is stupid okay i don't care if she wants to budge she needs to get her head wrapped around the mathematics of how dumb her but not budging is you're paid off a hundred thousand dollars it's ridiculous you're not going to keep this loan long enough to get much fifty dollars because even if you turn around pay off the 40 you've already paid off a hundred if you pay off the 40 in the next six months, you're around and pay off the $40, you've already paid off $100.

If you pay off the $40 in the next six months,

you're going to pay off the $6 right after that.

I assume you're not going to keep it forever.

Or does she want to keep it like it's a pet?

No, so she wants to pay off this 401k loan first.

I know, so six months.

What's the difference? Well, actually, she does want it just to ride it out, basically,

which would be about two years. No, it's not two years, honey.
It's 10 years. Y'all need to work on your math skills.
No, we're paying our $337 right now, and then we get $50 on top of that. I got that.
But the $50 you're riding it out for would take 10 years to get, you know, you're working your butts off for $200 here. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I agree with you guys. It's just asinine.
No, we're not going to ride this out, honey. We're not keeping this thing around like it's a pet.
We are getting out of debt. You have to use's no rationale i'm just aghast if she was getting 500 a month i mean you know and you want to keep it for a year and let that thing pay it off okay we'll talk about flipping it that way 50 but this is just this is like that's nothing i'm i'm so confused as to how much value she is putting on this there's's something else to it because not making $300,000 a year, this makes no sense.
She's so proud of her company for doing this. I don't know.
It's hilarious though. Yeah.
Very sad. Very funny.
Very sad. Kelly's in Dallas.
Kelly's in Dallas. How are you, Kelly? Hi, I'm doing well.
Thank you so much for taking my call. It's really an honor to speak with you both.
Sure. How can we help? So my husband and I share some of our money, but he's not really open to sharing fully our finances.
And I wonder if you just have advice on how to have that conversation. I'd like us to feel more united by our savings for the future and going forward.
My wife would tell me she wouldn't be open to sharing her bed. Listen, I was going to say the exact same thing.
I heard somebody say this, and it's so true. If you said to your spouse, hey, I'm committed to you.
I love you. I'm devoted to you.
But only Monday through Saturday. Sunday is my day, right? If you said that to him, he would, it'd be a head scratch.
You'd be like be like no that's not going to be okay with me how can you be devoted through Monday through Saturday but on Sunday you go off and do your thing it doesn't exist that's not a true commitment and I think if you can paint it almost in as ridiculous of a picture as Dave and I just did it will help him see how ridiculous he is by keeping some of the money for himself and some of it with you. Okay.
And let's quit just beating the guy for a second because I'm tempted to, but I'll quit for a minute. But we get this question a lot.
So here's what I would share with him, okay? And I'll send you a copy of the Baby Steps Millionaire's book. It has in the back the white paper on the research we did where we did the largest study of millionaires ever done, 10,167 of them.
When we did that, we found that 83% of millionaires, them and their spouse, work as a team with combined finances. High communication, high cooperation, high alignment on goals.
And they attribute that in the surveys we did with them as being one of the reasons they were able to build wealth. The contrary piece of that is when we interview the general public, only 40% align on goals and share finances.
So the bottom line is that not sharing finances keeps you from aligning on your goals, your future goals, exactly and in detail. And not sharing finances lowers the quality of the communication and the relationship down.
And not sharing finances, not being one, unified, fully unified. Then the preacher said, and now you are one.
He didn't say, and now you are a joint venture. And here's the terms of the joint venture.
What they say, it's a full-on thing. The benefits are the marriage has a higher probability of lasting, a higher probability of happiness.

This is data from research, okay?

And there's a higher probability of building wealth because we are aligned on our goals.

It would be just like if he was at work running a team at work,

and three of the people on the team didn't want to do what the other nine were doing.

It'd be hard to get that team to be productive.

You've got to be aligned. Let's say

you snapped in the huddle on the NFL and you went to the line and three people did whatever they

wanted to do and the other three ran the play or the other nine, eight ran the play.

It wouldn't work. And that's the same thing.
I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible.
People that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. We actually took a question of a lady and she had three kids pregnant and husband didn't have life insurance.
And I'm like, I can't even imagine. Or even if it was opposite, right? If a mom passed away, there's a dad with kids and trying to figure out how am I gonna afford childcare? How do I outsource some stuff that maybe she was doing? And it just takes the grief and the sadness of something like a sudden death to a whole new level.
Like when you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills. How am I going to eat next week? Yeah, in the middle of all that grief.
Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive.
Xander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And we keep re-upping it because I'm like, I just want it there.
Like there's something about that safety of knowing that you have money if something suddenly happens. And it doesn't cost much because Xander shops among a gazillion different companies.
It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.
You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to

my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. It costs us

stinking pizza. It really is.
So that is one thing to do to say, I love you to your family.

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Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Eric is in Canada.

Hi, Eric.

What's up?

How's it going, guys?

Thanks for having me.

Sure.

So my wife and I are in baby step two, trying to just snowball it. We take home roughly $8,800 a month.
leaves us a margin after all our bills and debts and minimum payments about $1,500.

But I'm trying to get a new job, which would be a pretty significant raise for me.

But I would have to buy my own vehicle.

My wife currently drives our truck, and I would need my own reliable vehicle.

Okay.

What do you make now?

Right now, my salary before bonuses, anything like that, is $72,000. Well, with bonuses, what do you make?

Around $80,000. Okay.
And what's the raise, what's the new job going to pay? The salary would be around $85,000, and then with bonuses and commissions probably closer to $110,000 to $120,000. Okay, so a $30,000 or a $40,000 swing.
Yeah. All right.
And you have no money? We've got our $1,000 emergency fund. And I mean, just some retirement accounts.
But nothing liquid other than the $1,000 emergency fund. The reliable car gets you to work? Is that the reliable car you need? Yeah.
I would prefer that my wife keeps the truck because it's newer. I mean, you're going to use your car that you need that you don't have to drive to work.
That's it? Yes. Okay.
I'm just making sure how you're using the car.

Okay.

Now, the place that's hiring you, what are you going to be doing?

What are you going to be doing at the place that's hiring you?

Sales.

Okay.

All right.

What are you selling?

Oil and lubricants and things like that.

You're not out of the office doing that? Uh, I would be in an office. Uh, I'm saying you're not out of the office and running a territory doing that.
Sorry. Uh, are you driving a territory to do that? Yes.
So you're not just driving to the office. It'd be both.
The travel schedule would be unpredictable. The point is you've got to consider the amount of miles that you're going to be putting on this car.
Right. So you said you've got $1,500 in margin every single month.
Is there any other savings you have laying around? $1,000. Okay.
So yeah, what I'm looking at is how can i quickly cash flow something that will get the job done knowing that over time you might have to put a little with it to upgrade it you know what uh i would ask the people hiring you uh say i've got a company car i'm gonna lose and so i need to get a signing bonus that can be paid back out of my first commissions to buy a car. Okay.
So I need a $5,000 advance on commissions to go buy a car. Okay.
And if they don't believe in you that much, I don't know if they believe in you. Well, they do believe in you.

