Quit Letting Broke People Give You Financial Advice!

Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Me and Dr.
John Deloney are coming to a city near you on the

Money and Relationships Tour. It's happening soon, so don't wait.
Get your tickets at

RamseySolutions it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walshaw, number one bestselling author.

Ramsey Personality is my co-host today.

As we take your questions about your life and your money,

we're going to talk about you right in front of you, honey.

That's how we do it.

And, hey, the phone number is free,

and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

It's 888-825-5225.

Jump in, and we will talk. Laurie is in Salt Lake City.
Hey, Laurie, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, Dave.
Hey, what's up? Well, my dad is going to leave my brother next to nothing when he dies and he's not telling him. how do you know? What did he tell you? He told me that he set up a trust with a fiduciary and that he was going to leave different amounts to us three children in different ways.
And then he told me he had set up some other things in the trust to protect it. Okay.
So you said that the brothers left out, but you just said he's going to leave something to the three of you. Is it a different amount of money or tell us more? Yes.
He's going to, he told me he was going to leave him $10,000. And what what did the other kids get I'm not sure because he hadn't said but um my sister he didn't tell me how much he just told me that he was going to give her a large lump sum because she's the most fiscally prepared for the future most fiscally responsible responsible, makes the most, handles their money the best.

Okay, what about you?

Me.

Yeah, so he set up monthly payments basically for 25 years.

Oh, how much?

$3,500 per month.

Okay.

How old are you?

I'm 58.

58?

Yeah.

Thank you. Okay.
How old are you? I'm 58.

58?

Yeah.

Okay. This sounds like your dad is pretty controlling.
it's a little bit it's a little bit

gamesmanship manipulative

the way he's handling all this. Does that sound right? No, I would not describe him that way at all.
Then why isn't he just telling your brother? I think it's because he has experienced a serious lack of respect.

And things have happened in the past that have hurt an already struggling relationship,

but struggled a lot pretty much from the very beginning and he just doesn't want to do it he's a year older okay all right well i wow but it's not like a number okay number one there is no one no one is entitled to an inheritance your dad's your dad's money. He can do with it what he wants to do with it.
Okay. Right.
Even if someone else thinks it's weird, it's his money and he can do with it what he wants to. He's trying to not stir up a problem with your brother, it sounds like, where there's already problems and this would just throw gas on the fire is what you're telling me.
Right. Okay.
Yes. So, uh, I don't, I don't, and he didn't tell you, um, um, I, I, I think he puts you in an awkward position by you not having the information and not telling him the brother, but I don't think he thought about that.
No, he, he knows because I brought it up. Um, I told him, um, that he was putting me in a really awkward position.
But you're not asked to administer it. You have a fiduciary, there's a trustee.
So there's no way you get blamed because you're not in the line of fire. You're not having to administer this to your brother.
The trustee will. Does your other sister know that these are the plans as well? Yes.
So maybe the conversation, cause here's where I'm getting at. I agree with what Dave said, but it's almost like he's not dealing with the problem now, but the problem will be yours when dad passes away because your brother, I don't know what kind of guy your brother is, but I would not want to, if I were you, I would not want to be in this situation where someone could feel resentment towards me for something that someone else didn't deal with.
And now you're in the situation to have to say, well, I don't know why he did this. And that weight can be on you.
That's the part of this that I don't like if I were sitting in your shoes. I brought that up to him and he said he was concerned for my safety.
So he set up in the trust, as soon as he dies, I can either stay in the house for three months or I can move immediately and his trust will pay to get me out because he was concerned about the repercussions. I'm sorry, whose house are you in? I live with my father.
I had to move in with him five years ago to help him because he needs a living caretaker. I work full time, but I moved across the country to help him five years ago.
And I've tried. I did have a place on my own, but I was traveling 30 minutes one way to help him on a daily basis.
Would the narrative not be that your brother says, hey, because you were living with dad, you talked him into this? Yes, that's going to be the narrative. But what about this? What threw me on what you said is the safety.
He said if he's afraid for your safety, what kind of guy is your brother? That he would say that. Well, he's never been violent to me or to my dad or to my family members, but he's had violent interactions with other people on the other side of his family.
And I have actually had to ask my brother to leave my dad's house at one point because he was verbally abusing him. When I first came down here to help or came up here to help my dad, how old is your dad?

You said he's 80.

He's 83.

Okay.

Um, all right.

Your dad is not handling this well.

He owes you in return for your care of him.

Uh, even though it's not going to be pretty, he owes that it lands on him and he needs to tell your brother while he's alive and if i'm you i'm going to demand that because this is good this is going to land on you because of proximity it's going to look like you talked him into doing all this yes and so your dad your dad is being a coward and he's letting this land on you and he i know he doesn't want to face it and he could just send him a letter. He doesn't have to say, say, I'm, here's what I'm doing.
I'm giving sister number one lump sum because she's responsible. I'm giving sister number two that takes care of me monthly because she's not as responsible.
And since you and I don't have a quality relationship, I'm only leaving you this. And he needs to just send him a note that says that.
And I love you but you and i as you know have struggled for many years and i don't and i am not going to bless that with my estate so you need to know that in the front end and this is my decision your sisters have had no input on this i decided this with my lawyer and um this is what's happening and let him take the brunt of this um so the narrative is not reset in the vacuum. Because that's what's going to happen.
That piece of you living with him and taking care of him changes the conversation. Before, I was a little bit like, eh, whatever.
But now with you living there, it's going to look like you spent five years manipulating the old man into getting money. And cutting a brother out.
After you had to throw him out for being verbally abusive. It's going to land on you.
There's no question about it. And your dad needs to take care of that.
That's unfair to you. If I was the old man involved, I'd be stepping up.
This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by better help.
All right. You've heard me say this a thousand times, and I'm going to keep saying it.
You're worth being well, and I believe therapy can help. Right now, BetterHelp is offering 90% off your first week of therapy, now through March 31st.
So if you've been on the fence, this is your chance to try therapy for a fraction of the cost. Because let's be honest, we all spend money on things we hope will make us feel better, like new clothes, organic groceries, gym memberships.
But when it comes to actually digging in and getting real with our mental and emotional well-being, we hesitate. We pause.
And I know actually going to therapy can seem like a huge first step, but please hear me. Your mental and emotional health are just as important as your physical health.
BetterHelp makes therapy more accessible than you think because it's online, so you can talk with your therapist when it works for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost.
Your well-being is worth it, and this offer makes it easier than ever to start. 90% off your first week of therapy now through March 31st, 2025.
Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get started. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney.
Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us michael is in toronto hey michael welcome to the ramsey show hey thank you what's up so um i'm currently 18 and by the time i graduate i'm probably looking at 100 to to $120,000 loan that I'm sitting at. And my current car is under my mom's name with her interest rates on it.
And her credit got ruined by my dad leaving. And I'm looking to switch the car with a way less percentage of interest, but I have to max out my credit cards for the down payment to put on it, and I don't know what to do, if it's even worth it or not.
What's your car? What do you owe on the car? I'm sitting, so I bought the car at $30,000. I'm looking at $41,000 right now.
And you're a college student? I'm first-year, yes. with a $40,000 freaking car.
What are you doing with a $40,000, I know. And you're a college student? First year, yes.
With a $40,000 freaking car. What are you doing with a $40,000 car? You're a college student.
I had a $70,000 car and another $60,000. I sold it.
I made profit. But my mom's credit got ruined, and they gave me a 12% interest on it.
And I didn't realize until yesterday when I I checked and I only had it for five months. I don't think this is your mom's fault.
You bought a $30,000 car and you're in a $40,000 car and you're in college. You get a $4,000 car.
Do you make any money? What's your income? So I'm sitting at $1,000 to $1,500 from my work at retail. And I had side businesses before and I had like about $70,000.
I blew it all. And now I make maybe $500 to $1,000 from my side businesses a month.
Okay. Do you have any money saved? Nothing.
I'm in debt with my credit cards. Okay.
So the car, you owe $41,000 on it. If you sold it private sale, what's it worth? Right now with a trade-in, they're giving me $27,000.
Oh my gosh. That's a trade-in.
$12,000 negative equity on it. Okay.
But let's look at, that's your homework, is to look at the Kelly Blue Book value if you did private sale, because you're going to get more for it. I did.
It's $30,500. $30,500.
Okay. If I were in your shoes.
But I can't. There's a lien on the car that I can't pay.
Yeah, I mean, you make $1,000 a month. Your car payment's more than that, isn't it? My car payment comes exactly to $1,000.
Oh, my gosh. So how are you paying it? Credit cards? Basically everything at all.
No, no, I can't put it on credit. It's debit, basically everything I get.
I mean, if you make a thousand dollars a month and you spend a thousand months on your car, you don't have money to put gas in it and you don't have money to eat. So I do eat out a lot.
I don't know how. No, I make like $1,500 like 1500 i can on a good month uh i make 2000 on small months in retail i make 1500 okay so you got 500 to spare you eat a little bit you pay your insurance you get gas you've got nothing left okay let me let me stop a second because i did a drive i did a drive on something a minute ago i want to know more about You had $70,000 in savings, you said, from a side hustle that you blew.

