Building Wealth Is About More Than Just Math

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Open phones at 888-825-5225. Marta is with us to start this hour Mart Marta's in Portland, Oregon.
Hi, Marta. How are you? Hi, Dave.
I'm doing okay. Good.
Thanks for taking my call. Sure.
What's up? So I am 57 years old. I've been married for 33 years, and I've never managed our joint financials.
But I find myself that that was a big mistake on my part and I need help with trying to figure out how to sort out my finances. I have a house that's in my name and my husband has gambling problems that I just discovered and it's been snowballing since I started discovering the problems.
I signed a HELOC not knowing what I actually was signing. So I owe $90,000 of that and haven't done taxes for four years.
So know that at least I owe ten thousand dollars out of to the IRS on top of everything else I bought oh because he was taking money of my retirement without my knowledge and so that's going to come down the pipe for me And I'm'm just overwhelmed about how to get things how'd you find out um i found out um a letter because you know he handled the mail he handled everything i opened a letter and it's from fidelity and found out that he had borrowed money from there and i confronted them about it and that was last year and he said And was paying and he did pay it and I told him not to take any more money but he continued to do that not only that but he had taken money prior years and he never told me that he's got 10 counts because he also stole money from a non-profit that he was the treasurer. Are you still together? Unfortunately, yes, because people say I'm too nice.
Wow. Getting a divorce is going to be very expensive, and so I'm trying to get my finances in order.
He's just delusional. So are you just biding your time? Is that what that amounts to? You're trying to get your finances together so that you can get out of this marriage or are you guys going to counseling to see if you can solve it? Oh, no, we did counseling and he was not there.
Yeah, I mean, I've been begging him to do things and he's not. Okay, so let me make sure I understand where you are then, hon.

I'm sorry.

What a heartbreak.

Yeah, you don't know what's going on, and that's terrifying.

And you've got a 33-year marriage that's ending, and that's terrifying.

Am I understanding you correctly to say you are saying you're going to end this?

I am, yes. I'm done with it.
Okay. He's not.
He thinks he's still living to have. Well, it's not up to him.
In Oregon, you can file for divorce. You're allowed to do that.
Right, yeah. I just can't.
Do you work outside the home? Oh, yeah. I'm a nurse.
So where does the money go that you make? Well, it was going to a joint account.

I finally...

Okay, so you changed it.

It's going into your name now.

Yes.

Good.

How much is in that account?

Right now there's about $11,000. Okay.

When you hang up the phone, I want you to call a divorce attorney

and schedule an appointment for tomorrow. Please.
You keep thinking you're going to wake up and this is all a bad dream. And I'm your old ugly brother that's telling you it's not.
It's your reality. And it's unbelievably sad.
It's unbelievably scary, but it's going to get worse every moment that you don't deal with this. You do not have to do anything except pay a retainer, get a lawyer, and file for divorce right now.
Okay, I did see one, and at the time, I didn't even have the money for the retainer now you do yeah okay is that the one you're going to use i don't know yet i i i only saw one and he he told me he's gonna fight it and he won't i don't care what he thinks he no longer has a vote yeah he gave that up when he stole money from a nonprofit, when he stole money from his wife, when he had her sign documents that she didn't know what she was signing. This is a full, raging, lunatic addict who has no boundaries, and he's going to burn the house down around you if you stand there and watch it and ignore the smoke.
Please, darling, for your sake, while there's still something left, get an attorney and get him around the throat and shut down all of the financials. Shut down everything.
So he has no concept of anything. Move it all out from under his care until his attorney and the court makes you put it back.
It's time for you to get very aggressive to try to salvage what you can for the next chapter of your life, Un. Marta, who knows about this? Are you going through this alone or do you have some folks around you? Oh, no.
I, I have friends I'm going to counseling. My kids know, but I mean, he took, what, $60,000 from my son who who's married, has two babies, saying he was going to pay it back.
He had a business that went bankrupt and I'm just kind of... Yeah, you got to separate yourself.
This has been done a long time and you've ignored it thinking it was going to get better hon because you're a sweet person but listen you're killing yourself here okay please please deal with this okay now this is your big brother that loves you talking okay do it now okay quit screwing around with this it's not gonna if he suddenly gets healed gets lightning bolt struck from heaven and changes we can always come back and talk about that later but right now everything you have told me in the last few minutes screams emergency yeah well he's he He thinks he's doing better... Honey, I don't care what he thinks.
He lost his vote. And there's no proof of that.
Every time you tell me something about him, it's where he stole something or took something. It's your entire description of your husband.
He's a raging gambling addict.

And there's no fix for that.

We work with addicts all the time. The only fix for that is to break the cycle.

And this guy is not interested in breaking the cycle.

Addicts can get better.

But 100% of addicts are master manipulators and they are master liars.

He'll make you think this is your fault. Oh, yeah, he does make me think that.
That's part of the addiction, okay? And there's only one thing you can do with this, and that's get distance. Okay.
Financial distance, physical distance, housing distance. Call that attorney back or call an attorney today, and please, darling, take action on this.
It it's not going to get better this guy's an abuser wow i'm so sorry what a heartbreaking thing to deal with yeah fastest growing addiction in north america today online porn second fastest growing addiction gambling we're seeing in our financial counseling offices those two things destroying more families than anything else. Thank you to the internet.
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Man, it's all there. check it all out black friday deals abound at ramsey solutions.com slash store if you're listening on youtube or the podcast you can click the link in the description and go straight there paula's in canada hi paula welcome to the ramsey show thank you very much sure what's up um i have a question about adult children and financially helping them out,

what my obligation is, because I hear lots of people trying to help out with weddings

and education and that sort of thing.

