Debt Is Never the Problem, It’s Always the Symptom

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George Campbell, Ramsey personality,

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He is my co-host today, and we're here to help you guys.

Also, check him out on YouTube.

That show's going to Zoom Zoom.

Phone number here is 888-825-5225. Darlene is in Philadelphia.
Hi, Darlene. How are you? Hi, Dave.
I'm great. Thanks for taking my call.
I feel blessed today talking to the both of you. Well, we're honored to have you.
How can we help? So I just wanted some financial advice or thoughts. I'm 54.
I've never been married. I have no children.
I live in a different state than where I grew up. And as I'm aging, I'm realizing that I will likely move back to my home state to have that support in aging in about 10 to 11 years when I retire.
But a job opportunity came up this past fall that I applied for and wasn't expecting to get, but they did offer me the job. And I just have some financial concerns about it.
Not sure if it's wise for me to move back now. So one is the salary there.
And this is through negotiation. They're offering me what I was making last year at my current employer.
Currently, I have a pension. If I leave now, I make right now I make one hundred and four, almost one hundred and five.
But I also we have a lot of overtime. I work in health care and I'll be making like gross about eleven thousand in the overtime this year.
We have a pension. If I leave now, it'll be about $400 a month as opposed to possibly, like I think I figured out, possibly $1,800 a month.
The overtime, they're $403B. They don't start matching.
I have to be there a full year before they start matching. What are they going to pay you what what are they going to pay you base um 102 five and where is it it's in um upstate new york it's in biggumton new york i'm guessing less expensive than the philadelphia area that you're in now really isn't about the same housing housing is, and I go back frequently because I have an elderly father and my family's there.

Really, it's not, there's a lot more taxes.

Income tax is going to be more than what I pay here.

Utilities, I was just looking at my dad's utility bill and they tax a lot compared to what they do here in Pennsylvania. Can you afford to live there comfortably? Are you debt-free with an emergency fund? This wouldn't really cramp your lifestyle too much? Yes.
The numbers are fairly equal. You're not giving me – you're not telling me – It's not a 50% pay cut.
Yeah, it's not like 150 versus 100. It's $104 versus a little bit of difference in cost of living one way or the other,

a little bit of taxes one way or the other.

So the question comes down to where does Darlene want to live and where does Darlene want to work?

Okay, because I was concerned about the pension, losing that money for the pension,

as well as the overtime that they don't give.

Like, I wouldn't make overtime there.

I wouldn't have to work as much.

What does Darlene want to do?

Okay.

No, we're going to be working overtime.

What do you want to do?

You know, I'm used to the money, and I've got to be honest, Dave,

everything that you speak is how my parents raised us.

I mean, it's to a T.

So I just want to make sure I have enough money going, you know, moving back. Am I what? Are you a nurse? I'm in rehab.
I'm a speech therapist. Okay.
So you can pick up side hustles, too, if you wanted to. I can, but I did side hustles for, like, 22 years.
No, I'm saying if you're going to do overtime, overtime is called side hustle. It's the same thing.
Yeah, yeah. So if you were up there and you picked up a side gig doing some tutoring, so to speak, then you could offset the overtime difference.
So it really does come down to quality of life because the numbers you're giving me aren't like, whoa, you know, there's not any real thing that breaks the camel's back here. So no straw here.
Okay, that's what I wanted to get clear. The thing with the pension and the overtime, that was kind of throwing me off.
Yeah, you're a very analytical person, and I am too. but I want you to just say, okay, God, which of these two things gives me peace? Right.
What causes you to exhale? And as Deloney says, your shoulders drop. Is it staying or is it going? And that's the answer to my question, if I'm you, what do you think? Yeah.
Well, I think there's more than the numbers here that she needs to dig into of what is, is it the fear of just change at 54? Is it, is it going to be, is the grass greener on that side? What if I move in life isn't different? And so that's the stuff you got to grapple with on top of just doing the budget. And I think the numbers are going to work themselves out.

It's more the other pieces that I think she's really concerned about.

There's no grass that's green up there this time of year on either place.

It's going to be cold either way, Darlene.

So just make the move, be closer to family, and you're a hard worker.

You're going to be fine financially. Yeah, you're going to be okay.

And nothing's set in stone.

And by the way, if you don't like it, you can change it.

But I think that's a good idea. You know, it is real smart to look at cost of living because everyone automatically assumes, and she's very wise to have done the research she's done, they automatically assume if you're going to a different area that it's going to be a lot more, it's going to be a lot less.
And sometimes it is, but main factor in that, as she recognizes, usually real estate. Oh, yeah.
Usually that's the main difference. I mean, the difference in Los Angeles or San Francisco and small town USA is gas prices, little bread and eggs, little housing, a lot.
That's the one. Yeah, that's the one that throws you, and it just changes everything.
In Tennessee, we have no income tax, so people don't realize if you get a job in Tennessee, even of a pay cut, it might be equal comparatively to California or New York where you have a lot of income taxes. Yeah, I was noticing an article this morning, a million people have left New York and California.
Wow, because we've been covering this since covid with the migration in the last 12 months and it just has continued yeah it's continued and and they're landing in income tax-free states texas look at that texas and florida are the two primaries and tennessee falls in there too but um they landed income tax-free states and and they land in states that were open during the the draconian shutdowns and so uh freedom issues and um so financial and political i mean a million people have been displaced wow a million and uh left those two states and went somewhere else so yeah that does enter into it taxes uh it turns out you can't tax the rich. They leave.
They will just peace out. I'm gone.
They leave. They have options.
So much for your theory on that. It's a, I'm done.
You know, load up the U-Haul. Oh, wait, I'm rich.
I'll let someone else load up the U-Haul. That's the real flex.
Yeah. That's where I want to be in life.
No movers ever again. I'm not doing it.
I'm not lifting a finger. Yeah.
And also, you need to even, somebody said, Dave, you have a pickup. Do you have those friends that ask you to help move? And I said, no.
They wouldn't be friends. No one's ever texted you.
I'm not moving anybody. Saying, Dave, can I borrow the truck? You want me to help you move.
Do you mean you want me to pay your mover? You want me to help you move. Is that what you mean? I would rather support a GoFundMe for you to get movers than me help you load up that truck.
I'm not doing either one. If you need a GoFundMe to move, you've got other issues.
Don't ask Dave to borrow his Raptor. He

will not allow it. No.
It's your own Raptor. Or my 64-year-old back, either one.
You can't have

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or podcast click the link or you can go to ramsey solutions.com backslash store jared is with us in oklahoma city hi jared welcome to the ramsey show hi how are you guys doing better than we deserve brother what's up i know that um so i'm 23 and I'm saving up to buy a house and i was looking for guidance because i i'm the first time buying i have no idea where i'm going i've almost got my 20 and that's where i'm at good for you what do you do for a living uh i do pest control good for you so how much have you got saved? Filling bugs apparently pays.

Yeah.

I've got $26,000, and I'll have the rest of it by mid-January.

