Passion Without Hard Work Is Just a Dream

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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.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr.

John Deloney, number one best-selling author, host of the Dr.

John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks, one of our big hits and Ramsey personality.

He's my co-host today.

Jen is with us in Seattle.

Hi, Jen.

How are you?

Hi, I'm good.

Thank you.

What's up?

Hey,

so I want to know I'm not nuts.

You called the wrong two guys for that one.

My husband.

I think one of the biggest gaslighters I know.

And so, you know, there was a a few years ago,

I

was like, started questioning because he came up, our twentieth anniversary was

three years ago.

And he

had withdrawn.

We have a joint checking and then it's and then a my checking.

So we and we see both.

So we we see what's going in and out and whatever.

Anyway, and so in in the joint checking,

most of the money that we get collectively goes in there.

And I started thinking, you know, it doesn't grow like it stayed at $28,000, $29,000, $30,000 consistently.

And I'm like, okay.

So then on our anniversary three years ago, he pulled four grand.

And I said, hey, what'd you do?

And he's like, oh, I knew you noticed that.

Oh, we have an anniversary coming up.

So our anniversary gets here, and he

has a key with a boat float and said,

brings me to the pier and says, here, honey, I bought you a boat for our anniversary.

And I'm like, oh, wow.

So.

I assume this is a bash boat.

It's a 28-foot cabin cruiser at the harbor in a slip.

Are you a boating gal?

Well, he manages a marine store and he's been involved with boats his whole life.

So I asked, are you a boating person?

Or is this like me buying my wife a new deer rifle for her?

Here and there.

Here and there.

You know, we go kayaking and whatever, and it's like, gosh, it always would be nice.

You know, I've always said it'd be nice to have like a

putz around boat.

So you got a $4,000 down payment, a big bunch of payments on a 28-foot cruiser.

What's the story?

How can we help you?

Cash stashed.

I found out that he had hidden $15,000,

hidden money, because I thought, where did this money come from?

And I started going through the closet thinking, I'm going to find it.

He's got money hidden in here somewhere.

And I found $15,000 a year later.

In cash?

In cash.

So he's been hiding and being deceitful with

cash.

Why?

And

I don't know.

I confronted him.

I confronted him finally, and I said, what the heck's going on?

So

he said, I

thought I was doing something good.

I put money away.

And I'm like, but you need

in the closet in a pouch that was very well hidden, but I found it.

And

the big issue here is you don't believe his answer.

No.

I don't believe his answer.

And when you start popping up with big ticket items and go, look honey i got this for you

and there's alcohol involved too there's alcohol abuse so

um so

let me say it like this i have

when

i am an anxious guy and over the course of my marriage when like a major world event is happening i have told my wife i would feel comfortable if we had some cash at the house

and she rolls her eyes and says okay and we agree on a number and i go get some cash because i'm dramatic.

But the key there is, I told her.

I didn't hide it.

You told her.

Thank you.

And so

why is he deceitful with you?

What's the problem?

Why is he doing that?

I have no idea.

Yeah,

you do.

Yeah, you do.

You have some idea.

Well, he has told me in the past that you like to spend money.

And I'm like, I help my daughter.

or I help my mom and dad.

I don't go buy, I am not a clothes and boutique and purse and

do you talk to him about those purchases?

Or are you both doing the same thing behind closed doors?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, no, no, no, not behind closed doors.

Okay.

I'll come up with whatever.

And it's like, yeah, I got this.

And he's like, great, honey.

Okay.

Or whatever, you know, and that's fine.

Or my dad broke his back.

I'm going to send them a mattress so that it's good for his back because they can't afford $2,000 for a tempur-pedic, whatever.

You know what I mean?

He's like, go ahead and do that.

Okay.

And whatnot.

So there's justification that I can do this, but I tell him I tell you what I'm doing and you're not being honest and truthful if you're hiding liquor and you're hiding money I don't believe you at all yes you're right to do that thank you but if you but if you if you

I guess I guess the challenge for you I would have is if you go to him and say

my dad broke his back so I'm gonna do this with our money instead of saying

I would love to honor my old man you get what I'm saying but other than that

Dave what do you think?

I mean, yeah, if he's stealing thousands of dollars and hiding them,

the bigger deal is you don't trust him.

If my wife found $15,000 in cash, she would have questions, obviously, but her first default setting wouldn't be, you're preparing to run away or you have a problem with addiction.

She would think, hey, you need to go see a counselor because you're spinning out on me again.

But it would not, but your default is to, I don't trust this guy and he's doing something nefarious, which, like me and Dave both said, you know, other things are going on, right?

Right.

Right.

Then what makes you not trust yourself?

Do you not want to deal with what you know to be true?

No,

we have a tumultuous relationship anyway.

You're kidding.

Yeah.

I'm so shocked.

Is he planning an exit strategy here?

But the thing that really bothers me is that $65,000 of that is for caretaking for my son that has Down syndrome.

And when I met my husband, husband, my son was $15,000.

$65,000 of what?

My son's...

No, I mean,

wait a minute.

I had $15,000 in the closet and I had a cabin cruiser.

Now I'm at $65,000.

What happened?

I just got lost.

Yeah, where's that money?

$65,000 a year

goes into our account.

So on a monthly basis, divide that up, but it's $65,000 total a year that goes into our joint checking that he keeps pulling money out of and hiding.

We need $65,000 to care for a Down syndrome child.

No, we don't.

Okay.

Okay.

So we don't.

So you're being melodramatic.

You brought the kid in as a flag wave here.

All you've got is a husband.

You and him are not in agreement on where the freaking money's going.

He feels nagged about the alcohol.

He feels nagged about, and he thinks you spend too much.

And so he spoiled money away.

So you guys need to sit down with a good marriage counselor and decide if you're going to go forward.

If you're going to go forward, and I think you should, then what what you're going to do is you're going to quit all these side deals, both of you.

You're going to have one freaking account, and both of you are going to do one budget, and you're both going to be in agreement on everything that goes out of this house.

And

there's no coming out of the closet with 15 grand

in your hand, and there's no buying boats.

Surprise, honey.

Look what I bought that I wanted and called it your anniversary gift.

It's a bull.

And there's no,

I have to protect everything from you because you're deceitful.

You've got to get, you guys got to get on a basis of trust here, and the trust is going to come from transparency and working together.

And both of you have a vote, and that's going to come in a marriage counselor's office.

If you don't do that, you're probably divorced within a year.

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Hey, John, let's do a little

mini seminar right quick.

Uh-oh.

Well, I mean, the number of times

that we find people that are hiding money or buying things or doing purchases without their spouse,

and to me,

when that's happening, it is not the thing, it's not the actual hiding that's the problem, it's the fact that that is a symptom of a broken relationship.

Always.

And when it

yes, when you can't go to your spouse and say, I'm scared about something, I'm frustrated about something, I'm uneasy about something, then that, yeah, that's then it manifests itself in a bunch of different ways.

Or because I watch you

behave, you know, give money to your whoever, your family, or because I watch you spend, I'm a saver, I'm activated, activated, I'm going to go over here, and that's my permission then to revenge save

deceitfully.

Instead of saying, we've got to get on the same page, scorekeeping is one of the most devastating things to a marriage.

That's what it is.

That's what it is.

Because there's always a justification

for why I deceive you.

You did this, so I get to do this.

You had the budget so tight that I couldn't breathe, so I had to hide my target purchases under the bed.

Right.

Or whatever.

You helped out your ailing father, so I got to buy a boat.

Just nonsense.

Yeah, which is asinine.

Yes, dude.

Obviously.

So what is the fix?

The fix is to

if you have the urge to hide

or

a concern about your spouse over saving, overgiving, overspending,

under organizing,

you have really one healthy option, and that's put that in the middle of the kitchen table and set it on fire until we deal with it.

That's right.

And the best way to do that is to start that conversation not with a you statement, but with an I statement.

When you sit down and say, You've been hiding, now we're in a war, and your partner's gun, your spouse is going to defend themselves.

If you sit down and say,

I'm feeling this, I'm scared about it, I'm struggling with, then that's an invitation.

It occurs to me that for most

people,

they see conflict

as fearful.

They're fearful of doing conflict.

So when that guy hides $15,000 in the closet, he's being a coward.

Correct.

Because he didn't have enough courage to sit down with his own wife and say, I'm not okay with the way this is going.

Well, what I would say in that situation, I think there's a threshold.

If you're hiding,

I don't know, you're looking at websites that you know your spouse would be upset about.

You're hiding things.

Those are bellwether issues you got to deal with in your marriage.

When you start hiding $15,000 in cash and you got a drinking problem and you're buying boats, you're hiding an addiction.

You're hiding much bigger things.

Right.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is I'm talking to the guy or the gal that says, I feel the need

to do a thing on the side, whatever that is,

rather than deal with my spouse.

Yes, yes, so it's either cowardice or it is fear.

Like, you're going to hurt me, you're going to take everything and leave me, or it is

I'm scared.

Both are fear.

I'm not going to get my way.

Cowardice is fear.

There you go.

So both of them are fear.

So in other words, it requires more courage to do it,

to put an issue on the table and solve for unity.

Correct.

Than it does to do this nefarious crap off to the side.

Yes.

Or have my own account.

I need my own account because I can't be with you on that.

The most courageous thing you can do is put it on the table and deal with with it.

And solve for unity.

That's right.

And solve for that.

Because

that level of conflict is not as devastating, but what it does is it forces you to say, okay, really at the core of this

is I don't trust you.

At the core of this is

I don't respect your earning ability.

I don't respect your

you're not being a grown-up with the handling of the money.

You're immature.

Or I'm not getting what I want, so I'm going to do this thing, which goes against what you said, solve for unity.

Dude, if I could get every couple in America to solve for unity, you'd do away with a lot of challenges.

Most people are solving, most people use their marriage as a way to self-actualize themselves, and so they're not solving for unity, they're solving for what can I get away with so I can get what I want, and that's not how healthy marriages last over time.

Yeah,

I mean, I remember like I was buying a

we had a couple of sea-doos down at the lake and

they broke down two times in one summer and I can't stand a dad gum boat that doesn't work.

Drive me nuts.

So you don't spend enough time there anyway.

You don't want to be working on a stupid boat.

So I told Sharon, I said, I think we need to upgrade these sea-dews so when the grandkids and everybody down here, the stupid things work.

And she's like, oh, what's that going to cost?

And I told her, and she's like, I don't think so.

I'm like, yeah, but I think so.

I would love to.

I would pay to

pay paid, but I don't think so, but I think so.

But I don't think so.

But the other option would have been she just shows up and there's two situations sitting there.

Correct.

Which I could easily do.

Right.

From a tactical standpoint.

She probably wouldn't notice.

But here's the thing.

Yeah, she would have noticed.

Okay, she would have.

Yeah, yeah.

That one wouldn't have got by her.

No.

But the point is, is that it was more important

to force ourselves into a unified decision than the purchase was important.

I love that.

Yes.

And that's what you've got to decide which is more important.

What's more important, having savings or being unified?

That's right.

And you know, every spouse is different.