I'm at a point in my life now where financially I can do it,

but am I obliged to do it when they've shown that they aren't financially responsible themselves? And how do I make it fair when there's five of them? What is it? Who would oblige? You mean morally or spiritually obliged or culturally obliged? I mean, who obliges you? Well, you know, when they're at a point where they're having babies and getting married, you spend all the time. Oh, I know what you're talking about.
I'm asking, you said, am I forced, obliged is a sweet way. Am I required is what you're saying.
Am I required? Who requires it? I guess I feel that they require it when it comes to fairness. Well, that would be called entitlement.
That would not be called. Yeah.
Matter of fact, Paula, I have a new requirement. You need to send me some money.
Here's my address. Who gives a crap what someone else requires, right? Who is it that wants it and what do they want? Well, I don't know if they want it as far as trying to treat

them fairly. You know, when there's five of them and one sees that I've spent money on one or the other, trying to help them out or spending money on weddings or having babies.
And then the other ones think, well, why isn't she giving me money or why isn't she buying me gifts? You know, and I'm at a point in my life where I can do it,

but I also want to be able to travel and enjoy my retirement and that kind of thing and I don't know how to make it fair between the five of them. So I do think that that's an interesting question I've got two kids and it would be strange of me if both were good kids if I paid for one wedding but didn't pay for the other there I could see why they would say well what's the difference you've got five kids that's a lot more is there something going on that's making you say for child number one I'll do this but for child number two I won't and here's why is it a is it a behavior thing is it a yeah I think so because my one of my children just had a baby and another one is in is having a baby soon.
And I've spent all sorts of money on one for a wedding, but not the other. Why? And we're saying, why not the other? Right.
And one of my children is financially being irresponsible, and I do want to help them. But in the other sense, can I help them with stipulations? Like, I don't want to give you cash because you're going to waste it.
Okay, back to Jade's question because I'm not sure I heard the answer. If you paid for one wedding but you didn't pay for the other, why? You decided that.
Was the one that you didn't pay for being irresponsible and so you didn't want to fund it? What was the reason for the differences? I think it was more of some of them have had the big, splashy weddings,

and then others of them haven't chosen to have the big, splashy weddings.

So do I?

So they wanted the money instead.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

All right.

And you felt like paying for the wedding was okay,

but you didn't want to necessarily be to fund everybody the same amount?

Thank you. All right.
And you just, you felt like paying for the wedding was okay, but you didn't want to necessarily be to fund everybody the same amount. Or how do you make it equal? You know, if, if I'm spending $5,000 on one wedding, do I? Well, if it's your money, I think you get to set the premise.
If you say, okay, for each of you, this is the budget and that's what it is and you make it fair I mean they my point is they don't get to decide what you give you get to decide it okay yeah but if you've already gone down the road yeah I'm kind of stretched between two different things in this and I don't know exactly where to land I mean we told our kids growing up uh there is no fair fair is no fair. Fair is where the tilt of the world is and the cotton candy is.
We're not socialists, we're capitalists. There's not fair.
Okay. So that's how it works.
Things don't work out. That's just the way it is.
And I don't get to decide all of the, what life treats you fair or doesn't treat you fair, but fair is a joke. Fair is only by communist college professors.
There's no fair. Okay.
Uh, welcome to world. Now, that's on one sense.
I don't have to do it equal because our family's not socialist. On the other sense, I don't want to scar one of them and make them think there is a, unless I'm refusing to fund their misbehavior, I mean, if one of them has a splashy wedding and one of them doesn't, and the one that doesn't is doing heroin, I don't want to give them this.
I don't need to give them the same amount of money. Well, that's not fair.
I don't care. That's not going to fund misbehavior.
But on the other hand, if there's no differences in their behaviors, it feels a little weird that they're not getting the same amount of money. So no, you're not obligated, but I'm just thinking through with you the emotional and the relational parts of the discussion.
You are not obliged, period. It's your money.
You get to decide. I don't get to tell you what to do with it.
They don't get to tell you what to do with it. You can just look at someone and say no, and no is a complete sentence.
But from a relational standpoint, if there's not a reason for differentiating, that would give me as a dad concern. I can see how that would cause you a problem.
If there's a reason, like a misbehavior for differentiating, I can lean into that real easily. And I do think it's fair to say, let's say you have $10,000 to put towards a wedding.
I think it's fair to say I have $10,000 for your wedding. But if one of them says, I don't want the wedding, I just want the $10,000.
I think it's fair to say, no, the $10,000 is for the wedding. Right.
I mean, those are okay. Well, in this case, especially since you're saying some of them are misbehaving with money, you giving them $10,000 is them saying, well, I'm going to do whatever I want with this money.
And to your point, if they're doing misbehavior things, then that's not the gift you wanted it to be. No, it magnifies their stupidity when you give them money.
So it does for all of us. Anybody that gets money, it magnifies who you are good and bad.
And so when you put some zeros on the end of that you you're doing that so i don't know i think one of the things we've learned to do in the ramsey household and it's helped because i am convinced my wife and i were talking about this the other day i and it's not because my kids are bad they're they're excellent kids but i think uh adult children is a weird phrase to start with that's like an oxymoronic phrase to start with, but raising adult children is a weird phrase to start with. That's like an oxymoronic phrase to start with,

but raising adult children is the hardest phase of parenting. It was much easier when they were under my control and I could just tell them what to freaking do.
It was a lot easier. Now they have these ideas of their own and stuff.
I taught them to think and damned if they didn't, you know, oh my god it's so hard so um you know and so it's uh it's a difficult time and emotionally in that state for a lot of parents paula but i think if you're going to differentiate for a reason one of the things we've done a really good job about is we just communicate we just say there's a difference here and here's why and you know what that lets all the air out of it and you say it in front of the whole fam family right you put everybody in the room and go this is what we're doing it's thanksgiving by the way and here's what we're doing and it clears the air yeah you know i remember uh rachel had her first big book coming out and we know what personalities make on a big book and so we were at thanksgiving and said, Hey, everybody, we're going to stop just a second here. And y'all are all, they're all in their twenties.
And I'm like, um, Rachel's getting ready to have a great year from some hard work she's done. And, um, some of your years aren't going to be as great because you haven't done that same exact work.
And you get the decision right now to decide whether to be jealous and petty or whether to congratulate your sister and cheer her on. Yeah.
To their credit, once you said it out loud, they immediately became cheerleaders. But it took the air out of the balloon of jealousy once you say it out loud.
And so you don't, you know, it's harder to do it once somebody said it out loud. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Hannah's in Columbia, South Carolina.

Hi, Hannah.

What's up?

Hi, Dave. Hi, Jade.
I'm so excited to talk to you guys you too how can we help okay my question is i have been listening to you guys

for about two or three months and i'm really gung-ho um my husband and i are almost to baby

steps four five and six and i know you guys say to be intentional in those and do them together Bye.

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my husband and I are almost to baby steps four, five, and six. And I know you guys say to be intentional in those and do them together.
So when you're in those steps, why should my husband and I not put extra money into an investment that has a 12% return instead of paying off our house that has an interest rate of 2.5? It's a great math question. And the reason is more than math.
So we studied 10,167 millionaires. Okay.
And ask them, how did you become a millionaire? Did you inherit the money? Did you win the lotto? Are you a country music star? Did you save and invest? How did you do it? What did you do? What's your age? What's your income? What's your career? So we could find some correlations. And 10,000 people is enough to study to draw some real airtight research-based conclusions.
And we got a lot of wonderful data from that. In other words, facts.
Here's what's interesting. The number of those millionaires that said, I became a millionaire because I borrowed on my home at a lesser interest rate so that I could invest more, which is effectively what you're talking about doing.
You're not borrowing on it, but you're not paying it off, which is the same thing. Okay? The number of them that said I delayed paying off my home so that I could invest more, and that's how I became a millionaire.
You know how many of them it was out of 10,000?