Did I hear you say that? Yes. Tell me about that side hustle.
Where did all that wonderful money come from? It came from I used to sell screen protectors and cases during COVID when I was 14. And Amazon.
Yeah, so no COVID, no business. Gotcha.
Okay. Yeah.
All right. And I gave most of it to my mom after the separation.
And she's sitting at least at $300,000 to $400,000 herself. Yeah.
You're 18. You're 18.
Your mother is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to love her and cheer for her,

but she's not your financial responsibility.

So this has got to stop.

And unless you can create a huge income,

you need to get rid of this car and get a $2,000 car.

I tried doing that, but I have to.

I would put the $10,000 on a credit card. I'd rather you have $10,000 on a credit card than $41,000 on a car.
Amen. I can't.
I can't put it on a credit card. Why? I have maybe $3,500 left on a credit that I can spend.
Yeah, okay. Who do you owe the $41,000 to? To a bank.
Go down and talk to the bank about signing a note for the difference. Do that, right? And then what about on the new car? So that's the thing that doesn't make sense to me.
On the new car that I looked at that I'm going to get, see monthly payments instead of 96-month loan. I didn't say anything about monthly payments.
I get a two thousand dollar car because we tried when we went to the bank i didn't want you to go to the bank i want you to come up with two thousand dollars and go buy a car just buy a car yeah are you are you in school full-time yeah are you on campus you're at home or at home uh campus so oh like where do i live at home. Okay, how close are you to campus? You're at home or at home? Campus.
Oh, like where do I live?

At home.

Okay.

How close are you to campus?

What I'm getting at is you might go through two months where you don't have a vehicle

and you make it work.

And instead of using that $1,000 a month to pay for a car note, you use it to save up

and get yourself a little beater car is what we're saying.

I have one of your buddies take you to class.

I'm a mile away from campus.

Okay.

All right.

Okay. Here's the thing.
We keep throwing suggestions out, and the only answer you've got is it doesn't work. So let me tell you what doesn't work.
Your life the way you have it set up right now. Your situation sucks beyond belief.
The decisions you have made are beyond suicidal financially. so you've got to throw a stick of dynamite in the middle of this freaking mess you've created.
And it's going to be really uncomfortable. But you know what's going to be more uncomfortable? You sit there in this pile of stuff and you're going to smell like this stuff as long as you sit there in it, coming up with excuses to sit there in it.
So you have got to get rid of this mess you've got to create a big you may you may need to quit school you need to go get some dad gum money and start cleaning up this mess so i want you working like 80 90 hours a week going to school on caffeine and doing what normal people do when they get in this instead of telling me oh my mom got screwed got screwed over by my dad when he left. I'm sorry, but that doesn't mean you buy a $70,000 car while you're in college and downgrade it to a $41,000 car and act like that's smart.
Nowhere in this conversation is smart. Smart didn't come up today.
Okay. No, it didn't.
It didn't even show up here. So, dude, you've got to get rid of the car and you've got to figure this out some way or another now we're giving you lots of suggestions okay take get get a buddy to take that's in the neighborhood to take you to college quit college for a year and take you a gap year and go clean this mess up while you work like a freaking maniac but you, man, you cannot, there's nothing in this that the math works.
Sixth graders could tell you this math doesn't work. This is a mess.
And so, no, you can't keep this car. And no, you can't keep this life the way it has it designed right now.
That's why you called. And you can't get another car.
And I'm not going to argue with you about it anymore. I'm through talking to you about it.
So you go fix this. We gave you some suggestions, but part of fixing it is you've got to decide that where I live, the land I live in right now is the land of stupid and I want to leave.
That's the first decision you got to make. And we hadn't even been able to get that far with you.
So that's where you've got to go, man.

That's where you've got to go.

Open phones here at 888-825-5225.

Now, Jade, let's just review the policies on this show.

Review it.

We love you, all of you.

If you've done something stupid, we love you anyway.

We've done something stupid.

I have a Ph.D. in DUMB.
Jade and Sam cleaned up $465,000 worth of stupid in their life. So no one's sitting here high and mighty talking down to someone.
So we love you. We love you so much.
We're going to tell you the truth. We're going to start gentle.
And we're going to start by trying to help you move along. But if you want to argue with us while we're trying to help you, it's going to get nasty fast because we love you.
I'm going to smack you upside your stupid head until you listen to the stuff that will make your life better. Now, we'll start with a gentle handshake and say, Honey, this is the best way to do it.
Well, Dave, I listen to you all the time, but I'm not selling the car. Well, you're an idiot.
You got to sell the car. That's how it's going to sound around here, honey.
Okay. So we're going to serve you when you call here.
You're not entertainment value for us. You're a calling for us.
You're a crusade for us. We want you to win.
And we're going to do everything in our power, starting at first, gently, and turning up the heat by degrees during the time we're on the phone together until we have contact. This is The Ramsey Show.
You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.
I also discovered that there are a lot of ripoffs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect your family.
The key is finding an independent broker who represents a ton of companies and works for you, not for the insurance company. This is exactly what my friend Jeff Zander and his team at Zander Insurance are all about.