Wow.

What's the rest?

I'll have about $4,000 or $5,000.

Yeah.

Good for you.

What do you make?

$70,000.

Yeah. You're single, obviously.
Yes, and I do nothing but work. 60, 70 hours, sometimes 80 hours a week.
Right now it's grind time. Jared is no fun, but he has money.
That's fun. Jared's going to be a homeowner in his early 20s.
That's fun. Way to go, Jared.
What you're saying about living like nobody else? You're doing it or all that i i'm just working like a dog right now so i can enjoy a little bit of my food so you have any debt uh no good and you have an emergency fund in addition to this down payment that was going to be my next you're next. I saved roughly.
My next.

After I buy it, I was just going to pick up a side.

No, we'll take some of the money and make it the emergency fund,

and then we'll save up the down payment.

You don't move into a house without an emergency fund,

because houses are an emergency looking for a place to happen.

Yeah.

Yeah, like crap breaks.

Like as soon as you move in. It's like murphy's law a repairman at my house today and it was and it's brand new they don't make them like they used to well i mean it's just part life it's just like stuff you got the more stuff you have the more repairman you have to know it's an exposed wooden box stuff's gonna happen so you need the emergency three to six months of expenses.
So add up what your expenses are for one month. Multiply it for a single guy like you.
You could lean towards a three to four month mark. Anything above that becomes your down payment.
And 20% down is a great goal because you'll avoid PMI, which is private mortgage insurance. Which means you're now looking at March.
Okay. That's reasonable.
But that's still okay. Yeah, that's good.
Listen, dude, you're killing it. I'm so proud of you.
Way to go. Who taught you to be this smart? Um, honestly, I honestly, nobody.
Okay. I'm just like, and it's not like a bad thing.
Like I was just, I mean, kind of you. I took your class was in our high school.
There we go. And I kind of remember, and then we had this class called DECA.
It's like a – Oh, yeah. It teaches you how to present.
Oh, yeah. I think Rachel did that.
Rachel was in DECA, yeah. I was student.
I was the president of the class senior year, and I went to nationals. It was supposed to

be in Nashville, but COVID hit tragically. So I was first in the school.
Way to go, Jared. Way to go.
So man, you are doing so good. The only thing I would coach you on is to do that.
What we talked about, let's have the down payment plus the emergency fund, which puts us into March. and then when you are getting ready to buy, do not buy a project, something you have to work on all the time.
No, that's a definite one. Okay.
And do not buy – and buy something that's easy to resale, which means it's kind of boring. It's not like some kind of weird.

Do what?

My price is between like $150 and $200.

That's a good price range.

But when you're spending the money, don't buy something that you look at it

and go, oh, I got a good deal because this is weird.

Because when you get ready to sell it, somebody's going to get a good deal

because it's weird.

And you're going to sell it when you get married because you will find out you bought the wrong house when you find her so that's okay go ahead and buy the house but buy something that you can resell and make money on fairly easily and you'll you know you'll be sitting there at 27 with a big grin on your face having made a bank on this $150,000 house is now $300,000.

Yeah, I don townhome. You buy in a good area with good schools.
You start to look at this stuff. And it was a nice place, but in terms of it wasn't like super special or unique.
It's nobody's dream home. It wasn't weird.
It was just like, okay,, okay, boom, that's one. That's right.
Three bedroom townhome is all it was. And, and yeah.
And, and during the time you owned it, it went up how much? Oh my goodness. I mean, three years we lived there, it went up over 200 grand.
Yeah. That's what I just did.
And we bought it at three. And so you're talking almost a hundred percent.
I just did that. So it went 150 to 300, just like, yeah, when he's 27 in three years.
That's amazing. So do it the right way.
You want this to be no more than a quarter of your take-home pay on that mortgage, and make sure you choose a 15-year. Yeah.
Because you're too young to have a 30-year mortgage sitting around your neck. 15-year fixed because a paid-off home mortgage is one of the keys to being a baby steps millionaire.
Caden is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hey, Caden, what's up? Hey.
Hey, Dave. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve.
How can I help? So I just wanted to come on and just ask a quick question. You know, I took your class last year with a Sunday school class, but I'm a recent graduate from Clemson.
I just graduated in May. Congratulations.

Thank you, sir.

And I wound up in a pretty good situation financially with my present work.

But I'm pursuing medical school in the near future.

I'm looking at possibly starting in about two years from right now.

But I'm just wondering, how is the best way to save up for something of that magnitude? Aggressively. Okay.
I mean, how much are you making? You said a good situation. What did you land in? I'm making about $60,000 salary.
But I think when overtime comes, which is I'll get salary and overtime, um, I could easily, you know, working, we're working extra hours,

probably wind up in the 70 to 80 range. Good.
Okay. And just live like a college student and

bank all of it, right? Yes. So would it be best to try to knock that down and like pay off all

of that or take out a, take out a, you know or take out a loan for the four years of medical school?

Caden, you went through our class.

Yes.

Yeah.

You never heard me ever tell somebody to borrow money, have you?

No, sir.

Probably not going to start today, brother.

Dang, that would have been amazing, though.

Caden was the first one ever.

All right, I'll make it. I want you to save like a maniac, and I want you to go to a medical school that you can afford.
And I've got a feeling you're going to be almost ready to pay cash for it if you watch what you're doing. Now, the problem with medical school is people get so excited when they get accepted, and sometimes they get accepted to a place they can't afford and um very few times do you go to your doctor and go uh wait a minute doc before we do the exam where'd you go to school no one asks all they ask is do you have that md if there's a frame on the wall i go all right i'm good i'm assuming to start with that you have a clue an md do your research that's what you're after.
Find out what these schools cost and choose an affordable one. It's a big difference out there.
Huge spectrum. It's mind-blowing what some of these places charge.
It's like all college, for that matter, and what some of them don't charge. This is The Ramsey Show.
For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes.

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. Lauren is in St.
Paul. Hi, Lauren.
Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Well, hello, Dave.
How are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, I have a question regarding long-term health care insurance.

My husband and I, back when we were married, bought whole life insurance policies

because that's what our parents did for us, so we changed them over on and on.