Not very many. Zero.
We never had one tell us that, that that's how they became a millionaire,

was that they leveraged their home into investments. Isn't that interesting? And yet the math that you bring up is actually accurate.
I mean, there's, you know, you can borrow money

or you might have a mortgage at 3% and you can make 10%, 12%, maybe 14%. In the last 12 months, you can make 30% on an S&P, which is not normal.
But you're 12%. I don't argue with it all.
The difference is that you're going to be paying taxes on the money unless you're investing it into a Roth. And, you know, you've also taken more risk because you're home.
So something happens to people when they get their home paid off. The freedom that they sense in their relationships and their careers causes them to prosper more and faster than the

difference in the interest rates and so that's the only explanation i've got for it and i will tell you this here's an interesting thing you can do go ahead and pay off your house and if you hate it just go get another mortgage that's where i am i really want to do that but i'm also married to an accountant who said that he knows the math and well here's the problem i see it let me submit to him that he's doing a naive primitive incomplete math formula because his math formula does not include risk and his math formula does not include taxes and if he can quantify the risk exactly and put it into a math formula he's better guy than i am and i'm a math nerd from now on but the but it is a real risk because we can all honestly say the more debt you have the more risk you have agreed. And to not mathematically factor that into his formula makes his formula naive and incomplete.

So I don't care if he's an accountant.

He's wrong.

Right.

That's the thing.

I mean, now how do you convince him of that?

I don't know.

That's a different story.

You've been convincing him he's wrong since you got married, so maybe you can work on it. Yeah.
My biggest question for him would be, what is his ultimate goal, and why are you guys doing this? His ultimate goal is build wealth, and he thinks he's leveraging the money. Right? Am I right? Yes.
Yes, you are right. Yeah.
But I guess my question is, is it a, let's say he says, my goal is to have $ is it a time frame is it a time frame he's so caught up on or is there a way that you can present that argument and say hey we can still get there we're just going there in this order and this is going to give me more peace do you see what i'm saying yeah and i i i um he was trained by the same people i was trained by my My finance professor was broke. What's wrong with that picture? A broke finance professor is like a shop teacher with missing fingers.
My grandpa was not broke. And he was also an accountant.
The reason he was not broke, though, is he avoided debt like the plague because he was a child of the Great Depression. And he had no debt debt no debt no debt no way no debt when i started going in debt like a crazy man to buy houses in my 20s he said i'm going to throw you out of the family you couldn't be one of ours you're too dumb he didn't say that but he he made me feel that yeah so there you go but, I mean, because it's just so polar opposite of what that generation that had common sense lived.
So the problem, Hannah, is your husband was trained by a broke finance professor to believe an incomplete, inaccurate math formula. And you can play this back for him.
But, and, Jane, you know, it's an interesting conversation because we get this question like all the time once a week right and when i first started this journey um this journey being common sense money i've got a finance degree i've got letters and licenses of all kinds after my name that says i'm supposed to know something about money but i'm 28 years old and i'm bankrupt because i borrowed too dead gum much money i'm I'm an idiot and I got the opportunity to start over my wife would have left but she didn't have a car I mean it was awful horrible and I was a brand new Christian and so I started learning from this guy named Larry Burkett that the Bible had financial principles and I read in there the borrower is slave to the lender and then I read in there he who is impulsive exalts folly and then I read in there the blessings and cursings to the house of Israel as they cross the Jordan after Moses has led them in the wilderness the blessings are you will be so wealthy you will be a lender the cursings are you will be a borrower every single thing in scripture that I was reading as a brand new believer was negative about debt. And yet my intellect and academics all told me that to borrow money like her husband, the accountant.
And I struggled with exactly the same thing. But I made the decision in those days on the basis of faith.
I just said, okay, I tried it. I tried it the academic way.
I went broke. And I'm going to try this Bible stuff.

And it's common sense.

Now, years later, I discover, oh, they left out risk.

They left the math formulas incomplete.

These academics aren't so dadgum smart after all.

Who knew?

This is The Ramsey Show.

All right, Dave, you have some strong opinions. Possibly, yeah.
Yeah, I think so. Okay, because you really prefer credit unions over big banks.
So why is that? Well, credit unions, for one thing, are non-profit, which means that the members, the customers, own the credit union. So any profits that the credit union makes goes back into customer pricing.
So you get better interest rate on savings, cheaper checking, and so on, that kind of thing. But what's more important than that, though, is the fact that the customer is the owner changes the spirit on the credit union.
So I find very few credit unions that aren't very customer-centric. Yes.
Well, and I think we have found one that is incredible, and that's Fairwinds. They are an incredible credit union that is really out with the heart to help the customer.
You know, that's why we're partnering with them, because they've got a scope to be able to handle the Ramsey audience, and they're the right kind of people with the right kind of values. And they've done a really, really good job with customer service and the deals that they're offering.
The Ramsey tribe is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.
And you're right. Their customer service is unbelievable.
Winston and I just signed up and we got an account. And I'm not kidding.
It took less than five minutes. It was so user friendly, like the step by step approach

was unbelievable. And then the next day, my phone rings and it says Fairwinds on my phone.
So I answered it and talked to someone there. And they said, yeah, they give calls to every new customer.
And so again, they just really care about your experience. And I so, so appreciate that.
So again, you guys, I know it can be a pain to switch banks or to open up new accounts, But Fairwinds, again, they make it so easy.