They shop the term life companies to find you the best options, and they've been around for over 95 years. So you know they'll be there when you need them.
Zander is the real deal, and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years. I trust them, and you can too.
Visit Xander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch. Give them a call at 800-356-4282.
Owning your own business is awesome. Owning your own business is freaking hard.
It's hard. Part of the problem is you have a jerk for a boss.
When you own your own business, your boss will work you into the dirt. They will work you like a rented mule.
It's hard, y'all. And it's why most businesses don't make it.
It's hard. and it's really hard when you don't have a clear path and you don't know how to go to the next stage.
You don't know what to do. Man, I remember.
I've been doing this for almost 40 years, this thing called Ramsey. It started on a card table in my living room, and the number of stupid things I have done will fill three buildings.
We have survived my stupid. I can bail my stupid.
It's everywhere. And I've done enough smart to offset it.
And y'all know me for everything that was smart. But I'm telling you, man, I can just tell you, I could write two books on my stupid.
Instead, what I did was we wrote a new book called Build a Business You Love, instead of one that beats you to Death. And the new book, Build a Business You Love, is our entree leadership system that identifies the clear path to growing and getting a business that you love instead of one that beats the snot out of you because it'll just beat you to death.
And it's wonderful. We love it.
Those of us that are entrepreneurs, we like the fight. We're ready to double up our fist and hit something.
We get it, but it's tough. And nobody tells you this stuff, man.
Well, I can tell you, because I've been there, done that, and we've coached over 10,000 small businesses. There are five distinct stages of business, and there are six things that drive the business towards growth and to propel you through those five stages.
We're in the final stage of the five stages at Ramsey, the legacy stage, where you work on succession and the next generation and so on. The beginner stage is the treadmill stage, where you just run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, and get nowhere.
You just run your dadgum little legs off. And how do get off that treadmill well there's some specific things you need to do we're going to show you this is the baby steps for small businesses system it's a clear path and knowing exactly where to go not based on some research project but based on 30 years of doing it and on coaching small businesses with this exact system 10 000 of them a business you love.
It comes out April 15th. It's on pre-sale right now.
I'm really excited about this project. It's really good.
And yeah, I mean, it's really good. And you pre-order the book for $29.99.
We're going to give you $350 worth of stuff if you buy it now to bribe you to get you to buy the book early because it helps our marketing. So shut up.
Instant access to the Entree Leadership Hiring Playbook. Yep, that's in there.
That's a big video that you're going to get to watch right now. Hiring and firing.
Number one pain point of business people is the humans that we love and the humans that we run to kill sometimes. They're called our team and we love them.
And man, sometimes it's having disruptive children early access to the ebook the enhanced audio book all of that's going to be there it's 350 worth of stuff 29.99 ramsey solutions.com slash store click the link in the description if you're a tuber or a podcaster then we'll try to help you out andrew's in louis, Kentucky. Hi, Andrew.
What's up in your world?

Not much.

How are you doing?

Better than I deserve.

How can we help?

Yes.

So when I was 18, I'm 20 now.

When I was 18, I went to get my first credit card from the bank,

and they made it aware to me credit cards out.

And my dad's name, he made me a cosigner, and they were destroying my credit.

I think my credit card was like 500. So I made that clear to them or aware to them.
My parents, they apologized. They took them off.
And then I've been real busy. I got married, had a baby and just kind of haven't been too worried about my credit.
I decided to look at my credit today and realize that the one card they took me off and they didn't, it was an Amex Delta card. And it's maxed out at $1,000.

It's maxed out at like $1,300.

So they're over their limit on it.

And it's been destroying my credit.

So I wanted to see if you thought it was wrong of me to market as fraud

or what route you would take in this.

Can you get it all off my credit history?

Well, it is fraud.

Let's be clear about that.

Yeah, it is. You credit history well it is fraud let's be clear about that yeah it is you did not sign it no okay if someone else signs your name that if someone else signs your name that's called identity theft it's criminal fraud if the crime if the criminal happens to be your parents that's also an issue but it's criminal fraud so it is fraud jade's right so um mechanically american express is probably one of the worst companies on the planet regarding this stuff they are nasty so those of you that have an amex card at work they will try to hold you liable if your company goes broke and you're only a user and you signed nothing

obligating you to that debt your company runs up 11 million dollars on an amex card and you are you're an employee user of an amex a company amex card you're gonna get screwed like you've never been screwed in your life this company is horrendous they are nasty can you tell i like them now um the the first thing I would do is I would go ahead and challenge this entry and say, this is identity theft. Remove this from my bureau.
Now, what happens is the credit card companies download to the credit bureaus in mass, massive computer files once a quarter. They do a okay and so the credit card are the the um the number one if you just if you dispute this based on fraud they will contact amex and ask amex if it is fraud amex will not respond because they just don't bother.
Okay? Right.

And then it will be taken off of your credit bureau report.

And then two quarters from now, it will be dumped on there again in the next dump, and you get to do it again and again and again until you cut this dandelion off at the roots, which is your parents. so you need to get back on the phone with them and say dad um this is now harming our relationship because i have a baby over here that needs a future and you all not taking care of this when you fraudulently used my name has to stop and i'm giving you 48 hours or I'm filing a police report if you don't get my name off this freaking credit card now you can be nicer than that if you want but that's the essence of the conversation right okay because your dad and mom are not only disorganized and sloppy they're horrible human beings for doing this to their own kid right right um so as far as telling them to get my name off of it and then marking it as fraud, with them taking my name off of it, it's still going to affect my history, though, right? Yeah.
No, no, it'll all go off. If they remove the entire account and any mention of it because it's not in your name.
Okay. Okay.
All right. So just marking it him to get my name off of it no this is not my card i'm challenging this entry on my bureau do it with all three bureaus okay uh with equifax transunion trw all three of them all right you got to go to them individually and you file and i recommend sending them a certified letter return requested, or a FedEx.
And in your letter, state, this is fraud, and by the, write this down, the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, federal law, I am demanding that you remove this or prove it to be true within 30 days. They will remove it, but it will be put back on,

dumped with the next computer dump from Amex,

if your mom and dad don't get your name off of it.

Right.

So you've got to do both.

Okay.

So one more time, what is the name of one of those three agencies

you said I have to go to?

Just pull out.

