Are You Finally Ready To Get Your Crap Together?

Welcome to the Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life. We want to help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships.
The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. Alongside the peculiar but professional George Camel, I am Ken Coleman.
Going to be taking you through the show today. You ready to go, pal? That was an accurate description.
I appreciate that. You know me well.
Well, I got to say, I do love the shacket today. You got your fall shacket on.
Thank you. I was just up at the Money and Marriage getaway event, and I see a lot of people in the lobby are playing hooky right now just to see the Ken Coleman on the Ramsey Show, so we appreciate them being here.
Whatever you say, George. But you are looking sharp, and you're ready to take the lead on our budget and debt calls.
I'll take the lead on income calls. So we want you to make that money work for you.
Let's get to Liz, who starts us off at Charlotte, North Carolina. Liz, how can we help today? Hey, thanks for taking my call.
So my husband and I were having a conversation about our finances and he thinks that we have too much house basically. And thinks that even though we don't have any debt, we should sell our house, use the profit and buy something really cheap.
And he was thinking really cheap, like a $3,000 trailer he saw on Facebook marketplace so that we can just live mortgage free. I don't really want to do that and wanted to get some input.
Is your husband nearby? No, he's not right now. I was going to put him on the phone for a moment and as a man who's been married 26 years and counting, tell him that he's lost his ever-loving mind.
What happened that made him go, we live in extravagance, do we need to go camping for a while to fix this? That's a big jump. Yeah, I mean, so right now we're at a pretty good place where we're bringing, I think, bringing in $7,000 a month take-home together.
And what's your mortgage payment? Our mortgage is $1,500 a month. We have $220,000 left on the unpaid principal.
So you don't have too much house. Are you saying square footage-wise you just have too much room? Because the payment is not the issue.
No, it's a 1,400-square-foot house. It's not extravagant.
Is he scared of something? I think he can.

It's hard for him to kind of keep just going with the plan

and those fast things that get us to pay stuff off quickly.

What is the plan?

Are you guys trying to pay off other debt?

No, we don't have any debt.

So where's all of your money going that he feels so stressed?

I don't know.

Well, it's a good question.

We have a $2,000 a month in bills, $2,000 a month in spending, and then we could be saving about $1,500 probably. I'm going to come back to the question that George and I have both asked.
We've asked it different ways because I think it's something you need to get the answer to. As I don't know that we can help you.
I think you need to get the answer to what is driving this act of desperation. This feels desperate to me.
George, am I wrong? He's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. But like there's a lot of angst in this decision, yes? Yes.
And that's, I was waiting for you to go, well, our mortgage is $4,000 a month. And I go, okay, I get the stress behind it, or we're in crippling debt and it's going to help us get out.
There's no reason. If you move into the trailer, what's it going to do for you? Just have mortgage free.
So we both work a good amount. And I think the hope would be that I could stay home, that we would have more time at home as a family, and it's just been really busy.
So maybe there's stress coming from that. Yeah, but you understand what I'm saying, that I really think you need to have some walk time.
Let's hold hands and walk somewhere. Let's go to a dinner and just say, hey, it's okay, whatever the answer is, but can you tell me what's really behind this? I think you got to get an, you don't know, and I'm not guilting you on that.
I'm just saying I think you need to know. Because to that point, once you get to the bottom of what's really going on behind this, now we can begin to address what our viable options are.
I just don't think it's viable. Do you think it's viable to move to the trailer? I can usually go with the flow, but it's not something I want to do.
That's not your picture of I want to stay at home and live in a $3,000 trailer and raise this child. Yeah, that's not go with the flow.
You're going to resent him. Inside of two years, you will resent him for that, won't you? Tell the truth.
Yeah, that's probably true. It's not probably true.
It's completely true. You're a very nice woman.
My gosh, you're nice. So if the goal is I want to stay at home, let's then figure out, okay, how do we make this happen sustainably? Does he need to get his income up in order to still cover all the bills if you lose your income? Let's figure that part out before we go napalm and go, we got to live in a trailer to make this all happen.
Okay. How much do you bring home a month? I'm only, I'm about $2,900 a month.
He's about $4,000 or more depending on overtime. I think George makes a really good point there.
I think it'd be worth a conversation to see what overtime, let's not rush this, because he sounds like a guy's just he wants to solve everything tomorrow and by the way I I could I I get that I got a little bit of that in me like I always want to solve everything super fast and that ends up stressing my wife out instead of being helpful she's like you're stressing me out you know I get that so I feel him a little bit there but I just wonder George uh if the conversation I want to know what you think about this i i think they need to have a conversation about okay over time what would need to be true for us to get twenty nine hundred dollars more take home on his side of the aisle and you just referenced that that to me is a more healthy conversation than selling this house and moving to a trailer do you agree with that yes and do tactical piece, do a sample budget just off of his income and go, okay, we can cover the bills. We can invest.
We might slow down the house payoff process. Are we willing to make that compromise? Because the truth is you probably don't need to spend two grand.
We're probably living pretty comfortably. And so he doesn't want to change his lifestyle, but he wants to uproot the entire family and move into a trailer.
And so I'd rather see different sacrifices to make this dream come true. And you might find doing the budget, we can do this today.
Or you might find he needs to make $1,000 more a month for us to hit our goals. Great.
Now we have a very clear career goal that Ken can help with. You see the difference there? Yeah.
Yeah. That is a big difference.
But again, I don't think, Liz, that any of this conversation will register until you both have an honest conversation and he feels safe and he finally burps out, if you will, why he's really scared. Do you know what I mean? He's got to get that out of his system.
And you've got to hear it, not belittle it. You've got to be a supportive spouse on that and make him feel seen and heard.
And I think that'll calm him down a little bit. And then we begin to talk about, as George just said, other options to alleviate the same issue.
Okay. And by the way, this also includes you being honest with him to say, this isn't an option, babe.
I don't want this quality of life. I will resent you, this is not viable.
Like, he needs to hear that.

Yeah. You know, not, I mean, if I have to, I'll go with the flow.
Let me tell you what most dudes hear when we hear that. Oh, she's in.
I mean, we're idiots on behalf of all men. We don't hear what we need to hear sometimes.
And I'm just being clear. I mean, I'll, I'll be honest.
Maybe George is more in tune with his feminine side. It's not you being a jerk.
It's just saying, here's my side. Here's how I'm feeling about this.
And he needs to, you know, you both get a vote in this marriage. Yeah.
So, you know, just a good conversation. Let's talk through some options.
Helping think through those options. He saw a cheap trailer on Facebook and went, this is the ticket.
This is it. It's guy 101.
It's a male classically thing. Oh, super quick solve.
How about this? He can buy the trailer. He can live in it.
You stay in the house. There we go.
I don't think that's the kind of relationship advice we want to give. We'll talk about it during the break.
We'll be back with more of your calls. This is the Ramsey Solution.
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That's nokbox.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.
I'm Ken Coleman. George Camel is alongside 888-825-5225.