You know, when I put this on the table, this is going to be three hours.

I know this.

Or it's going to cost me X.

And that is worth it so that we are together on this.

Yeah, I mean.

Yeah, I have to deal with all the feelings like I have to get my wife's permission.

I must be a wuss.

No, I don't.

I have decided that the best way to handle money and marriage and to have a great life is to be unified in these decisions.

That is a decision I made.

I have a better life when I solve for that than if I just do whatever I want to do.

Then a temporarily comfortable life that then explodes on.

Exactly.

It's short-term thinking.

That's right.

It's Michael East.

It's just doing, we're going to do hard stuff day by day so that we don't have nuclear implosions at the end.

Well, and then wonder why we don't, but these little fox, the Bible says the little foxes spoil the vine.

These little details just swept under the rug, swept under the rug, swept swept under the rug, and then we're gripe because we got a lumpy rug.

That's right.

The best way I've ever heard it said is conflict deferred is conflict amplified.

Yeah, yeah, that's what you're saying.

It's a bunch of little skirmishes.

That's fine.

That's it.

If you do, you'll have a world war.

So

my point is you're kidding yourself

when you think you got away with this.

Right.

Or you think that

running it in a disunified, chaotic manner is actually working.

It works for us.

I've had people tell me that on the air.

Oh, Dave, that system works for us.

No, it doesn't.

No, it doesn't.

It just means you don't have to deal with it right now.

It's confirmation.

It's a false piece.

Now, these things have a high, as Les Perret says, has a high rate of resurrection.

These zombies come back to life and they will come through and choke your family out.

And look at this guy here.

It's very similar to when you sit down with folks who have done pretty big white-collar crime.

It started with, I ran up on the weekend to grab a thing, and I went ahead and grabbed this too.

And I was going to pay it back.

My petty petty cash on the desk.

I grabbed my neighbors because I needed this thing, but I'm gonna pay it back.

And this guy pulled, I guarantee you, he pulled a couple hundred bucks and put an envelope and put another hundred bucks and then put a thousand bucks and then put bought a wife a boat to look over here.

And all of a sudden, you look up and you've got $15,000 that you're hiding.

You can't just pull that in one fell swoop, and it just builds on you and builds on you and builds on you.

Mansfield talks about the people, the leaders that fail, but it also, I think, applies to just people that fail, marriages that fail too.

Is is they sometimes the person builds a side secret life.

And so when I see hidden

alcohol, that's one thing.

When I see hidden alcohol and I see hidden 15,000 and I see the third piece is a surprise boat,

I'm betting on an affair big time.

Percentage-wise.

Absolutely.

Because he's built this side life.

He's got another world.

He's got a separate life over there,

a second world.

And when you, you know, it's almost like these video games where you build your own little world thing,

but people literally physically do that in the real world.

Right.

And they build a side life that they think is a secret life.

And, buddy, when those things come out, everything melts down.

It all does.

And there's too many

different secrets in that story that I didn't get a check.

What'd you get?

Oh, he's got another world.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, he's got a whole other planet.

Yeah.

Yeah, a whole other planet that's his.

But if you find yourself having to create an alt universe to survive in, you got to deal with that.

you should have dealt with your main universe is our point you took the coward's way out hiding the stuff on the side

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Erin's in Los Angeles.

Hi, Erin.

How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you for having me.

Sure.

What's up?

So, my husband and I got married two years ago, and we both have started late with retirement savings.

We're in baby step two,

and I, a year ago, started a really lucrative position, and it's just going to grow over time to even more lucrative, which is wonderful.

And I love the job, but it's not my dream.

Our dream is to move to the Caribbean and start a bed and breakfast and maybe an off-road company.

But we don't have a lot in retirement.

So

I'm just wondering how soon I could quit the lucrative job and how much I need to have in reserves before I can do that.

Because

we have a child, so I don't want to be irresponsible, but we do want to chase that dream someday.

Okay.

What do you make?

So right now I'm making around $150, and my husband makes around $130.

Okay, so we got $280 to work with in Los Angeles.

Okay.

So you're not rich.

So you've got minimum wage.

Yes.

And

how much debt do you guys have?

We have about 50,000.

Okay.

All right.

And

it sounds to me like

what I would be doing is first you need to go through baby steps one, two, and three.

Okay.

You need to get out of debt and have an emergency fund before we even start talk about any of these things.

I assume quitting your job is simultaneous with you moving to the Caribbean and doing that and building the business there, right?

Right.

Okay.

All right.

And so

I would be putting 15% of my income away in baby step four into retirement, and then I would be saving like a crazy person

aside from that into an investment to buy the BB and to start the four-wheel business.

And, you know, you'd probably go to the Caribbean on some of your vacations and talk to people that have got businesses like that for sale

or

BNB, you know, look at properties in the particular island you're thinking of, learn what the regulations are for operating on those islands,

what the governmental structure looks like and so forth, because it is different from island to island for sure.

And the real estate market would be different.

The BNB market would be different.

And,

you know, develop a business plan while you're on vacation, mess around with it because it's going to take a while and go, okay, what do we need?

Well, we need a half million dollars or we need a million dollars or what do we need to do this?

And then that becomes your savings target and you start working towards that.

Okay.

You don't like that answer?

No, it's not that.

I was just hoping for more of an ex

I know everyone's different, but like

while we're in this position, I want to stack up money because we don't have to do that.

Well, that's what I'm telling you to do.

I'm telling you to do that.

Yeah, and I'm 43, so so it's like, if we stack up, do we need a million dollars before I can quit the job that we have?

Well, I don't know.

I don't know what you need to start the other business down there.

That's what I'm telling you to go do the research and find out.

Okay, because we have a good match with the 401k, so I'm just wondering, you know, how much we need there before I can quit a lucrative job and take a risk.

You can't quit a lucrative job and take a risk because you don't have the money to start the next gig if it's all in the 401k.

Oh, right.

So that's what I'm telling you.

Put 15% of your income into retirement in 401k and then above that, start saving to buy the first BNB or to buy the BNB and then figure out what it's going to take to add a four-wheeler operation.

You could add that as phase two of this.

You could move down there, start the BNB, live on that.

Now, if you're 59 and a half before this happens, you could use some of the 401k money to do that.

Yeah.

But

that's 15 years.

So

I don't know that that takes this long.

But the more, you know, the way I start looking at that one, because I have a business goal, if I'm you, and I've been in the exact same situation, I've got a set of money here beyond my retirement that I can do something with.

I'm already putting 15% of my income into retirement, and I got a set of money I can do something with, and

I can spend it,

I can give it,

and I could squirrel it away for the Caribbean

BNB.

And,

you know, so every dollar you spend vacating, buying cars, other LA crap

is another day you're delaying quitting your job and going to the Caribbean.

So these are trade-offs.

And so once I've got that identified, then I'm going to be trading off like crazy.

I'm going, no, I'm working towards this goal.

And so I don't really need to go on that vacation.

So Dave, help me with this because I'm developing a strong allergy to the words, I want to follow my dream or follow my passion.

I'm hearing it more and more as a hack to life.

I don't want to do this, so I'm just going to chase this thing.

One of the things I've learned sitting ringside with you over the last five years is

people who go chase a thing, it does work, but those are the ones that supernova.

But a lot of those things, when you try to, like, I want to have a coffee shop in this city, nobody ever asks, or few people ask, does the people in that city need another coffee shop?

And what I've learned by sitting with you is it was, I want to teach this stuff about how to get out of debt.

And you look up and you have a Sunday school class with a thousand people showing up every week.

Or people keep asking me, How do I do this in my business?

Like, I'll start talking about leadership then.

And then Entre's born.

And then, man, I wish we taught this in high schools.

But it's a constant response to the market, not a, I want to go out and do a thing.

Because, man, I just feel like you get yourself in a lot of trouble.

And I don't want to tell people, don't follow your dreams because that's important.

But, man, you got to understand also that people have to be asking for this thing.

And I don't know how to find that matrix.

Right?

Because I'm sure people told, you know, whoever, if you start this company, you're an idiot.

I wouldn't do that.

And they just kept pressing and pressing and it works.

But, man, there is a trail of people who just wanted to go start a candle company and it didn't work.

And,

well, they had an incomplete picture of starting a candle company or starting an Airbnb.

So the thing is, when it's at the stage she's at, it's at the dream stage.

And so dream is probably the right word.

The trick of changing it from a dream into a vision

and then into a goal and then put work close on it and break it down into tactical pieces of how we're going to execute.

And then you start to realize this dream is not all unicorns and Skittles.

There's actually freaking work involved.

And in the Caribbean, you have governments that are unstable.

And you have,

I don't know, if you had something like COVID happen, you could be completely bankrupted if you did the Airbnb wrong because nobody's allowed on or off the island for a year and a half.

Or you get it and you get it all lined up and it's perfect and you realize, oh, our take-home is going to be $19,000 this year.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

Because we didn't do that.

And we're used to $80,000,000.

Right, right.

You know, and so, you know, these dreams can become nightmares if you don't walk through them like a grown-up.

But sometimes when you say, I just want to live my dream, and she wasn't saying that.

I'm not making fun of her, but I'm with you.

I get that a lot these days.

Follow your passion.

And Mike Crowell always laughs and says, no, why don't you work?

Try working.

But I want to follow my dream.

It's like

sometimes when someone's saying that, and I'm not accusing this last caller of that, she may or may not be, but I'm not accusing her.

But in general, the revulsion you have, the same one I have, is it's like, okay,

because I have a dream, the rules don't apply to me.

The world needs to bend to what I

can just

go do this tomorrow.

I can microwave it

because it's in my heart and I want to do it.

And that's a child.

Gotcha.

That's a childish behavior.

And so the adult reaction to that is, okay, I'm going to take it from a dream to a vision to a goal.

I'm going to put work clothes on this thing and find out how you get bugs out of a house in the Caribbean because there's going to be bugs there.

And I can't have them in the bed with those people that are staying here because I'll get a bad trip advisor review and the whole stinking thing is going up in flames.

Yeah.

Hello, how do you kill bugs?

And so, I mean, you're going to get down into that kind of stuff before you find out that this dream actually is a business, and it's like it's not always fun.

Or, what I hear often is people love a small subsection of people, myself included, love going to coffee, love the feeling of going to a coffee shop.

And the thought is, I want to, I want this to be my life all the time.

And they think buying a coffee shop and running one is going to feel like that.

Or, I had a great experience at a BNB in the Caribbean a few times.

This is the life I want to live.

That's different than running a business there.

Yeah, I mean,

four-wheelers, 100% of them them roll over and you have medical bills.

Always.

100% of them break down.

100% of them have to be replaced about every three years if they're in a rental program.

But they are fun, right?

Yeah, but for the 30 minutes you're on one, it's a blast.

It's 100%, though.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey, what's up guys?

It's Jade.

And listen, if you're waiting on the government to cancel your student loans, I hate to say it, but that's like expecting your broke cousin Boo Boo to pay you back the 40 bucks you loaned him.

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Scott's in New Orleans.

Hey, Scott, how are you?