You can pull it up online. It's the three credit bureaus.ifax trw and i got that yeah okay and they just go to them okay yeah go to each one of them because they're separate entities and they're probably you pull up all of them you can pull it up on something like credit karma but you get sucked into a whole bunch of marketing junk you don't want to screw with so i just go straight i just go straight to the horse's mouth okay sounds good yeah all righty dave hey man get after it and listen follow through on this you've got to put a bow on it because it's going to keep growing and it's going to get harder and harder and harder to get rid of the longer this goes on so mom and dad need to take this off by Friday.
Friday. And any of you that do this to your children, shame on you.
You do not have that right to be a criminal with your own children. This is the Ramsey Show.
What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession.
Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all.
But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system.
Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities.
With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data.
And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash ramsey.
It's free at netsuite.com slash ramsey. Thank you for joining us, America.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. There are a few things in my life that I've run into that other than things from the Bible that I am 1,000% sure work.
Teaching the seven baby steps that we teach here, the first one is save $1,000. The second one is get out of debt, everything but the house, using a debt snowball and gazelle intensity, as if you're running from a cheetah.
The gazelle runs for its life. That's the intensity you use to get out of debt.
You sell so much stuff the kids think they're next. You don't see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there and you're not going on vacation because you're a broke person in debt and you are ears laid back running headlong straight into this getting rid of it baby and we're going to leave it all on the field.
That's baby step number two and then you go on to building an emergency fund, retirement plan, kids, college, pay off the house and become very wealthy. Those are the seven baby steps.
And in essence, and you can find those everywhere. And the Total Money Makeover book is where we outline them.
We've sold 12 million copies of that. 10 million people have been through Financial Peace University where we teach those baby steps and how to implement them.
So tens of millions, literally, of of people and there's tens of millions of you listening at this moment to this podcast on youtube and on talk radio uh so we know that easily a hundred million people have done some stage or some process of the baby steps and um with varying degrees of success because of varying degrees of commitment and sacrifice like you do with anything. So it's a proven thing.
It's not a theory that comes out of a test tube. The debt snowball is probably what we've become best known for.
Now, this is where you list all of your debts except your home, smallest to largest. You pay minimum payments on everything but the little one.
You attack the little one with a vengeance. You squeeze every dollar, every drop out of your budget, and you throw it at the little one.
You work extra. You sell stuff.
You clean out a savings account all the way down to $1,000. You stop putting money in your 401k.
You get term insurance and cash in your stupid whole life policy. You sell a car if it's too expensive.
You do whatever you got to do and you throw every dime at that smallest debt until it's gone. When that one's gone, you take the payment you used to pay there and every dime you can squeeze out of everything else and you put it on number two.
And when number two's gone, the payment from number one and number two are freed up. The snowball rolls over again.
It picks up more snow and it attacks the third one. And you're doing this with just increasing levels of hope, increasing levels of sacrifice, increasing levels of passion.
And every time the snowball rolls over and you get rid of another payment, that's that much more money freed up in your monthly budget to attack the next one down. And it's been unbelievably successful.
But Dave, I got to be, I'm the person because I know what they say in the comments.

I see what people are asking, and the biggest two questions are this.

Dave, I've got my debt listed.

What if I have a debt that the interest rate is just killing me?

Why would I put the lower one first?

Why would I list them smallest to largest if it means me having to pay this high interest loan for much longer?

What about the math, Dave?

It's a dopamine release and it's called a feedback loop in psychology and so when you have success at something you're more likely to repeat the task that's right And the faster you have success and the more often you have success, the more you've got a feedback loop and the more the dopamine releases there. And in a spiritual realm, we would call this hope.
You start to believe it's going to work because it's working. And then you lean in that much more and you lean in that much more and you lean in that much more.
And that why this works because no one set set up sat down at their kitchen table and said hey let's go deeply in debt because that's a good idea a series of behaviors put you into debt and you don't fix a behavior problem with a math solution you fix a behavior problem with a behavior solution and the feedback loop this positive feedback positive feedback, I knocked out one. Yeah.
I knocked out another one. Yeah.
I knocked out another one. Whoa.
And you're down. You're beating on that student loan.
You're beating on that big one. You're beating on that car.
And you're, yeah. And now you're starting to yell at your neighbors think there's problems over there.
Yeah. You know, because you're getting fired up because it's working.
And that's the dopamine release. That's hope're starting to believe and when i first started i paid off the little one i wasn't so sure and the next one well maybe this will work and then the next one yeah it's gonna work and the third one's like ah and and then your broke friends start making fun of you and you want to punch them you know and so this is this is this is why it works and that's why the dead avalanche does not work that's right's right.
Or consolidation. Exactly, because you don't change your habits.
That's right. The debt avalanche is where you list your, it's mathematically correct.
Honey, if we were doing math, we wouldn't have credit card debt. It's not a math problem.
It's a stupid problem. That's what we have to fix the stupid, not the math.
And so the math is, you know, we're going to list it highest interest rate to smallest interest rate because this interest rate is killing me. And here's the problem.
While that sounds like it's mathematically correct, it's not because your math that you're using is very naive and you left variables out of the math formula. Here's a you left out of your math formula probability of completion if your probability of completion is 80 or 90 percent with a snowball but the math is running against you when net of probability of completion it's going to beat the avalanche because the probability completion is close to zero almost no one finishes that because there's no feedback loop, no dopamine release, no hope release, no sacrifice increase, no getting the spouse on board because this crap's starting to work.
For the first time in my life, I'm telling money what to do instead of it telling me what to do. I am not relinquishing this control ever again.
You start getting a little swagger, man. You're ready to go.
That's true. that's why this thing works and and why so many millions of people have gotten out of debt using the ramsey system which is just freaking common sense but you know you people that think your debt avalanche is mathematically superior no your math is naive and your formula is incomplete because you don't know what the flip you're doing so northwest Northwestern University did a study of the debt snowball versus the avalanche.
And they concluded because of probability of completion that the snowball was far superior because if you quit and you don't get out of debt using the mathematically superior, which is not really mathematically superior, it doesn't work. That's right.
So you don't get completion get completion you don't get to the goal so and then time magazine comes out and does a story on the northwestern studio northwestern study and they go turns out dave ramsey was right well like we didn't already know that we've got like millions of proof text here we've got so much social proof on this that's unbelievable would beat your research project into submission so good god people this is not that hard get your butt out of debt your number one wealth building tool is your income and when you're giving it to stupid bank of america lexus motor credit and master card who's your master of your life you're you know and you wonder why you, and I make $100,000 a year and I got nothing, it's because you're giving it all to these stupid banks. And you've got to get back control of your life.
You work too hard to be broke, people. You need to retain control of your life.
This is so empowering. It is.
So Dave, get a little bit more tactical, because know, okay, we're listening small to large. Okay, Dave, I will do the debt snowball method, but where do cars fit into that? You're telling people all the time to sell their car.
That's not my smallest debt. Do I do it first? Do I wait until I get to that on the debt snowball? When do I sell my car? The rule is if you can pay the car off and all the other debt within two years, not counting your house, and you like the car, keep it in the debt snowball and pay it off.
But if the car is keeping

you from making it out in two years, if it's one of the reasons, okay? But if you got a $5,000 car

and a $200,000 student loan, the car is not your problem. That's right.
That's right. But you got

a $70,000 car and a $6,000 student loan and you can't make it out in two years. Well, it's the car.
Stupid. Yeah.
You know, so get rid of the dumb car. So can you get rid of the thing and do you like it? Well, I hate it.
Well, get rid of it anyway then. You get rid of it even if you weren't broke because you don't like the stupid thing.
But I love the car and I can pay it off and all of my other debts with the money I have in savings and the money I can earn and using the debt snowball during a two-year period of time, then keep the car. I'm fine with that.
Yeah. And the only exception would be the IRS.
That's the only thing that jumps to the top of the list. Child support.
Child support. Anything like that goes to the front of the list because they're going to come get it anyway.
That's right. And child support, you take care of babies before you do any of this.
Shut up. But the IRS is going to get their pound of flesh, so you need to put them at the front and get rid of them as soon as possible.
They have collection abilities nobody else has. This is The Ramsey Show.
You spent years trying to get everything just right for your family. Now you need an easy way to make sure your important financial documents are as organized

as the rest of your house.

Well, good news.

Knockbox, that's N-O-K-Box, as in next of kin box, is a complete system that helps you

be sure that you leave happy memories, not a mess, when you pass away.