They're talking about paying you $80,000 base.

But I got a feeling in this current job market they might do that

and then just go get you a $5,000 car, and then let's get you out of debt,

and then you can move up in car later.

You're probably going to need a decent truck to do driving around

doing what you're doing, I suspect.

But for right now, we can start the gig. Let's start the gig with $5,000.
Okay. So between now and the start date, if I can put away $5,000, just kind of pause on...
No, I'm not going to say that. I said they need to give you a signing bonus of $5,000.
But if they don't, you would still take the job. Yeah, I would just stop doing everything and save up quickly to get a car.
Okay. Because it's worth it to get a 40 grand bump.
Yeah. And I think I hear in your voice, you want to do it anyway.
Yeah. You like the job.
Yeah. And my wife works with this company already, and it's better pay, better vacation, better everything.
How big a company is this? Pretty large, one of the largest oil companies in Canada. Okay, all right, all right.
So working with your spouse is not a problem then, okay. We wouldn't be in the same division.
There's no conflict there. Okay.
I mean, I really think that if they didn't give you the bonus with your margin, you could quickly get yourself in a $3,000 or $4,000 car. And then because of this pay bump, if you needed to upgrade it sooner than later, you could.
Yeah. Okay.
I mean, there's a lot of stuff you can do here,

but just start,

don't be afraid to start low

and work your way up in car though.

Yeah, no, I've been looking,

trying to find like on the high end,

it was like a $10,000.

You don't have $10,000.

That's too far away.

Does your wife have to drive around for her job

or does she just go straight into the office in case you drive the truck and let her drive the beater just for a minute same office uh not the same office but really close we could share for a month yeah love it yeah for a month do the hard stuff for a month and then that gets you five grand out of your pocket and that's if they won't give you an advance. I'm asking for the advance.
Tell them the truth. The truth is I'm losing my company car.
I don't have a car. So help me out here, guys.
Just give me an advance on my commissions, and I'm going to earn through them pretty quick. You know that.
You wouldn't be hiring me if you didn't think that. And, you know, it's a competitive hiring environment.
So I know you guys want me, and I want to be there, so help me out here, guys.

That's the way the conversation sounds, and that's a way you can do this.

I'm not going to ask them to buy you a car, but I am going to ask them to advance your commission

so you can buy a car.

Let's not get back into the company car business again.

All right.

Matthew's in Panama City, Florida.

Hey, Matthew.

What's up?

Dave, it is great to speak to you. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. How can we help?

Awesome. So I'm 32.
My wife is 31.

And about six years ago, about a year before Hurricane Michael came through Panama City Beach,

we purchased a piece of property down at the beach that had an old trailer on it.

Since then, I've torn down the trailer. Now it's just an empty lot.

And so... city beach.
We purchased a piece of property down at the beach that had an old trailer on it.

Since then, I've torn down the trailer. Now it's just an empty lot.
And since Michael, the value of that has gone crazy. We're in baby steps four, five, and six.
We've got two young kids and there's nothing pressuring us. But we do have a mortgage and we're making extra payments on it.
We have about $170,000 left on the mortgage.

The lot is

now worth about But we do have a mortgage, and we're making extra payments on it. We have about $170,000 left on the mortgage.

The lot is now worth between $150,000 and $160,000.

Should we sell that lot to pay for our primary residence?

And the lot is zoned for duplex and triplex, so we could build a duplex on it. If you didn't own the lot and your home was paid for, would you borrow on your home to buy the lot? Not for what it's currently worth.
That's what I mean. If your home was paid for and you did not own the lot and you could buy the lot for its market value, $170,000, would you go borrow $170,000 on your house to buy that lot on a paid-for house? No, sir, not on my house.
On a paid-for house? No, sir, not on my house. No, sir.
That's the same thing, just in reverse, isn't it? Yes, sir. That tells me to sell the lot.
Okay, but you wouldn't be worried about lost opportunity costs in the area? Well, I mean, you'd be worried about that if you didn't borrow on your house to buy the lot, in my scenario. Yes, sir.
That wasn't enough to get you to borrow on your house a while ago. Correct.
That's right. Yeah.
So it's not enough to get you to keep it. Okay.
Because we're going to pay off the house. I love paying off your house, and I think it's so cool that you made a great real estate transaction.
And now that everything is paid off and you're in baby step seven, you can save up and do some other real estate transactions with cash.

Sounds like you might have a nose for it. Congratulations.
I'm proud of you.

Worked out great. Buy an old lot with a trailer on it.
Take the trailer down,

wait on a hurricane. It's a good plan.
I like it. Bye.
In the email bag, Dave, my husband, and I are celebrating 35 years of marriage this August. We started using your EveryDollar app 18 months ago.
I cannot thank you and the team enough for this. For 35 years, our major arguments were around money.
Although we've been extremely blessed and responsible financially, our money was still controlling us instead of the other way around. In the past, we had wildly disparate views.
For example, rightly or wrongly, one of us would believe the sky was falling while the other spouse would believe there's sufficient money to buy a vacation home. We didn't have actual concrete facts.
Without that knowledge, we didn't really understand where the money was going every month, and any emotional financial baggage from the past experiences ruled our discussions. Now we can act not on vague beliefs or controlled by childhood traumas, but on actual knowledge.
We have the facts. We know exactly where we choose to spend, save, invest, and donate every hard-earned dime.
We are no longer, we no longer have little hidden purchases from each other. Finally, after decades, we are truly in this together.
It has brought increased harmony to our relationship. I only regret we weren't doing this when the children were younger so they could have seen this in action.
Regardless, I want to thank you for your hard work and applaud the young couples and individuals who are developing these skills early in their lives. It is a blessing.
Way to go. Very cool.
Awesome. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck, we have free every-dollar trainings with the Ramsey Personalities, how to put that budget in place like that lady did.
Jade's doing one this coming Monday, and we're going to be showing you how to stick to a budget, build the budget, and typically people find around $9,000 worth of margin as soon as they lay out their first plan.

That's a lot of money.

And lately it's been even more than $9,000, but that's at least.

And you can ask questions during the live Q&A.

So if you want to talk to Jade or Rachel or George when they're doing this, you can.

Plus, you can ask any question in the Q&A and sign up for free right now at RamseySolutions.com slash webinar.