Hey, good afternoon, Dave.

Thanks for having me.

Sure, what's up?

I was wondering, my stepdad is in his 80s, and my mom is in her 60s, and he is likely to pass before her, but through their peanuts, he will not be leaving her anything, and she is not that well off.

I was wondering if that's right or not.

How long have they been married?

five years okay

um

well I mean it's what she signed up for

so it's not it's not morally wrong

but I would you know I would come down on the side of

I wouldn't do that to my wife

so

right I don't think she needs to be treated as like one of his kids equally maybe but maybe to leave her something so that she's not a destitute widow widow.

Yeah, well, she's not married.

They've been married for how long?

Five years.

Okay, so she's 60 and she was 55.

She had no money when she was 55?

She has no savings.

She went into this marriage destitute.

Pretty much.

Well, then she's not destitute now.

She would be pretty much now, unless she spent that money or something.

What'd she do with it?

well it's it's all wrapped up in her house okay where's

she she owns a house

right but she's gonna have to sell that eventually the only reason that she's still in it is because he doesn't want to move right now

so they live in her house correct okay

and um his

assets have been supporting that

a lot of it yeah okay so because she can't afford to live there without him correct Okay, how was she affording to live there before him?

That's why she has no savings, she wiped it out staying in that house, I think.

Okay, all right.

Did your dad leave or pass away?

They got divorced, they got divorced, okay.

Yeah, so she held on to a house, kept a house she couldn't afford all that time and drained herself down.

So we were out of high school, but she never got rid of it after we left.

Yeah, she drained herself down.

Okay, so

I can go back to being on the side, I want him to leave or something, but I also want you to reframe this in your mind.

She's not destitute.

She owns a house.

So you need to quit saying that.

And she can sell the house and she can have a life.

And if she doesn't have any money, it's because she never handled the money right to start with, not because of him.

The fact that she's not set up okay

at this stage of the game is her fault, not his.

I agree with that.

Okay, so

let's not make him a villain in this, because it was a little bit felt that way for a minute.

I was getting ready to call him a villain for a second there, but I'm not.

And so she signed up and said, okay, prenup is, I keep my house, you move in, we do expenses, you cover expenses or whatever, but whatever wealth you have attained will go to your children upon your death, and you're 20 years older than me, so you will probably pre-decease me, statistically.

So

that's the deal they signed up for five years ago.

Okay.

Are his kids going to sue her for his part of that house?

He doesn't have any part of that house.

It was hers before they got married.

The prenup says she keeps her house.

Okay, okay.

But he's paying into it.

He's paying the bills.

Yeah, but she's not going to have that anymore, so she'll have to sell the house.

Okay.

And she's 60 years old.

So what's the house worth?

Probably $700,000.

Is it paid for?

No, she owes $250,000.

Okay.

All right.

Do you not like this guy?

No, I just don't think that she's getting the full benefits of a marriage by not having financial security if he were to leave.

I mean, she would have to change her lifestyle completely and probably

she was going to have to anyway.

I guess so, yes.

Yeah, because what she she was doing wasn't sustainable.

You already said that, right?

Right.

Before this guy.

So she was getting ready to have to change her lifestyle anyway.

So the fact that he came along actually extended her ability to stay in a property that she couldn't afford, is all it is.

So,

yeah,

if I'm in his shoes,

I would want to make sure she was better taken care of than what you're describing.

So I agree with your sentiment on that.

You're asking this as a question, but you're really making a statement, and I'm okay with both.

So

yeah, I would, if I was in his shoes, now, if I'm not in his shoes and I put on her shoes, this is the trip she signed up for.

And so she needs to start making plans now

to be ready to sell that house when he dies

and move to a property that she can pay cash for with the equity of the house.

Hopefully he lives a few more years and the house is worth a million and the debt goes down.

And so she's going to clear 800 instead of clearing 500 like she would today.

I mean,

every year he lives, the debt goes down, the house goes up.

So her asset is increasing in value and her livelihood, which is her entire livelihood.

I assume she's not working.

Correct.

Okay.

And she's going to have to change that because she's got this looming math problem over her head.

No, she just changes the perception.

When he dies, the house is sold.

And the longer he lives, the more money that means for her

because the house is going to go up in value the debt's going to go down because this is the deal she signed up for but you don't think she needs to get a job now too yeah she probably should start soaking some money away yeah yeah she's 60 years old go go get go get you know go work five years and put you know put a couple hundred thousand bucks in the bank in a 401k

and uh then when he dies you're okay um and and if he doesn't want her to go to work then he needs to change his will

as prena yeah

you know if she he needs to stay home She needs to stay home and take care of me.

I'm old.

Okay, cool.

Then you need to change your will.

And, you know, the caretaking is going to cost you some money, buddy.

You know, because otherwise I don't have a sustainable thing because I signed up for a deal.

You signed up.

We both signed up for a deal here with our eyes wide open that's

a bad deal.

Yeah.

Now the prenup is different than the will too, by the way.

Right.

So prenup would not

but but the prenups probably addresses addresses the will, but in terms of prenup would be upon not upon death, it would be upon divorce.

The will actually would be the dictating document.

Yeah,

I would want to say if I was married, you know, something happened to Sharon, I got remarried, that I would want that person to be taken care of, and I would assume that my children,

if I marry a lady, it means I love her, that my children would want her to be taken care of.

But not to have the full extent of that.

That's fine.

Yeah, he didn't have to get a full half cut or

yeah the fortune right but no

absolutely not yeah to make sure she's okay but also

again man i always hate talking bad about somebody's mom so don't hear me say talk about her but she has a pattern of pushing off reality kicking the can down the road and like we were talking about earlier in this show like it's that conflict will come up and it's just going to be she's going to be 75 and he dies at 95 and she'll have nothing and then she won't be able to just go get a job like she might be able to when you're 60.

yeah i would go i would go create an income right now.

Right now.

And I would start.

I would have

go through the mental exercise of if he dies this year, what is my plan?

There you go.

And if he dies next year, what is my plan?

And it sounds like the plan is you're going to be selling the house.

Well, no matter what, we're selling that house.

But if we have to buy a condo with cash, then maybe we only have

$300,000 left or $200,000 left.

And so we need to have some more money in the account when that day comes.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think it is.

So I agree with your sentiment that

if I were in his shoes, I would want to make sure she was taken care of.

And that's Scott's sentiment, and I don't disagree with that.

But it doesn't make the guy a villain because your mom signed up for this.

This is the deal she signed into.

And

she's kicked things down the road.

So she needs to come up with a plan to take care of herself, which is what she should have been doing five years ago anyway.

Right.

Sustainable situation

because he's not going to be here.

And he's not leaving or anything.

The calls I'm increasingly getting

from children are children

have two young kids or three young kids and their finances are tight and they're staring down the barrel of a parent or parents who just refuse to acknowledge reality and they're starting to say, I see myself becoming a caretaker.

Like the train's coming at me

and mom and dad won't do anything about it.

Sandwich generation stuck between my kids and my parents.

Yeah.

And money going both directions.

That's a problem.

But I think the way you deal with, I think it's a real good idea since they were so smart to put everything on paper up front.

Let's just go ahead and talk about the implications of that.

Mom, he died, you're selling the house.

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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.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr.

John Deloney, number one best-selling author, host of the Dr.

John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks.

Ramsey personality, he's my co-host.

Katie's in Spokane.

Hi, Katie.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

Thank you, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

So I have kind of a tricky situation with my mom.

My husband and I are doing great.

We are on baby step six.

We're debt-free except our mortgage.

And we are in the position of, we provide a home for my mom.

She was widowed in 2013.

And my father passed away.

leaving her with a mountain of debt, medical debts that they'd accrued over the years.

And she filed bankruptcy and then later sold her house.

So she is sitting on about $100,000 left from that.

But we provide a home for her.

We charge her like a quarter of the rent that she would because we built a mother-in-law when we built our house.

My question is.

Okay, so she lives next door to you or adjacent to you?

Yes, we have like a shop apartment that she lives in currently.

Oh, I got you.

Okay.

So she's on your property.

You're not providing her a standalone separate home.

I got you.

Okay.

Yeah, it's like an apartment on the property.

It's separate from the apartment.

And how old is she?

She is currently, I believe she'll be 69 this year.

Okay, cool.

All right.

Yeah.

So when she, when my father passed away, she decided not to get a job again.

She wanted to be there for grandkids.

There's, you know, seven children in our family and lots of grandkids.

We've tried to advise her to get a job.

She has not.

So we provide her a place because she can't really afford rent.

She's on like $2,000 of Social Security.

My problem is I have an older sibling who her whole life has been a series of just unfortunate decisions and she's in

one financial problem after another.

We found out that my mom has been paying bills for her and loaning her money and all of this out of pretty much a tiny nest egg that she hasn't invested.

She's just sitting on.

And we feel, my husband and I feel, that we are supporting her financially and finding out that we have siblings who are taking advantage of her financially.

I don't really know how to address it with her in a respectful way that

I love my mom.

I don't want to

come down hard on her, but it's just tricky because we know we're going to be caretakers for her eventually.

She really doesn't have much to support herself with.

So basically, the $100 grand that she had, she's going to burn through it supporting the parasite siblings.

Yes.

Yes.

That's our concern.

And then you're going to be stuck with a mom in the house and you're going to be caring for your mom.

And she's going to have social security checks.

All she's got to blow now.

Yes.

How close are we to that?

Is 100 gone yet?

I just recently talked to her.

She said she has like 109 and she's very cagey about being open with me about how much she's helped.

But I do know she's providing bills.

And this sister, she's recently divorced.

She has two kids.

She refuses to go to work more than two days a week because she wants to keep her government aid, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah.

And well, I guess you got two choices.

You just tolerate this crap or you tell mom you're going to stop this or you move out.

Those are your two choices, right?

Yeah, they're harder to make.

They're hard, but listen, your life right now, every minute you wake up, you're thinking about this.

And every time one of your siblings texts you or calls you, you get insurage.

And every time you ask your mom a question and she's cagey, you say something like, well, you're in my house.

Like, you're making yourself crazy.

You're already having a hard life, is what I would say.

And so you can keep having that hard life, or you can choose another hard life, which is to put all this junk on the table and deal with it.

But either path is hard.

One of them is going to bury you.

One of them may clarify the whole thing or blindness.

And you can just make peace with it and go, she's going to piss the money away to the parasites and she's going to live with us and I'm going to go with that.

And I'm going to quit worrying about it.

You can make peace with it and let it run.

That's not my style, but you could do that.

That's a valid option.

Staying where you're staying is not a valid option.

You either need to put up some ultimatums and say, we're going to conduct this situation properly, and you're not going to support the parasites while you live here for free or virtually free.

That doesn't work.

If you're going to do that, you're going to have to find another place to live.

Mom, I love you, but I'm not going to tolerate this behavior because I feel like I'm supporting the parasites and it's against my morals to do that.

How much of this is you're not mad at your mom, but you're mad at your siblings.

Yeah.

It's not my mom at all.

My mom,

she's meaning well.

Most enablers are sweet people.

They're just enablers.