Knockbox is a simple way to organize important paper and digital documents, IDs, tax returns, insurance policies, estate plans, accounts, and other personal history in one manageable place. Your family will feel your love in every detail you take care of.
So start taking care of them at knockbox.com slash Ramsey. A well-organized legacy is a gift to your family.
That's nokbox.com slash Ramsey. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Jade Walshaw, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Mark is in Orlando. Hey, Mark, welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade.
Thank you for taking

my call. Sure.
What's up? So my wife and I have done a wonderful job at saving and investing. You know, depending upon the age that we retire at, I don't think it's unrealistic that we could end up with a nest egg of between eight and twelve million dollars.
Well done, sir. Touchdown.

Thank you. Thank you.

So my question is, we're a Christian family. We have four younger, wonderful daughters between the ages of 7 and 13 right now.
And I want to know what you feel is appropriate to leave behind as an inheritance, because we're conscious of what the Bible says about money, and we don't want to spoil our children or teach them to rely on money as opposed to relying on God for their needs going forward after we pass. Do you not think it's possible to teach them that, and with having built that character, that they're then able to own this wealth like you are able to own this wealth? Well, I'm not saying that at all.
I just, you know, I never had a nest egg like that passed to me. No, I know.
And so, you know. But do you think the only way to learn it is to start out broke?

No, I don't think so.

And the Bible does not say it's bad to leave an inheritance.

As a matter of fact, it says the opposite.

A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children is a Bible verse.

Totally agree with you.

I just didn't know if there was maybe a line that maybe, you know,

you might cross over like that's too much or something like that.

It's not an amount.

It's a principle.

And so here's the principle.

You are not obligated, biblically or otherwise, to leave the money to your children.

Okay?

But to assume that it's going to damage them is not true.

Okay?

So what wealth does do is it magnifies the character of the person, including you, including me, and including your kids and my kids and Jade's kids. Okay? It magnifies the character of the person.
So the problems in my character are magnified when I've got wealth because it gives me power. Does that make sense? The good parts of my character are also magnified.
So someone that has a problem with their temper when they become wealthy becomes a rageaholic, and don't you know who I am? It comes out of their mouth. And stupid stuff like that, right? But someone who's generous when they become wealthy, we call them a philanthropist because they change entire communities with their generosity.
So whatever it is, good or bad, is magnified. And so the first thing that we taught the Ramsey kids is you're not entitled to anything just because you hit the gene pool lottery, right? You're not entitled to anything, number one.
Number two, in order to qualify to manage the Ramsey wealth, the next generation, you

have to have a spiritual understanding of the wealth, and that is that you don't own

it.

God owns it.

You're just managing it.

And once you grasp that, you realize wealth is the reason you see the reasons that the Bible has warnings about wealth, because it's heavy to carry.

It's a lot of responsibility to leave one of your children that becomes an adult $10 or $15 million probably by then each.

Okay?

Yes.

And so you leave one of them $10 million.

That's a lot of responsibility if their job is to manage it for God, for his glory, which includes taking care of your own household. Mark, let me ask a question on your behalf, because when I hear your question, I have thoughts of my own, because here's the thing.
If you live to be 80 and your kids are older when they start receiving this wealth, in some ways that feels a little bit better. It's like, okay, they've life they're not dependent on this money at that point but what if the worst were to happen and they got this they got access to this money earlier right maybe when they're in their early 20s how dave then would you disperse this amount to where it is helpful to them it's not too heavy in one at one season would or would you disperse it what would you do Well, ours was set up until they reached 25 to have some kind of different dispersion, right? So like when they're minors, it was to be managed.
And in order to qualify for a disbursement at 25 in the trust, they would have to have done this, this, and this, okay, be walking with God and, you know, actively. So you're not, in other words, we don't want to fund a cocaine habit on the back of a yacht for a reality star that's not what we want this money to go for and so if you're going to do that then you don't qualify anymore into the trust right but is there a limit that you'd give a 25 year old um i i as a disbursement i i had it at 25 we turned it all over to him oh wow it's.
I mean, we haven't turned it over because I'm alive. I know, but I'm saying you would have.
And mine are now, the youngest is 33. But today, if I die, it's just dispersed.
But if any one of them decides to live a life that disqualifies them as a manager of God's money, then they're not going to be able to get any take they're taken out of the trust immediately so um and and so because it's not really my money and it's not really their money we are managing it one of the beauties of managing it is you get to enjoy some of it but most of the most of the managing of it is a weight of generosity and a weight of other things so what i want you to avoid Mark, is this. There is a thread that runs through some of our Christian churches that says that money is bad.
Money is not bad. It's not good or bad.
It's amoral. It doesn't have morals.
What it does is it exposes the morals and character of the people that it touches. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

And so our job as parents is to raise children that become qualified stewards.

That's what they're working on.

It means they're, yeah.

And then I leave it to them, and I don't think anything about it.

Because I am well aware that the temple was built by Solomon atop Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.

And in today's dollars, it would be somewhere around between $10 and $20 billion building.

It was not built with Solomon's money.

It was built with his dad's money.

It was inherited money, David's money, Solomon's, David's son. It was inherited money used to build the temple of God.
And so, you know, we're sure that God uses families that have character generationally to manage his goods. So it's not unchristian to do this.
What you don't want to do is leave it to someone who it does harm to because they've got a problem in their life and it expands the problem. Well, I think, too, we're used to seeing it's almost like we're filtering it through.
Oh, you see a lottery winner. They win a bunch of money.
They have this huge amount of money that comes into their life or an athlete who has this huge amount of money come into their life. And before you know it, they've.
And I've sat with those guys in NFL many, many times. And what I'm dealing with is a 21 year old who has one skill in all of his life skill buckets.
He has one bucket. He plays football.
He doesn't know how to do anything else. And that is exposed when he gets a $10 million signing bonus.

And he loses it almost instantaneously.

3.8 years is the average NFL career,

and most people leave the NFL broke.

Hmm.

The exception would be mainly the offensive line,

because generally those are the smartest guys on the team.

This is The Ramsey Show.

You shouldn't own a gun.

You're not willing to shoot.

In moments of self-defense, a Berna launcher lets you protect yourself in a non-lethal way.

That's exactly why Berna launchers were created.

Everyone, from parents and nurses to pastors and even Special Forces forces veterans rely on Burna to protect themselves and their families. I own several Burnas myself.
They look like guns, but they're not. They shoot a 68 caliber round kinetic or chemical irritant projectile that can disable a threat from up to 60 feet away.
And they're powered by compressed CO2 cartridges, so they're classified with paintball and airsoft guns. But they're more powerful than those for increased protection.
Not to mention, burner launchers are legal in all 50 states with no permits required. And because they're not firearms, they can be shipped directly to your door.
Plus, Ramsey fans can get 10% off an exclusive bundle, which includes a Burna pistol, CO2 cartridges, and ammo. And other Burna products like safety alarms, defense sprays, and body armor are also 10% off for our listeners.
Just go to Burna.com slash Dave to learn more. That's B-Y-R-N-A dot com slash Dave.
If you're a small business owner and you feel burned out, then you've got to join us at Entree Leadership Summit this May 18 through 21. This leadership conference will refuel you with fresh vision and connect you to like-minded leaders