Plus, anything that you can do at a traditional branch, you can do with them at fairwinds.org or on their app, and you'll have free access to over 33,000 ATMs. Hey, you guys know how much I hate banks in general, and so for me to do this is a big deal.
Talk to our friends at Fairwinds and check out the combined checking and savings bundle that they created just for the Ramsey tribe. You guys, it's incredible.
Yeah, you guys, it's so easy to join Fairwinds no matter where you live. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more.
That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi.
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All right. Today's question comes from Brody in Maryland.
He says, is it unfair for me to feel angry that my wife wants a bigger house? We bought a 1400 square foot house last April. I sold all four of my investment properties that I worked very hard for to completely pay off our debt, including the new house.
Our house is a three bedroom, two bath ranch with a backyard on a quiet street. And it's in a good school district.
So much sacrifice and saving went into making this happen. Now she wants a bigger house, even though she said she wanted this particular house before we put the offer in.
I don't see how I can make this happen without going into debt again. And I will not go back into debt.
Oh, this is juicy. Listen, here's the thing.
I do think that some people's personalities, because you don't talk about any type of pay raise or situation where you guys' lifestyle has changed drastically, but I do think there's some people that the goalpost is constantly moving, right? It's like, if I just get this, I'll be happy. And then they get that thing and they're not happy.
Or if I just get this, I'll be content. And then it happens and they're not content because things don't make you happy and things don't make you content.
You know, I think that they're fun, but they don't, they don't fill that void. And you can buy fun, but you can't buy happiness.
Yeah. And you can't buy contentment.
And if you're on social media, what she might be every single day, scrolling through and looking at what the influencers are doing and looking at what their friends you know their friends houses or she's spending all night watching hgtv it is very difficult um for some people to kind of go well that's them and that's okay my life is fine and truly i think that that's what this is i think she's got a content Exactly. Sidebar, what you stated there, I just saw an article the other day that the more hours you spend on social media, there's a direct correlation to the more credit card debt you have.
Oh, really? I'd love to see that. I know there is.
And the more overspending you do. Because, you know, I do it and I have the money, but I'm like looking at some gun thing and I'm like oh i need one of those yeah but if i had stayed off of that you never wouldn't even have known it was there and you know but so i know other people do it and i teach this crap so you know i mean it's like golly if i'm doing it that's okay it's got to be so okay yeah here's what Brody.
You guys need to reset your marriage relationship. This is not about a 1,400-square-foot house, and it's not about you being angry.
You are acting like the daddy, and she's acting like daddy's little princess. Uh-oh.
You know, I hear that again And daddy sold everything and did everything and sacrificed and worked his fingers to the bone. And what did he get? Bony fingers.
And he got a house and he's real proud of the house. And now she walks in and goes, yeah, but there's the wallpaper.
Yeah. And so we need to reset this.
And instead, let's be two like grownups. So the conversation I'm going to have is, and we had it at our house but in a little different way when we were about your all's age probably um I'll tell you about ours in a second but the conversation I'm going to have is okay we are going to get aligned on our goals yeah my goal is not to perpetually make an unhappy person happy.
I am not going to get on that treadmill. We, you're a grown woman.
I'm a grown man. We're going to sit down together and here's one of mine.
Okay. I don't borrow money.
period here's another one of mine i like to provide nice things for my wife here's another one of mine these are what you might say brody okay and she's saying well i want a house as nice as my friends okay what can we do to get that you don't work you could work you don't work much you could work more uh you could quit coach bagging it and we might save that money towards the house i mean what are we going to do as two grown-up people to responsibly because i i'm all in i put all my chips in the table i sold off everything i had to buy this house for us and what you did though was you did that without her she was not aligned to that she was giving you lip service but this was not her idea it was yours yeah and now now you're surprised that she's unhappy of your plan that did not her include her so this is like i gotta tell you know what i about 10 years i've been married 43 years about 10 years into marriage i don't buy sharon jewelry any more that she hasn't seen tell us why because i picked out ugly crap i know according to her but i spent a lot of my beautiful money on her ugly crap and then she didn't she's like oh well i wouldn't i wouldn't about that and i'm like oh geez well let's just not do that again so i don't mind if sharon has i mean she's got earrings the size of a headlight but she picked them out and then she says they're heavy they're that big okay and i'm like that's ridiculous i'm like a good problem okay just get your little earlobes and do some earlobe lifts start doing some workouts there in the gym because you picked them out so see that's the difference This this girl's not involved in this well yeah you can tell by the the language i sold all of my investment so much sacrifice yeah he's the only one he feels like he's the only one sacrificing you can tell by the language whether but it's a paternal thing rather than an equal thing yeah yeah you can hear it i think we got to reset and go, we're not doing anywhere from here. We're not making any major decisions without both of us involved.
And, uh, I learned that after I went broke, cause I made a lot of decisions that were stupid without talking to my wife. Proverbs 31 says who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies.
The of her husband safely trusts her and here's my favorite part he will have no lack of gain and it's not in the bible but it might be in one version like second hesitations yeah right after no lack of gain she no longer says i told you so oh i kind of like she can't say that anymore i like being able to say that i know but you can't say that when you're in on the decision all you can say is we together made a dumb butt decision that's all you can say from this point forward and that that's it you can't say you're an idiot you can't do that anymore because now you have to use plural it's to change your pronouns we are idiots we did this right and so that's what's going on here dude you've got to reset uh this idea you have put your little superman cape up of you're the papa and you're the provider and all this stuff and um she's just a little woman and you're gonna you're never gonna make scarlet o'hara happy it's not gonna happen so um she's gonna get on the same page and be like a grown woman and stuff and then she'll become happy yeah it's a weird balance of It's not going to happen. So she's going to get on the same page and be like a grown woman and stuff, and then she'll become happy.
Yeah, it's a weird balance of power. It's a big deal, man.
It's a big deal. This alignment in marriage is one of the things we find all the time in people's ability to get out of debt.
They succeed in their careers at a greater rate and their ability to build wealth because they're aligned on sacrificing and they make decisions together the first time we did that after going broke was we finally saved up a little bit of money and i had ten thousand dollars sharon was driving a blue three-tone astro van you remember those oh 100 completely ugly the carpet was covered in toddler goldfish from the third kid and uh it was nasty this was a bad car it was an embarrassing vehicle when they first came out they were all right well this was not first come out and she's like i need and i need a better car we need to move up to a suburban and i was gonna i had 10 000 or 15 000 dollars saved at the company I was getting ready to do this investment we were gonna buy this thing and I was gonna make a hundred thousand with this fifteen thousand down here and she's like uh we need to do a car and you know what we did both but we did the car first and then we did the company and it turns out now all these years later it was okay

but in the moment aligning on that with two grown-ups was a big deal it's a big deal this is the ramsey show live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions it's the ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love,

and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Washaw, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling

author of the book, Money's Not a Math Problem. She's my co-host today.
Open phones here at

888-825-5225. Scott's in Las Vegas.
Hey, Scott, what's up? Hi, how are you, Dave? Long-time listener. I really appreciate you guys taking my call.
Sure. I came across a question today for investing purposes on my Roth 401k.
My coworkers and I were looking for next year and looking at setting things up, and a question came up about if I were to put, let's say 15% of my income and I hit the IRS cap, let's say October or November, will that negatively affect how my company match for the remainder of the year where I'm not actually getting any money? I don't know if it's a number that's going to be a fixed number regardless. Will the company's 6% match be the same if I hit it in October or if I were to spread it out over smaller increments throughout the 26 paychecks? That's a question for your company, your HR team.
That's not a regulation issue. It's not a regulation issue.
I didn't know if it was a way to be able to calculate that to be able to look at even previous because a couple years i had made i'd hit that number in october and then the last two years let me have a little bit more money in my pocket throughout the course and i spread it out with a little bit lower number and let it hit the last paycheck in december and i didn't know if that was going to be from a negative impact if i were just i, you know. I think you could look at the total for that year, total invested by you,

and then the total match and divide it and tell what the percentage was, right?