Adam is with us in Chicago. Hi, Adam.
Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, thanks for taking my call.
Sure. What's up? Well, I've been watching your YouTube videos for several years now.
I love your advice. I even read your book.
Thank you. But what I've been thinking about through the years is what would happen to our economy if people really started, more and more people started to follow your baby steps and not spend like Congress and get rid of debt? How would that affect our overall economy with people not borrowing money or using credit cards? Well, we probably will never know, darn it.
But it's an interesting hypothetical question to think about. The only way I know to think it through is to think through what happens to an individual when they follow our baby steps, okay? So let's take a couple that did a debt-free scream a couple of days ago.
All right?

They've been working the plan for six years.

They paid off their home.

They're 37 years old, and they have $500,000 in their 401K.

They're 100% debt-free, and they're millionaires.

They're 37 years old.

They followed the baby steps exactly.

They're what we call baby steps millionaires.

And it took them about eight years to work the whole thing.

Okay? Now, what happens to that couple? They have zero debt. They're millionaires.
I think if I remember, they made like $200,000 or $150,000 a year or something like that. They weren't making $500,000, but they weren't making $40,000.
Okay. So they're somewhere kind of like that early six-figure thing.
So let's pretend. Let's just make them up.
There's $150,000 a year. They have no payments in the world, and they're millionaires, and they've got a half million already in their retirement accounts.
What happens to their spending? Well, it doesn't stop. As a matter of fact, it probably increases.
It's just responsible spending because now they actually have money. Sharon and I today are an extreme example of that.
I mean, we're way down that road, and we spend a lot more than we ever have in our lives. Actual dollars.
But isn't there way more people in the world that are in debt that would have to stop spending, stop going to restaurants, stop using.

Yeah.

But I mean, to start with, obviously, we were talking about a hypothetical.

But even if we could go with a hypothetical, there's no possible way we could get them

all to do it at the same time.

So but if all of America stopped going to restaurants at one time, restaurants would

go out of business.

Your point is your point.

I mean, we experienced that during COVID, right?

Mm hmm. And all the servers got laid off and the restaurants closed america stopped going to restaurants just for a different reason it wasn't because i dictated it it was because somebody else did but um but that's that's the same thing and that would that's not good for restaurants okay but that's not going to happen in the ramsey world that you and i are talking about it would gradually.
And there'd be some couples doing it now and some of them are already out of debt and they're back going to restaurants again. Sharon and I went to a restaurant last night.
OK, so I mean, you don't never go to a restaurant again. It's just for a period of time while you're paying off your consumer debt in baby step two.
And so if we could talk enough people into working this plan, people will become wealthy, and wealthy people spend more money than poor people. There'd be a change in the balance of power, though.
That would probably be the biggest thing. I'll tell you who would be really bad for the banks.
It'd be bad for colleges and cars and all that. Well, colleges could still get their money because we just pay cash.
I buy cars cars and I go to college. But the difference is you're going to be choosing the car differently.
And the car finance companies will be screwed. That's what I'm saying.
The balance of power changes because now the people have their power back because they have their own income. The only people that would be out of business would be debt people.
But the rest of them But the rest of them would be doing great because the money would flow in the economy. Because what you're thinking is that all of a sudden everybody builds up all this wealth and they sit at home and watch Netflix.
They don't. Sharon and I went out to dinner last night.
Sharon and I just took a trip. That's right.
Sharon and I bought her some golf clubs this week. I mean, we spend more now because we have a lot more now than we did when we were broke people.

And so when you're broke people, you don't have any money to spend. Oh, and by the way, generosity goes way up when people have.
That's the part we need to camp out on. What would change there? I mean, I was telling some guys, I was on a podcast this morning.
I said, if we could cut what we spend on pets america by 10 to 20 percent and what we spend on halloween by 10 to 20 percent and allocate all of that to hungry kids there'd be no hungry kids yeah yeah oh it's crazy 10 10 to 20 percent of what you spend on halloween 10 to 20 percent what you spend on your pet because it's billions and billions hundreds of billions of dollars. It great we do spend way more on pets than halloween by the way and i love pets i have a dog that is my life so i'm just saying but um like that dog better than most of you people but um the uh but that that is still the point is it's out of control and so so, yeah, he's got an interesting point.

But the fact that he asked that question, here's what's laying under that.

This banking financed to create spending that drives the economy, dog chasing its tail thing, has convinced people that it's the only way for the economy to prosper.

And it's not true. The economy could prosper without financing it.
Yeah. Because I don't finance anything, and I am stimulating the economy, I can promise you.
And then it's not a wheel. It's just an ongoing thing.
It doesn't have to do the peaks and valleys thing. And my generosity, I give more in a year than I made most years when I was broke, you know? No, that's right.
And so, I mean, it's just, you're in a different position. It's a different world.
And that 37 year old couple that's millionaires, they're not at where Sharon and I are, but they're not as old as us. I'm old.
And so they're, they're young. I mean, they got, they got a long time to do this, but that couple can now travel.
They can go out to eat. they can go down to the car dealer and write a check and buy a car they can do anything you want to do but they're paying cash for it and they're all still purchases and you actually your purchasing actually increases because you've got some stinking money you know and it's to live like no one else so that later you can live and give like no one else.

But hypothetically, if we could get everyone to stop going to restaurants at one time, you'd have COVID. That's what would happen.
And by the way, car dealers were not doing much better in restaurants during that time. And a whole bunch of other people.
The only people prospering were the plexiglass people. but um um you know and the people uh selling masks of all kinds and the people selling vaccines oh yeah they made some money oh yeah they made some money oh yes they made some money oh you need to look at that it's so much money plexiglass yeah no i'm talking about the vaccines.
Vaccines. It's unbelievable how many zeros.

And we just drove off and watched it happen.

It's all good.

So many zeros.

Can I talk about how many zeros it is?

Say unbelievable again.

That was good.

Can I say unbelievable number of zeros? I'm sorry. Ramsey show question of the day is brought to you by why refi stuck with private student loans that student loans that are in default? Well, Y-Refi can reduce your payments and help you get control of your finances.
Take the first step towards getting unstuck. Visit Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey.
That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states.
Okay, today's question comes from Margaret in California. She says, my husband and I are both in our late 60s, and we owe $350,000 on our home.
He's a manager at a car dealership. We have nothing in savings for retirement.
He thinks he's just going to retire on Social Security and put the monthly funds toward the house payment. I only receive minimal Social Security.
I've tried to get him to consider what he's going to actually live on, but he refuses to think about retirement. I'm trying to get him to maybe move to a cheaper state, but he won't discuss the idea.
How can I convince him that we're not going to be okay? You know what? I think he knows you're not gonna be okay. And I think that his response has been burying his head in the sand.
If I had to take a guess, because I don't think he's an idiot, you know what I mean? He probably can understand the math and he can probably see the writing on the wall. And I think there's two types of people.
There's the people who see something impending and they kind of just seize up and it's like, oh, and then, yeah, they do the ostrich, bury their head in the sand. And then I think there's folks like you who look and try to find solutions.
I can get ahead of it. Maybe there's something I can do.
And so I think, you know, your personalities are doing this right now. You're right.
You are the correct one, Margaret. There are some things that you need to look at doing.
Yeah. You know, it might be that you just tell him, hey, I know you think that we're going to be okay.
I don't see the math. Can you show me the math because I'm terrified? Help me with this.
I mean, you manage a car dealership. Surely you can do the math for a house.
That's why I said I think he knows. Help me understand why you're okay, because I'm looking at it, and I'm just terrified.
Please, don't let me be terrified. I'm your wife.
And help me. And help me understand why you think we're okay, because I don't know.
Maybe you know something I don't know.