888-825-5225 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in uh george it's uh man it's getting closer and closer to christmas feels like it's time to be doing a budget if you haven't done one this is the time we tend to spend the most we got to get control of that money yeah so uh you EveryDollar team, Jade, you guys have been doing these free live trainings where you're walking through the EveryDollar app. Tell us about this.
So this is a practical time where we show you, hey, here's what people are feeling about money. Here's the plan to get control of it.
Here's how EveryDollar works. We're going to show you how to create a budget from scratch and give you some encouragement along the way to make it actually stick.
Yeah, it's really good stuff. Tens of thousands of people.
I'm told over 100,000 people have done these. So the next one is Tuesday, October 29th at 1 Eastern 12 Central.
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Again, Tuesday, October 29th at 1 Eastern, 12 Central Time.

All right, Jay is going to join us now in Tampa, Florida.

Jay, how can we help? All right, Can you guys hear me? Loud and clear. All right, yeah, so for one, yeah, thanks for taking my call.
I'm 24. I'm a social media creator with probably five, five plus million followers, and I'm, for one, I'm incredibly blessed and grateful for just even the opportunity to say that.
And I'm probably grossing around $300,000 to $400,000 a year right now. But despite this, I still struggle with feeling financially secure.
And I know that sounds maybe a little bit silly. And again, I'm grateful, but it's more about the feeling of not having this fixed income.
I don't have the consistency of an employment job, just a traditional job.

And so my biggest question is, how can I create a more stable financial foundation for myself

so I can feel just more secure about the future down the line?

Because right now, I never really know what my next ad revenue paycheck is going to be like with YouTube. Well, what's been your worst month in the last 12 months? Worst month? Um, well, I would say the worst was probably, probably maybe a couple months ago, 10, 10 K in a single month.
Can you cover all your bills with 10K? Yeah, absolutely. I don't have a lot of nothing going on, no debt, fortunately.
Great. No.
But that just tells you on my worst month, I still have a surplus. So there's a reality to this and fact to this that you don't have to live in this scarcity mindset.
But I do think it's wise to diversify. And even at Ramsey Solutions, as a business, we talk about how we don't want to be so on one platform that we're so reliant on it that if something were to happen, YouTube changes the algorithm, all of a sudden you're out.
And that's why it's good to have, you know, brand partnerships, your own product offering. So do you have money coming in outside of just YouTube ad revenue? Do you have sponsors or products? Yeah, I would say probably 60% of my annual income comes from sponsorships.

But I again, and you know, I'm sorry, it's probably just more the nerves of just, you know, running this new operation I've developed the last couple years. But it's the concern of not having that next sponsorship come because you know, it's like, I don't have control over that.
I do have an agency that represents me. But even a few months ago, I think I went three or four months without a sponsorship.
And though the ad revenue is coming in, I have my family also working with me. And so I'm kind of the, you know, the face of the brand and all that online.
And so I feel the pressure. I get that.
I'm gonna tell you what I would do if I i were in your shoes and this has nothing to do with whether or not you're an online content creator or you were a uh you owned your own wallpaper business okay so if i'm the sole you know kind of breadwinner um i would be putting a year's worth of your needs away so we talked about your worst month, but what's your actual, what are your, all your bills, everything? I mean, soup to nuts. How much money do you have to have to have some comfortable margin to cover every expense in your life? How much, what's that number round figure? I mean, gosh, it's so, because I'm so, I'm so new to, you know, I'm naive and that's probably the biggest thing that I don't understand.
Naive people don't know they're naive. So you're a step beyond that at least.
No, I think you're misunderstanding my question. I'm talking about, I'm talking about your rent or your mortgage, your bills, that's everything, like groceries, gas, I'm talking cost of living.
What is the number that you need every month to be comfortable? I would say like probably 5,000. Okay, great.
5,000, I would feel safe. Okay, great.
And you can adjust this number later, but here's my point. If I were you, what I would be doing is I would put $60,000 into a separate savings account above and beyond the emergency fund and things that we talk about.
That's what I would do. And I would put it in the company's account, however you pay yourself.
I would put it, we call it retained earnings. I would put it in a savings account and not touch it.
And that represents an absolute ground zero. If something crazy happens and YouTube goes out of business or something happens and all of a sudden you start deteriorating, you lose your sponsorships, you lose your views.

I'm saying it this way because I want you to mentally walk through what would have to happen for this thing to just all of a sudden start to go down pretty quickly or tank.

But if it did, if you had $60,000 in the bank to pay you the just bare minimums, you would be able to sleep a lot better at night, true or false? Yeah, definitely. And I would do that.
I mean, I definitely have somewhere around there put away. I think, you know, and I guess that's because it's this new industry being a content creator.
Yeah, it's just this self-employed job. And so, and I've been different outlets of you know if you had 12 months jay if you had 12 months to pivot to anything else you would feel a lot better correct yeah i i would say so yeah then that's what i would do george i don't know if you want to add yeah you already told me you're diversifying and so i think part of this is also figuring out how do I own more of the audience? How do I create an email list? How do I develop products to where I'm diversified? We recommend that with mutual funds across four types.
We're not doing a single stock. And I recommend you do the same in your business as a content creator.
And so find different streams of revenue to where if one goes down, you still have the others to keep you afloat. On top of this kind of peaks and valleys fund that Ken talked about, where if you have a lean month, you have a savings account.
You have some retained earnings to fall back on. And I think it's wise to know that this pony train may not last forever.
We may not make 400 grand on YouTube forever. Maybe you make more, who knows? But I think the more you're putting away in savings and investing, while also having some balance where you're spending and giving wisely, you're going to then learn, okay, I'm on the bike, I'm pedaling, I'm not about to fall off.
And that takes a little bit of time. Yeah.
And I think I probably want to just more specific technicals I would have to ask is like, I have an LLC. I started that.
I've been managing my finances. I got a CPA who helped me on a quarterly basis and all that.
So I've set the basic foundation when it comes to maintaining my finances. What would be like truly, literally the next thing I should do? I don't have a 401k.
Should I, you know, start initiating, you know, going down that path or? Yeah, I would look into a solo 401k if that's an option for you, depending on how big your team is. If it's just you and a spouse or something like that, you could do a solo 401k.
You can look into a SEP IRA as well. So there's

some great options for self-employed folks. And you can get connected to a smart investor pro

at RamseySolutions.com. Click on trusted services over there and get connected with an investment

pro who can go, hey, here's your options as a small business owner of ways you can invest.