Our financial advisor is suggesting that we cash those in

and invest in a long-term care insurance for nursing home and that in the future. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that situation.
Well, cashing the whole life in is a no-brainer, assuming you have enough life insurance to take care of you. What's your else net worth? Right now, about $600,000.
Okay. And how old are you guys? We are 62 and 64.
Okay. If he dies with no life insurance, are you okay? Yes.
Yes. I mean, financially.
Yes. Yes.
I would be fine. Yes.
Because that does not include what his – so he's a minister, and he would get, like, a retirement through there also. That survives him? Yes, yeah.
He cannot collect that until he's 67 1⁄2. But you can collect it if he dies? Yes, I can.
Okay, all right. So you're okay to eat.
You don't need life insurance. So dropping the whole life is a no-brainer.
Okay. Right.
Now, long-term care insurance, what you want to do there is you want to shop it among several different companies. Okay.
And basically try to get the best deal, in other words. And so I don't know who your, what's your financial advisor.
If they're selling only for one company, that's a problem. Do they sell only for one company? No, she suggested several different ones.
Good. Okay.
That's good. Here's what you get.
Here's what you get today. You get three years of coverage and that will cover cover 90-some-odd percent of the cases.
Very few people live three years once they get to a nursing home statistically. It's 2.8 years on average.
What normally happens is mom and dad go along like you guys have, and you've got a good nest egg here, and 75% of you ladies outlive their husbands i don't know

exactly what's going on there but we'll talk about that later so um and so papa papa goes into a nursing home burns up three or four hundred thousand dollars because it's a hundred hundred and something thousand dollars a year if he's there three years it's 300 grand of your 600 and then dies and leaves mama with the nest egg having been scrambled and fried.

So. years is 300 grand of your 600 and then dies and leaves mama with the nest egg having been scrambled and fried so i think you guys are a real candidate for nursing home insurance the three years of coverage that you probably can buy and it's fairly reasonable if you shop around and you know you want to you know the other look for a feature that has in-home care as well because it's sometimes cheaper and some and oftentimes a better quality of life to have in-home care and so yeah i think you're getting good advice okay no red flags here What our concern concern was it would swing us up to um quite a big payout every month for this insurance and so just you know how much are they quoting you 679 a month for both that would be two two hundred thousand dollar life insurance or long-term care yeah Yeah, and how much are you getting out of the whole life policies? What are they valued at right now? Yeah, what's your cash value you're going to get when you close them? Between the two of us, around $52,000.
Yeah, so it pays for it. But the cost seems very reasonable.
I mean, I'm seeing the stat here in 2023. Average 60-year-old man paid $1,200 per year.
That's about right. For a level policy.
I don't hear anything that your financial advisor is saying that's like shooting rockets off wrong. It's all correct.
The only thing you need to do is get down in the details and understand it and get comfortable with it. You're going to use some of that 50 grand offset your first year of costs to move that in, maybe some of the second year.
And, you know, then you've got to decide how far out you want to stretch this. Now you are 64.
If you don't touch the 600, by the time you're 71, you will drop the long term because you'll have a million two to a million five. You can stomach the risk at that point.
Exactly. That's the point of insurance.
It'll transfer risk to the insurance company instead of you. And right now you guys couldn't stomach that with your net worth to take a $300,000 hit.
Yeah. So George, it suddenly occurred to me, I've told people all these years, don't buy long-term care insurance until you're 60.
And I really haven't talked a lot about if you build substantial wealth that you you self insure until I just woke up and went, dadgum, I'm 64. So what, what happens if Sharon or I are in a situation where we're incapacitated? Well, I get, you know, we've got money.
And so I don't mean that in a bragging way, but you know what I'm going to do? Uh, get like a bed that lets up and down and hire somebody to live there and take care of one of us Dave's not leaving it's a lot you know I you think I'm no we're you know you don't want to play bingo um you can do that at home yeah online or something but yeah no I mean it's just that I I can hire a dadgum medical butler and not think anything about it, you know, full time, put them in the house, take care of us or her or me or whoever it is. And the other one be just equip this, create the same exact environment, but better in your own home because you got the money to do it.
You're self-insured. And I just determined that's what we'll do.
So we're not a candidate for a nursing home under any circumstances.

I can think of, I mean, I guess there'd be some extreme thing maybe, but I mean, at this

moment in time, financially, we don't need to do that.

Well, think about the cost, 350 grand.

So think about that as part of your net worth as the listener.

If you can stomach that from your nest egg without it affecting your life, you could self-insure. That's your average.
That's the average. With the average stay, which means that some people don't make it that long and some make it longer, right? And so, you know, you've got early onset and good health.
You could be there 10 years. Yeah.
I'm seeing the stat here. 20% will need it for more than five years.

Okay. So one in five people will have a longer stay.
Yeah. Like you said, most people it's, you know, two years.
Average is 2.8. Yeah.
So good. Christina is in San Francisco.
Hi, Christina. How are you? Hi, Dave.
I'm pretty good. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What's up? Well, I'm a disabled veteran.

I got my disability in 2020, and I got a sizable check and wanted to buy a house with that. And I make about $4,200 a month on the disability, which is very good.
so I ended up just buying a piece of land because the whole process of like trying to find a good real estate agent didn't work out well. And then I waited to build.
And then here I am four years later, and I have not built a house yet. There's no utilities on the property yet.
I'm living in my travel trailer on the property legally. Um, but I still don't have a house and, um, we're, we're trying to work through the process.
My dad is now helping me. I cannot afford really to build on my own.
I need him to help me. I need a co-signer and, and you can't afford to build.
And I, yeah, I can't afford to build. You bid off more than you can chew, huh? Pretty much.
Yeah. And so the property, it's in a city, you know, it's a half acre.
So it's a great size. I bought it for $250,000 with 25% down, which was required by the lender.
So now I only owe about $160,000 on it, and it's worth $ it's worth 265 or it's assessed by the county at 265. Then it's worth 365 or 400.
It's probably, it would probably sell for more than I bought it for. Oh, I think so.
You need to sell it and buy something you can afford. There's no point in keeping it.
Honey, you can't, if you can't do it without a co- need to be doing it. You're going to get yourself and your dad in a pinch, okay? I wouldn't do that.
Well, but yeah, the concern is that right now I'm paying about a quarter of my monthly income for just the land loan. Yeah, so sell the land.
Yeah. And go buy something you can afford.
You can't afford to build on it, huh? That's what you told me. And I don't want you to do that.
I appreciate you serving your country, and I don't want you to get handcuffed to a bad deal. And I don't want your dad handcuffed to a bad deal.
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Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Glenn in New York.
Should I change my investing strategy? I'm 50 years old and debt-free with an emergency fund. I currently put 10% in a Roth IRA and another 5% in my 401k from work.
Should I contribute more to my 401k to max it out or get with a financial advisor and start investing in individual mutual funds? Currently, I have around $600,000 in my 401k and the Roth has about $20k. All right, so we're debt-free.
We're 50. That's good.
We're investing 15%. So the question is, does he have a mortgage and is the house paid off? If so, I would continue to invest more and max out those accounts before working with the individual mutual funds outside of retirement.
Yeah. If you're in baby step seven, meaning and your house is paid off, we don't use the 15% rule.

We say max out all available retirement accounts, everything you can put in a 401k, everything you can put in the Roth.

If your company has a Roth 401k instead of a traditional 401k, I would shift to that, too.

That would be my plan.

But I'm with you, George.