Maybe you understand something I don't understand.

But if you're right, if you have a payment on a $350,000 mortgage and two Social Security checks are all you're going to get, you're going to be selling the house or losing the house, one of the two.

Yeah.

So you are moving to a cheaper state either before or after the foreclosure.

Yeah.

I mean, the average payout on Social Security is between $1 2000 a month right now. Yeah.
Like that, that is what it is. The two of you receiving social security won't pay the house payment.
No. Oh, and then when there's food and there's lights, there's water, there's insurance, there's taxes.
So maybe you then, Margaret, you can go the route that Dave said, and maybe in conjunction to that, maybe you've already gone on every dollar. And you said, just, you know, I've been trying to get my head around this.
I plugged in what my social security will be. I plugged in what yours will be.
I plugged in all of our expenses. And here's what I'm seeing in the red.
Help me understand what I don't see. Yeah.
Because I'm terrified. That way you're telling him the facts, but you're also asking for his point of view.
And like I said before, if like you said, if he's a car dealership manager, he understands the math. I think it's just getting him to pull his head out of the sand.
Shelby's in Atlanta. Hi, Shelby.
How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up? Thanks so much for taking the call. I have a question.
So my husband makes $125,000 a year, and I made $40,000 last year, but I'm taking this year off. We're hoping to start a family soon.
Currently, our house is valued at $330,000, and we have our emergency fund set up, and we don't have any credit card debt, and we are working on being debt-free. We only owe $60,000 left.
And so we've been... What's the $60,000? Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What's the $60,000 on? The $60,000 is how much we owe left on our mortgage. Oh, your mortgage.
Okay, okay. Sorry, but we're getting close.
Okay. That's great.
And so we don't have any other debt tied up other than the mortgage. And my question is currently we don't have any credit card debt, but we still have a credit card open because we budget what we're planning to spend every month.
We spend it on the credit card and then we pay the credit card off every month. And the reason that we do is so that we can get on average from 50 to a hundred dollars a month in cash back.
And we use that cash back as like our fun budget or things that maybe didn't quite fit the budget or just a little bit of flex in case there's something that we want to do

that we didn't anticipate.

You could switch from national brand to store brand at the grocery store

and get $50.

Yes, we do that already.

So we really do live pretty frugally,

but we try to give ourselves just a little bit of wiggle room.

Let me tell you what I just heard, okay?

I heard of people that make $120,000 and $40,000. That's $160,000 when you were working.
And you called me up and spent 10 minutes talking about how to make $600 a year. That's exhausting.
$50 a month, you said?

Yes.

It's exhausting. My question was because it's passive and it's something that we can kind of do.

It's not passive.

It's exhausting.

You are burning so many of your creative calories and spending so much energy to feel like you beat a multibillion-dollar company for $50.

You're wasting your life for $50. I mean, if you want to, you can.
But you asked me if I think you should. No.
Good Lord, no. Yeah, there's a lot of things you could do.
You're a lot of brain calories for 50 dollars and you're all proud of yourself like you did something it's really weird i mean no it's yeah i mean whoopee you know i mean okay so here's the here's the numbers okay on discover card they give right? Okay, so if you want $1,000 on Discover card, you have to spend $100,000. Yeah, that's a lot.
A lot of money. So on what planet are we trading $100,000 for $1,000 and calling this smart? Well, there is- In her case, she says it's money she's spending anyway.
Yes, but you can tell there's clearly a psychological connection there because if you are the type of person who is going to chase that $50, you're also the type of person who's going to spend more to get $60 or $70. And we do know from several pieces of research that when you get in that feedback loop where you're trying to get airline miles and you're trying to get points and you're trying to get this, it's called Gamification.
That's right. There's a wonderful book by Michael Easter called The Scarcity Loop.
And it talks about the psychology behind the credit card miles and the feedback. It's a feedback loop.
It's like playing a video game. You're trying to, you know, they let you win enough times to keep you doing it and it's hilarious that someone is smart and educated as shelby is yeah gets caught up and she's putting in this immense amount of effort towards getting 50 well you have to what people forget while she's sitting on the couch hoping a baby comes but people forget people forget, Dave, there's boardrooms and marketers and cycle, all of these people working to make sure that she does this.
Yes. Yeah.
So anyway, MIT said the most detailed study that we've seen. And they said, when you spend on credit cards, even if it's for things you usually would purchase in air quotes, because it's not what happens, you spend 12 You spend 12% to 18% more.
And don't let it be a month where something cool is happening like you're going to go to a concert because in those cases, a lot of times they say that you could spend up to 100% more on things like concert tickets, vacation, airline tickets because it's an experience. Because you're gamified.
You've been gamified. And so, Shelby, the other thing I would tell you is this again we go back to the millionaire study because I want to actually study people who really have money not people who have theories okay and the millionaires when we studied them the number of millionaires that said I became a millionaire because I got cash back or I got airline miles on my credit card out of of studying 10,167 of them, I became a millionaire because of that.

Let me tell you how many said that.

None.

Zero.

Nada.

None.

No one gets rich doing what you're doing.

If you're not pregnant yet, why are you sitting at home hey what's up Dr. John Deloney here the new dates have dropped for the Money in Marriage Getaway over Valentine's Day weekend in 2026.
This is your chance to hit pause on everything in your life and reconnect with your spouse over a long weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. Me and my friend Rachel Cruz will be digging into topics like sex, money, communication, and more.
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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. Jade Walsh, our number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
Thanks for hanging out with us. We're glad you're here.
Daniel is with us in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Daniel.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey there, Dave.
Hey, what's up? Yeah, I feel as a 28-year-old, you know,

30s are really coming at me fast. I was never really taught any kind of financial intelligence, if you will, growing up.