And that's going to make you feel a lot better when you're putting away

60, 70% of your income and then going, all right, I'm going to learn how to live on the 30. Sure.
Yeah. You're doing great, man.
Congratulations. Yeah.
That young, making that kind of money and asking these questions. And I also agree with you, George.
And Jay, I would make sure you heard what George said. I think he said about 60% of his revenue is sponsors.
Did I hear that right? Yes. I'd like to see that number.
I'd like to see that number eventually get more even. 50-50, 64 the other way.
Add revenue is sponsors, products, start to split that out. Yeah.
So that, you know, he's got a product in the marketplace that hopefully is self-perpetuating. You lose sponsors, you lose 25% of your income instead of 60.
Yeah, yeah. So whatever, he's solving a problem.
To have these kind of results, he's definitely solving some type of problem. So good for you.
That's impressive. All right, folks, quick break.
We'll be right back with more of The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.
I'm Ken Coleman. George Campbell joins me.
The phone number is 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. Always fun when we have some folks standing on the debt-free stage just across the studio from George and I.
And it's Vicente and Joanna are joining us. Welcome.
That's right. Thanks for having us.
You bet. Where are you guys hailing from? We're from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Grand Rapids, Michigan. All right.
Fantastic. All right.
Tell us, how much have you paid off and how long did it take? We paid off $173,500, and that's our house, and we did that in 10 years. All right.
Wow. Amazing.
That includes the house. You know, if Dave were here, he'd call you weird.
Yep. Ken's not going to do that.
I'm not going to do that, because I'm looking at you all. You look pretty fantastic.
Thank you. But nonetheless, you are definitely unique.
Tell us the range of income during the 10-year period. Yeah, well, we started at about $85,000, and we're at about $160,000 now.
Oh, wow. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a teacher and a music teacher and a worship leader at my church.
So doubling up. Yep.
All right. And what about you, Joanna? I work in healthcare as an RN.
Oh, very nice. Okay, good.
Have you seen a nice rise in your pay over the 10 years? Yes. Good for you.
Good for you. It's really her income that explains that doubling up there.

Oh, no.

Trust me.

As much as this saddens me, you're pretty limited in a teacher pay.

But thank you for what you do and love that you're also serving as a worship leader, too.

So that keeps you pretty busy.

Yeah.

Middle school teachers, fifth and eighth grade choir.

Oh, wow.

I've taught band over the years.

You do realize you're getting special rewards in heaven for being a middle school teacher, right? Yes. Yes, yeah.
Wow. Middle school is tough.
That's the most awkward phase to serve these kids. That's amazing.
What's the house worth? Right now? Yeah. Yeah, it's $4.50.
$4.50? Almost $4.50 now. All right.
And what's in the nest egg in retirement, investment accounts, savings, all that? About $250. Amazing.
So you

guys are edging toward that Baby Steps millionaire status. Yeah.
Way to go. Not far.
Knocking on

the door. A couple years.
We follow the steps. How old are you guys? We're both 34.
Oh boy,

if George gets his investment calculator out, those are going to be- Don't make me crunch the

numbers. Those are going to be big numbers.
Don't make me turn this car around. Yeah.
That's amazing.

Yeah. All right.
So my goodness. So take us 10 years ago.
You guys are in your early 20s. And what makes you decide to follow these steps, as Joanna said? Well, yeah, we got married about 12 years ago.
And right away after we got married, we took financial peace together. We thought it was really important to do that.
Actually, my parents made me and my brothers and sisters take financial peace when we were, I don't know, 17, all the way back to 2007, 2008. That's kind of how I heard about you guys.
Did any of it stick then, or were you just largely irritated by it? No, I can't say the same for others, but it definitely stuck with me. Yeah, I was really excited about it.
Yeah. And what was the why behind all of this? That's a long time to go.
We're going to make some sacrifices and compromises to hit this goal. Just, I don't know, just a life of freedom, not bogged down by debt, and just like paycheck to paycheck living and just the stress of that.
We just didn't want that for us. We didn't want that for our kids.
Additionally, like her parents and my parents just taught us well. There's been kind of a legacy handed down.
Again, like I said, my parents made me take financial peace when I was probably 17 or 18, I think. and yeah, really just, that's what we wanted was to have a life that was in freedom.
Now of the $173,000, was it just the house or did you have other debt when you guys got married? That $173,000 is all the house. So you guys come into marriage and the only debt you have is the house.
Right. Oh, that's kind of unique as well.
It gives you a leg up. You're not going to spend years trying to kind of pay for the past.
You're building for the future from day one. Yeah.
So what were some of the things that you guys did? Because you took, I mean, again, no shame, no shade, but over 10 years, what did that look like? What were your disciplines? What were some of the things you all did to knock this house out? Well, I'll start, but go ahead and join in. Basically, it's just, it's kind of the long road for us.
10 years is a really, it's a really, really long time. Even just a few years is long.
And so it's kind of about, you know, getting or not avoiding all debt. I mean, we could have gotten into credit cards.
It was tempting sometimes to want to buy a much nicer car. We've probably had, I don't know, five or six cars over 10 years, and all of them have been well under 10 grand.
And so it's really just about those disciplines. We budget every month.
We talk about it every month. Do you have any regrets from the sacrifices you made, or do you go, no, we would do it all over again? No regrets.
No, we'd do it all over again. It's worth it.
The baby steps that we have followed and the principles that you teach, we have, first of all, we've followed them step by step in order.

So we've done them, and we've done them in order, and they've never failed us.

So we've known that's the plan that we wanted to, even though people out there do different things.

This is what we wanted to do. And from the very beginning, we were together and dreaming about our future.