If your home is not paid off, then you need to be working and pay off your home and leave this at 15%. You're fine.
You're in good shape, dude. I mean, when you are 57, you're going to have a million, too, if you don't add anything to it.
When you are 64, you're going to have 2.4 if you don't add anything to it. So, you know, if you're invested in good mutual funds, it sounds like you are.
It sounds like you're doing the right things here all the way around. But no, I don't think you need to move to individual mutual funds.
The only reason you would move some to that is if you were going to quit work before 59 and a half. I don't see that happening here.
I didn't hear anything in this email that made me think that was going to occur. If that's the case, you would need to do what we call bridge investing, which is have some money that's not in a retirement account that you can get to before 59 and a half to have something to eat with.
That's always a nice plan too. So that eating thing is good.
So, yeah, I mean, that's it. And, George, that's the second time in this hour we, you're that, that's, that's it.

And George, that's the second time in this hour we've used that.

So here, here's a little quick lesson, boys and girls.

Um, there's a thing called a math anomaly called the rule of 72.

And if you take an interest rate or a growth rate on your mutual fund, divide it into the number 72, it will, it will tell you how long it takes a lump sum to double. Okay? And so if you're making 10% on your mutual fund's average into 72, it's 7.2 years to double.
And so that's what I just did. I'm assuming he's going to be making at least that.
If he's 50, at 57, he would have not 600, but 1.2. At 64, seven more years, he would have 2.4.
And we could go all the way to 71 and have him sitting there at almost $5 million. And this played out in real life, Dave.
I went back and looked at the actual stats. Under Trump's presidency, the first term, three and a half years in, the stock market was up 53%.
Under Biden term three and a half years in the stock market was up 53 under biden three and a half years in it was up 50 so 103 return in exactly seven years exactly what you say the stock market doubled in those seven years yeah and that's about what it'll do so this is not just an opinion or a math formula it plays out in reality and that's the averages i mean you know and so we don't know what's going to happen from here exactly but that's that's you know that's a good thing to kind of coach yourself along and go i think i'm going to be okay the key is to be in raj is in san francisco hey raj what's up hi how you doing um uh first time caller long time mister glad to be on the show well thank you How can we help? Okay, so I'm a tax professional. I'm an enrolled agent.
Recently on the news, I've been hearing that in order to reduce government inefficiencies and the Trump and team might remove income taxes and replace them with tariffs. That's all good.
You know, that's okay. But for a tax professional, how would I, I'm 33 years old, I have like about five years experience in the field.
How would I facilitate a career change if that were to happen? I don't think it might happen, but you know, just in case it does. Well, you figure out what your talents and passions were that drew you into

this in the first place. So I'm guessing you're like me, you're a bit of a math nerd.
You're quick with details. Your mind grasps decision-making flow charts on things like taxes.
And so, you know, that tells me you need to move towards accounting. Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe some other things in accounting that are not taxes,

like maybe audit.

Yeah. That tells me you need to move towards accounting.
Yeah, maybe some other things in accounting that are not taxes, like maybe audit. Exactly, exactly.
Something in private accounting. Yeah, and or finance of all kinds.
And so your mind naturally goes there. And you know what? I'm with you.
I don't see this as a high probability in the near future. There could be a trend in that direction.

It could take a while.

The chances on, you know, three days after he is sworn in that you don't have a job are zero.

So you're okay.

We don't have to worry about this today.

But what it does do, it's interesting for you personally,

is it kind of gives you that wake-up call to go,

hey, maybe I want to do something with my life that's more than just taxes. Maybe I want to broaden my horizons.
Yeah, I've been in the field, and the whole time I've been in the field, I was thinking that there's only two things that are true, is death and taxes. Well, now we know one of them might not be true.
Well, it might be'll just take a different form um and and so the but again the the the talents that you have the way your mind works easily for you and hard for others it takes you towards detail and towards finance and accounting and so i you know you might sit for your cpa dude you might you might move i might go ahead and this is just a thing that says, hey, time for me to take the next step in my career, regardless of Trump, regardless of what they do. We're not going to sit and wait around the White House to fix or destroy our lives, either one.
We're just going to go with our lives. What's the right thing to do? And so maybe this is just God giving you a little nudge.
So you need to get some education, some skills, and maybe expand the horizons a bit.

I would.

I think it'd be good for your practice anyway.

Yeah.

Because right now you've got a very seasonal thing that you work like a maniac, and then

you're off the rest of the year, basically.

I mean, 90% down.

And so it's not like September's big in the tax prep business, you know?

So, you know, we do a little work around this time of year in the tax prep business, because

Thank you. So it's not like September's big in the tax prep business, you know.
So, you know, we do a little work around this time of year in the tax prep business because people are getting ready for year-end stuff, especially small business people. Those kinds of things are some moves you can make right now.
You need to check with your tax pro right now, baby. But by and large, you know, you got this sprint in the first quarter, takes you down to April 15 or so, and may spill over into May with some late filings and stuff.
But after that, you're just kind of out. So I'd be looking for something to supplement anyway.
Absolutely. And maybe find a niche.
You might find you like working with a certain type of client and that might be your specialty that you dive into. Yeah, we've got tax ELPs, people that we endorse to do taxes, endorse local providers, thousands of them all across America, and we are not advising them to prepare for their business to end.
Yeah, I'd turn off the news if you're getting paralyzed by that. Yeah.
Again, I have no idea any more than anybody else what the new president's going to do, but it's going to be a bit. It's going to be a bit.
Things move slower than that. I don't think you're going to get a call one day and go, whoop, there's no income tax.
Although on a personal note, it wouldn't piss me off at all if there was just suddenly no income tax. I'd be going, oh, wow.
You mean all the things that the money that I make helping people, I get to keep the money that I made? That's right. And it's not triple taxed.
Instead of sending it to you people? Have you ever thought about that though? When you get, you're taxed on your income, you then use that money, it's taxed again. And then the person who gets that money pays taxes on the money they get as the business owners it just keeps going and then when you die they tax you again the death tax yeah on your estate yeah so just an endless taxation of the dollar yeah it's just um yeah i have thought about it am i turning into a boomer i you you are you've been sitting next to one for too long and the it's rubbed off the um the the spirit of rage is leaving my body and moving into Oh no soon i'm gonna be yelling at kids to get off my lawn yeah that happened to me this week actually but oh well it was your grandkids dave it's different it was no of my neighbor yelled at me to get off his lawn but yeah uh there you go a bold move yeah old move he was sort of kidding maybe this is Ramsey Show.
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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. George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book

Breaking Free from Broke, on sale on Cyber Monday right now at RamseySolutions.com. He's my co-host.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ann is in Phoenix.
Hi, Ann. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.
Hi. Hi.
What's up? So my question is, is it worth dipping into our emergency fund while we fight insurance to make sure I'm okay medically? A little more into that, I think I'm having an ectopic pregnancy. And my husband's off for dipping into the emergency fund because he's already done the math.
He's 20 steps ahead. And instead of fighting insurance, he would rather just make sure I'm okay, literally Thursday, and then fighting insurance for a month and I have to go in for emergency surgery.
Um, well, I think your husband is 100% right.

It sounds like an emergency to me.