Right, sure, exactly.

That would tell you what your company does.

Yeah, I mean, some companies match up to a certain amount.

Some companies match all the way through.

We match a percentage regardless of what you put in, regardless of when you put it in. And so, I mean, I've got some high-income earners that fully fund theirs in the first quarter.
Right. And then they just don't have that because they max it out completely.
They're not allowed to put any more than that in. And so not by us but by regulation.
And then we match that as they do it whenever they do it, whatever they do. But that's a company decision as to how the match is done.
And if you have to drag it out to get the full match, I would drag it out. Makes sense.
I'll reach out to them and find out how they distribute that money. Yeah, if you need to do 12 even months to get the full match, then do the 12 even months because the match is more valuable than the early portion of the investing.
But that brings up another interesting thing, Jade, that sometimes people ask is, should I spread my personal Roth over 12 months or just do it in January? You should do it in January is the answer mathematically because the entire amount is earning throughout the entire year rather than a portion of it earning each month more. That's right.
And so, well, what if the market went down? Well, if the market goes down, none of this works. So it only works when it's going up.
And overall, we know it's going to go up. It could go up or down in the short term.
But yeah, so Scott, that's an HR and payroll and whoever's managing your 401k at your company question. And you could get a hint before you even call them by looking at the percentage they gave or the dollars they gave last year as a percentage of what you put in last year and see if that matches their standard match rate.
And that would tell you, you know, if you're looking like 6%, then you go, okay, you know, I put in $10,000 irregularly, but they still put in, you know, 6% of that 600 bucks. And so, you know, or whatever the number is number is but that's you can still look at that and figure that out so very cool very cool good stuff man that's a great question by the way and here's the neat thing about all this people like him it's not the answer to this technical question that matters what matters is he's actually thinking about it i was going to say that you know most know, most people don't think about it.
They're not. Yeah, they don't think about it.
So the fact that he's maxing it out, the fact that he's thinking through that is really, really great. Yeah, really.
The intentionality. You know, one of the things I've got a friend that his dad was the governor of Tennessee in the 1950s.
Okay. And so he's in his 70s now, But he was a little kid in short pants in the governor's mansion in the 1950s.
And, you know, I had a great discussion with him one night. He said the discussion in our family table growing up was politics.
And he said, you know what rich people talk about at the family table? Generosity and investing and value purchases, not cheapo purchases. All the important things you can do with money.
Long-term decision. And so a rich kid grows up with a silver spoon because their parents got rich because they were concentrating on money, not obsessed by it, not worshiping it.
Like my friend's family didn't worship politics. They weren't obsessed by it, but they were in that world.
It's what they did. And it made me realize that's how, you know, if you grow up, I've got a cousin's a car dealer and guess what? He owns a bunch of cars.
I wonder why. Yeah, I think you end up talking about the things that are of value to you in your life, whether it's your religious beliefs, moral beliefs, hobbies, whatever that is.
That's what you talk about. That's what you pass down.
And so you need to be thoughtful about that. But that's the same thing of Scott being intentional.
What's's him and his friends sitting around the lunch table talking about not other people's careers carrying a football well let me tell you about their careers and how they're going to build well i think that's one of the i mean we kind of talked about this early but if you're if you're on social media and you know more about p diddy and you know more about other celebrities finances and you know more about what you know