Yeah, well, avoiding lifestyle creep is a superpower in today's world. And you guys did that for a decade.
That's incredible. Joanna, what would you say is the key to this journey to get out of debt? No matter what the debt is or how long it takes, what do you think is the key? Patience, perseverance, and not getting distracted.
Not looking around at how other people are living or what they're doing. Just keeping the focus.
That's so interesting. There's unity there.
And it sounds like you guys have a better marriage because of it. Yeah.
Are there things you learned just communicating along the way about money that made your marriage better overall? Yeah. I mean, we've had to do that just since the very beginning and, and, and it wasn't always just easy, but, um, we were able to come to, you know, make some, I don't know about compromises, but we were just able to talk and dream together about what we wanted our life to look like.
Yeah. My favorite is dreaming together.
And now that the debt's paid off, it's like this opportunity. Yeah.
Real quick, is there an exciting dream you guys are knocking around talking about now that you're completely debt-free? I don't know. Just for years, we've just always asked, you know, what can we do? How can we give back? My parents paid for my college education, so I kind of see that as, you know, how can I pay for my kids? They're here.
We'll see them in a little bit. How can we save for our own kids' education and give to grandkids and maybe even great-grandkids, kind of keep that legacy going that our families and our parents have started? It didn't start with us, but we want to be the people who continue that toward the other generations.
Feels like they're keeping the family tree in this case, not changing it, but keeping the family tree going. Leading with that generosity.
What about a spending goal? You're going to upgrade the car? Come on, Vicente, do something nice for the wife! More traveling, like this trip that we're taking right now, and being able to stop on places on our way down here, and we're stopping on some more places on our way up, or's fun. We're planning on some more big vacations.
That's fun. We drove here in, you know, a 2013, I think, Honda Odyssey.
So let's upgrade her car. Be careful.
That thing will last 30 years. You're not kidding.
You got to upgrade eventually. We're going to upgrade on the Odyssey.
All right, you talked about your kids and what you want to do for them. Let's bring them up.
Let's meet them real quick. Tell us their names and how old.
Come on. Aria, she's nine years old.
Uh-huh. And Peter, who is seven years old.
Okay. Aria, come over here by me.
Now, have they been practicing? Have you heard them in the house screaming? We have been practicing. I did free scream on the way here and everything, yes.
All right. Well, here we go.
We've got Vicente and Joanna, Aria, and Peter from Grand Rapids, Michigan. They paid off $173,000 over 10 years.
That includes the house, making $85,000 to $160,000. What an awesome family.
They've been practicing. I give it to you now.
Take it away. Let's hear your debt-free scream.
Here we go, guys. Ready? Three, two, one.
We're debt-free! All right. Very nice.
Well done. Kids got big smiles on their faces.
I love to see the branches continue on this amazing family tree. That's inspiring.
Don't you have a sense that actually young Aria and Peter really do know what has just happened? I got a sense that they do, that they get it. They had a front row seat.
What a legacy. They were on the journey the whole time with them.
I love that. So fun.
That's why we do it right there, folks. That is a family that is on their way to being Baby Steps millionaires and not too long from here.
And we've got a teacher and a nurse, and they're doing this thing. A teacher and a nurse.
They're going to be multi-millionaires when it's all said and done. Wow, the American dream, folks.
In case you're wondering, I don't care what the networks tell you or the candidates tell you. We just heard it.
The American Dream is alive and well. This is The Ramsey Show.
Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John.
Why don't people want to take care of their family? They think they're not going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys. I didn't even think about it.
And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance.
That's a gut punch. For decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse.
They've lost somebody important to them. Me too.
And they don't know what to do next. Terrifying.
You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow.
She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up, or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right.
These are the two options. It's saying I love you to your family.
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Go to Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.
Thrilled to have you with us. Alongside George Camel, I'm Ken Coleman.
The phone number to jump in today is 888-825-5225. Chattanooga, Tennessee is where Mark joins us.
Mark, how can we help? Yes, thank you for taking my call. We are currently in debt about $16,500.
Half of that is on credit cards. The other half is medical.
And then we borrowed some money from family to fix the used vehicle after we drained our savings to also put that money into our vehicle. I'm 40.
I've got a four, a two, and a three-year-old girls. Married six years.
And I am tired of existing. And I want to thrive financially.
I want to teach them how to do that as well. Love it.
You've had enough. You're sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Yeah, I'm sick and tired. I was raised this way of this is life and this is how it is, but I don't believe that anymore.
And just trying to get out of that has been a struggle. Well, I got to tell you, I admire you and you've come to the right place.
Dr. Camel is in today.
We are in. Is your wife on board with this? Does she feel the same way? You shared this with her? Yes.
Yes. Yes, she does feel the same way.
I'm calling away from her because I don't have to be around the kids right now, all screaming and playing. Yes, we are both on the same page.
We want to own a home. We're renting.
We want to get out of this lifestyle and change. What's the game plan? How much do you make and how long is it going to take to pay off the debt at your current rate? So net pay with both of us combined is roughly around $64,000.
Let's see. With our debt being $16,500, we had a plan on being debt-free by the end of this year but then our vehicle which was paid off broke down and we ended up spending about 10 grand on that which 10 grand to fix a car well transmissions are incredibly expensive and just while we were in there had to fix what's what's the car worth now uh probably000, but it's paid for.
$7,500? Now they can drive the wheels off. Well, I was going to say, I feel like you should have just spent $10,000 and bought a different car at that point.
Yeah, but again, I feel like we're just in a position where I can't afford that monthly payment and also mechanical issues if they were to pop up. But you borrowed the money from family, and that's woven into the 16-5? So we used about $7,500 out of our savings, and we used the $3,000 from in-laws to pay for everything because it was a very quick, this happened, we've got to get a fish right away.
Okay. So we've, yeah.
So you're bringing home $5,300 a month. How much of that are you able to throw at the debt? Well, on a good month, we can throw about $500 to $700.
But here lately, it feels like that money's been going towards sick kids and clothes and everything else that we're needing. And just trying to get a better hold on it.
I just can't seem to get a foothold on what to do and how to do. Feels like we need a little more money right now, maybe just to get stabilized.
We need some more income, correct? We do, and I have the opportunity where I can work a lot of overtime. And I do struggle with that because I have small kids.
I want to be there for them. I don't want to raise them the way I was raised where I feel like I didn't have a relationship, but I also have a responsibility.
You have a responsibility. And I would take all the overtime in the world right now because they're really young, so they have no concept of time.
And you're not going to be anywhere near this deadbeat dad that you're scared of being or this detached dad. In fact, the best thing you can do as a dad right now is work all those overtime hours, knock all this debt out, get some margin, and then you can downshift.
You got to set yourself free of that right now. In fact, that's the best thing you can do.
I'm thrilled right now, to be honest with you, that I'm talking to a guy who can get overtime. That's actually great news for you.
You don't have to go out and find a second job. You just go bust it right now.
And George can tell you how to use that money. He'll get you out of this thing actually pretty quick.
Yeah. Ken's talking about margin here, and there's two ways to get it.
You got to spend less or make more. And I think both are in order because right now you're telling me that your expenses are about 4,500 a month just to cover the main bills.
So I would be on an every dollar budget with your wife going through every single line item going, can we do better here? Let's reshop the insurance. Let's cut the eating out.
Let's cut the subscription. Let's sacrifice over here.
That's going to free up 700 bucks. Now we can go make an extra 700.
Well, that's $1,400 alone on top of the 500. That's two grand a month.
You hear that, Mark? I do. That means seven or eight months, you're completely debt free.
And so that's where the math should inspire you going, what is the margin we need to do this in seven months? I'd rather you be gone for seven months and the kids go, oh, where's dad? He's working overtime for seven months. They won't even know what happened, like Ken mentioned.
Yeah, this is the time to do it. You wouldn't want to do this if they were in the middle of sports and all kinds of extracurriculars.
So just trying to drive that point home that your kids aren't going to resent you for this, not even going to remember it. What would the overtime do for your take-home pay every month? I mean, gosh, I could probably, I mean, depending on the call-outs, I could make an extra $800 a month, maybe more.