It's urgent, it's necessary, and it's unexpected.

Yeah.

Checks the boxes.

And what are you, a Navy SEAL?

You don't think you need to do this?

I mean, no, you need to take care of yourself, girl.

To me, it's the insurance's problem.

Like, we have, he's military, so we have insurance's military i think it's your problem you're sick yeah okay i think you fight with them i would argue with them up and down and i would i would go all you know i'd go all in right now and be tearing their freaking heads off but but at the end of the day we've been doing that for about two weeks yeah well don't stop Yeah, don't stop. Just keep doing it up until the day of.
But, yeah, you need to go and take care of yourself. Okay.
Sounds like your husband's worried about you. Yes, he is.
He's very worried. Okay.
What's the cost out of pocket? It would be initially just for the ultrasound. It's, um, $500.
And I, I am, I was a, I had a really bad spending habit. I love shopping.
I'd get it from every female I'm related to. So spending money now feels like a heart attack in my chest.
Oh, cause you've overcome impulsive shopping. Well, listen listen an ultrasound when you're having a baby is not impulse okay now i would do this i will tell you that if you will shop around the wonderful town of phoenix you will find that you can probably get that ultrasound done for 250 yeah there's lots of places to do ultrasounds and their price again, if you say no insurance cash when I walk in, what's your best deal? Like I want a coupon.
Like you're a shopper. Okay? Okay.
You're going to find that. We find this all the time.
I've actually advertised for a few ultrasound places over the years in certain cities, and not one in Phoenix and not lately, so I don't know the name of it. But I remember this concept.
They came to us and go, oh, the reason everybody charges 500 or 600 bucks is because insurance will pay it. But if you walk in there with cash, you can get it for 200.
And that's what that company told us that does ultrasound. So, and they advertised that for a while to try to steal business from the insurance ultrasound people or whatever, but yeah, shop around, get a better deal, but take care okay husband's right you're worth it by the way give him a good hug he's a good man okay showing up on the scene taking care of his wife salute yes he's a fantastic husband yes he is they're out there there's also an app taken but they're out There's an app called.
Yeah, that's true. There's an app called Billy Dave.
They're not a sponsor of ours, but they have this cool app where it shows transparent pricing for procedures. So you can type in the CPT code.
It'll tell you in your area what the cheapest facility is for that specific procedure. It's pretty cool.
So it might be something you can check out as she does her research. I've never tried it personally, but I've heard good things.
So it might be an option to at least know you're not getting screwed. See, I have a concept, and George has an actual technical hack.
There's an app for that, Dave. George has always got a technical hack for my good concept.
I've got about 400 apps on my phone. I didn't even know that.
That's so cool. Way to go, George.
Yeah. Billy.
We've talked to them. What's it named after? Bill Clinton? I don't know.
I don't know if it's Billy as in the bill, like the medical bills. Oh, it is.
That's what it is. I don't know.
Billy Goat. We'll find out.
But it could be. I'm all about transparency because I'm the one who hates getting screwed, feeling like I overpaid for something.
So just to know I'm not getting screwed and this is actually a good deal makes me sleep better at night. I've been paying cash for medical stuff for a long time out of pocket.
And you gotta do is just go hey i'm paying cash it's not insurance and most of the time it's discount yeah boom i used to work at a doctor's office when i was 14 years old as the receptionist and if they were cash paid yes can you imagine walking in and seeing me george how tall were you at 14 about the same height over the desk i maxed out at five and a half. That was it.
You were the receptionist in a doctor's office at 14. That's right.
Things I learned while I'm on the air in front of millions of people about Georgia. That was my first real job, Dave.
Twelve bucks an hour. Wow.
You could pay big money back then. That was good money back then for a 15-year-old? Are you kidding me? Well, I mean, they were seriously overpaying you.

But I remember we'd get the bills for the procedures,

and if they were a cash pay, the doctor would have me note it,

and it would be a severely discounted rate.

You got that at 14?

At 14, I figured that out.

This is how George ends up with a book called Breaking Free from Broke.

He knows about Billy, and he knows about...

I can't mow a lawn to save my life, but I know a CP code george learns the hack for the medical system wow not on your bingo card i did not see that coming today george answering the phone i'm a renaissance man dave you answered the phone did you have a little headset no i mean it was you know people walking up It was more in person. I'd answer the phones, which I was really good at.
So, I mean, seriously, folks, and babies are one of the things that we've discovered this with the most. And this was all the way back from the early days doing the show before health care was what it is now, good or bad, whatever you want to call it.
But in those days, sometimes people did not have labor and delivery coverage on their health system, on their health plan. And what we learned was if you go to the hospital to have a baby, it's one of the few times that people want to go to the hospital.
It's a good thing to go to the hospital. Most of the other times you're at the hospital, it's a bad thing, right? And so labor and delivery is like good PR for hospitals.
So if for some reason you find yourself not covered, go to the hospital in the first trimester and say, I'm going to choose a hospital based on the deal that you give me for labor and delivery, and I'm going to pay cash, and I will pay 50% of it up front before we here. And the other 50% on the day we arrive.
So you will not be trying to collect and it's cash on the barrel head and you will see a 50 to a 70% reduction. And that's what, that's what we normally see from hospitals again, because they really like babies to come to their place.
Cause it's the time that people come to the hospital everyone involved the visitors are smiling the participant is smiling everybody right and so families all visiting there yeah it's a good thing so you know take keep in mind they this is business they want in other words um and so and you know you're a cash buyer you don't have insurance. This is how it's going to be.
They don't have to chase you for the money. They got the money up front.
They like that. Serious discount.
That works in a lot of stuff out there, ladies and gentlemen. But yes, if you are pregnant and you're having trouble with your pregnancy, that is by definition an emergency.
If you need to use some of your emergency fund, that's what it's for. This is the Ramsey Show.

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George Camel Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
DJ is with us in Austin, Texas. Hi, DJ.
How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for the call.
Sure. What's up? Ironically, I'm a long-time listener, all right, and didn't know it, but I followed the steps and have, without formal introduction to those steps, all right, I didn't realize.
You had common sense. I guess, all right, because by accident, as I look back on it, all right, geez, I said, I've been doing exactly what you're talking about and what you outlined.
Great, great advice. I agree with 90%, 95% of everything you said.
Cash is king. My question is, once we get to your level or we get to the level that you would think is the top.

What's your thoughts on maintaining that?

A whole lot harder to compound at this level than it was to get here.