so you can take your business to the next level. But you better hurry because we're running out of seats.
We've got less than 200 seats left. If you want to join us in Denver, Colorado, go to RamseySolutions.com slash summit right now.
Or if you're listening on YouTube or podcast, just click the link in the description. if you're not a math nerd, if you're a normal person, when you start thinking about investing, investing, sounds intimidating, doesn't it? Hard to figure out.
I think I'm going to do this wrong. I'm scared.
Well, you know, the same thing's true when you haven't ever driven a car and you're 12 years old, but they teach you to drive a car a little bit at a time. And as your knowledge increases, your competency increases, and we let you leave the parking lot of the church where you were practicing, right? And that's where we taught our kids to drive a car, in the parking lot of the Baptist church, right? And even change gears on a straight shift so that they can actually function in this world you know you need to be able to drive investing it's the same thing so george camo and i are going to do a two-night event two and up two hours plus each night not the same double it's two full nights of investing essentials it's a virtual event.
It's next week, March 4th and 5th. Tickets start at $1.99.
The first night, we're going to cover some basics on investing and then go deep on miscellaneous investing, like, for instance, mutual funds and that kind of thing. We're going to lay some principles in place, teach you so that you feel confident and competent.
When the word comes up, you yawn and go forward, right? Instead of freak out. And the second night, I'm going to unpack my personal real estate playbook, stuff I've never taught but one other time, and that was at this same event this time last year.
And I'm going to spend about two hours on real estate. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate.
I've got a degree in finance and real estate, multiple other letters and licenses after my name in that business. I grew up in the real estate business.
I love real estate. I'm a real estate nerd.
And so those of you that want to learn how to do real estate investing properly, it's going to blow your mind for some of you that have been on TikTok, but I'm going to show you the right way to do it by somebody that really did it, not lives in their mother's basement with an opinion. So have at it.
You can join us. So it's March 4th and 5th.
You'll want to be through both nights because they tie together, but it is standalone, complete information, and it's the only place you're ever going to get it. So we'd love to have you.
George Camel has really got some amazing stuff he's put together for this. I'm so excited.
Get your tickets at RamseySolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes on the podcast and the YouTube. Raleigh's with us in Seattle, Washington.
Hi, Raleigh. How are you? I'm doing well, Dave.
How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good, good.
I am so, so excited to talk to you guys. I recently got married three months ago.
Yay! To my beautiful, beautiful wife. And we found out, what, four days ago now that we're expecting our first child.
That is awesomeness. Way cool.
We're super excited. And scared to death, too.
That's great. Oh, yeah.
It's both crazy emotions right now. Anyway, and my mother-in-law loves to listen to your show, and I've listened to your show for a couple years now, so that's how she's going to find out.
We're going to listen to the show together, that's cool it'll be awesome we just did an on-air baby announcement to mother-in-law that's so cool yep thank you for that honor thank you for that honor yeah yeah thanks for letting me um my question involves uh health insurance i want to get my wife health insurance as soon as i can um and i just don't know anything about it so i wanted know what you think. Is it through your employer? Does your employer offer it? Does hers offer it? Or is this you guys just out in the market on your own? Yep.
We're kind of on our own looking for options. Okay.
Okay. Well, we have an endorsement on Health Trust Financial, and they will help you find a person in your area that will sit down with you and go over the options that are available in the marketplace, from Blue Cross Blue Shield to all kinds of other things.
And they're going to help you shop around and customize and build a thing just for you. But in the process of that, Raleigh, it's just like anything else we teach here.
You don't do what someone says to do.

You learn from them, and you make the decision.

So their job as the health trust rep sits down with you is to teach you and say, okay, here's three options.

We think option number three is the best one, better than one and two, and here's why.

And they teach you, and you understand that, and based on that, you pick it you don't pick it because dave ramsey said or somebody dave ramsey sent says you understand it okay i do now do the um do you all have any money saved yes we do yep how much um we have about uh we have an emergency fund and we have about six000 in house savings. How much is in your emergency fund? $10,000.
Okay. Is everyone in the home healthy? Yes, we are, yep.
Is anyone overweight or smoke? Nope. Okay.
You're probably going to want to look at an HSA, a health savings program okay okay it's a very high deductible but a much lower premium okay pay very little monthly but when you do have an event it's a lot more out of pocket okay okay but if you're not using medical care that's reason i ask about health if you're not using medical care very often the the reason I ask about health, if you're not using medical care very often,

the HSA is the least expensive way to keep good coverage in place

because you're not blowing through the deductible

and you're getting the benefit of the lower premium.

That's probably what you're going to find out when they sit down with you, okay?

Now, I do not know.

She's pregnant.

That's a, quote, preexisting condition, and I do not know what you're going to be able to do on labor and delivery for sure if you can find coverage for normal labor and delivery it might be expensive since it's after the fact okay right and now a lot of policies will cover a complication in the birth of a child but not the actual normal labor and delivery cost okay so if the child had um god forbid something like a heart issue or something and they did heart surgery or something like that that a policy might cover that but it wouldn't cover the normal labor and delivery so you need to learn about what it does cover and doesn't cover for the infant as you're looking at the stuff okay now if it does not cover normal labor and delivery here's a technique for you and you're gonna this is gonna be awesome so the when you go to the hospital to have a baby is the only time people want to go to a hospital it's good pr for hospitals to deliver babies they like it because it's the only time. Now, every time, other time you're there, you're sick, right? And so it's a positive experience.
So hospitals love labor and delivery. And so what you can do is schedule an appointment with the hospital administrator that your OB is planning to use.
Go sit down with them and say, are OB suggesting this hospital? We'd like to use it, but it's depending on this conversation. Normal labor and delivery here is $15,000 or whatever your OB tells you.
Okay. And we are willing to prepay in cash for the labor and delivery.
This is if your insurance does not cover it okay gotcha okay and but we want a we want a discount if we prepay in cash okay so a they get cash they don't have to collect from you b it's a positive experience and they want you there uh c you're going to go to a different hospital if they don't make a deal with you okay you don't reserve your walkway power and you will probably get your labor and delivery 25 to 50 percent uh of of face value meaning they're going to discount at 75 percent okay if you do what i just told you to do um but because they don't this does they never get this request because almost all labor and delivery is covered by policy and people do they just get full vote from the full vote from the insurance company. But if you go in there with cash and say, I don't have insurance coverage for this.
Now, you may be able to get insurance coverage. If you do, just forget this whole conversation, okay? Yeah.
But if you don't, that's how you handle this, and you can get a serious bargain on labor and delivery. There's hardly anything else you can do that on, but this is a positive experience positive experience they want you there they want you to come have a positive experience at their hospital so you remember them for later things it's a pr move basically i when i when i was shopping for insurance back in the day when i was pregnant i was looking at like dave said i was looking at high deductible plans so i could have the hsa and i cared about with out-of-pocket maxes because when you are having a kid you don't know all that may arise and so just knowing and having that piece of saying okay I know that no matter what when the rubber meets the road this is my out-of-pocket max my stop loss that also helped me have some peace about it yeah make a choice most of your HSAs are going to be in the 10,000 to 20,000 range that's right outpocket max.
And so that's going to, again, that's your deductible plus. That's right.
But yeah. And but your

premiums could be as much as 50% off doing that. So anyway, go to Health Trust Financial.
You can

find them on our website and sit down with the guys and they'll help you out with this. This

is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever.
Because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget, because it always goes up, never down.
So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner

you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage.

Churchill is Ramsey-trusted to help you make the move

from renting to home ownership wisely.

Churchill understands that when you buy a home

the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment

will be a consistent, manageable part

of your monthly budget.

Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire.
So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchillmortgage.com. That's churchillmortgage.com.
This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591.
NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender.
1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027.
Listen, I know a lot of you would rather watch paint dry in slow motion than file your taxes. But thankfully, you don't have to dread filing when you've got Ramsey Smart Tax.
It comes packed with everything you need to file online before the big deadline. That means all major federal forms and deductions are covered with no hidden fees.
please. We'll see you next time.
can be. That's RamseySolutions.com slash smart tax.
Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi? When the payment on your defaulted private student loan is as much as some mortgages, it's hard to get ahead.
That's when Why Refi can help. Refinancing to a low fixed rate loan built just for you.
Find out more at Y-Refi.com. That's the letter Y-W-R-Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey.
Might not be in all states. Okay, today's question comes from Ethan in South Carolina.
He says, my wife and I are both 28 and just got married. I am an employee benefits consultant and she's a trauma nurse.
Together we make about $200,000 before any commissions that I receive. We also are debt free.
We have about $150,000 in investments, $30,000 in a money market account, and are investing our 15% towards retirement. Very good.
If I were your son, how would you recommend buying a house? We have been waiting for interest rates and housing prices to drop, but I always hear there's never a perfect time to buy. Is now the time for us to jump in? Yeah, Ethan, I think you're feeling the way a lot of people are feeling that are in your shoes, right? They're saying, okay, these interest rates are high.
Should I wait? Like truthfully, I have the money or I could start to save up more money,

but I don't know is now the right time. And I would say the right time to buy a house is when

you can afford it. Like not based on the market, not based on interest rates.
Otherwise you're

trying to like play a timing game. But if you can afford to save the down payment and you can afford to get a mortgage where the payment is no more than 25% of your take-home pay all in, then get the house.
And later on, if mortgage rates go down, you can always refinance, right? You have options. You don't have to stay in that high interest rate.
So for you guys, I think this is great. You have a great income.
It sounds like you've got your three to six months of expenses. You are investing.
Yeah, you're doing really, really well. At this point, I would start saving up because it sounds like the $30,000 you have in the money market is your emergency fund, and you should not use your emergency fund as a down payment.
So I just want to make that clear. $150,000 in investments, unless that's return, but you can use that.
Yeah, that's a good point, Dave. It doesn't say, but if that $150,000 is in like stocks or just kind of like a brokerage sitting there, you could definitely use that and I would.
Yeah. Okay.
Interest rates are going to do what they're going to do. We don't know.
House prices are not coming down. We do know that.
There's a serious shortage of housing. There are more buyers than sellers, and there's no fix on the horizon for that.
That's called a supply-demand pressure. It's seventh grade economics.
When there is a shortage of anything, the price holds steady or goes up. It does not go down, and interest rates don't cause it to go down.
So interest rates have been up for about 18 months and house prices have not gone down. Okay.
It's that simple. The median house price is exactly what it was 12 months ago.
It's 400,000 nationally and it's not going anywhere. So that's what you're seeing.
So don't wait on house prices to come down so marry the house and date the rate you can refinance your interest rates if they go down or pay them off and have a zero interest rate that'd be cool but um and if you want to get a pulse on what's going on in the market and you want to start learning more and leaning into that that process and learning you should visit our real estate home base because you can go on there. And I mean, it's just chock full of all the information that you're going to need to kind of see what's going on, learn about areas that you don't feel as confident in, and ultimately get set up with one of our Ramsey trusted real estate agents that can help you through the entire process.
So that's what I would do if I were in your shoes or if you were my son, which is... Yeah.
Perspective is the thing. So I'm old.
So I've been walking around in the middle of the stock market thing for 40 plus years. I've been walking around this real estate thing for 40 plus years.
And let me tell you, every year, I've been on the air for over 30 years talking about this. Every year, someone says, oh, the stock market's artificially high.
It has to come down. What goes up must come down.
Hadn't done it. Went down a little bit here and there, but came back up more than it went down.
Can you imagine if you had invested 32 years ago in a growth stock mutual fund, how much that would have gone up? Oh, man. help you with this 1978 i sold my first house for 42 500 as a real estate broker i was 18 years old can you imagine if you owned that house from 1978 that that guy paid 42 500 for man you understand that's an 800 000 house now but they they have to come down uh no they don't nope they don't and they never have yeah there's no historic data that indicates that so date the rate marry the house get a house bought when you have the money and if rates come down and you can get a cheaper rate than five percent which is so freaking high i don't know how i don't know how you people are surviving i love when you talk about the 80s it's winding about five percent but anyway yeah it's because it's compared to three instead of compared to 12 if it was 12 and it went down to five, everybody would be celebrating and there would be Mardi Gras on the streets.

But instead, it went from 3 to 6 and down to 5,

and everybody's like,

Oh, God, we're dying!

Yeah, okay.

So you better get a house

because the next round of real estate prospering,

these houses are going to shoot up again.

So if you're ready to get a house, go get one.

Guido's with us in Albany, New York.

Hey, Guido, what's up?

Pleasure to speak with you.

My situation is wife and I have no debt.

I'm retired.

I'm 65.

She will be 69 next month.

She still works in a scientific position.

She makes 72K.

She gets her full Social Security, which is about $18,500.

We don't have car payments.

She bought a car April of last year, financed it briefly at $1.9, paid it off last month. Cool.
What's your question, Greg? All right. I am constantly barraged by family members trying to find out what my retirement income is.
Why? Why? Why is it they think they're business? That's what I don't know. Is it your kids? No, we have no kids.
We have no kids. Brothers, cousins.
Are they vultures? I guess they are. Neighbors across the street, friends.
It's nobody's business. You know, it's strange.
I never have anybody ask my uncle. Is there a way to put this to bed? I mean, I keep hearing I have several cars, some from the seventies, eighties.
I'm like

you, I like old cars. I like to work on my cars.
Some are pretty, some are not. I hear you want

to get rid of all those old cars, go out and lease, lease, never going to happen. I don't

need to impress anyone. The only person I need to impress, I see every time I shave.
I worked in Europe for a while. I think that's just what you say.
I mean, I just think you say, hey, I appreciate the advice and all, but what I'm doing seems to be working for me. And if that works for you, you can do that for you.
And if they ask about your income, I just say, you know, that's personal business. I don't disclose that.
The only debt we have, okay, is the mortgage, which is about 93. We have 10 years to go on a 50 at 2.8%.
For somebody that doesn't like to talk about your income, you give out your information a lot. Maybe you're talking about it with them too much.
Gu't we don't was an alias okay i suspected yes yes and by the way i did not spend my formative years in this country neither did my wife but that's okay all right i think the thing is this i think you've got a wonderful story and a wonderful situation, and people wish they were you.

They want to know how you did it.

They want to know how you did it.

And I would just say, you know, we don't disclose our personal details.

I will tell you that we live on less than we make, and we're very frugal and very careful, and it has paid off for us over the years.

And God has blessed us, and we've been able to get some nice things.