so-and-so is driving and you don't even know about your own stuff you don't know the state of your own affairs you don't care that much about your own financial situation about your own relationships that's uh yeah it's a red flag it's backwards it really is more into pop culture than your own culture i was at a titans football game one time a long long time ago and um the seats were not great and the guy in front of us um was a large man spacious without a shirt oh and had painted his his big self blue with a big Titan thing on his chest. And he yelled and screamed like the world was coming to an end on every play.
He cussed the coach. You didn't like that? And on every play, he cussed the players.
And I told my wife, I said, if he was as enthusiastic about his career or his marriage as he is about watching these young kids down here playing football right he would he would probably have a good life wrong wrong dose you know yeah you got to channel it to the right cause I mean I'm sorry I get it if you're in college and you and your buddies all have too many beers and paint letters on your chest and take your clothes off or whatever. I get that.
Take your shirts off anyway. I get that.
I don't get 56 years old. Yeah.
And obese. I don't get that one.
Okay. It's just gross.
All right. I'm just saying it.
Just saying it for all the rest of us out there. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Sydneyney is in cincinnati ohio hi sydney welcome to the ramsey show hi um thanks for taking my call sure what's up um so i'm kind of new to the dave ramsey universe um but i am currently like working through the steps currently on step three. Um, and earlier this year I got president Biden student loan forgiveness, um, and a refund check with that.
So I am completely consumer debt free outside of my mortgage. Okay.
Stop just a second. Stop, stop just a second.
Cause president Biden has issued several, uh, press releases, but the the all of the debt forgiveness was all programs that were already in existence he took credit for them but they were already there aside from that what um what was the forgiveness that you got with what type what was the situation just my like student loans like my school was deemed predatory or whatever okay that's been in place for 20 years yeah schools that are predatory and go broke the student loans are forgiven for the last 20 years and you should by the way should be and that is a standard forget so so the student loan that you took out with this predatory trade schools what they typically are or some kind of online school or something like that they they took out they gave you student loans they were federally insured student loans and the federal government forgave those because they deemed the school to be predatory right yep okay so how much did how much did you had you paid into it and they gave you that back that's what the refund check was yes and so i use that to pay off um my car my 401k loan that i use to do my mortgage i know that's like against the rules i learned that now you know i didn't do that then that's okay um that's okay and paid off my credit card so i've been consumer debt free all year or since then Except the 401 401k no i paid that off as well oh good what all did you get back way to go how much was it i got like 16 17 000 back okay okay and that cleared up some of the remainder mess all right so let me think here i you pay so all right so the student loan was taken out the money was given to the predatory school. The predatory school goes broke.
You are forgiven the student loan, and they refunded you what you had paid on the student loan. I don't think that type of loan forgiveness is taxable.
Most loan forgiveness is taxable, but this is a different program because you did not actually receive the money here. The money you received back was your money you paid against the loan.
Yeah. That was already your money.
You don't think that could be taxed? Yeah. So if you take out a credit card loan and you go buy something for yourself or you put the money in your pocket, right, and then they forgive that, that's taxable, but you got the benefit of that.
You did not get any benefit here. I don't think this is taxable, but you're going to have to check with a tax professional to be sure.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to see if you guys had any insight on because I'm currently getting laid off and my plan is to file my taxes like first thing next year to help bridge any potential good employment I'm expecting to run into but now I'm like if I'm going to get taxed on that do I wait I don't I don't think you're going to get taxed on that before then I don't think you're going to here's the way let's get you a pure answer here's the the way to do it. Go to RamseySolutions.com and we have indoor, we call endorsed local providers.
They're people that we have vetted and we are comfortable with their professionalism and the quality of care that they give. One of them is in the area of tax.
So you're looking for a tax ELP, endorsed local provider at RamseySolutions.com in your areaincinnati there will be one or two or three of them okay holler at one of them and talk to them about preparing your taxes and ask them on the phone if this type of loan forgiveness is taxable tell them dave said he doesn't think it is but for them to double check it yeah and i see something on here that says and i don't know if this was a part of American Rescue because this was kind of in place before that. No, this is not American Rescue.
Yeah. But it says that if they're discharged between January 1st and December 31st of 2025, they are not taxable.
So you shall see. Okay.
I don't think you're going to get taxed on this one. okay? Okay.
Good question. Good question.
And lesson learned, politics aside, politicians tend to take credit for things they didn't do. It's part of being a politician.
And like when I was interviewing President Trump before the election, one of the things I told him was people like me that own small businesses and actually do create jobs, it kind of pisses us off when you politicians say you create jobs, because you politicians don't create nothing. All you can do is create an environment for those of us that actually create jobs to function.
And he kind of laughed and goes, well, that's right. But then, you know, the next week he comes out and talks about all the jobs jobs he created but that's that's politicians and biden didn't forgive these loans either this this program has been in place god since student loans have been there predatory lending so like a truck driving school that goes broke or a tech school you go get a computer certification but they're just are some of the times they're like hair care or a massage therapist or something like that, they they'll get student loans going on these things and they can gin them up and they make a ton of money and then they turn the key and walk away with all the money in their pocket they're they're scams they're fronts is what they are and they pop up and then they die they pop up and then they die daytime television if you're watching yeah judge mathis or you know all that i feel like that's all that's on tv are these i don't want to call them education institutes but you know well that's what they call themselves yeah yeah and so we would be doing it as a saturday night live skit but yeah but that the federal student loan forgiveness has been there for those types of situations for at least 20 years at least well listen if you really want to get technical it's never an administration forgiving debt it's taxpayers forgiving your debt we don't get the choice we just get the bill that's what i'm saying like let's let's let's put the the check on who is really yeah that's it that's for sure yeah anytime the government what was it reagan said if the government says um if somebody says i'm from the government and i'm here to help yeah run yeah that's that's the bottom line there and that's either party i'll just tell you so sure yeah this is um but that that that's the thing to remember and just um either way the good news is by the way if you pat if someone passed away your family, the student loans are forgiven.
It's been that way 30 years. If someone is permanently disabled, their student loans are forgiven.
It's been that way for 30 years. That's not a new program.
It's been since I've been on the air that we've been talking about this. That's the stuff.
But either way, you do have to deal with the tax question. So Sydney's smart to ask that question about the taxes.
I think I'm pretty sure you're not going to get taxed, but don't take Dave Ramsey's tax advice. I suck at it.
Here it is. I found it.
Borrower defense. So this is a program that eliminates federal student loan belonging to borrowers who their college misled them or if their school engaged in misconduct.
If they violated any state laws, the IRS has issued notices for these and they are not taxable as income. Okay.
There you go. That's according to Google.
So also check that out because it's on the Internet. And Abraham Lincoln said everything on the Internet is true.
So it's a good place to start. Yeah, that's the thing you got to remember but that's that's probably at you probably you found that on the IRS site or what no this is a a article from Yahoo Finance yeah so once again please don't take their advice or mine please get a professional to be sure but it sounds like that we're on to something there sounds like we're on the right track so uh good stuff very very cool all right ladies and gentlemen that's how we do it listen the way the student loans go away jade how'd your student loans go away work oh there's that it's gotta work it's a new program it's a brand new program it's out it's called wrk yeah it's called you wake up in the morning you go to work and you stay at work all day and then you take the money and you pay off your loans for a long time you ought to get a radio show you don't have a you don't do a whole lot other in between you just work and pay off the loans and work and pay off the loans my grandmother used to say there's a great place to go when you're broke.
To work. I love it.
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In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Alex and Brenda are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Welcome, welcome.
Where do you all live? We're in Parker, Colorado, just a little bit south of Denver. Oh, cool.
Well, welcome. Good to have you.
All the way over to Nashville to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? So Dave, we paid off $305,000 or $305,000, $450,000.
Wow.

Sorry.

How? scream how much have you paid off so dave we paid off three hundred and five thousand dollars or three hundred five four hundred fifty wow sorry how long did that take uh three years two months and 13 days three years and two months wow and your range of income during that time our range of income was 148 000 to 240 000 wow nice jump what do y'all do for a living? I am full-time with the Colorado Army National Guard. And I'm a civilian with the Army National Guard as a cost accountant.
Ah, very good, very good. Well, thanks for your service.
Well done, you guys. Good work, very fun.
What kind of debt was this, $305,000? It was our mortgage. I knew it.
Paid up your house. I can tell by the smile.
I love it.

Wow.