And I'm just amazed at what's going on in our world today and the leaks and the shots that everybody's taken to take it away from you okay um well the the hard thing is not the actual compounding because uh a million dollars invested in mutual funds does the exact same that 10 million does does the exact same that 100 million does it's the exact same that $100 million does. It's the exact same compounding.
A million dollars invested in good real estate does the exact same thing $100 million does in good real estate. So the compounding is not the problem.
The problem is a stinking taxation and estate planning and maintaining your sanity as you manage more and more assets in terms of not letting it drive you bonkers because the more stuff you own, the more repairmen you have to know kind of thing. And so actually getting peace from it rather than anxiety from it.
You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. I know very much what you're saying.
So the spiritual aspect of it is more challenging. The tax and estate planning is more challenging because, as you said, more people are taking shots at it.
And really risk management becomes a thing because, you know, all of a sudden somebody wants to just sue you because they got a hangnail and they think it's easy money. So you've got to have risk management.
So those are things that I've noticed have come into play. And I think you just manage those things as if they're individual sciences.
That's what I've done. I've said, okay, risk management, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to study that. I'm going to learn about, you know, how to, how to split up the pie into small enough pieces that it doesn't have a big target on it.
And it doesn't, it's not as attractive to everyone to sue. I'm also going to not settle with anyone.
I'm going to destroy them if they come after me and try to get easy money. Um, I'm going to make an example out of them and their jack leg ambulance chasing attorney.
i've done that um i'm going to i mean

i just set some policies in place um and said okay here's what we're going to do and obviously

buy insurance and obviously i don't own anything anymore everything's in some kind of a trust or

an llc or a c corp or s corp one of the two and and uh then estate planning i've spent you know

a couple hundred grand over the last 20 years on estate planning maybe more've spent, you know, a couple of hundred grand over the last

20 years on estate planning, maybe more, to save 20 or 30 million in estate taxes.

And so, and then the same thing on income tax, which is just an ongoing thing. So, I mean,

all I've done is I've just had to get better at those things as the size has gotten better.

But the compounding is really not any trouble with the money making money. It's kind of,

Thank you. at those things as the size has gotten better.
But the compounding is really not any trouble with the money making money. It's kind of bizarre.
Well, you don't have debt attached to it. All that real estate cash flow is way better.
Yeah. Yeah.
And if you just leave the investments alone, it'll grow. Yeah.
And so it's just, it's one of the things that comes with the, you know, I'm a Christian, a person of faith, and so I believe I'm not the owner. I'm managing it for God.
And so if God asks me to manage something larger and more sophisticated, then I have to grow my skills, including the size of my backbone to handle whatever anxiety or stress that comes with it. Well, and the fight, if I need to fight, including, um, the, uh, uh, just growing my brain about some of these subjects that I didn't know before.
And that kind of thing is part of becoming a manager of, you know, if you're going to manage, you know, one restaurant, it's different than managing 500 restaurants. It's a different skillset, you know? And so even if you're a manager and you don't not the owner you're working for someone else which is how i view it also by the way dj i'll just throw out again my faith journey with that has really really kept me from most of the time from being stressed out about this stuff because i just go uh god you got a problem you have a problem i'm the manager what do you want to do with your thing over here they got this situation you know and in prayer i just say okay lord what do you want to do with your deal here and sometimes he says you want to fix that for me god because i i don't know what i'm supposed to do here and uh it's your thing so what do you not all in your show call the owner and go the heat and The renter called and said the heat and air is out.
You know, call the owner. And so I call the owner sometimes, and I remember it.
I'm not God. I don't have to have all the answers.
I'm not perfect. I'm going to just do the best I can do with the next right step.
And that's released me from a large percentage of the stress that a lot of people feel in those situations where your wealth has come.

You feel like you could just screw it up overnight.

Yeah.

I'm not going to screw it up overnight because I'm not going to make one

single thing that blows the whole thing up.

I'm not,

I'm not doing anything that's that reactionary or that risk.

I'm not that I'm too risk averse to do that,

but yeah,

it's just,

it's interesting.

So good stuff. All right.
Jennifer is in Portland, Maine. Hi, interesting.
So good stuff.

All right, Jennifer is in Portland, Maine.

Hi, Jennifer.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

Thank you so much for taking my call, Dave.

I've been following you for about 20 years, and when I first heard you, I became debt-free, and we moved to Maine.

We paid off our home in 10 years, and it's given us financial freedom, so thank you.

Well, thank you.

Way to go.

The reason I'm calling is I have an older cousin.

I'm her only living relative.

She has left everything in her will to me.

She has a home that's paid for that's worth about $150,000.

She has a $30,000 HELOC on there that's variable. She owes back taxes for last year of $4,300, and she's going to owe another $4,300 come due in January.
She has $30,000 worth of unpaid credit cards that she stopped paying on about three years ago. She did have somebody convinced her to lease a Jeep and she paid that off, but then she went back to them and took a really high interest to loan out.
And we're just I mean, we're just kind of sitting here wondering

what we should do if she lost this home, she'd have nowhere to go. She's got bad credit and no money.
How old is she? 77. And she's not in overly the best of health.
Um, she does have an income of $3,500 a month that we've been trying to convince her to budget all these last three years. Yeah.
And she has not done anything really to help herself. Right.
So that's her problem then. Well, we're wondering, would it behoove us to pay the taxes and the HELOC off knowing that we're going to...
Knowing that she's going to go borrow it again in summer? Hmm. Yeah, I don't...
I would hope to... Well, this woman has a track record that's abysmal.
It's like every time something gets cleaned up, she messes it up again. Right.
I don't want to be a part of that. Right.
Right. She, I mean, okay, so you pay off the HELOC and then the Jeep gets repoed and they sue her.
And so she goes and takes out another HELOC to pay the lawsuit. That's what, that's what's coming.
Yeah. I don't, I hate to say it, but I don't think she's smart enough to realize she could even do that.
She's smart enough to get the HELOC the first time. Well, her husband, who is deceased.
Did he do the Jeep? No. Did he run up the credit cards? No.
I wouldn't do this, Jennifer. Jennifer.
Okay. You're throwing good money after bad.
I would coach her. I would love her.
I would be cheering for her. I would write

zero checks. And the estate will pay off her debts and whatever's left.
If there is anything,

you'll get it. I doubt there will be.
I wouldn't have any expectation there. No,

no. I think she needs to, I would scare the P.
Wadden out of her.

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It is that time of year. In a few weeks, we're going to be doing your all's favorite show here on the Ramsey show, the giving show where we hear from people who have received gifts that were life-changing or given gifts that were life-changing.
And for three hours, we talk about that to inspire you to live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else. So we need to hear from you if you want to be part of that show and share your story of giving or receiving.
That'll make our eyes leak and inspire people. I love it.
Go to RamseySolutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the subject line.
Leave us a little bit about your story. Team will get with you and set you up to be part of that program.
It's going to be on December the 18th, so you need to get your submissions in now. We do want to hear your story.
Please go to RamseySolutions.com slash ask, put giving in the subject line. Brady is in Houston.

Hi, Brady.

How are you?