Bingo.

There we go.

Woo, now we're talking, Mark.

On top of the $700 you can already throw.

And then think about if you were doing an every-dollar budget, how much more could we find in our budget?

Because right now you're talking $1,500 extra bucks.

He said on a good month that they had about $500 to $700.

Is that right? Yeah, that's about right. Okay.
So let's see over time of eight. So let's go to the low number.
Yeah. Even conservatively, we're talking $1,300.
Then we find an extra few hundred bucks in the budget. I think you can do this in less than a year.
I agree. And I think it's going to happen faster as you get some momentum.
How would that feel, Mark? No, that feels great. I think it was just that lagging, that gnawing guilt feeling.
I need to hear from somebody else that it's okay to do. It is okay.
Yeah, because you know what you're sick of? You started the phone call telling us you're sick of being stuck in neutral. Yeah.
And it's hard to be a joyful, present dad and husband when you know these bills are looming.

You know that you're in this situation.

Yeah.

So I'd rather a short-term sacrifice so that the next 20 years of their life with you as the dad and you as the husband are going to be vastly different than the last six.

Yeah.

By the way, what would overtime look like?

Is that all Monday through Friday, just longer hours?

No, I could do Monday through Friday, weekends.

Sundays are double time. Yeah, you know what I'm doing? If it's not already taken, yeah.
I'm getting as many hours as possible explaining to the kiddos what they can't understand. If they can't understand it, you don't have to explain it.
They don't have a clue. And then carving out little special moments once a week, twice a week, where you're doing something really fun with the kids.
And what that will do is that will just kind of re-inject into your heart that relationship juice that you need for this season where you're getting after it. Do you know what I mean? It'll just give you that little extra, little extra, okay, my heart's full.
You know what I'm saying? And that's huge. Doing something special with them know, that to me, I had to do that for a season.

When I was doing my own radio show, running my own company,

trying to get this thing off the ground, I was doing it on Saturdays, and I was away from the kids, and it hurt, and it wasn't fun.

But I found ways, little pockets during the week,

to get that special time with them, and it just kept me going. They were little.
They had no clue, you know? Right. So give yourself a break.
That's what I need to do. And I'm going to gift you one year of every dollar premium, Mark, so you and your wife can sit down, make that every dollar budget, income minus expenses, go through and do a little budget audit and go, okay, here's what's actually happening in our finances.
Where can we do better? Where can we cut right now just for a season and we'll upgrade our lifestyle later and get all the goodies back in. But right now I'm looking at, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10 months of some sacrifice for the next seven, eight, nine, 10 years of freedom.
I think it's worth it. Ooh, that's well said.
Did you catch that Mark? That right there, that's what what you called to hear. That exchange right there, the way George laid that out, that's your mindset.
That's a really easy trade-off, isn't it? It is, and that's what I need to do here. All right.
That's the only way. I wish there was a shortcut.
This is the only way I found that actually works. But most people prefer to live in mediocrity for their whole life, be in debt their whole life, manage the payments until they retire broke one day.
And their kids don't see a great marriage. They don't see a great dad.
All they feel is distress coming off of mom and dad trying to cover the bills. Yeah, I agree.
I agree. An old man once said, don't sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate.
And in this case, you can guilt yourself into going, I'm not going to go work overtime and get out of debt because I want to be around my kids. Well, that's going to affect the future as George just laid out.
So really good call, Mark. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing with us.
You're a good man. I think you helped a lot of other people out there.
I think so. And you're a good dad, Mark.
You're a good dad. Bad dads don't ask these questions.
Yeah. Good hour.
Thanks everybody for listening. This is The Ramsey Show.
Welcome to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win in your relationships, win in your work. I'm Ken Coleman.
George Camel is joining me. It's 888-825-5225.
That's the number to jump in. We're here to coach you up today.
You got some professional work-related questions. You want to move up so you can make more money? We'll take those calls.
I'd love to help. And then if you just got your standard money questions, George is always equipped to take you through what you need to do.
Brandon is going to start us off in Kansas City. Brandon, how can we help? Hey, good afternoon.
Hey, I've got a question. I've spent most of my life really, really poor, largely due to I graduated with software engineering degree at the time that WorldCom crashed.
And I paid my debt off and I've lived with little to no debt most of my life. And finally, in just the last few years, I've started making some pretty good money, real good money and no other real debt, but I went and bought some fancy cars.
And now I've been listening to y'all for a couple of years and I decided to sell my 2024 Corvette off. And I'm not going to lie, I'm missing the payment.
I'm missing the car. I'm missing the payment.
At what point does building wealth really start to take over that I'm going to enjoy this versus feeling rich? At what point can I maybe enjoy both? I mean, it's just kind of a shell shock to me to go from nothing to having something. And now I'm driving a $6,000 car because I sold my $90,000 Corvette.
And it's just kind of a shocker. Well, let me go back for a second, because I'm just curious.
Do you really miss your payments? I get you, I'm missing the 2024. But do you really miss that payment? Like, that's real? That's a real statement in your mind? Well, it's more like, you know, I made that payment, and I was saving money, and I had no trouble saving money with it, so it wasn't like I minded it so much.
You don't miss shelling out that much money every month, though. Oh, no.
Listening to y'all, and I'll be honest with you, what ended up being the nail in the coffin is when they jacked my insurance over $600 a month, and I went, whoa. Yeah, hello.
Wait a minute. I mean, it's the cost to replace that car.
And so that's an expensive car to replace. Sure.
So my question is, why the slingshot giant pendulum swing to either I drive a $100,000 car worth of payment or I drive a beater $6,000 car? Why no middle ground where you go, all right, if I save two grand a month, in a year I'll have 24 grand to spend on a used Corvette. And we're going to do that, and that's what I'm working on right now.
So, I mean, I'm sitting back and building. So I own a company, so what my – I'm in the baby steps, if you want to call it, as to I need a very large emergency fund, and I'm working on funding it.
For the business or for your personal life?

Let's separate the two. Both.
Okay. Well, personal, I don't need much at all.