It's a blessing to not depend on Social Security. I don't disclose my personal income.
I don't think to anyone. My wife knows and my tax guy knows.
Our CFO here knows, but I don't. And if anybody asks, I would just gently say, oh, you're kidding.
I don't talk about that kind of stuff. Would you say it gently, Dave? I would.
And then the third time, I'd say none-ya. None-ya.
None-ya, dad-gum business. This is The Ramsey Show.
Hey, guys. Good news.
Presale is on now for my new book, Build a Business You Love. If you're a business owner, you know running a business is hard.
That's why I wrote this book, to share what we learned over the last 30 years so business owners can grow your business faster with fewer mistakes. Pre-order your copy today, and you'll get access to over $350 in bonus items only at RamseySolutions.com slash store.
RamseySolutions.com slash store. Pre-order today.
Well, this is the last segment that is on podcast and YouTube. You can get the rest of this show on the Ramsey Network app, and that gives you video, audio, and all kinds of searchable stuff, so you can not have to listen through 15 hours to get the call you want.
If you want to call on a certain subject, you can just put it in the Ramsey Network app. You can email us in the Ramsey Network app.
It's all completely free. So download and use the Ramsey Network app, and we'll get you all of this show every day.
Madeline is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Madeline.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi.
thank you so much. I was actually just calling because I currently live with my boyfriend at his parents' house.
We've lived here for about two years, and we are getting engaged this year, and we're running out. Obviously, we don't want to be engaged or even married living here.
We've been doing the snowball effect for a little bit, but it's still in the process. How old are you? I am 23.
Okay. All right.
Because your sweet little voice, you sound like you're 12. I wasn't sure.
Okay. Well, thank you.
Okay, so we don't have debt because we aren't married. Who has debt, you or him? I have just debt from my car.
It's about, for me to completely pay it off, it's about $27,000. He has debt from his vehicle and debt from credit card bills from starting his business.
And are you both working? We are, yes. How much do you make? Yeah, what do y'all make? I make $30,000.
I work at a bank that I'm interviewing to move up, so hopefully making more soon. And it fluctuates with him just because he owns a contracting business, but it's normally, I would say, a year like $60,000 to $70,000.
So why are you guys living? I mean... Why aren't you married making $100,000 a year at 23 and pay these debts off? We haven't gotten married yet just because everybody around us have told us that we're kind of young, so to wait.
What? Okay. Well, you're acting like you're married, so so what are we waiting on what's the difference in your mind yeah because your actions aren't showing difference yeah because your actions are everybody around you includes his parents who don't want y'all to get married huh um they've kind of told us to wait a little bit um just his brother got married last year so we were kind of trying to give him his moment and waiting, but he doesn't want to wait any longer, and neither do I.
I would suggest you all get married this weekend and move out next weekend. We actually have an opportunity to move into a cabin on his grandpa's land when we, it is $15,000 that we have calculated to renovate it.
No, you're broke. You don't need to be renovating someone else's cabin.
Why can't you just get an apartment like everybody else? You don't have any money and you're broke. We actually have, we have donkeys, so we are not able to move into an apartment because we have donkeys that we have in our backyard.
Why? Where did those come from and what are you using them for? We actually breed them to sell the baby donkeys, but we had to get rid of a lot of them because we couldn't afford it. I can't believe I'm asking this question.
How many donkeys do you have? We only have two right now. And what are they worth? The female is probably worth $1,000, and the male is probably close to $1,100.
Perfect. Okay, so I'm going to tell you what I would tell my daughter if she was 23 and she called up and was in this situation.
I can't imagine that happening, but let's say she did. Okay.
I would say sell two donkeys, get married and move out within the next three weeks into an inexpensive apartment. You have a hundred thousand dollar a year income, clean up this mess of debt that you have and then start saving to buy a nice property and a piece of ground later and restart your donkey business later.

If that's your dream.

I suspect your dream is going to change about the time children start coming.

Yeah, 100%.

Yes, we don't revolve our major life decisions around donkeys in the backyard.

That is a good principle of life, Dave.

Yes.

Oh, boy.

Oh, this is great.

This is so fabulous.

Madeline, you're a sweet girl.

But I think you're listening to everybody else except the two of you,

and I think you and your husband and be need to move out

uh and get you an apartment and get married right now and then you need to clean up your debt mess and if the donkeys are keeping you from doing that then we need to get rid of the donkeys um and that's not a metaphor that's an actual fact That's a fact.

William is in Harrisburg.

Hey, William, what's up in Pennsylvania? Hi, everything's doing very well, thank you. I'm glad.
How can I help? Mr. Ramsey, first, thank you.
I hooked into you about 15 years ago, and you've changed my life. Oh, I didn't change it.
You did. I'm well because of your input well thank you sir um i have about a hundred thousand dollars that i need to put into my house because of water abatement and mold oh it's been going on a while uh we've been in the house for 30 years and i've just been putting it off and putting it off.
Yeah. That's what I mean.
It's been going on a while. Okay.
Yeah. So I have about 800,000 in retirement, a mixture of Roth IRAs and traditional IRAs.
How old are you? I am 67 years old. Okay.
Retired. How many bids have you gotten on the work? Say again? How many bids have you gotten on the work say again how many bids have you gotten on this work about three or four of them okay so you got a good average you know that 100 000 is an accurate number it's not one guy sticking you correct oh good good for you not your first ride on the cabbage truck okay good okay yep so it is a simple answer of your $800,000 and fix your house.
Okay. Not do a home equity loan.
No, we're not borrowing money when we have $800,000 in the bank. Okay.
And here's the reason I ask. I have a pension and Social Security that puts me at about $85,000.
Yeah. So if I take $100,000 out of my retirement, I'm going to have to pay 30% tax on much of that.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's right. Still paying the 30% tax.
Absolutely. I'm not going in debt.
Not when you're a millionaire. And you're a millionaire.
No. No.
I appreciate it. Easy enough.
That's easy, man. That's a good question.
Well done. Good question, sir, and good answer.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. Another way of asking yourself these questions like William's asking is always reverse engineer it, folks.
That's true. And say, if I had $700,000 in my retirement account, would I go borrow $100,000 to have $800 in? No, I wouldn't.
Same thing. The thing that's throwing him is he doesn't want to pay the tax.
Well, why do people feel? And if he has traditionally, he has required minimum distributions coming up at 72 and a half anyway. That's right.
They're right around the corner. So he's going to have to begin to pull this money down anyway.
I think people think when they roll money into their house, they won't feel it as debt. Like it's almost like in their mind, it doesn't count as debt.
Take a HELOC and do this hundred thousand so yeah you're um williams he's

a saver he is another way of saying it is he's a cheapskate he didn't fix a mold issue that got worse while he's sitting on 800 grand yeah yeah dude go fix your house type one syndrome yeah this is really what you've uh you've been saving too too harshly here brother yeah that's it's good very very good so jade do you want to talk about the donkeys i'm i'm still trying to get my emotions around that one yeah i i didn't completely lose it on the air that's pretty good laughing i was close i thought you're gonna have to phone a friend and see if george would say to sell the donkeys oh george i forgot we should have brought in channeled our inner george i know where is it and now so the the uh the horse people were after george now the donkey people will be after me how do you get from making fun of the donkeys and saying sell the donkey yeah i don't even know how you get into how that becomes your dream in life what set of parents lets the girlfriend move in with their son and bring the donkeys that's over the top it's over the top hon mom i'm bringing a girl home and a couple of donkeys great here's the room upstairs i'm thinking my mom would have said, you're not my child.

Oh, man.

I wouldn't have survived.

I'm bringing the donkeys.

Yeah.

If we could make up these calls that were this good, we'd make them up.

But instead, we just take calls from normal people.