You guys are so weird i love it weirdos good work how much is this house worth um eight hundred fifty thousand how old are you two we're in our early 30s wow and you have a Pa paid for $850,000 house. Yes, sir.
Man, how much in your nest egg in your 401ks in retirement? I'm right around 300 as of right now. Wow.
Excellent. Wow.
So you're millionaires in your early 30s. We are.
I'm so proud of you. Thank you.
Look at you two. Way to go, man.
When you got married married how broke were you um we are actually fairly new to this marriage we got married about four years ago so we were kind of on this journey as singles okay okay yeah all right so you just took off and get this quick then well tell us your ramsey story how'd you get plugged into this three years and two months ago, she started a long time before I did. I was kind of messing around.
And then she gave me your total money makeover. When we were deciding if we were going to date or not, I was like, read this book and let's talk about it.
And we'll decide if we want to keep talking. You better write it, have the right answers on the next dinner.
So it was funny because I read it and I was like, oh, I'm kind of doing all this stuff anyways. I kind of got fed up with being broke.
And then I was like, oh, this is easy enough. So being kind of a money person anyways, I was like, all right, well, this is simple.
I read the book. I had the seven steps and I was just like, okay, let's do it.
Here we go. I love it.
Very cool. Very cool.
So you guys met at the National Guard, I assume. Yes.
Okay. very good.
And man, that's a great situation you're in. After just four years of marriage in your early 30s.
But it sounds like, Brenda, you had a head start on it. Yes, I grew up with parents who didn't do debt.
And so when I moved out, I didn't do debt. I didn't have a hole to dig out of.
Did y'all buy the house after marriage? We did. As soon as we got married, we became a family of five.
We had his son and my two kids the day we got married. So I lived in a tiny little house, and we went out, and we put over 50% down on our house and decided just to kick it.
So we made this kind of like our baby step two. Okay.
Just took off running with it. Pretty intense then.
Yes. A big part of this was that we wanted to teach FPU, which we had done in the past, and we just actually finished doing a week ago.
Nice. Yeah, we just finished our second course.
So we wanted to kind of be like, practice what you preach. And because we didn't have a step two together, we kind of treated, you know, paying off the mortgage like our step two, even though it's not exactly advised.
Yeah, that's all right. I get it.
Alex, what did you pay off beforehand? Because for you, that was kind of the change. I was working a credit card and my car paying those off and I think together that was 19,000 okay wow so Brenda put the screws to it yep she said not allowed very cool well thanks for thanks for teaching Financial Peace University that had to be a great class you guys had to to be like cloud nine.
Yeah. Yeah.
Pretty excited. Yeah.
We taught it once, and then we took the most motivated couple that was there, and we were their co-leaders the next time around. So this last time that we just finished.
Yeah. Matthew and Amber, they were our co-leaders this time.
They did great. Yeah.
I love it. Build to build the next generation of coordinators.
Exactly. Good for you.
Good for you. All right, when you're coordinating a class or when someone asks how you're a millionaire at age early 30s with a paid-for $850,000 house and you don't make $2 million a year either, when someone asks how did you do that, what do you tell them the key to getting out of debt is? Hard work for sure.
I think between the two of us we had about 13 jobs. We each had a solid job and then we took on several side jobs.
You can tell you what most of them were. So not all at the same time but over the three years they were doing this.
I worked at Home Depot for a summer. We both worked delivering packages for Amazon.
I was a tax assistant at our CPA office. We both did landscaping.
I did Uber and Lyft. I was a reservist in the National Guard.
I did handyman work. She sold items on Nextdoor.
So it was a whole bunch of, not all at once, but like there was always something going on just to kind of keep it new and different. So what happens next? You've got a paid for house.
You don't have a payment in the world. What are you planning? I think our next thing is probably cars.
We drive very old, very used cars. What are you going to get? Nothing new, but new to us.
Probably a newish or newer minivan. And then he needs a nicer commuter car.
He's driving an 06 car with very many miles. Something from this decade.
Yeah, I love that. I first want to move up to this decade.
It's a good move. I like that.
That's good. Very cool.
Well, I mean, you drove those beaters, and now you'll never have to again. Make sure you take pictures of them.
We will. Before they leave.
Because I've got pictures of every car I owned except one, and I really wish I had that one. Is it the original? No, it was one of those beaters that I had.
Somehow I managed to not. That was back when we actually had film and stuff like that in cameras.
So anyway, sidebar. But, yeah, good.
Good job, you guys. Who was cheering you on as you went? Uh-oh, we have a whole list.
Oh, we have a ton of cheerleaders. So Matthew and Amber, amber like i mentioned are our co-hosts on financial peace um get the little cheat sheet it's okay to look at it you can look at it i look at them all the time my angus brother lloyd and his wife hayley are on this um journey and they're right behind us in baby step two um paul and felicity and sean and rosa in our class and fpu are cheering us along and also learning along with us and then then several coworkers, we have Ms.
Cicely, Ms. Miranda, Ms.
Alita, and Ms. Jennifer.
Her mother, Linda. Did you have anybody telling you not to do this? A couple people kept saying we're crazy.
Yeah, probably. I don't have anybody specific.
What was the most lucrative side hustle? One that made the most money? Probably Amazon Flex just because they give you blocks of time, and if you finish it early, you get paid for that full block, whether or not. So we would take our older kids along with us, and they would throw us packages from the back, and we could finish a three-hour route in an hour and a half and then go pick up another one.
Which one did you dislike the most? Probably Amazon Flex. It was a lot of work.
There were days that we would be up at 3.30 in the morning. We'd go, well, actually it was earlier than that.
We'd be there at 3.30. And then we'd go to our real jobs at 6.37.
And then sometimes after that, I wanted both of us to take up on a shift. That was crazy.
Both of us sometimes would work at 90 hour plus weeks. Was it worth it? It was totally worth it.
The grass really does feel different under your feet. Yeah, tell somebody why.
Because people call in all the time and they're like, you know, I've got a low interest rate. They feel like it's not worth it to them.
But here you are doing it and you sacrifice to do it. I'm a simplifier kind of person.
So it's just one less thing to worry about. And now we really get to, you know, put it towards our retirement accounts.
So we're able to max out our Roths and I think five years ago I was looking my you know net amounts and I was like I wasn't even making this amount you know five years ago and that's after putting in you know max Roth contributions and having other things come out so it's just it's a big thing out of the way and now I get to stay home oh wow that's a big one I'm not yet but I'm in the process oh wow Very soon. State home.
Good. Well, I the way.
And now I get to stay home. Oh, really? Oh, wow.
That's a big one. I'm not yet, but I'm in the process.

Oh, wow.

Very soon.

Stay home.

Good.

Well, I guess so.

You're a millionaire.

That's neat.

Love it.

I'm so proud of y'all.

Thank you, Mitch.

You're amazing.

I mean, in their early 30s.

So well done.

All right.

Are the kiddos going to scream with you?

They are.

All right.

Let's get them up here.

Introduce them.

Give us their names and ages.

Oh.

Oh, we might have a sad one.

Uh-oh.

Did we lose one?

Here they come.

Oh, the little one's sad.

That's okay.

Oh, she is cute.

Look at how cute that dress.

Oh, my gosh.

That's all right.

That's perfect.

All right, Alex and Brenda, Addie, Liam, Logan, and Anna Lee, $305,000.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

All right, three, two, one.

We're debt-free.

Don't scare the little one to death.

That's good.

Baby steps millionaires in their early 30s.

What'd they do?

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This is nice.

That is nice.

It's a little champagne action there, I heard.

That's what they call it.

Grand Rapids is in Michigan, it is. Dan is there.
Hi, Dan hey babe doing good how you doing today better than i deserve what's up okay uh make a long story short um i'm in between baby step one baby step two you know things going good stuff stuff breaks spend my thousand dollars to rebuild baby step one. I got my girlfriend.