I don't need much there, but my business, I need a very large, I own a heating, air,

electrical, and plumbing company. We have about $600,000 a year in overhead, so I'm trying to

build a safety net up in that $300,000 range. How long have you had that company? About five years.
What's your growth rate right now? I've stalled it for the last couple of years because I've not been hiring because I keep investing in the company. So what are you investing in when you say investing in the company? I've kept this debt free.
So, I mean, I've got eight vehicles. I need to grow three more.
And I've kept it all on the debt-free side. Good for you.
But each van takes $30,000 to $50,000 to set them each up. All right, here's why I'm asking.
That's kind of where I'm at. I love this, Brandon.
Here's why I'm asking. You're only five years into this.
You're being super smart right now by cash flow in this. My guess is in the not too distant future, and I want to go down this line here for George as well, in the not too distant future, you are going to now be able to hire, and my guess is your profit margin is going to take a really nice bump at some point, correct? Yes, very nice.
My friend, the reason I'm going through this is because I'm, the Wall Street Journal, George and Brandon, came out, I want to say last week or within the last 10 days, and in the front of the cover of the Wall Street Journal, and I'm going to get the headline wrong, but I'll paraphrase, it was like the new millionaire class. It was talking about guys like you, Brandon, that are owning electrician firms or plumbing.
You got HVAC, plumbing. You got the whole nine yards there.
I'm just telling you, you hold the line. You're going to be paying cash for a $100,000 Corvette in the not-too-distant future by just giving yourself dividend payments.
You know that's true, don't you? Oh, I do. I do.
I'm still just kind of going through that withdrawal, and I'm like, how long does it take to get that withdrawal? I mean, I'm not going to lie. When you've been poor your whole life, and all of a sudden you get to play like you're rich for a little while, it's fun.
I mean, it's fun. Of course.
Nobody disputes that, George. You wrote a whole book about that.
Absolutely. But, you know, driving the brand new car with the new leather smell and then going to your $6,000 beater, you're like, oh, of course you're going to miss that.
And you'll get back there soon. And the parameter is simple.
Make sure that you pay cash for your cars and that the total value of all the vehicles in your personal world add up to no more than half of your annual income. So what is your annual household income today? Oh, about, it varies a little bit.
It's somewhere around 20% of my business. So 180 to 240,000.
That's amazing. So let's call it 200K.
So the total value of all your vehicles need to add up to no more than 100K. Got it.
So what is your, you said you have a wife? No, no, I'm single. Okay.
You said we earlier, so I wasn't sure wasn't sure you're single yeah i've got my son so when i referred we is probably i was probably thinking about okay so if you had a 90 000 car we got no problem with that with your world but we got to pay cash for it and i think the discipline of going all right how do i save up 90 grand if that's what you do. And by the way, we don't recommend buying a brand new car until you're a Baby Steps millionaire.
You may be. Have you done the numbers on this? My net worth is all in the business.
Basically, I got a few other small investments, but I'm around six to seven hundred thousand. Amazing.
So you're what we call a Henry, high earner, not rich yet. And you're going to be, if you keep this going, you don't inflate your lifestyle too much.
I see no reason why you couldn't save five grand a month out of your personal take-home pay and have 60 grand to buy a great car a year from now. Very good.
I just started saving eight grand. So there we go.
I'm just two months into it. Yeah.
You're just, you've, you've got that itch to go, man, I missed that car. And I don't want to wait another eight or 10 or 12 months to save up for it.
But you know, building anything takes time. Anything meaningful takes time.
The trivial is how you shortcut it. And that's what you did with the payments.
You're going to get back to it in a way that doesn't hurt your financial life. I got a question for George.
Hang on the line here, Brandon. I got a question for George.
I'm going to put it to him here. I think he needs to get rid of the $6,000 car.
I'd like to see him jump up a little bit. Yeah.
I mean, how much something that's... It sounds like he's got savings.
Something that he's enjoying. Yeah.
Do you have some savings outside of the business to upgrade car? Well, I'm going to very quickly. I mean, I blew everything getting rid of, so I didn't get rid of one car, so you guys know.
I got rid of three. I had two big trucks that had loans, and then I got rid of, so I blew about $40,000 paying all these off.
That's part of the reason why I'm kind of having this withdrawal. I took $40,000 that I'd saved up cash and took losses on all these vehicles when I'm going to be debt-free, and, you know, so I'm kind of going through that withdrawal.
My nice trucks are gone, and my savings account went to squelch, you know, and I'm going, now I'm going to build it back really quick. Oh, you will.
George, I just think maybe, I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, if you've got, he said he can save $8,000 a month. I mean, if you're talking a $20,000 car in the meantime.
Get something that he likes for $20 likes for 20 to hold him over. I like this plan and just upgrade incrementally as you have the cash and

keep living on less than you make. Keep this business crushing.
You'll be there, man. But I'm

not missing the debt payments. We'll get you that nice car smell in no time.
And until then, you can

get those new car smell trees. A good $200 detail will change your life on any car.
It'll make you

feel like it's brand new. So you kind of fake yourself out? Exactly.
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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Alongside George Camel, I'm Ken Coleman.
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Today's question comes from Steve in Louisiana. I'm a flight nurse and work five hours away from home.
Love my job and the schedule of five days on and 10 days off. It allows me more time with my family than a regular nursing job.
I'm the sole provider for our family. And while my job provides excellent pay and experience, recent corporate changes have made this job much less enjoyable.
So I've been exploring my options. If I stay at my current job for two years, I could pay off my remaining 50 grand in student loan debt.
The other option involves taking a job closer to home at $20,000 less per year. This option aligns better with my career goals because of better growth opportunities.
I'm torn between the financial benefits of sticking with my current position for a quicker debt payoff and the potential career advancement offered by a job closer to home. What should I do? This has got Ken Coleman written all over it.
Well, I'm going to answer it with what I would do. If it were me, I would take the option that gives me the better future.
Because the $20,000 broken up over 12 months, it's just not that much. And some of you may be going, Ken, are you nuts? I think Dave would even probably disagree with me on this one.

But I am a guy that when it comes to professional future, I'm always going to take the opportunity

that gets me on the right ladder to go where I want to go.

And I think that he can still buckle down and pay this debt off.

I also think that because he's a nurse, that he could probably get more hours.