Yeah.

Have you ever seen that?

Yeah, I'm wondering, my question,

I'm wondering if I should address my mom more with this or should I

corner the lion, the sister.

No,

it's the only way to stop it.

Have you ever had a conversation with your siblings when they were like, you know what?

You're right.

Ever?

No.

They're not going to start now.

They're not going to take stuff.

You want me to quit being a parasite?

I'm going to quit

for free money.

You're right.

yeah i don't that's not gonna happen that's not gonna happen the only thing you can do is convince mom to cut them off and probably the only way that's actually going to happen is if she believes she's going to have to move and you're not going to do that

yeah you're not and so one more second spent thinking about your siblings is a second a second wasted on

loving your husband, loving your life, doing something fun.

You're just wasting your energy because they're never going to change.

Parasites like that don't change.

Yeah.

Proof is in the history, yeah.

Yeah, they're not going to.

And

so, I mean, you can address it with your mom and say, listen, I know this is going on, and I think you're out of control, and I really think you should stop, because I think you're harming them.

Because enabling is always harming the recipient, too.

Because by giving your sister money, by giving your sister money, you are giving a drunk a drink because she refuses to work, and now she gets to refuse to work.

But if she didn't have the money, then she would go to work.

Yeah.

Or she'd sit on government assistance or whatever she was going to do.

But your mom's not helping her.

She's harming her.

Enabling always harms the recipient.

And enablers always think they're sweet, kind people, but they're not.

They're harmful people.

Your mom thinks she's sweet, but she's not.

She's harming.

She's harming her own children, and she should stop it.

That's what I would tell her.

Or in a...

even further extension of that, your mom's actually a parasite in a way, too, because she's using

her kids to feel better about herself because she won't have that hard conversation.

You see how this just continues downstream?

Yeah.

She's using them to feel good about herself because she says it has to live in her other kids' house.

You know,

at a minimum, I would say you're going to have to do two things, probably for sanity's sake.

You do what you want to do.

I'm just putting myself in your shoes because I don't think you're going to tell her to move.

Might be the best thing that happened to her, but I don't think you're going to do it.

And so I think you got to make peace with it, number one.

Number two, I think you need to have a very clear,

calm, but very direct conversation with your mother about her misbehavior.

And she should stop it.

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All right, today's question comes from Nikki in Georgia.

Nikki writes, I'm reading Building a Non-Axious Life, but Getting Over Anxiety is hard.

Our annual income will be $100,000 soon as my husband is changing jobs.

He was laid off during COVID, and our debt spiraled from there.

We worked hard to recover from that setback and will be debt-free by December.

My father never handled money well, with my family suffering the consequences.

I know my husband's husband's a good provider, but how do I get over my fear that things will go south again?

Dave, when I, I guess first and foremost, I'll tell you, Nikki,

things will go south again.

A hundred percent chance things will go south again.

The question your body's trying to solve not is if things are ever going to go wrong, it is what will happen to you when those things do go wrong.

And to go back when you got laid off during COVID, what your body is remembering, your childhood, your body remembers that when COVID, when when a bad thing happened, y'all started borrowing a whole bunch of money.

And that doesn't happen to you.

It's a choice y'all made to continue a certain life as that was happening.

So your body just is remembering.

And so it's just sounding the alarms, right?

And so a great first step.

I'm proud of you guys, being debt-free by December.

I promise you, when you cross that threshold, your body will exhale a little bit.

Because you'll be a little bit safer.

And you get an emergency fund, it will exhale a little bit more.

And then y'all commit to each other.

We will never put ourselves in a position financially that we're not going to be okay.

Your body will go, okay, quit, good.

And then something's going to go south.

And then

you're going to keep your promise to yourself.

And bodies don't go, bodies get nervous, they get

scared.

If you talk to elite military guys, they're scared.

They're nervous, but they're not anxious because they've drilled that thing so many times.

Then everybody knows where everybody's going to be at all times.

And if they're not, they know what to do next.

And so they're not anxious about stuff.

And so that's what we're doing here.

We're just going to keep doing the next right thing over time.

But you got to give your body a chance to not be sounding every alarm, which means you can't owe people money.

You got to trust yourself and on and on.

Yeah.

You make the building a non-anxious life tells you exactly how to do that.

You make deposits in those six areas.

And that's why we're never going to do an anxiety-free screen.

I don't want to live in a house without a fire alarm, right?

I want my body to be anxious when it should be.

But I'm going to do all of the things I can every day to know that if I am anxious, it's for something real, right?

Not for

all of these things I've created in my world.

Yeah.

Yeah,

you really do want to

be anxious at the appropriate times.

Yeah.

A friend of mine showed me a picture this week.

I was playing golf with him.

He was in Africa doing one of these safaris.

So the major male lion in the pack comes up and just lays beside the car.

And it's open car, you know, one of those things, and they're taking pictures.

And he's got the picture right, you know, at his feet almost there.

And the guide is like, don't worry about it.

He's just just lazy.

He'll lay there a minute.

And then the female, the mom, starts coming over, moving towards the truck.

And the guide goes, okay, time for us to move now.

But I mean, yeah, you want your body,

you want to go,

this is a wake-up call here.

Right.

If the guy knew, hey, this is not safe, and I'm just going to keep sitting here.

And then he sees that line getting closer and closer.

I don't have any anxiety.

His body would be failing him if it wasn't ringing every alarm off the hook.

Yes.

Exactly.

And so if you're broke, you have no money, and everything everything that happens is an emergency,

then

it is good to have anxiety.

Anxiety is telling you to straighten up.

Go get your house together.

Get your crap together.

Anxiety is your friend then.

That's right.

But also,

if you have a fully funded emergency fund, a half million dollars in mutual funds, your house is paid for, everything is paid for, you have zero debt, and you're making up stuff, you're catastrophizing in your mind.

Now,

that's not good anxiety.

Absolutely.

Go sit with somebody.

There's something wrong.

Yeah, the alarm's not working right.

It needs to be recalibrated, and that's all good.

Go get that work done.

But I think, Nikki, I think, to be honest with you, I think your body's working perfectly right now.

You shouldn't be anxious.

You've been through this road before.

You grew up in this world.

And then you did it again during COVID.

And then you did it.

Yeah.

And so your body's trying to get your attention as it should.

Just keep doing the next right thing.

So work a stinking baby step.

Work six jobs.

And, you know, a little desperation is good for the soul.

Yes.

It'll cause you to go out there and bust it and sacrifice your win.

And some good hard work is good for the soul.

Yeah.

Tara is in Evansville.

Hi, Tara.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

I'm in a really tough spot, and I need some help.

I went through a divorce

in September of 2024.

And as part of that settlement, I was ordered to pay my ex-husband $170,000.

So it's been almost a year, and I've paid down.

Why?

Because we have a business and a a house and they're intertwined.

So the house is on personal acreage with a barn and then we have seven cabins that we own.

So his buyout portion was $170.

But you kept all that?

I kept all of that.

And you have to buy him out.

Okay.

All right, I'm with you.

And how are you planning to do that?

So I did pay.

I was able to pay off $100,000 to him.

Of course, I borrowed it from other people because

during our marriage, I traveled, and I travel as a quality director as nursing.

And so I've traveled a lot and paid for a lot of our bills, personal bills, and then I supplemented the business if I needed to.

And so I really didn't have the interworkings of the business very, very well.

He stayed here.

He didn't work or do anything.

He just took care of this place.

And

so we came to $170,000 at an agreement.

I paid the $100,000.

When I took over the business,

it was like $35,000 in arrears.

There was $3,000 in the account.

When you agreed to pay him $170,000 last fall, where were you planning to get that money?

Refinance the house, and then the loan is separate.

So we had an LLC at that time.

Did you do that?

The LLC.

I haven't been successful yet.

The business is not a problem.

I went back to the same bank that has our loan right now, and I asked to refinance and to take the additional money out.

And they declined and said, I do have one other loan besides the property, it's an SDA loan.

And they said, no, we won't do it.

Now,

there's a lot of personal things as far as I'm concerned.

Like, I live in a super, super small community, and I know like my ex-husband and Hilmer are best friends, so that's some of it.

But either way, and so I went to another.

Well, you would think he would want his best friend to get $170,000.

So, I don't agree with your conclusion.

Well, they want us, no, my ex-husband wants me to fail.

So, but then the other part,

like I said, I didn't know much about the business.

And I did go out to another place and I got all the way through the whole entire process with the house.

And they would do the refinance, but they would not give me the extra $70,000.

Now, a couple of reasons: I am a contract worker, so I am going to do contracts.

Right, $200,000 a year.

Okay, and why are you holding on to this piece of trash land that drags that's dragging everything in your life down?

The seven-cabin mental business?

Yeah.

Why?

It doesn't make money.

It loses money.

Why would you want to keep it?

It actually used to bring in a lot of money.

We make about $250,000 with gross, and then we make about $30,000 a year.

Yeah, but there's nothing in this.

There's no fun anywhere in this discussion.

No, I'm sorry.

This thing's killing you.

Why don't you just sell it?

Well,

one thing, I put all my retirement and everything into it.

Well, it'll come out when you sell it,

won't it?

Or have you leveraged it all up to the eyeballs?

No, oh, no, no, I have it's 1.6 and I owe right now on 800.

I don't think this, you're not making money on an asset that size.

That's scary.

I think I would consider selling it.

I mean, the 70,000 is not a big deal, but I'm getting out of this mess.

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In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Alan and Sabrina are with us.

Hey guys, how are you?

Awesome.

Welcome, welcome.

Where do you guys live?

Kesper, Wyoming.

Ah, fun.

Welcome to Nashville.

And how much debt have you two paid off?

$208,501.

Okay, good.

And how long did that take?

58 months.

Good for you.

And your range of income during that time.

Oh, so during this process, we started at $140,000 and then we went up to $280,000.

But in six months of this, we were down to $72,000.

Now you're at 72,000?

No.

During our

process, we were at 72,000.

At one point.

Oh, I see.

Okay, so we went up for 44th.

Okay.

140 down to 72,000.

Up to 280.

Okay, what do y'all do for a living now?

I'm a project manager in pipelines.

And I'm an engineer in the oil and gas sector.

Oh, thus the volatility and the.

Okay, I got it.

Okay, cool.

In Casper, Wyoming, no less.

All right, very cool.

Yeah, I've had a boring four or five years there in Casper, so far.

Oh, it's been up and down.

so what kind of debt was this 208 this our mortgage you paid off your house

looking at weirdos how old are you two weirdos i'm 36 44.

all right and a paid-for house nice house we're seeing a picture of it pop up here a little snow on the ground there in that pic uh what's this house worth

Well, we actually

we got a mortgage for 235.

So that was back in 2015, and it's probably worth over $400, $450 right now.

Yeah, I bet it is.

I bet it is.

And I saw a picture of you standing in the snow with your bare feet to see if the grass feels different.

It was two days after

cold.

Yeah, two days after.

So, Dave, I thought you'd appreciate it.

The snow is wider.

Yeah, there we go.

Okay, there's the grass.

All right.