I'm good. How are you, Gordon? How are you, David? Good.
How can we help? Hey, I appreciate it. So me and my wife have come to the agreement that my current position, I'm a business owner, and it's not likely to get us to the goals that we've set that we want to end up in our lives.
And my question to you is my wife is not willing to move away to find the right job that does that. She wants to stay close to her family.
She's very close with them. They're close with her, and I'm close with them as well, but I'm more willing to go out and find that job, you know, far away from here, if that's what it is.
And she's very resilient to making that change. And there's not much job offers nearby where we live, but there are, you know, hour, hour and a half away from here.
So how can I communicate that? I'm in Brenham. Yeah.
It's about an hour and a half outside of Houston. Okay.
So Houston's my nearest big town. And so.
What kind of job are you looking for? Got a job. I'm a mechanical engineer.
I've done, I've got experience in oil and gas and I've got experience in manufacturing and aerospace safety systems. I'm a mechanical engineer.
I've got experience in oil and gas, and I've got experience in manufacturing and aerospace safety systems. I'm actually looking right now for a role potentially in oil and gas, but also I know that there's a lot of space exploration that is picking up.
So what would you be making in the new role, approximately?

I would be a fourth-year engineer, so somewhere between $80,000 to $90,000.

What do you make now at your small business?

It's a carpentry business.

That was a passion that I jumped into, and it varies, of course, based on the job.

I've been able to maintain around $65,000 to $70, 70 a year, but that's starting to show we've got kids, a boy, and we want to have more kids, and that's starting to show that there's something else that needs to kind of take care of the expenses than just what I'm making now in the job. How long have you been married? We've been married about three years now, and she's funny enough she's actually a uh german citizen with a green card and so there's um it's funny i talked to her about finances and stuff and there seems to be a disconnect where obvious things to me are not so obvious to her uh and and i see it as from her German background, it's like very different there.
And there's not, you know, not, not as much of a her fan, her German family is in Brennan, Texas. Part of the German family.
Yeah. She's got family all over the world, but, um, the, the, her sister who she's very close to, they were her sponsors coming over.
I met her through her family, and so I ended up marrying her, but we're close to her family who's here in Brennan. Yes, sir.
Her family is her sister? Her sister and her brother-in-law. They own a property in Brennan.
That's the whole family hold? No, she's got a mom in Germany. That's what I'm asking why in the heck you're staying in brennan her sister is why you're staying in brennan it's not exactly your mom it's not exactly her mom and you got the grandkids you're running off with this is very true very true uh her background with her family is very rough a lot of bad stuff yeah okay her sister was her her mother acting mother kind of thing.
Okay. So here's, you know, you guys have just got to sit down and talk about, okay, these things all don't go together.
There's not a $90,000 job for me here. Right.
If you are in agreement that I need to get a different job, you are saying we need to move closer to houston so instead of being 10 minutes from your sister you're going to be 45 minutes from your sister and i'm going to have a 30 minute commute you're going to move between the two right sure yeah that's reasonable yeah absolutely but if you can't communicate that kind of basic stuff, you've got other issues like marriage issues. Oh, no, yeah.
And it's not so much she's willing to move. No, she's not.
That's why you called me. She's faithful as a wife, but she also has this.
That's not the point. I didn't say she was unfaithful.
You called and said she's unwilling to move, but we're in agreement that I need a new job. That's exactly what you said right here.
I heard you. Right.
Yeah, okay. So quit changing the story.
And if she can move across the world, I think she can move an hour away. From her sister.
You'll be okay.

You can visit her on the weekends. Yeah.
So I think there needs to be some compromise here. Yeah.
I mean, and again, I'm not saying move to freaking New York City. You're moving closer to Houston where you have a 30-minute commute instead of an hour and a half.
And then when she sees her sister on the weekend, for God's sakes, you drive an hour over there. I mean, you know, this is not – he wants to be a rocket scientist.
So here we go. I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. It just flashed through my head.
I almost said it. But no.
We have a problem. No, I mean, that's – you know, you are in the hotbed if you want to be in the space world.
My God, you're in Houston.'t there's nowhere else other than cape canaveral that you can do better so um but you're gonna not commute an hour and a half so she can be near her sister that's asinine i think we're gonna facetime for a while yeah be okay whatever i mean again i'm not suggesting completely disconnect, that you never see them again or whatever,

but if you actually add up the number of hours that you spend with them during the week

versus the number of hours you spend at work during the week,

these two things are not compatible.

So it's illogical.

It's silly.

And we're both in agreement that me working all the time as a carpenter,

my passion job, I think he said, is not working out.

So, okay, good. So get you an engineer job up towards Houston, move your butt up there.
And then, you know, for God's sakes, hire her a driver and send her down to her, you know, to the sister, if you have to, whatever you got to do, it's not really not, this is not hard. It's not hard.
So you can't have this both ways. You can't say, oh, you need to make more money.
We live in a dinky town that doesn't have a whole list of mechanical engineers. Now, if there's mechanical engineering, you can do remote in the oil field.
You might be able to do some remote work there. I don't know how that works.
I was thinking about that. Then maybe you can land that and I'll just shut up and you just stay there.
but you need to go find some actual jobs and make her turn them down.

Not theory. Especially if it means a 50% pay increase.
Well, that's what he's looking at. That's what he's looking at.
60 to 90. It's serious.
That's what he's looking at. So, yeah, that's it.
All right. Open phones at 888-825-5225.
There's a reason, folks, from an economics perspective, one of the classes I took way back in college when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was getting my real estate degree, urban economics. And urban economics are different than rural economics.
There is more opportunity in a metropolitan area with a larger population. There is also the downside of a higher expense for real estate typically, and there's the downside of there's a dadgum many

people, and not all of them are fun. And so, you know, you move to the city if you're gonna,

if you're gonna move into some careers. And, you know, and if you're gonna move out towards the country you're going to get cheaper real estate a more rural setting i love that personally but you're going to have a commute in if you're going to be involved in the economics of the opportunities that are available that's what he's finding so you got to pull all the different levers and find the 5 000 person town i don't know how big that town is he's in i'm making this up but i mean if you got a 5 000 person town it's different than a town of what it was freaking houston 12 million or something.
I mean, know how big that town is. He's in, I'm making this up, but I mean, if you've got a 5,000 person town, it's different than a town of what was freaking Houston,

12 million or something. I mean, it's huge.
Of course, it takes seven hours to drive across

the whole thing, but yeah. Yeah.
Brenham's got 17,000 people. Okay.
Not a crazy big town. Yeah.

There we go. Look at you with your quickness on the Google.
This is the Ramsey Show.

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The best way to build wealth is on purpose.

Reporters often ask me, Dave, what's the number one mistake Americans make with their money? As if they think I'm going to say a single thing. Don't they ask you that? Oh, yeah.
That's like a classic. Magic thing.
That's like a journalism question. They got that in first year journalism school.
Like the, what's the best advice you've ever gotten? Yeah. What's the best, what's the best advice you give? What's the number one thing that people...
Well, I finally developed a really good answer.

You know what the number one mistake Americans make with their money?

They don't freaking pay attention.

They just drive with their eyes closed and then wonder why they hit the dadgum ditch.

You know, I'm just going to spend everything I make and I'll get to retirement and go,

I sure hope the government, which is well known for its ability to handle money, will take care of me.