She's kind of starting to go to U2.

We want to be married and have a family.

She has $21,000 in credit card debt.

She found this company accredited debt relief.

They offered us a payment of $342,000 a month for 48 months.

That's to pay off the credit cards.

The problem is that's only $16,400. I don't understand how this could work.
Because it's the same as filing bankruptcy. It's going to destroy her credit.
Here's the way they work. Stay away from them.
Stay away from them, but here's why. The way they work is when you sign up with them, they take over all of your payments, and the first thing they do is they stop making any payments, and they let all the credit cards go into default if they're not there already.
And so they go into default, and the credit card companies then will settle a bad debt. Now she will be in collections on every one of them.
And then they'll settle the bad debt for a lesser amount than is owed and set up payments on that. And that's how they know that they can get you a $16,000 deal.
By the way, if you did this yourself and just quit paying for a year, which I don't recommend. Same thing would happen.
then you can call them and settle for probably a quarter on the dollar so you probably settle all this for five or six thousand bucks uh but that is also not paying your bill when you're able to number one number two you've completely destroyed your credit i mean nasty bad nasty you got a bunch of outstanding bad debt at that point. And that's the way these people work.
And it basically does the same thing to your credit as filing chapter 13 bankruptcy does. You can do the same thing with chapter 13 bankruptcy.
You can file with chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you qualify for the bankruptcy under guidelines, then you can pay a percentage, not a hundred percent you could pay, in this case, you said 16 out of 21, right? Yeah.
Yeah, you could pay, so you could pay 75 cents on the dollar. You could agree to pay 75% to my unsecured creditors in my Chapter 13.
That's not 48 months, that's 60 months, but they could do the exact same thing there, and it'll do the exact same thing to her credit, only technically she's filed for bankruptcy, and the other one she didn't technically file for bankruptcy. But it does the same amount of damage, if not more, to your reputation and to the process.
Plus, you're screwed. You're in debt $21,000 for 48 for four years when you could have paid it off by next Christmas working five five jobs yeah why can't you just pay it up why can't you just work more and pay it off tell us more about that what's the income uh i work for the railroad i'm on 12s right now which is legally the most i can work um she's a teacher and she's doing starting to do Amazon Flex but she has a daughter

I love to death. What's she teach?

She's like the director

of a bunch of different

daycares. She used to be

a daycare teacher but she's now like the director

of a bunch of those. She makes about

$55,000 a year.

Now that I've explained to you and answered your question what it does, I'll give you a suggestion rather than doing that. Okay.
And, um, what I'll do is I'm going to give you financial peace university and every dollar plus for both of you. She's going to have her account.
You're going to have your account cause you're not married. Okay.
And I want both of you to get on a detailed type budget don't spend any money on anything

live on beans and rice no eating out no vacations and working extra if she has a teaching degree

and a talent in a particular subject like math or english she can do tutoring and make more than

amazon flex okay if she can get some students from the local elementary or local junior high

I don't know. or English, she can do tutoring and make more than Amazon Flex.
Okay.

If she can get some students from the local elementary or local junior high or whatever,

and she teaches math in the afternoons or the math in the evenings after she gets home,

I mean, you can make $30 to $50 an hour doing that.

Yeah, child care, too.

And your kids sit in the other room while you're doing this.

They come to your house. That's a great idea.
Yeah, I've got a friend that's a reading specialist that makes bank while her kids sit in the other room and on the side. And, I mean, it's serious money there because they've got reading problems and, man, she's, wow, it's really cool stuff.
So, anyway, yeah, that's what I would add to this and say, all right, we're going to increase our income. We're going to tighten down everything.
We're going to have a new thought. We're going to get all of these credit cards tonight and have plastic surgery.
And we're going to pay them at a hundred percent. We're going to pay them so fast that they're in our rear view mirror and we get a life.
But 48 months, man, that's like ridiculous. That's like like saying i'm going to jail you get to go to jail for four years and you barely just get to you know you bring the food and slide it under the bars you know no thank you i don't want to live like that i want to get oh geez no man the goal needs to be if you can find an extra if you can make a goal that we're going to make or she's going to make $1,700 extra, find it every single month.
What does it look like? Is it Amazon Flex? Is it tutoring? That pays it off in one year? Yeah. Is it childcare? And is it a cut in the budget? She makes $55 already.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's the kind of stuff we're doing, Dan. So we're going to help you with that um it's the hard way but it's the fast way it's deep sacrifice but it's in your rearview mirror and you get to have a great life on the other side of it versus signing up for a long slug through the mud that's what we're doing i don't i'll pass and at the end of it at the end of the story you're still screwed because you just completely destroyed everything as far as credit goes.
So she's probably going to have some dings on her credit, probably already does, but nothing like what you'd be signing up for if you go to those type of a company. So we do not recommend them at all.
Hang on the line. The team will pick up and we will get you signed up for financial peace university get her signed up you guys you

can go through the class together um but you need your own separate budgets because you're not married yet and you live you keep your finances separate until you're married so good question sir i appreciate you checking on her behalf wow those things are uh you see them on cable tv and man there's a couple of them have been fined like 400. I mean, one of them got fined like, it can't be 400 million.
Was that the fine? There's some ridiculous one that Tom Selleck endorsed and the Federal Trade Commission hammered them with fines a couple of years ago because they just're it's just a scummy side of the world yeah

it's scummy and i don't i don't like situations where you take control from you and give it to

someone else to do things on your behalf and what they're doing is acting like i didn't pay my bill

so that they can get a discount yeah i mean that in trashing my stuff in the meantime but we're

we're in the uh we're in the debt relief business just like dave ramsey uh no you're not you're not

Thank you. I mean, in trashing my stuff in the meantime.
But we're in the debt relief business, just like Dave Ramsey.

No, you're not. No, you're not.

It's not even close.

Not even close to the same thing.

So you got to stay away from those things.

And they call themselves also debt consolidation.

Yeah.

And it's not debt consolidation at all.

You're not consolidating debt.

Consolidating debt's when you get one debt and pay off all the others with the one debt. Well, you don't pay it off.
You move it to the one debt. But that's like a home equity loan.
That's debt consolidation. But not paying them and you paying these goobers one payment, that's not consolidation at all.
And it's really not debt relief. No, it's not relief.
It's, well, at the end, I guess it is in one sense, but ugh.

I wonder what the percentage of people that complete it is.

Probably pretty low.

That's a good question.

That would be interesting to look at.

Yeah, you don't finish it, you're really screwed.

That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thank you.
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