I like it.

Very good.

Very good.

Fun.

Fun.

Way to go, guys.

Okay, so how much in your retirement this takes?

We're about about 250, 300.

So we're pushing three-quarter mil.

Yeah, you're bumping towards a million real quick.

You're going to be babysitters millionaires and in your 30s.

Wow.

Way to go, y'all.

I'm proud of you.

What started this whole thing?

How did you do this?

What got you on this Ramsey train?

Well, we were quite stupid when we both graduated from college.

We took out a lot of debt.

We financed snowmobiles.

We paid for a wedding, took out a loan for furniture.

We bought our house, wedding.

And so all, you know, we kind of financed everything at that point.

And then...

We were kind of normal.

Yeah, we were very normal.

And then Alan lost his job probably about two years later, and we were living off my income, which was about 70 at that time, and we couldn't pay our bills.

So we panicked.

So

when we first came across you, it was actually me.

I was out in the old field consultant to our producer.

And

broke country, you can only listen to so many of those songs as they be repeated, you know.

Kind of like King George and Alan Jackson said, Murder on Country Road.

But anyways, our blade operator had to run and go listen to Talk Show.

And I was like, well, I'll listen to it.

And

two hours later, on the way back in the Casper from the field out in the Powder River Basin, there was a guy named Dave Ramsey that came on.

And I looked in the rearview mirror and he was talking to me.

And

when you're in oil and gas, you know, you depend on that drill rig.

If they're not drawn, you don't have a job.

So I came home, talked to Sabrina.

She created a spreadsheet that just, it was a forecast system of what we were able to put in every month.

And we were trying to improve it, trying to improve it.

It wasn't there.

And every week, you you know, I was like, hey, let's try this out, try this out.

And we finally both got on board.

Did that.

And then I managed to break my foot at my grandfather's funeral.

And so we were living off of Sabrina's income plus the insurance coming in from the company.

But then I got on with a new employer and paid off our consumer debt.

went and refinanced the house at 2.375.

And then I don't know if you're around here, around the world, in 2018, 2019, or a thing called COVID.

So, I worked for a Canadian company, and they sent us home for two and a half years.

And I'm a person that has to be around anybody.

I don't care if I like you or not.

I got to be around somebody just to interact.

And so, it was driving me.

I had some mental issues going on.

And I looked at Sabrina and says, I can't do this no more.

I says, I need a break.

And we looked at everything, and luckily, all we had was our mortgage.

So, I was able to take life off for six months, recuperate, and that's where the $72,000 came in when we were $72,000 when we were doing our mortgage.

And

just recuperated in life, got employed, and that's where the income came back in.

And we created a mortgage tracker and just tracked it down.

Everything, all our savings went or extra from every month went towards the mortgage.

And this was about the time when we left my Excel spreadsheets and kind of got onto the Every Dollar budget and really started using that pretty hard.

So that was a big transition for us going from Excel spreadsheets

to the Every Dollars.

It's hard for an engineer to say,

I'll try somebody else's path.

I mean, I liked my spreadsheets, and Alan didn't, you know, and so we kind of had to make a compromise and go to the Every Dollar budget tracker.

There we go.

All right.

And then here we stand just a few months later, and the house was paid for.

Yep.

Yeah.

Because that really, by the time you leaned into the house, it only took about two years.

Yeah.

Yep.

If I got the story right on that, you are correct.

If I followed that.

And you've come back big time with a new job and a new salary.

Crushing it, huh?

Yep.

Yeah, my salary pretty much almost tripled after I took the six months off.

Wow.

Yeah.

Good for you, man.

Well, your timing was good, too.

Very good.

God's opened a lot of opportunities up for us since then.

Yeah, amen.

Yeah.

Amen.

So what do you tell people the the key to getting out of debt is?

I think you have to be on the same page as your partner.

I mean, you know, that communication between spouses as far as spending and, you know, just the budget, that was probably one of the biggest challenges for us was communicating and making sure that we knew, you know, purchases and where we were headed.

So

you have to be on the same page in a marriage.

Just open communication.

Yeah.

You know, don't be afraid to say, hey, I want to buy this or no, let's push that off till next month.

Yeah.

So, what's the big thing you're going to do now that you're 100% debt-free and almost millionaires?

We're going to go get a steak dinner tonight at Perry's.

That'll do.

Yeah.

That'll do.

We got some work to do on the house, some siding, fencing, back patio that needs to be refurbished, kitchen.

All right.

But

also a little bit of playtime in there, too.

Yeah.

Amen.

Sabrina, what do you tell

the person in the marriage that is the

spreadsheet person

that continues to say, no, no, no, my way is going to work.

Just trust me, it's going to work.

It's going to work.

Is there a hack to that conversation that will help somebody

exhale and say, you know what?

We're just going to do a regular budget.

I think you have to be open-minded.

You just have to be flexible.

You know, I think for me, like, I understood my spreadsheet really well,

but I had a...

I didn't communicate it to Alan very well.

So he would ask questions and

question the numbers.

And I didn't communicate them well.

So I think just finding what works for you as a couple and how your minds can kind of work together.

But definitely be open-minded.

If somebody has different numerical ideas or different tracking ideas than you,

it's okay.

Brother, what did you do that six months?

Did you go to a counselor?

Did you go hit the gym?

What did you do?

Actually, I was sitting at counselor short before then, but I increased my visits with him.

But

I volunteer for animal rescue resonation that Sabrina's on the board.

So I transported dogs from Casper, Wyoming, up to Billings, Montana, Reno, Nevada, Bozeman, Boise.

So I was all over the road just go out and do something.

She had a purpose, yeah.

Good for you.

Yeah, good for you.

Good for you.

You didn't just take time off and just stare off into space and hope it all got better.

You got after it.

I went out.

I'm proud of you.

Good for you.

Yeah, way to go.

That's hard work right there.

That's very good work.

Very good.

Proud of y'all.

Way to go.

Thank you.

Who was cheering you on along the way?

i think each other i mean we were each other's biggest cheerleaders um you know we had a couple neighbors that kind of knew that we were on the dave ramsey program and you know they were egging us on at different times too um one of our neighbors brought us cookies after we paid the house off so

i like it well you need to take them a steak back yeah

dave since you mentioned that the funny thing was the consumer debt i was the nerd she was the spender I was the spender

I wanted to go play watch football buy guns.

We got to get going because we're running up against the clock.

I like it.

All right.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two,

one.

We are debt-free.

Yeah.

$208,000 paid off in 58 months.

Quite a story.

Way to go, heroes.

We're proud of you.

Woo-hoo!

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Well, so many of you out there are trying to share Ramsey with people like our last debt-free scrimmers are telling their neighbors that they're getting out of debt, that kind of stuff.

So it's kind of hard sometimes to explain all this stuff.

If you want some help, we put together the new Ramsey 101 playlist.

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Open Ramsey 101 playlist on YouTube.

Text it to someone.

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Hector is with us in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Hey, Hector, what's up hey how you doing dave better than i deserve how can i help

um so oh and by the way uh how you doing dr john i have actually have your book right next to me and i started reading it this morning i got it on saturday so it's going well thanks brother um yeah so i'm 24 years old i have sixteen thousand dollars saved up I am going to Europe in less than a month because one of my best friends is getting married there.

And I'm spending, then I'm going backpacking, so I'm going to spend about

budgeting like $5,000 to $6,000.

My current job as a server, the restaurant is closing right before I leave.

So when I come back from Europe, I'm going to be jobless, as well as I'm resuming my career in aviation.

So I'm going to be taking on a lot of debt when I come back.

So my question is,

how do I manage my money, which is going to be almost less than ten thousand dollars uh when i get back do you know what show you're calling

yeah all right all right good just before we get going just want to make sure we're all on the same page man

i would tell you that you call your friend and you tell him you love him i can't make it because i'm about to be unemployed don't have any money

and i would actually work the same job too i know i i would tell you um

i'd be looking for a job yeah Yeah.

ASAP.

You can't go backpacking, bro.

It's just not the season.

24 broke.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I already bought my ticket and everything.

So?

Yeah, it's all good.

I'd rather you lose $2,000 than $10,000.

Yeah.

Life happens.

I mean, I figured you guys would say something like that.

Well, we've lived it, man.

We're not just trying to have fun.

Nowhere in this description of anything you laid out was making money.

All of it was spending money and going in debt and destroying savings.

Everything in your story was no money, no money, no money, no work, no money.

That's your whole story that you just told us.

So everything's going the wrong way, man.

This is not going to end well for you.

We're going to hang up with you and our lives are going to go on.

We're going to be fine, okay?

But I'm worried about you, honey.

Yeah.

I mean, your plan sucks.

It's a plan for anxiousness and misery, is what it is, man.

Not good for you.

Going deeply in debt to be an airline pilot is not a plan because you don't get to be an airline pilot for many, many years.

So, no, you don't need to go $100,000 in debt to resume my aviation career.

Bull crap.

What you need to do is resume working.

Yeah.

I mean, well, technically, I'm going to be working until they close, and they close a week after I leave.

So technically, look for a job.

Yeah.

Because you're getting ready to lose your job.

I know when I'm in Europe, I'm going to be, I mean, I'm already looking at other serving jobs.

Hey, Hector, you do whatever you want to do, honey.

You called us and asked, and we told you what to do.

There's nothing in this.

You're not going to be able to talk your way to where, John, and I think this is smart.

We are worried about you, honey.

I think this is not going to end well for you.

This time next year, you're going to be sitting in neck deep in poop.

And just because you've been shoveling on yourself.

And that's what you're heading towards.

So you need to rethink this.

You act like this is Skittles and unicorns are just going to pop out from somewhere and they're not.

Or that this thing, like that you get to do what you want to do and that math or these other things will just circle around you.

I tell you right now, if I was about to lose my job and I had $16,000 to my name,

I'm not taking the trip.

I'd call my friend and say, I can't make it, man.

I'm going on a European vacation to celebrate.

Yeah, I've got to, yeah.

And maybe, Dave, I don't know.

You know what?

Maybe this is one of those situations where you're 24 and,

dude, I thought I was really a tough guy until I walked into an MMA gym at about that age and got my head handed to me a few times and realized, oh,

I need to listen to some of these other guys who are wiser than me.

But maybe this is one of those.

It's me that would have told you not to go over there.

You got to get hit on the chin a few times.

Oh, my goodness, man.

It's not going to work.

Don't do this, Hector, please.

You can play this back in six months and

see if we came true or not.

I don't know.

But

there's nothing in this that you described that sounded like a good ending to me for you.

I'm worried about you.

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Jake is in Chicago.

Jake, go straight to it.

I'm short on time.

All right.

Hey, guys, just wanted to say happy Father's Day.

Got a girlfriend that I'm in love with, godly relationship.

Go to wrap things up, call it a night last night, and she popped a question of whether or not I want to get a prenup.

A prenup?

I refer to it.

For being a girlfriend?

Yeah, right.

No, we're talking about getting married.

Oh, awesome.

Working towards towards that.

Working towards that goal of getting married, starting a family.

Why do you need a prenup?