That's dumb. I'll just buy now, pay later later and swipe my life away and hope for the best just karna karna keep karna that's right karna karna karna then karma and affirm i want to be affirmed i want to be affirmed with karma karna then karma comes karna karma oh credit karma you're killing me here i i was buying a t-shirt with a smart aleck saying on it can you imagine that they offered me payments on the t-shirt george i can't this is the problem okay so let me tell you how you how you build wealth you pay attention you're intentional you make your money behave instead of wondering where it went that's called one of the things you do is you do a budget you sit down you go okay i manage freaking a hundred thousand dollars a year and i have no idea that's dumb if you work for somebody and that was your job you get fired for being incompetent if you're in the government you get promoted well we're not talking about that that you just get me mad now don't do't do that.
Sorry. We're talking about real people, not government people.

These are not bureaucrats.

These are humans.

And we just don't pay attention.

Pay attention.

Write it down.

Agree on it with your spouse.

Give every dollar an assignment before the month begins, and then crack the freaking whip on those dollars

and make them dance a jig so you end up with something out of it.

I mean, get the chair out and the whip. remember the old cartoon the lion tamer this money it's going to eat your butt if you do not take care of it you know why other people have more you know why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because rich people keep doing rich people stuff you know rich people stuff is they pay freaking.
They learn about investments. They invest.
They do a budget. They agree on spending with their spouse, and it keeps working, and they keep doing it over and over and over and over and over again.
And, you know, you can't say, thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday, and end up anything but broke.
Spend everything on the weekend. That's just short-sighted, lack of vision.
You need a written budget. This is why we named EveryDollar, the world's best budgeting app, EveryDollar, because you give EveryDollar an assignment.
You make EveryDollar freaking behave. You can download EveryDollar for free in the App Store or Google Play or click the link in the description if you're on podcast or YouTube.
By the way, those of you listening to the show right this second, this is the last segment in this hour before we move to another segment. That last segment, the third segment of the show that's coming up in a few minutes, is only available on the Ramsey Network app, and it's completely free.
But if you haven't downloaded the Ramsey Network app yet, you need to, so you can get the third element of the show, third segment of the show every day, video and audio. And you can search it by call, subject, and you can send us an email and all kinds of stuff.
So download the Ramsey Network app for free in the App Store. Download the EveryDollar app for free in the App Store.
See, now you're just all apped up as if you were at uh applebee's or something and you just ordered the sampler platter got all the apps don't tease got all the apps i'm just saying i'm sure i'm sure somewhere robert kennedy just passed out okay abigail in tallahassee florida hey abigail what's up hey um i was just needing some help trying to get my husband to be on board with the debt snowball. We're about $70,000 in between a car loan and then like credit cards and other loans.
And then we make like $113 together. So I've got to outline the budget of how to get it.
Like we can get this done in probably about two years. Yeah.
But he just keeps like blocking me. And I'm like.
Why? We don't. I don't know why.
Yeah, you do. He told you.
We have a. You know him better than we do.
What do you think is behind this? He didn't just say, I want to be broke. I'm going to block you.
He didn't say that. What did he say? Why didn't he want to do it? I, he just, when I tried to talk to him about it this weekend, his response was, was well just hand me over the finances and

we'll get separate accounts and I'll pay what I pay out of my paycheck and then you pay what you pay out of your paycheck um so that was like that was the most recent reply okay that then basically he's saying yes we have a problem but I have a different solution than you yeah yeah that's different than he's blocking you well he's saying, yes, we have a problem, but I have a different solution than you. Yeah, yeah.
That's different than he's blocking you. Well, but again, like.
He's didn't agree with you. And his solution is to Venmo you like a weird roommate situation.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
All right. Well, so here's the thing.
How long ago did you start listening to our stuff? It's only been like a few weeks. That's what I thought.
Okay. So here's what happens.
You came running in all excited with a brand new thing with your hair on fire, and he went, oh, God, she fell for a scam. She's joined a cult.
Didn't he? That's why you laughed. I got you.
i appreciate your enthusiasm i appreciate your enthusiasm but you ruined it yeah so what you need to do is go in and say hey listen i owe you an apology because you do by the way um you had information that he didn't have and you tried to cram it down his throat and you didn't mean to you were just excited enthusiastic you found some hope for the first time and you and I don't blame you I'm happy you got excited I'm glad we were able to do that for you I also want to do it for him okay and so let's start with I'm sorry I went at this wrong I really need you I know you love me and I know you care about our future and I really need you to listen to what I've been learning and listen to this stuff and then tell me what's wrong with it and then turn on a YouTube debt-free scream and turn on turn on this segment of the podcast which will be posted today and that kind of stuff and then you know uh because what he is prescribing there's no data that said there's zero research that says what he's suggesting works matter of fact there's a lot of research that says what he's suggesting won't work um but he is at least he is at least wanting to try something yeah yeah yeah and we've never had everything separate we've always you don't want

it to be separate separate it needs to be together and we need to be together and i need uh i need you as my man to hear me and i need us to get aligned on where we're going because this is scaring me to death where we are yeah and separating everything makes me feel like a divorce don't want a divorce. Yeah.
Yeah. And just start talking about this stuff and asking questions and draw him in.
And cause you know, you just, he went up to a water fountain to get a drink. You turned on a fire hose because you were excited and I'm glad you're excited.
I don't misunderstand that. That happens a lot though.
And then if you you're not careful you keep at it and you'll turn my name into a cuss word okay that's the next step yeah oh yeah that guy cult leader over there that bald guy yeah and that's that's what happens it happens all the time and so um which is kind of weird because very few cult leaders are actually bald but the uh um most of them have really nice hair it could be a wig we don't know but the anyway the so that what we'll do let me give you every dollar and I'm going to give you financial peace university for free as our gift and then say hey let's open these up and watch one of these videos together and then you tell me if this is right or not.

You tell me what's wrong with what they're saying.

Because I got some hope out of this, and I got really excited.

This is you talking.

Yeah.

Because hope is powerful, girl.

It's wonderful.

And so I'm so happy you got that.

But he's not a bad guy, and he really doesn't want a divorce. You just swooped in there pretty heavy on him.
Yeah, yeah. So I think if you back off a little, let's approach it calmly.
Don't take a machine gun into a fishing tournament, right? That's the idea here, right? Don't spray and pray. That's not what we're doing.
So we're actually going to use a little bit of finesse here. Finesse.
You're the wife. You know what finesse means.
Husbands don't

know what that means. It's usually the husband.
So you can do this. This is the Ramsey Show.
We'll see you next time. Hey, you're still here? What are you doing? You do know that the rest of today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey Network app, right? All you got to do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store, Google Play Store, or just click the link in the show notes to download the app for free.
Yep, you heard me right, for free. Then right there on the home screen, you can watch the rest of today's show.
Bada bing, bada boom. All right,

I'm getting out of here. Enjoy.
We'll see you on the app.