And I'm really just struggling to come out from this constant paycheck to paycheck, never recovering in any real manner, cycle. How old did you say you are? 28, 29 in December.
Okay. All right.
And what's your household income, sir? I make $65,000 a year and I live with that housemate. we split rent okay okay so your income is not not in a bad spot especially with you having a roommate are you on a budget uh i did a budget pretty recently just to kind of look at it again and realistically i should be seeing a about an extra 2 000 1500 a month, and it just evaporates away.
Well, it doesn't evaporate away. It may feel like it does, but it's going somewhere.
So you did your budget. When you go back and look on what area that $1,500, $2,000 went towards, what was it? It always feels like it's, you know, I'm not going out and spending $500 on some old thing you know or whatever it's always just the little things here and there i you know i budget uh four hundred dollars a month for groceries and you know slowly over the course of the month turns into more like five six hundred or i plan out you know dates throughout the course of the month for maybe 150 dollars for the more like $200, $250.
So what's happening is you're just not sticking to your own plan. And that's the thing about the budget.
Like it's a wonderful tool, but it's not a magic trick. You have to actually stick to it.
So what I, you know, what I would tell you is likely the reason you may not be sticking to it is there's no clear why behind. Why is it important for to stick to it maybe I can just do my own thing so what's your goal what are you trying to accomplish uh to you know um to not be paycheck to paycheck anymore to put together money for a down payment and not having to rent okay so you want to buy something so I need to buy something.
So I got a savings goal. Okay, that's good.
All right, so let's get you on the every dollar budget. I will give you the premium version and get you started on it, and you get 14 days free, and I'll give it to you, okay? And that'll get you going, get the thing set up.
Now, here's what you're going to do. When I was a little kid, our brothers and sisters would always say, you're not the boss of me.
You ever heard that? Oh, yeah, a lot growing up. Okay, all right.
And that's the budget. You're the boss of the budget until you get it built.
And once it's built out in every dollar, and every dollar of your income before the month begins has now an assignment and a mission you're the boss of it you tell that money where it's going to go on that budget and then once it's built then it becomes the boss of you and so if you have budgeted 150 for dates and somebody wants to go out and you've spent $150, we're not going out because I have a bigger goal. I'm going to save money and I'm going to be in control of this.
And I hate this sense of spiraling and chaos when I don't control my life and I'm going to control my life. And that is more valuable to me than going out after I've gone over the budget.
Or you probably don't have enough budgeted for food, by the way. You need to raise your food budget.
But so if it's always $500, just make it $500. Let's just admit reality.
Quit being aspirational with the budget. Let's just say, what are the facts? Yeah, that's good.
You said that, Dave. I always say, and this is not just for you, for anybody listening, a really, really good every dollar budget.
When you do your budget and it's solid, it's three things. It's detailed, realistic, and flexible.
It's got to be. Detailed means you're thinking about everything that you could spend money on from groceries to grandma's birthday to your cell phone bill, right? Everything.
You're as detailed as possible. And then the realistic part is what Dave said, like, hey, you know, this has to be enough for me to actually eat on because if it's not, you're going to constantly go over that category.
And that is in turn is going to tell you, hey, I can't stick to a budget. I can't do this.
And so you're creating this negative feedback loop. You need to stop that and actually be realistic on the amount.
And then the flexible piece of it is there are times where you say, man, you know what? Oh man, I forgot, you know, Amazon renewed and I forgot about that. Yeah.
If you have to take from a less important category to make that work. But the point is you've got to be active about this every day.
A lot of people set a budget and it's like, well, I set my budget and that's it think that that's done it has to reset you so the other way you can pretend and these are mind tricks I would play on myself is I pretended like someone hired me for a hundred thousand dollars to stick to the budget and if I didn't stick to the budget I was gonna get to get fired. I like that.
I like that.

And then that would cause you to check in with it every day. You'd be tracking every transaction, right? Making sure.
Yeah. And it sounds like you're more of the, I just close out my budget at the end of the month and whatever, you know, spilled milk.
And then when I look back at it, it didn't work. But no, you got to check it like all the time and go, do I have the money for this? And so, and then that tells you, the budget tells you no, you stop.
So if you're at 500 bucks and there's four days left and you're out of money for food, you go to the cabinet and you warm something up in one of those cans. Okay.
I mean, you stick to, you're doing, it becomes a game that I've got got to get i've got to tell this money what to do instead of wondering where it went yeah because it feels like it's slipping through my fingers and i and the problem is that when i was listening to you earlier the language you're using is is the same language i used on myself it's what got me riled up because I used to talk to myself that way. And I want you to talk to Daniel nicer.
Okay. Daniel is not an undisciplined character.
He's not an undisciplined doofus. Daniel actually just didn't have a system.
Okay. And once Daniel gets a system in place, then Daniel's going to find out that he's actually a fairly disciplined, fairly mature guy that can do this stuff.
But you're not an out of control four year old. Because I've been talking to you for five minutes.
You're you're able to string sentences together. You're you're articulate.
You're bright. There's no reason you can't do this, but you just you've just kind of let it happen to you.
And I want you to get on the other side of it and put your foot on the neck of this thing and stand on it. Yeah.
And you can do that. Thank you.
You can do that, can't you? I can. Yeah, I can.
Absolutely. So we're going to sign you up for EveryDollar.
Jade's going to be doing a free webinar for EveryDollar on Monday, and we're going to have Kelly sign you up for that too. We're going to put you in that, you can join her for the, it's got Q&A in it and she's going to walk you through how to build out those budgets.
And the rest of you can join that too. It's a free webinar.
Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash webinar. Get you right on there.
And we do, we're doing one a week or two a week right now with Ramsey personalities on how to do exactly what Daniel's trying to do. And Daniel, you're just like everybody else.
We all had to learn this. You're not better.
You're not worse. I think you can do this.
We'll be right back. and selling a home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to get the

right deal at the right price. That's why we only recommend Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agents.