There's just assets that I probably have more assets than her, more or less.

What are your assets?

How much are you worth?

At about $600,000 in cash and assets.

Yeah.

All right.

And what do you make?

I make about $1.10 to $1.20 a year.

What's she make?

She's a school teacher.

She makes under 70.

Probably like 60.

Have you all been married before either one of you?

Nope.

I'm 29.

She's 30.

We've both been engaged, though, and it did not work out.

The only time I recommend a prenup is with extreme wealth on one side versus the other.

And 600K is not extreme in my mind.

It's a lot.

You've done very well.

I'm not making fun of you, but if it was $6 million, I'd probably say, yeah.

Okay.

But if it's 600K, I probably wouldn't.

I'm just going to combine my assets and bet my life on this girl.

Perfect.

And side note she got uh we got her we got her out of a car payment all right

yeah we owe she owe we do that she had a car payment you're not married not married uh you know i did my advice and her money

yeah

yeah my advice and her money good okay i like that's a good formula you using the tools from my mentors that i watch and uh this is my second time calling in you guys helped me out about three years ago um in a predicament with finances and um i'm debt-free good we're working on her getting debt-free.

She owes about $5,000 in student loans.

That's awesome.

The federal government's going to help her out with at the end of the year.

What do you think?

You keep saying we're working towards getting married.

What are you waiting on, man?

Waiting on?

I got to go

do the cordial and polite thing and ask your parents.

Do it this weekend.

All right.

Just do it this weekend.

How long y'all been dating?

We've been dating for about eight months.

Okay, never mind.

I back up.

I thought you were talking.

I thought y'all were together for like five years.

My bad.

Take your time, bro.

Take your

That one's on me.

Jake, you're good.

You're good, man.

Way to go.

I would not worry about a prenup at that level.

It's okay to discuss these things and talk about them.

Even document that you came into the marriage with the premarital assets.

That's an okay thing to document.

Because in most states, that would be respected anyway in the event of a divorce.

But

I don't think there's enough money there that it's going to create weirdness in your extended family, which is usually my primary concern with a prenup.

It's not you and her, it's her crazy brother that thinks he got a - that it thinks he hit the gold mine because his wife married a guy with assets.

Her sister married somebody.

Yeah.

Some parasite in the family decides they're going to latch on.

And that's the only thing.

And you can just look at them and go, I can't do that.

I got a prenup.

That's what it's mainly good for.

And, of course, the end of a marriage, those kinds of things.

But nah, I wouldn't, Jake, in this case.

Thanks for the the call, brother.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people

build wealth, do work

that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships.

Dr.

John Delony, number one best-selling author and host of the Dr.

John Deloney Show on Ramsey Networks, Ramsey personality.

He's my co-host today.

Jessica is in Missouri.

Hi, Jessica.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

I just got married in March and

I.

Thank you.

My husband and I have been working on babysit number one.

But as we approach babysit number two,

I've been getting a ton of phone calls and letters in the mail from

different organizations offering personal debt consolidation loans.

And it is becoming more and more attractive to me to consolidate all of our debt into just one monthly payment

to help manage our monthly budget a little bit better, possibly lower our interest rate on the debt.

I just want to know what you think of a personal loan for debt consolidation.

I would not do it.

No?

Under no circumstances.

Unless it was to avoid bankruptcy, and you're not bankrupt.

That wasn't why you called.

Right.

You think it's you have made the mistaken assumption that one payment gets you out of debt faster than 16 payments, and 16 payments added together is equal to more than the one payment, which means you're going to get out of debt faster, continuing to work the debt snowball, and you're going to get the feedback loop of paying it off.

The problem with debt consolidation is, number one, people end up rolling lower interest rates into it than they're actually going to pay on it.

Number two, because they started out with, I got this 26% credit card and I can get it down to 12.

Okay.

But then they roll some of the 5% and 6% stuff and 0% medical bills and other things up into it because they want this convenience of a single payment.

That's problem number one.

Problem number two is 88% of the time, that's nine out of 10 times that people do a debt consolidation loan, they don't change their habits.

Right.

And if you don't change your habits, what you're going to do is run up more debt.

So you end up at the end of the story running up all the debt again, and you've still got the debt consolidation loan.

So you end up doubling debt because you don't change the habits because the problem is not interest rates.

The problem is the person in your mirror.

Yeah.

You've got to get them changed.

And so you and your new husband have to sit down and say, we're going to sell so much stuff that the dog is hiding.

We're going to take an extra job.

We're going to live on less than we make.

We're not going on vacation and we're not eating out.

And we're going to get rid of this stinking debt so we can have a life.

How much debt have you guys got?

Including my husband's student loan, it's $76,000.

Okay.

And what do you guys make?

What's household income now?

Our total

household is $97,000 annually gross.

Okay.

And so if you paid it off in two years, that'd be $34,000, or it'd be

like $40,000 a year.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're talking about $3,04,000 a month.

You've got to put $4,000 a a month and you'll be out of debt in less than two years.

And you make $97,000, so all I'm asking you to do is put $40,000 on it and live on $57.

When

you're going to get

nothing.

How much of the $76 is cars?

11.

11.

So cars aren't the problem.

How much of it's a student loan?

40.

Okay, good.

And so you get out the credit cards tonight, you have a plastic surgery party, light a candle, chop them up into little bitty pieces.

No more borrowing money.

Yeah, we haven't borrowed anything new for the past year.

So we did that a while ago, you know, got rid of all the credit cards.

We don't have any.

So you quit digging the hole.

That's good news.

That's a good start.

And so I'm telling you, if you'll take the debt snowball, list your debts smallest to largest, pay minimum payments on everything but the little one.

Attack the little one.

What's your smallest debt?

I have $795

in a medical bill bill as my small.

What's your next one?

Um, fifteen hundred dollars of a medical bill.

Okay.

Yeah, those two need to be gone this month.

Um in one month.

We've got to pay three to four thousand dollars a month on this debt.

You're going to crunch numbers.

I guess maybe that I don't know how to crunch numbers to get an extra three to four thousand.

Like, I can cut out a ton and and get maybe an extra thousand dollars a month to pay towards it.

We also have four kids, and

I I just don't know how to keep on cutting more and more.

So, wait a minute, do you not think a family with four kids can make it on $57,000 in Columbia, freaking Missouri?

So, our monthly, I think.

No, no, no, no, no, no, listen, listen, listen.

You've got to work backwards into this because all you're doing is looking down the barrel of your normal life, and your normal life sucks.

It has to change.

Right, yeah, because you make $97,000.

If I need $40,000 out of that, that leaves me $50,000,

right?

$47,000.

If I need 40,000 bucks out of that, I got 57 left over.

97 minus 40

for two years.

And that's not counting taxes.

We got taxes coming out of that.

You got to stop your 401k contributions.

You have to correct your W-2s to where you're not getting a refund.

Have you got any money in savings?

Not retirement savings?

Nope.

We're working on

the $1,000.

So

you don't have any money money stuck.

You don't have some stupid stock or Bitcoin or something laying around?

No, but I was curious about taking out a loan on my 401k.

I have about $25,000.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Quit borrowing your way out of debt.

Well, just to pay off the debt.

I know.

You're trying to borrow your way out of debt with a debt consolidation on your 401k loan.

The problem is

you have got to cut this to the bone, and you've got to find $3,000 a month, and you'll be out of debt in two years.

If you do that, that's where you're going to be.

And you may need to work extra.

Y'all may need to do some other stuff.

The kids, you know, the travel team may not be able to do travel ballet or whatever the flip you're doing over there.

Okay.

So,

you know, you got to, this is the kind of stuff, this is when, you got to decide.

This is what's holding us back.

And the more intense that you get, the faster you're going to get out.

And the faster you get out, the higher the probability is you're actually going to get out.

You're still looking for a pill to take, an easy pill.

You're still looking for an easy button.

There is not an easy button.

This is growl.

Ah, I'm pissed.

I'm not living like this anymore.

I'm stopping this.

Until you get that thing going in your voice and you don't have it yet, you're not going to get out.

You're still trying to wander, find some easy way.

And I'm not accusing you of being lazy or something like that.

I'm just telling you, the magic formula is when people lose their dadgum minds, when people go crazy and their friends think they joined a cult and their mother thinks they need counseling, these are the people that get out of debt.

You got to go nuts for a short period of time here because you guys have been living in stupid land long enough.

It's time to get out.

It's time to get out.

Yeah, Dave, I hadn't considered this before because I've talked about this with marriages, but I think it's the same.

There almost needs to be a moment when you say the life we had is over.

Yeah.

We are now doing a new life.

We're building a new life.

Because I think people want to, how do we keep our life going and do this crazy Ramsey thing?

No.

And you can't.

The life you had is.

The crazy Ramsey thing involves

a death and rebirth.

That's it.

A Phoenix.

Our life was over.

It was fun.

And it's exhausted now.

Now we're going to live a new life.

Yeah.

Not only did we cut up the credit cards, we're selling everything in sight.

The kids are next.

All right.

I mean, this is, you guys, everybody in the house is going to work.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are now going to be done.

No fancy shoes for two years.

Everybody's going to live.

Yeah.

You're going to be all right.

You're going to get it done.

Yeah.

You can't jump that much higher in Air Jordans anyway.

I mean, you can, but it's cool.

No, you you can't.

Hey, guys, I love summer.

But do you ever notice how fast money can get out of hand this time of year?

You know how it is.

You want to make all these great memories.

It's so easy to just put your brain in beach mode and swipe that credit card.

But then you end the summer saying, where the heck did all this debt come from?

Look, I want you to have some fun.

I just want you to plan for it with a budget.

The Every Dollar Budget app is the easiest way to make a plan for your money.

And I'm telling you right now, when you do that, you'll see that a budget doesn't confine your money.

It defines it.

It puts you in control of where your money's going.

So you can enjoy your summer without overspending or going into credit card debt.

So go download every dollar for free in the App Store or Google Play right now.

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You do want to do this.

John, you guys have a lot of fun at this.

It's my favorite thing that I'm a part of here.

Yeah, we have an absolute blast and they always sell out.

People come from, we have people from different countries last year.

We have people who are engaged.

We have people who've been married forever.

It's awesome.

I love it.

All right.

Up next is going to be Jane in Fort Worth.

Hey, Jane, what's up?

Yes, sir.

My name is, yeah, you know my name.

Sorry.

I have questions regarding what to do about my mom and my two youngest sisters who just graduated high school and college.

They're in a bad situation and they're trying to get out here to us.

And we were looking at...

Out here from where?

Sorry, from Oregon to Fort Worth.

Okay, and why are they in a bad situation?

Abusive, sir.

Okay, so like a stepfather or father?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

All right.

Have they left yet?

No, sir.

We've been trying to financially get them where they can leave, and we've been offering to take them in, and we're finally in a situation where we can do that

better.

So we were looking at either renting another place to help them initially for them, like first and last, set them up.

And they're actively looking for jobs, sir.

Or we could go ahead and buy a place that we could all live in because that's our goal anyways.

And eventually we're going to take in my mom.

Yes, sir.