And I don't think it's necessarily he's looking at it just a $20,000 hit now that's what I would do but if he feels like he can get back into this second option two years from now then maybe you hustle it and you knock it out but uh i i just going to choose the long term. What's the best long term play? So if I'm going to take a $20,000 hit and I'm still trying to pay off $50,000, what I'm going to do, I'm going to first think I'm going to do is how can I make extra money as a nurse outside of this new opportunity to equal the $20,000? If I can't do that, I'm going to do everything to adjust my lifestyle by $20,000 and make up the difference in my expenses.
Does that make sense? Oh, absolutely. I was going to say the same thing.
I actually like the idea of him getting his life back by being closer to home, not five hours away. Well, that's another option.
He didn't seem to be bothered by that, but I'm with you. Well, he said more time with my family, all know, but I do think finding the gap is important.
Like you mentioned, how do we find that 600 bucks, 1600 bucks extra a month that we're losing by taking this gig? And if that means a second job over time, cutting our lifestyle down so that we stay on track with our debt payoff goal, that to me is the, that's the Goldilocks sweet spot. I agree.
And I think that's doable. I think the advice we're giving there is feasible.
Yeah, because we're also not assuming, he said there's growth opportunities. What if the next year? Well, that's the whole point.
He makes an extra $10,000 or $20,000. Which is why I'm always going to choose to make sacrifices in my living in order to get on the right ladder for the future.
So in this situation, if you have to take a $20,000 hit, you better adjust your lifestyle to where it's not a hit. Yes.
Make it as temporary as possible. Very temporary.
And notice that neither one of us said it was okay to press pause on paying off the debt. We didn't say that.
So that's the direction I'm going to choose on that one. I love it.
Solid. Let's go to Manhattan.
The Big Apple, George. You love to frequent it.
I love it. Rose is on the line.
Rose, how can we help? Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call.
I am engaged, and we have been planning a wedding, which would be about $50,000. Oh.
We're about $11,000 into paying it. We've been watching your videos and we are $95,000

in debt, not including the

wedding. And we're wondering if we

should just call the whole thing off,

do a small ceremony,

and really tackle the $95,000.

Yes.

Small ceremony. So we're not putting

off getting married, we're just putting off a

very expensive party.

I like that. Is it just you two that

are paying for the wedding, no family help?

They would be helping

Thank you. Yeah.
Okay. Rose, I don't know what George thinks about this.
I've been married 26 years. We're heading to 27.
And the other day, Stacey and I were looking at our wedding album because she's thinking about getting it digital and all that kind of stuff. And what's interesting is, is that the photos that we had the most, you know, emotional connection to as we kind of went back down memory lane, it was just the us, the wedding party, but mostly it was family.
And I remember sort of, kind of. You don't remember the flower arrangements? No.
I kind of remember some of the friends that were there. That day tends to be a big blur anyway.
And so I guess my point is that I just want to appeal to your emotions here to say that if you do a small family wedding and you get great pictures of it, that's what you're going to cherish more than, than everybody else there and the shrimp and the, you know, the, all that stuff. Yeah.
That's kind of like, do that later. You guys could do a really cool, maybe fifth anniversary party or something when you're debt free.
I just really believe that the small family wedding, as long as you mark the moment and you do it right within a realistic budget, George, I just, I like that play. And I think that's all it's going to matter to you 26 years from now.
And if they're covering 20 grand, that's my wedding budget. I'm going, all right, we're not going to spend a dime on this.
We're going to figure out. I'm so glad you said that because that was like, Rose, we ain't spending anything on it.
We're taking the family money and we're going to make the most of it. George will come play at the wedding.
He's really good. He's got an acoustic guitar set that is very romantic.
I just saw John Mayer played at a wedding. I assume he was a lot of money.
But you could afford me, Rose.

Yeah.

It's no problem.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, that's great.

Congratulations.

I love... Here's the thing.

Getting your marriage off to the right start financially, to me, is way more important

than we had an amazing wedding and everyone was so impressed.

Because you're really throwing a party for other people.

Yeah.

And on behalf of all dudes, I would like to say that we really don't care. Have a ceremony.
Let's get the thing done. And let's go to the honeymoon.
I remember moments after the ceremony, I was like, we could have saved a lot of time and money on this. And you're people out after that wedding.
Yeah. You've shaken the hands and kissed the babies and, you know.
A lot of stress, a lot of things. And it's like you have that moment where you get to the back of the church, it's just you.
The wedding planner hasn't even caught up yet. And you're just standing there going, huh, this could have been a lot simpler.
As a guy. This could have been an email.
Let me be very clear that Stacey does not feel that way. But I'm just saying, like, the guys are kind of like, really? You know? 100%.
So. Do you remember how much you spent on the wedding i don't who knows it's a long time ago yeah but i think it would shock our audience it wasn't a lot i was a wee lad when you guys got married yes you were but i think that i think oh boy i'm gonna step in it right here okay i think as a whole americans spend ridiculously too much on weddings i I don't think that's even controversial now.
We're seeing six-figure weddings become the norm. And by the way, I think they're getting price gouged.
I'm going to catch it for that. The wedding industry is gouging people.
No, it costs. I get it.
It costs money to do all the things. No, you're marking it up.
There's a lot of, you just have to do it because this is what weddings cost.

White folded chairs

should only cost so much.

There ought to be a law

to cap the price

of renting white lawn chairs.

That's essentially what they are.

Just go to Trader Joe's,

pick some flowers,

call it a day.

Spend 150 bucks.

Yeah.

I think there should be

like a community fund

for weddings.

The church donates their place. The chair people donate their chair.
You know what I mean? Chair people. Aren't there chair people? They got to make a living too.
They got a lot of chairs. They make their living on corporate stuff.
I've gotten over my skis, clearly. But it's just too much.
I think you're right. I think we can do more with less.
And the people that really remember it, they love you anyways, regardless of what the food was like or the donut wall. I don't want to touch the donuts.
How long? Who touched those donuts before me? I don't even know what a donut wall is. Is this a thing? It's a wall of donuts on hooks and you grab donuts off at weddings.
Yeah. It's a thing.
Feels like a church thing. It's a lot of gluten for me.
That's true. You swell up when you get too much gluten.
It's not a pretty sight, folks. You should see it.
I've seen it. Had to give him his reaction shot one time right in the heart.
He came back quickly. This is The Ramsey Show.
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Pre-order today. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show.
So thrilled that you are with us. 888-825-5225.
888-825-5225 is the number to jump in. Alongside George Camel, I'm Ken Coleman and we're here for you.
And I gotta tell you, George. Oh boy.
One of my favorite long-running segments from you is the I gotta tell you. I gotta tell you.
I don't know what's coming. I gotta tell you.
I think we're spending too much on our dogs. This one's personal.
America's out of control. No, I've got two doodles.
Full disclosure. Got a big guy doodle, Ellis.
He's amazing. And then we got a little mini golden doodle, Honey.
And she's amazing. Yeah, love our doodles.
And I've been watching a lot of football as i do and uh the commercials now are starting to uh get ridiculous on premium dog food oh i've seen these but before i get to that let me just make my case about how we've lost our minds about our pets okay give me some numbers. The average annual cost of owning a dog is $376 a month, George.
And quick math tells you that's $4,512 a year. This is according to a recent survey of dog owners.
Gen Z spends the most of any current generation at an average of $590 a month, George. That's $7,080 a year.
66% of these respondents have made cutbacks on the thing they need or want. 65% have sought financial assistance from friends and family.
So this is dealing with the stress of owning the dog. The amount of money Jordans are spending on dogs is requiring them to cut back on other things and seek financial assistance from friends and family.
So you're telling me two-thirds of people out there are going, hey, mom, dad, brother, sister, I need some money to fund Fido's life. More than 60% have cut back on home improvements, experiences, basic necessities to cover the cost of their dog ownership.