They're hand-picked pros who know their stuff, listen to your needs, and have your back from

the first call all the way to closing day. To find a Ramsey Trusted Agent near you,

visit RamseySolutions.com slash agent visit RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

RamseySolutions.com slash agent. buying or selling a home is a big deal and there's a lot of drama out there in the market about it right now no one can buy real estate it's too expensive the rates are too high and all this stuff going on is crazy y'all listen when you're looking at stuff like that the way you cut through the drama is facts are your friends.
It might be a fact that when you gather all the facts, you can't afford a house today. That might be the case.
Might not be, too. The facts are interest rates are setting rock solid still, have not moved.
5.95 on a 15-year. So under six, barely, for a 15-year fixed right now.
And we tell people never do more than a 15-year fixed. Okay? The median home prices have gone up slightly every month.
Home prices are going up, but slightly. They're not going down.
There's no indication they're going to go down. On the market today, there's 1,082,520 homes in America.
That's the highest inventory since 2019, since before COVID. And guess what? The demand is higher than the supply.
There's more than 1,082,000 people looking at houses. And so what that tells us is the house prices are not going down.
So they're not shooting up, but they're not going down. And interest rates are sitting real steady.
So we're going to see how this works, but I think we're going to see this real estate market continue to run about like it's running right now, which is kind of lukewarm at best. It's definitely not white hot, and it's definitely not turned off and in some kind of a recession.
Houses are selling, and people are buying houses, lots of them, at 6% and at free because they pay cash for them, all of that. Lots of people still moving.
The market is not frozen, but it is not dynamic, and it's certainly not white hot like it was right after COVID when people were getting 87 offers in a weekend. So that's your facts.
If you want to learn more of those, go to RamseySolutions.com slash market, and we can connect you with a Ramsey trusted real estate agent if you're ready to do your stuff. And they'll give you facts, which are handy.
All right. Courtney's in South Carolina.
Hi, Courtney. How are you? Hi, Dave.
Thank you for taking the call. So I need to get your advice on this because I'm having a really hard time making this decision.
Right now, I drive a 2007 Honda Odyssey with over 200,000 miles on it, and my mechanic is telling me it's time to find something else. My transmission is eventually going to go.
And so my husband and I have been looking, and I just want to know if it's smart financially for us to do this. Okay.
What's your net worth? Well, our home is worth a million dollars. We owe $159 on it.
How much is in your nest egg? We have, I think, a little over $400 in our retirement account. Have any other data other than your home? No, that's it.
Okay. How much cash do you have, if I combine the checking and savings, we have $75,000.

Okay.

And what is it you're trying to purchase?

So I myself would like peace of mind, and we haven't been on vacation for six years,

and so I want something with a little lower miles, and it's something like a 2020 Odyssey

with like 40,000 to 60,000 miles, and the prices for those are anywhere between $30 anywhere between 30 to 35,000. That's right.
It's just kind of making me sick. What's your income? Think about that cash.
What do you guys make every year? So it depends with his bonuses between like 120 to 160. That's not an unreasonable purchase.
I get that it makes you sick, but keep in mind, you're driving a 25-year-old car. Yeah, almost.
No, you are. You're driving a 2000.
It's 25. That's 25 years.
Oh, 2007. Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you said a 2000. It's still old.
It's still an old car. But she's right.
It's not 25 years old. Yeah.
It's 18 years old. But yeah, okay.
All right. Still, it's a 20-year-old car, almost.
Okay. Yeah.
So yeah, it's just been a while. I mean, it blows my mind.
Okay. When I pull up right now, I'm 64 and I get stuck in the past if I'm not careful.
And I pull up and I see the average new car price in America right now is $48,700. I can't get my head around that.
Yeah. that's the average that means crappy stuff is selling for 40 grand new okay and so i can't get that blows my mind i'm with you courtney but it is the cost of doing business so if you want a 2020 odyssey i suspect 30 is there and that's a five-year-old car you're buying right yeah and is there a dilemma that you want to spend more or less or it just makes you sick that it's 30 well the other option is to go with a 2015 for about 15 000 but that's over a hundred thousand miles i wouldn't do that and i want to take my kids on vacation i wouldn't do that what.
What do you take them on vacation now in? You rent a car? No, we haven't gone on vacation. Because of the car? Well, no, we also have dairy goats and things like that.
Okay, then don't blame it on the car. That's part of it, too.
Blame it on Billy. Well, I do worry that we'll break down.
Okay, but that isn't why you stayed home. You stayed home because of Billy.
Okay, maybe. You told me.
You said that. When was the last time you guys had a vacation? What's that? When was the last time you guys had a vacation? We took a vacation six years ago to go to the beach for one day to pick up a dog.
You know... That's not a vacation.
Picking up a dog is not a vacation. Well, that was the closest.
You are so cheap, Courtney. Yeah, I was going to say, this is not really just about the car or the Odyssey.
I think you just need to loosen the purse strings in life. Okay.
Because something tells me you guys don't do anything. You don't spend money on anything.
We don't. How old are your children? So my oldest is 15 and a half and my youngest is nine.
We have four kids. Okay.
I appreciate your story. Thank you for sharing it with us.
My advice after having done this for 34 years is that you buy the 2020 and you book hotel rooms and get your butt to Florida. Yes.
And tell somebody to come feed Billy Goat, for God's sakes. Well, I actually just sold them because of the time commitment.
Oh, thank you, Jesus. We can use some of that money.
We can use the money from Billy for vacation then. There we go.
Yeah, that's good. Billy, we'll be down there lifting a little margarita saying thank you billy there we go in margarita folks gotta live a little dave gotta loosen it up billy ghost it's so fun it's so fun i love you gordon you're awesome thank you for calling in that was so fun buy the car kid yes you can afford it it's not out of line it's hard for you to spend money because you don't spend much money.
But they've done so well. Million dollar house, $400,000.
It's not unreal. The numbers you're giving us ratio wise are very reasonable.
You're paying cash. It's less than half your annual income.
You do need a car. No question about it.
And we can tie it back to the other things or not.

Boy, oh, boy.

How fun.

Amir's in Washington, D.C.

Hey, Amir, what's up?

Hey, Dave.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

I do appreciate it.

Sure.

How can we help?

Sure.

So I'm in a bit of a pickle. I have a big choice in the coming weeks to make, and it's in terms of moving out.

Good.

So, yeah, I am a 28-year-old.

And I think that's a good question. pickle.
I have a big choice in the coming weeks to make, and it's in terms of moving out.

Good.

So, yeah, I am a 28-year-old. I've been living at home for the past 15 months.
I work through all the baby steps. I'm on baby step four.

Good.

Of all my debts, I make roughly about $70,000 a year as an account manager.

Good.

I have $10,000 saved in a high-yield savings account, getting 4% interest. And your question is, should you move out? Correct.
Yes. But there's two little kickers.
There's two little kickers. What? So number one, I decided to pursue my master's in finance so I can expand my career opportunities and my earnings.
I just started earlier this year. I did not want to take out any loans because I just went home to pay off those undergraduate loans.
I didn't want to take any advanced degree loans. You shouldn't take out loans to get a master's.
Correct. So I am paying out of pocket.
Now, I chose a very affordable university. I go to Kelly School of Business.
Good. I pay $900 a month for the tuition for ninth of the year.
I take a term

off per year to reset, save some money, and also just have a little bit more free time.

Now, I looked into some companies that I would be applying to next year,

and they do offer tuition reimbursement programs. I don't care.
All of that doesn't change it.

I'm still moving out. Now.
It's overtime. Does having more money and less stress sound nice, but feel impossible? Well, in my brand new book, Breaking Free from Broke, I share my story of going from broke to millionaire and exactly how I did it.
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Jacob is in Wisconsin.