No, let's get them into a rental and get a sustainability and get them out of the abuse now.

Okay.

They don't need to be there another minute.

Yes, sir.

They need to leave.

Tell them to get down there this week and y'all find them a rental property.

It's that simple.

And then they get jobs and they create a sustainable life and they begin their healing process.

Yeah.

There's a world of hurt going on here and there's a process they're going to go through to

heal after this, John.

Yeah.

And this is going to sound counterintuitive, but part of their healing will be

their bodies learning to trust them again, too.

And that sounds like a mess.

We don't have time to go into it all.

But you saying, we've set you up we've got your first month's rent taken care of it's super generous and we paid the deposit which is the last month's rent the first thing you'll need to do is get here get a job even if it's just a

not a forever job of course but just something and it will give them something to go towards not just running from an awful situation and just sitting you get what i'm saying

so that would actually be a blessing but you them staying there for another day while you put your house on the market you know look for a house and it closes in 30 to 60 days well and you don't need to be living with people that are going through this healing process.

They need to be doing, it's good for them in the healing to stand alone and create a sustainable environment.

The dignity of that will help heal from the abuse.

And you'll be over there all the time anyway, right?

Yes.

Yeah, y'all can feel me.

Man, is this your brother, sister?

Who is this?

It's my mom and my two youngest sisters.

Okay.

How old are your youngest sisters?

It's the last time I checked.

It's terrible to keep track.

18 and 22, I think.

Okay, so everybody's old enough to work then.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

They've been working part-time.

Tell them to pack their clothes and come to Texas now.

Yeah, get out of that mess.

Right now.

That's what I've been telling them to do, yes.

Right now.

That's my husband as well.

Yeah.

And if you've got to put them in a hotel for a week while you get a rental house lined up, that's fine.

They need to leave the abuser now.

Let me tell you, in a domestic violence situation, in an abuse situation, the victim will hang on and hang on and hang on and hang on and have every excuse in the world to hang on because they have this ridiculous idea that the moron who's using them as a punching bag is going to change.

They need to leave now.

Okay?

Yes, sir.

We've been trying.

Yes.

Now.

I'm serious.

I'm going to get up in their face because they are in danger.

They need to leave now.

What?

Yes, so

we've been trying to get them to leave immediately, but they keep coming up.

Lemiski, why is the 18- and 22-year-olds staying there?

They're emancipated.

They can go.

Why are they choosing to stay in that mess, too?

They're there to stay with my mom

as well.

Because they don't leave her behind.

If we're really honest, is your mom going to leave or no?

Yes, yes.

She will.

She's going to leave.

Then why hasn't she?

I grew up

financially.

No.

No, no.

Right now, you've told her you would take care of the hotel.

Move.

Go right now.

Load your stuff in the car and come now.

Why hasn't she done that?

My mom and my sisters are

not liking the fact that they have to leave.

They don't,

it's a whole stand your ground.

How do they put it?

They shouldn't be the ones to leave.

I got it.

I got it.

They shouldn't be.

They shouldn't be.

It's not fair, but it's also not going to change.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, we're preaching to the choir here, we know.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, you, this is your only option.

And no, you don't need, it's not good for them to be in the same property with you.

It is not good for them at all.

They need the emotional healing and the dignity of creating a sustainable life without the abuser and without sister being a crutch.

And so you can support them and help them get started.

Like John said, help them get

moved.

But man,

this is bad.

And let me tell you what, stand your ground usually means something violent in reverse.

And you don't need to be doing that.

That's not a good phrase to use.

That's a phrase used in the law about protecting your home and shooting someone.

That's not a phrase you should be hearing coming out of their mouth right now.

They need to get out of there, even though it's not right, not fair, whatever.

Divorce will take care of taking the house away from him you don't have to worry about that and uh wow it's probably been going on for years

michael is in atlanta hey michael what's up

hey it's great to speak with you today you too

back in 2008 my wife and i we pretty much lost everything when all the uh

mortgage crisis went down our house and everything and at the time it was the worst thing that ever happened to us why we had a lot of people um

file bankruptcy we owned several businesses.

They filed bankruptcy against us.

Oh, wow.

We lost a lot of money.

And one day we got $62,000 worth of bankruptcy notices.

Wow.

Okay.

So we had to start over.

And, you know, like I said, at the time, it was the worst thing that ever happened.

Now, looking back, it's the best thing that ever happened to me because I refuse to let it happen again.

Amen.

And we've rebuilt everything.

We now own another house.

It's

valued at $680,000.

We owe $270,000 at $2.875.

I am currently investing $5,000 per month into our retirement.

My wife is putting in another $1,200 through her work doing those.

We're working on baby step number six.

My question is, we're planning on selling the house in four years due to I've got some health conditions.

I've got something called DISH and O-P-L-L.

Basically, my spine's fusing itself together.

And we're on the downsize.

And knowing that, should we continue putting that $5,000 into our

retirement and savings and bonds?

$5,000 a year or a month?

A month.

Every month.

What's your household income?

About $120,000.

No, you should not be putting in.

You should only be putting 15% of your household income into retirement at this stage.

That was where my curiosity is because

15% is nowhere near $70,000.

You're putting $70,000 away?

Yep.

Yes, sir.

Jesus, man.

You're way too much going in there.

Yeah, you need to be lowering that to only 15% of your household income, which is a lot less than this and throwing the difference at the mortgage.

I wouldn't stop retirement, but I would lower it to 15%.

That's baby step four.

Five is kids college, six is payoff the house early.

Hang on, I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, to help you walk through this.

Hey guys, George Camel here.

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In the lobby of Ramsey Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Ben and Sarah are with us.

Hey guys, how are you?

Doing well.

Welcome.

Where do you guys live?

Well, I guess Paducah, Kentucky, is our closest big city.

Okay.

Well, welcome to Nashville.

Good to have you.

And how much debt have you paid off?

We paid off $42,000.

All right.

And how long did that take?

11 months.

Good for you.

And your range of income during that time?

At that time, it was about $70,000 during that period.

Okay, cool.

What do y'all do for a living?

I'm a senior project manager of residential projects for Roof and Exterior Company.

And I'm a stay-at-home mom.

Okay, very cool.

Good.

What kind of debt was the $42,000?

There was a medical.

Yep.

And then there was

consumer.

And then stuff at our business.

And then it was

our HELOC, which was, we didn't have a mortgage.

The HELOC was the only thing against our house.

So when we paid it off, we paid off everything.

The house is debt free.

We are completely

clean.

We don't owe nobody a dime in the whole world.

I love it.

What's the house worth?

I would guess probably somewhere $250, $260.

Wow, good for you.

How's that feel?

Great.

Feels good.

No payments in the world.

Way to go, you guys.

Excellent job.

Very cool.

All right.

So, what started this journey here 11 months ago?

Well,

we were in Florida.

We had a house, and we bought it the wrong way, and we had Airbnbs.

It was just,

it was, the anxiety level is just huge.

And so

we wanted a place where we could live

and actually afford to live, afford to have all of our kids and be able to just do all the things.

And so we moved to Kentucky.

And then we started to go backwards.

And it was like our dream of moving from Florida to Kentucky and then having a home outright and all this sort of stuff.

It just kind of, you know, things just would come up and it just sort of was fading farther and farther and farther away.

And I remember one point I looked at it and I was like, man, it's going to be like four or five years now.

We thought we were so close, and it just kept getting farther and farther away.

Before we'd be homeowners outright.

Yeah.

And so then we found your YouTube videos and just were watching along.

And it was a couple months.

We got the books from the library.

And then.

We got the Every Dollar app.

Got the Every Dollar app.

And we were getting like, we were like really close to that tipping point.

And

it was...

It was the day after our son was born.

It was the day of.

The day of.

It was was like an hour after she gave birth to our fifth son.

And he's like, I think we should stop using credit cards.

And at first, I said, no.

And he's like, I think we should stop using credit cards.

And I said, okay, well, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it all the way.

Do it.

And so then, like, I can feel the intensity.

She's like, if we're going to go through this, it is, it is, it is.

We're

not halfway.

The real deal,

not halfway is nothing.

And so then my response was, well, then I'm not going to buy any cigars, no bourbon, no guns, no ammunition until all this is cleaned up.

And then her response was,

pretty much

doubled down.

And,

you know, I mean, we just did our normal working stuff.

We had $17,000 in an independent brokerage account that cleaned it down to 25.

And then

we just didn't buy anything for 11 months.

And Sarah just managed our home so well.

And just

nothing that we bought at the grocery store went to waste.

And she just

made everything just as it could be so that we could just get it all behind us in our review.

Do they let you stay in Kentucky if you don't drink bourbon or buy ammunition?

It was really hard.

It was really hard.

Kentucky was against the law.

They'll revoke your passport, man.

Way to go, y'all.

It's amazing, guys.

I mean, that's, you know, when people are going to do it is when they start going, okay, the things that matter to me, I'm going to set them on the shelf because now getting out of debt matters more.

And this is not forever.

We're going to live like no one else so that, by God, we can live like no one else and give like no one else.

And,

you know, like you said, no McDonald's.

We're no eating out.

We're not, the kids are, you know, and 11 months after a new baby, you're done, house and everything.

Yep.

Wow.

That was very intense.

Oh, yes.

Yep.

But, you know, yeah, I hear people say, you know, it's a year of saying no.

But it was really, I think of it as a year of saying yes.

like yesterday we we we did things like going to parks having fires in our backyard things that didn't cost money and we were saying yes the entire year to what starts now and moves forward it's just you know we just the whole year it's like no we're not saying no to doing these things we're saying yes yes to the future yeah the yes we're gonna have a great future yes we can live like no one else later

because now we're paying a price that's a good way of looking at it i like that framing very very good very cool.

And how many kids do you have?

Five.

Five.

You know you have a bunch of kids when you're having finance discussions an hour after one of them is born, right?

Yeah, we're like, all right, well, we got the fifth one done.

Now let's see.

Let's open the spreadsheets and look at the budgets.

Well, and the medical bills were from the fourth son.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

We're like, oh, okay, well, you know,

we had another son here, and this one over here is not even paid off yet.

Got to make sure this one doesn't get repoed.

We got to clean this up, yeah.

Well done, you guys.

very well done hey the good news is is that um the switch flipped for both of you at about the same time yep i mean you both something about that birth and that new baby coming uh said okay we really got to do this and you're just you you within hours are looking at each other going we got to do this yep and that that's pretty impressive um that's the good news because we run into so many couples that it's six months or a year later before the spouse gets on board whichever spouse it is right And that kind of thing.

But you guys, it just,

you were messing with it.

You already had made a sacrifice.

You'd already moved and everything else to try to get there.

But then it wasn't a magic pill.

You still had to deal with the stuff.

All right.

Yep.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's good.

I like that.

Very good.

What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

Trying to find your things in the event, whether it's a playground, whether it's an event at the library.

Go and find the free things in the area.

Yeah, make free fun.

One of the biggest things for me was listening to you guys on my way to work, you know, back and forth, because, you know, it's like for those times,

as difficult as certain things were, it was like, these are the clear voices.