Hey, Jacob, how are you? Hey, I'm doing great. How about yourself? Better than I deserve.
What's up? I have two loans, one an auto loan and one a business loan. I'm just trying to figure out which one I should pay off or at least help to pay off.
I have the money to pay off the auto loan, but I currently don't pay for it. The fiance does pay for that one, and she drives it full-time, insurers and everything, and the business is able to pay for its own loan.
Okay, you bought your fiancé a car? Yes. Shorten it up, yes.
And it's in your name? It is in my name and her name. Oh.
Who co-signed? She co-signed for you or you co-signed for her? I co-signed for her. Got it.
Okay. When do when you guys get married uh we're planning on getting married uh this july or this coming july um we had we already have a daughter together and we're

uh planning on having another one here very very soon i'm just confused next next year from now

yes a year from now meaning that's the that's the date that we have set all right um

Thank you. A year from now.
Yes, a year from now, meaning that's the date that we have set. All right.
And how much is the car loan? The car loan was originally $15. She has left $14,700.
Yeah. And the business loan is how much? Business loan is, what I have left is $98,699.
And the business has $100,000 in it? No. Oh, I thought you said the business has enough payment.
It's just paying the payment. It's paying the payment, is that what you mean? What kind of business is it? Making the payment.
It's a demolition business. What kind of business loan is this? A credit card or a bank loan? No, it's just a credit union loan for a startup.
Since I started listening to you guys, I paid off $36,000 in credit card debt. Good for you.
Okay, the business loan is not a business loan. The business is a personal loan.
You signed for it personally to guarantee it. So under the law, it's a personal loan.
They won't bother and sue the business if it doesn't get paid. They're going to sue you.
Okay. Okay, so I'm going to treat that like it's a personal loan of $98,000.
And it sounds like the business is doing well, though. It's not doing too shabby.
I made $30,000 in the slow season. A month or a year? I made $30,000.
This is only my second year in. And during the slow season, I made $30,000.

How much are you making a year on this business? Profit, taxable income, not gross revenue.

I've made $74,000.

Okay.

And you said you have the $14,000 to pay off the auto loan. How much do you have in savings?

I do. In savings alone, I have $10,000 in the bank, and I have $15,000 in cash.
Good. Okay.
All right. And you're what, 26? 26.
Yeah, I guess. good okay like I've done this before um alright um

alright

you called for our help and we want to help you because we care about you and we want you to win and you're doing really good with the business stuff uh you're doing really lousy at home um listen you you have a you have a car and a kid and another a kid in the oven. Quit waiting to get married.
You need to go get married tomorrow. You all run around acting, doing everything like you're married except being married.
And you don't need to save up to get married. You've already got babies and cars and crap.
So just go get married. If you want to have a party later, have a party later.
I don't care. But right now, you need to get on the same page.

And what tells me that this is weird, and it should tell you that it's weird, is you're acting like we're having babies together.

We live together.

We share the mustard in the refrigerator.

But she has a car payment that I co-signed for.

That tells me y'all are kind of one foot in the boat, one on the dock. So this lady needs more from you than you're giving her.
You need to go get married tomorrow. And then we have a car payment that we need to pay off that my wife drives.
And I would write a check right after the wedding and pay off that car. And I mean it, like one week, I'm going to go get married now.
That's what I would do if I were in your shoes, because all the research tells us that married people have an advantage in their wealth building and in their careers, in their business, and in their parenting over people that are shacking up. Tons of research on that.
I didn't just make this up, okay? It's not just an old guy with an opinion uh although i'm am that too but um but the yeah so that's what i would do if i were in your shoes and i'd pay off that car and then i'd start attacking that 98 000 like my hair was on fire and get it paid off as fast as you can well does she have debt uh no she doesn't have debt she's currently going to school but um she's doing that with grants grants good good okay i don't know does that sound weird to you or pushy no it doesn't at all um good it's be it be there there is other bits and pieces of information well you're i'm gonna let you deal with those i don't have to know your all your i don't want to go through your whole underwear drawer. But I'm telling you, this is how I would see it because you guys have been trying – you're like, everything's out of order.
And so let's get stuff back in the right order here, and let's start acting like grownups instead of a couple of kids having sex. And let's just start having – let's have a plan here.
Let's implement this and uh you can do that because you've got a good business head you got that moving you know let's let's just push forward and do all that and and let's start building a real life a holistic life husband wife kids small business debt free making money growing things this is a This is a whole – this thing's solid that I'm describing for you here

instead of this fragmented, stitched-together, half-butt stuff.

And it's killing you, man, because it's affecting the way you're thinking about this stuff,

and it's keeping you from making clear decisions.

Yeah, I agree.

So that's how I see it, and I think you'll have a huge advantage.

I think you'll look back a year later and go, that old guy was right. I'm glad he got on me.
So there we go. And the only reason I would ever get on you is because I like you and I want you to win.
Okay, that's the only reason. If I don't like you, I'm not going to bother with you.
So that's it. Just keep that in mind.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. So, Jade, there's a – Dr.
John Deloney and I talked about this when we were on tour. There's a whole – it goes to Jacob and some of you listening.
For some reason, it's something I've gotten on lately. I didn't even mean to, but I just did.
There's a whole body of research that Deloney brought up from the psychological world, and I've seen it in the financial world in a different way, and we've kind of put those two things together and started looking at it. It's the marriage advantage research material.
And so, like, for instance, in his world, he figured out that married men live seven to nine years longer than single men, including single guys shacked up. Okay, that's interesting.
And so you have a lifespan advantage. Married ladies only live three to four years longer, but they do live longer.
I don't know why guys get a super advantage there. Deloney says it's because wives keep...
We're stressed out. Yeah, that's it.
But Deloney says it's because wives keep guys from doing stupid stuff that kills them. Oh, man.
That's funny. But anyway, aside from that.
So the average net worth of someone in their mid-30s that is married is hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than a single or a single shacked up. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Okay. The average earning of a male that is married throughout his lifetime is 25% higher.
Wow. Than a single male.
These all have something in common. I mean, it's the marriage advantage.
It's the only thing we can correlate it to. We can't find any other variable to adjust for in the research.
Well, because now there's a purpose in what they're doing. I guess.
This is a definitive thing. Well, I mean, I'm married.
I got kids to feed. I got to go to work, I guess.
I don't know. And you go to work and act like you got to work instead of, thank God it's Friday.
Oh, God, it's Monday. When's the next happy hour? I don't know.
I don't know what it is, but there's something like that that's driving this. And this actual data defeats this whole movement of shacking up because today in America, more people live together that are not married

than people who are married.

That's interesting.

First time in history in the country. We'll be right back.
Our scripture of the day is 2 Corinthians 8-11. Now finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it according to your means.
Kyle Chandler said, opportunity does not knock. It presents itself when you beat down the door.
I know that's right. Jen is in New Hampshire.
Hey Jen what's up? Hi Dave how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? So my question is would it be responsible for our growing family to upgrade our starter home to a bigger house on the lake?

And if so, would we absolutely have to sell our current house?

Depends on the money.

Tell us more.

Have you got the money to pay cash forward and keep the current house?

No.

Then you would sell the current house.

Okay, we have to sell the current house.

Yeah, you wouldn't buy a rental house with debt and so i'm not keeping a house that causes debt so um okay the current home the current home will sell for how much the current home would sell for how much it would sell for 500 000 and what do you owe on it we owe 160 okay cool and so you got 340 equity and the um and the lake house is how much 800 okay and do you have any other money to put down on the lake house other than your equity um not at the moment we just we just cash flowed a car but um our plan would be to save up 150 20% and then jump into the new house.

Okay. cash flow to car, but our plan would be to save up 150, 20%, and then jump into the new house.
Yes. Okay, and so you'd have 500 to put down, which would make your mortgage now 300 rather than it is currently 160.
Right. So 340 equity plus 150, cash saved is 500.
You following me? Yep, I'm following. Okay following okay and 800 minus 500 is 300 so you end up with a 300 000 mortgage instead of 160 000 mortgage doesn't sound too bad what's your household income okay um household income is 190 plus bonus yeah you can do this you can do this but it's a 15 year fixed rate payment when you do it, and you sell the other house, and you save the $150,000.
It makes sense, yeah. How long is it going to take you to save the $150,000? I would say two and a half, three years.
Yeah, what's going to happen to the $800,000 during that time? Yeah, that's, yeah. But your house price will go up too right it will yeah yeah so that'll help but yeah so the numbers aren't going to end up being the numbers aren't going to end up being exactly the same the good news about the lake house is if there's an economic downturn lake houses go down resort property is the worst real estate and the best real estate so beach houses mountain houses and lake houses go through the roof when times are good and they go through the floor when times are bad interesting okay so we just kind of you know wait for our time and then you got to have your timing right yeah because i mean i've got a lake house, and I'm ghastly aware of what it is worth, crazy numbers, when things are hot.
When the economy is hot, not summer. But, I mean, and when things get really slow, I mean, it's like you can't give them away.
Wow. Because they're extra houses for a lot of people.
It's not their main. And so, you know, it's a vacation house.
And so it's the first thing to go when times are bad. And the first thing that everybody wants, 26 people line up when times are good.
And so it kind of follows the private jet market, too, which is a different market. But, I mean, same thing.
It makes sense. Private jets are, you know, they're all over.
They're volatile. I mean, crazy, depending on what's going on.
So that kind of stuff. So anyway, good stuff.
Good question. Maggie's in San Diego.
Hey, Maggie, how are you? Hi, how are you guys? Great. How can we help? Oh, my God, I'm such a big fan.
Oh, my God, I'm so excited to be talking to you guys. Well, we're in Baby Step 3B, and I just wanted to know your guys' thoughts about these down payment assistance programs and that they cover closing costs and help put a down payment for you.
So it's saying that you're not paying the down payment. It's paying the down payment for you, which means...
What are the obligations in return? So from what I got, the one that we're eligible for, it seems like it's like a silent loan. And, you know, eventually you pay it once you either sell the home or you refinance and stuff like that.
Or there's another one that I believe, it just depends on the qualifications that is forgiven after like a few certain amount of years i'm gonna say no right now and here's why you don't know what it is and you can't commit to something if you don't know what it is you know what i'm saying you don't have enough you don't have enough information I know that we might be eligible for. So we're just kind of looking into that.
But I just haven't heard you guys talk about these programs and what you think about them. Most of them have strings attached that make you wish you didn't do them.
Okay. But I don't know that about yours, and neither do you.
Okay. So I want to know exactly what the terms are uh silent loan scares me that sounds like a trick but so i really want to understand that after five years do they suddenly call it due uh is there an interest rate that silently sits there and builds up over time and can I I pay it off early? No, you have to keep it forever like a pet.
You know, I don't I don't know. They come up with bizarre things in some of these programs that make them very unappealing when you understand actually what you're signing up for.
Sometimes they're too good to be true. It's not to say that something good can't exist out there, but I would just be very careful because just because something says it's going to help you and you qualify for it doesn't mean that that's true.
Exactly. So you really got to do your due diligence.
Call back when you have the information. Yeah.
Learn all about it and make sure you learn all the trick bag, where it is they're getting you, if they're getting you. um they're gonna get their money somewhere everybody does you know what's happening you know i had a thing one time i was doing a rehab but back when we did real estate uh before i went broke and i was doing a rehab on a historic house and they gave us a five thousand dollar grant for this historic house which is wonderful and the only thing we had to do and to qualify for the grant was that we had to rebuild the house uh according to historical standards which is what we did no problem and the the front porch was um two feet off the ground okay and um it had no railing okay it's two feet yeah i mean normal human beings don't stumble off of that but um but you know in the world we live in with helmets for everything who knows so um anyway i you know the uh coach department comes up and says you have to put a rail around it or you can't get a use and occupancy permit the hysteric commission i mean the historic commission says if you put a rail around it you have to pay the five thousand're caught in the middle of their – And so I'm like, hey, you two guys that work for the government go over there and let's have – y'all have your pissing match over there and figure it out.
And then come back and tell me how I'm getting my $5,000. I don't care.
I can put a rail around it or not, but I'm not going to – This is the kind of crap you get. It's the exact same thing.
It's the same thing here you're going to get. And you get caught in these things, and you end up paying back threefold or something what it was because you put a rail on it.
That stuff had just dropped. That stuff, oh, God.
That's why I started calling them the Hysteric Commission because they would come in in hysteria and look at this renovation we were doing. And it's like, oh, you people are more trouble than than you're worth this is like more theory than it is actual fact so what we need for you to do is not come on our property anymore and we'll just rebuild the house screw it five thousand dollars ain't worth it you know and that's kind of what you end up with with a down payment program sometimes yeah yeah you're better off just save the down payment buy the house get a mortgage and you don't have all this trick bag hanging around waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for when they're going to get you.
Because, you know, it's just government crap. Yeah, yeah.
I'm just thinking about there might be something to that. You know, when you have the money to do something, if it goes on sale, it's like, oh, it's on sale.
There's no desperation to do it versus if you can only do it if it's on sale, if it's discounted, there's a little bit more desperation attached. You might not do your due diligence.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So, yeah, make sure you got your down payment saved and then see if you want to do it. That's Jade's point.
I like that. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books.
We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,