These are the voices that tell me I'm not crazy.

Listening to people do this debt-free scream.

I remember sometimes I'd be like crying in the car going, that's going to be me.

That's going to be me.

And just

surrounding yourself

with the positive good voices that are saying this is where you want to go so that you just don't get lost and wander around in the middle of that journey.

Very good.

You guys are heroes.

I'm so proud of you.

Who was cheering you along?

Lots of co-workers, different friends.

So you were talking about this Ramsey stuff all the time, then?

He was.

You're sharing it.

You're one of those guys, huh?

I'm a salesman.

Whatever I like, whatever I think is just great, I'm trying to win everybody over to doing that.

So it's just, yeah.

So we just, and, you know, I'm, I'm hoping that there's a lot of other people that we know that'll, you know, come along with us so that, you know, it's kind of one of those things, like you jump in, the water's great, come on in and just breathe the air.

Yeah, amen.

Amen.

So how old is your oldest?

He'll be 10 in September.

10?

In September.

So he's 9 right now.

So he's old enough to know what happened.

Oh, yeah.

No, the kids were watching.

Our oldest too, for sure.

So I get paid every Friday.

And so every Friday, we were popping it up and looking at the debt snowball and getting it closer and closer and closer.

And so, you know, we didn't tell them.

They don't have a very clear memory at the time that the old man, the old lady changed their whole lives.

Dadgum family trees completely changed because of you two heroes.

Oh, and I remember

Wilbur, he's five.

One time we were riding in the car and we were playing it from the back seat.

He just, he goes, Dad, am I debt-free?

And I said, yes, buddy, you're debt-free.

And he goes, yes.

And I'm like, you know, and so it's just, and then, you know, we get the little credit cards and the mail, those offers.

And every time we get them, the kids are like, can I cut it up?

Can I cut it up?

And we just, it's just, it's just,

it's just fun because we've just, we created a culture where we just.

Yeah, we live in freedom.

Well, and now the, but the kids have watched this, and so it's seared into their memory.

It's foundational for them.

Well done, y'all.

All right.

Are they here?

Yeah, they're here.

Get them together.

them up there.

Yeah, I'll do the debt-free scream with you.

I'm sorry.

They're off camera.

I didn't see them.

Okay.

All right.

Come on, guys.

Let's go.

Come on.

Come on.

Let's run, run, run, run, run.

All right.

$42,000 paid off in 11 months, making $70,000 a year.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two, one.

We're debt-free.

Yay!

There we go.

But you can't do this stuff with a large family.

Absolutely you can.

Those guys are heroes.

You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best.

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Our scripture of the day, Job 34, 32, the Lord detests dishonest scales,

but accurate weights find favor with him.

Earl Wilson said, to sell something,

tell a woman it's a bargain and tell a man it's deductible.

That'll work.

Lindsay's in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Hi, Lindsay.

How are you?

Hi, good.

How are you?

Good.

How can I help?

So,

me and my husband, well, actually, it's my husband.

My husband's father passed away, and they did a lawsuit against him.

In that lawsuit, my husband wasn't even born yet.

So they put his money aside into a trust or a settlement of some sort

with the receiving of the full lump sum on his 30th birthday, which is just shy of a million dollars.

Fast forward to today, his 30th birthday is in about two months, and we're not really sure what to do

with a million dollars.

Wow.

Wow.

So I'm going to give you my Venmo, okay?

I'm just kidding.

Send it to Dave's Bahama Fund.

Right.

Yeah.

All right.

Now, the

all right.

So what is your financial condition today?

We make roughly $50,000 a year before taxes.

We're about $27,000 in debt, $20,000 of it being our house payment, or not our house payment, but our house.

We still have about $20,000 towards our mortgage, and then we have $7,000 left on my student loans.

Okay, good.

And

so you've been living on $50,000?

Yes, sir.

Okay, good, good.

All right.

Well, there's three things you can do with money, and you should always practice doing all three.

You can give it for generosity.

You can

invest it for the future.

And you can enjoy it.

And I would urge you to do all three things with some of this money.

Okay?

And I want you to develop a plan for that, and I want you to develop

a written contract with yourselves that that's what you're going to do.

Okay.

That whatever it is you're going to do.

So my personal recommendation would be, obviously, I'd write a check the first day and pay off the debt.

Okay.

That's a very small amount out of a million.

Okay.

The second small check I would write is I'd put $20,000 in a high-yield savings account for your emergency fund.

That's all I would do there.

Okay.

And

then with the rest of it, we've got to decide what we're going to do.

Now, what do y'all do for a living?

My husband's a police officer, and I am stay-at-home.

Okay.

All right.

And is your plan to continue all of that?

My plan is to stay at home, yes.

No,

the two of you, is your plan to just continue life like it is?

Yeah, we want to for the majority of the

most part.

We would like to put our kids.

I have two kids that we would like to get in a bigger and better school district.

Currently,

we might move.

We would like to move.

Okay, but he's going to continue to be a police officer, and you're going to continue to stay at home.

That's the plan.

He's going to continue to work.

He's actually in school to be a cybersecurity specialist.

Great.

I like that.

Okay, good plan.

Let's just continue on all that plan.

And so, what's your current home worth?

Our current home is worth about $120.

Okay.

And what would would the move-up home cost?

Anywhere from $375 to $450.

Okay.

Let's call it $420.

Let's call it $420, which means you need $300.

Right, yes.

We're relocating to the DFW area,

and that seems to be the average.

Okay.

How are he relocating to the DFW area, and he's continuing to be a police officer in Shreveport?

He's leaving that to go do cybersecurity.

He should graduate at the end of this year in December.

Okay, okay, all right.

So

you, you, but you would have a job lined up before you made this move.

Yes, obviously.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not obvious to everyone, but it is to me, yeah.

Yeah.

And so

I've talked to several people today that it wasn't obvious to.

Yeah,

that's what we're going to do.

Okay, so we're going to have a job.

We're going to spend $300,000 upgrade.

We're going to sell the house in Shreveport, put $300,000 with it, buy something in the $400,000 to $450,000 range.

We're going to have a zero debt.

We're going to have an emergency fund.

And then

we also probably need to upgrade some cars, and we probably need to go on a vacation.

And so let's spend another $100,000 on that.

So that's $300,000,

$400,000,

$450,000, $500,000, we'll call it.

So you got $500,000 left to invest and do some generosity with.

We're going to upgrade your cars.

We're going to go on a nice nice trip.

We're not going hogwild.

We're not losing our mind, but we are going to enjoy some of this, and then we're going to invest $500,000.

Okay.

Now, let me help you with how important that is.

You need to lay every one of those things that we just talked about out.

Just write them down down a sheet.

Just make you a little one-page game plan, strategy.

This is where the money's going.

I'm spending the million.

Okay.

I'm spending $300 on a house upgrade.

I'm spending a trip.

I'm upgrading the cars.

I'm paying off the the debts.

I'm putting in a $20,000 side of an emergency fund.

You with me on all this?

Yes, sir.

Just you line item it, write down a yellow pad if you want to, and write it out, and then y'all initial it because you got to freaking stick to this.

Because in the middle of the night, when your brain starts spending this money, you have to tell your brain to shut up.

Those Amazon shopping sprees, darn it.

Yeah.

Yeah, those things.

Because what you can do is if you know a million dollars is coming in, you can spend three million in your head.

Right.

And that's what I'm trying to avoid.

I'm laying out a game plan here.

And then you stick to your, this is your million dollar budget.

What are we going to do with this million dollars?

We're going to have a budget.

We're going to give every one of these dollars a name before they get here.

And you guys got to do that this weekend,

two months before the money comes.

You've got to lay it out just like we laid it out.

Go back and play this call back, okay?

Okay.

And the two of you write it all down.

Now, if you will put a half a million dollars with a Smart Vestor Pro, go to ramseysolutions.com, sit down with an investment professional.

And if you will put a half a million dollars, $500,000 in there, how old are y'all?

I'm 29 and he's going to be 30.

He's going to be 30.

Okay.

So it will, if you will put it in good mutual funds, like we're going to talk about, it will double about every seven years.

Wow.

Okay, so when you're 37, that 500 is going to be a million.

When you're 44, it's going to be 2 million.

When you're 51, it's going to be 4 million.

If you keep your stinking hands off of it.

Yes.

Okay?

Because you had a game plan and you stick to the game plan.

And then you guys go be cybersecurity, build your own wealth in DFW, restart your lives there, debt-free, stay debt-free, stay on a budget, stay on a plan, live on less than you make, and leave this money alone and let it double every seven years.

So when you're like 70 years old, this is going to be $10 million.

You follow me?

I'm following you.

This is an important assignment.

This is an important assignment.

You are going to be one of the few people that actually becomes a millionaire because of inherited money.

Very few actually do.

But you're going to do it because you're going to do this right.

You're going to be smart about it.

So, hang on.

I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, and Baby Steps Millionaires, which is the largest study a millionaire has ever done.

You guys need to study what millionaires do because you are getting ready to be one, and then you need to do it the way they do it so that you stay one.

That's the point here.

And we're also going to put you into every dollar premium with Financial Peace University, the whole shebang.

Give them everything, Christian.

So,

and everybody that thinks they need some of your money, let me teach you a word.

No.

I was going to say, I wouldn't, Dave, tell me if I'm wrong.

I wouldn't tell anybody.

I wouldn't tell the real estate agent we just had a million bucks.

I wouldn't tell the story.

I wouldn't tell the story.

Oh, just between, you know, there's no reason to tell it.

It doesn't do anything.

You can tell it later someday, but in the near future, until you emotionally learn to handle all of this money and the responsibility that's coming with it, the last thing you need to do is have to run off a bunch of crazy friends and relatives by saying no, no, no, no, no.

Well, and the difference between spending $400,000 on a house and $650,000 in Dallas, Texas, is two blocks.

And that money can just evaporate on you if you're not careful.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that's a good budget, by the way, because

median house price in America is $431,000 right now.

But that means there'll be a whole bunch of other nicer houses in Dallas you're gonna have to say no to.

Yeah, no,

stick to the plan.

Stick to the plan.

You got a good plan.

I like your plan.

Now stick to it and go be a multi-millionaire.

I love it.

That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

Hey, you guys, I was shocked to learn that 88% of you out there are sharing the Ramsey show.

I mean, that is so incredible.

Thank you so much.

And I want to tell you that we're making it even easier to share.

So, this June, we have pulled together the brand new Ramsey 101 YouTube playlist, a quick start collection of how to get started walking the Ramsey Plan.

Now, this playlist is perfect for that one person in your life who needs help winning with money and just doesn't know where to start.

So here's what's inside.

What the baby steps are and why they actually work, how the debt snowball helps you pay off debt fast, and how to build wealth and invest for the future, and so much more.

So here's what you need to do.

Click the link at the top of the show notes.

It'll take you straight to the YouTube playlist.

Copy it, text it, send it in a group chat.

Just say, hey, I thought this might help.

Because one playlist shared at the right time could be the turning point.

One share, one playlist, one step could change everything for that one person in your life.

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