And more than 50% of Americans have cut back on dog food, pet insurance, and vet care. And so Kelly, the amazing associate producer, gave me this information.
And so, George, I got to tell you, I'm getting a little irritated specifically with now what I think is an attempt to rip off Americans and their love of their doggies. And it's the premium dog food.
The premium dog food. The kibble, I guess, is killing them or what? No, no.
I mean, we talk about. This is like, why feed your dog dog food? They deserve real food.
I've seen this trend. Have you seen these commercials and the trend? I mean, you own two dogs.
Yeah, and I have French Bulldogs, which are very allergic to life. And so they say, Ken, well, you got to make their own chicken, and you got to make their own meals for them with real vegetables and real meats.
I understand that's probably like the healthiest option for them. But if my dog is eating better than me, priorities are out of order if i'm eating a frozen pizza and my dog's got the organic free range chicken it's a problem we're doing it wrong so i'm with you on this and this is coming from a guy who spends a lot on his pets every month all right where do you are you do you care to be honest with america yeah i actually did this okay so we did a youtube video where i walked through the camel's personal budget i go hey here's a here's a general list of our expenses and we spend about 500 on our dogs a month a month now this is between not just food this is you know you're gonna you're gonna hate this ken i feel like there's another i gotta tell you we've got a doggy daycare situation twice a week to get their energy out because they're out of shape and we can't run them around the neighborhood so they go to a friend's house time out why can't you last time i checked you have a very healthy gait yeah you can walk how come you can't we do take them on walks but they get to socialize with the other dogs so now this is like socializing the children so you're wasting money george you can take your dogs on a walk as you know days a week as you know i have no hobbies yeah but you said that they have to get their energy out yeah no that's not what this is you feel somehow that they're not getting enough dog relationships and you're paying money for them to go to doggie daycare oh boy you're right you just admitted now here's why I just admitted.
Now here's why I'm shocked at this America. I'm not picking on George, but you are the most frugal person I know.
Yes. And the dogs are one of the only places I'm fine to splurge on because there's one of the only.
How much are you paying for doggy daycare? I think it's like, I don't know, 50, 60 bucks a week. I got it.
You know, you might as well light that money on fire, but again, you might as well put it in your fire pit and burn it in our stage of life we've worked really hard and we love our dogs so much that we we're fine to spend a few hundred bucks on the dogs it's in the it's in the every dollar budget do you buy print what else see america needs to know 500 bucks a month what else are you spending oh you are buying them but it's like it's like the hypoallergenic you know all the things that they need because french bulldogs if you know are born broken we're talking And, you are buying them premium food. But it's like the hypoallergenic, you know, all the things that they need.
Because French Bulldogs, if you know, are born broken. We're talking, you know, spinal issues, hip issues, allergic to grass, allergic to air.
I mean, there's a reason. Can I say something about your precious dogs? Yeah.
And my precious dogs. And everybody's precious dogs.
We've lost our minds. Yeah.
Because that dog left to their own device. device your precious dog your super premium breed will drink out of your toilet if they're left to their own devices it's disgusting i agree they don't care what they eat where do your dogs sleep that's the question that tells a lot about a man well honey's a puppy and so we're crate training her oh that's good and And so she sleeps in a crate in the retreat, which is our room over the garage.
And Ellis sleeps on his nice dog bed next to our bed. Oh, that's nice.
But that's on the floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But Ellis is eight, and he's practically a human. He's no work at all.
I don't have to do anything for Ellis. Like nothing.

Fill up his bowl.

He's an independent man.

Yeah, he opens the screen door.

Going out to our, he does it himself.

I open up the door every morning and he headbutts the screen door.

That's amazing.

Love that dog.

See, boom, right out there.

You're taking your dogs to doggy daycare

to get their energy out.

I don't mind.

My wife loves it because she gets, you know,

doesn't have to deal with them for the day. They get their energy out.
They come home and they're wiped. It's great.
They don't have to hassle us. Speaking of wiped, there is a nasty rumor out there that I have got to get to the bottom of because I feel like this is part of the $500 a month.
We got to air the dirty laundry here on the Ramsey Show. The word is from some unnamed sources that you wipe your dogs behind.
You got know the dogs sleep in the bed with us these little frenchies and so i gotta make sure they're they're clean so you're watching them go poo and then you they walk in the house and you go hold still you gotta check you gotta check you give them a wipe that's right i'm not ashamed of it she's got an inverted tail ken it's a medical issue at this point that we would require surgery, and I refuse to pay for the surgery. I thought I'd heard everything on this show.
Gosh, I feel like this segment was a, you did this to throw me under the dog bus. No, these are real, this is real data.
As a budget guy, does this not concern you? I'm spending less than Gen Z, which makes me feel better. But does this not concern you about Americans? It does, but I also go, listen, the world is chaotic.
They don't have a lot of friendships. They go, this dog is my world.
It's like their Tamagotchi. Remember those? You got to take care of the little Tamagotchi pet.
I feel like you're running for Congress right now, and you're just spinning this thing. I think Gen Z's with me.
I think pets are the last. Oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to, good thing I don't read the comments, because they're going to make me the old guy, get off my lawn guy.
Well, now if you talk about horses, I don't think horses are pets necessarily. When you need to buy land and have a farm and a stable, that's a lot of work.
Here's an idea. If you got to wipe your dog's butt after they do their business, maybe they shouldn't sleep on the bed.
There's a step to me that I feel like is in between what you're doing. We've already crossed the line.
Once you cross the line, once that dog gets a taste

of that bed, party's over. Is that not exhausting

to you? You do realize you'll be doing this for the entire

life of the dog. It is exhausting.
But you know what? It keeps me

humble. Hey, there's an idea.
Doggy diapers.

Just put a diaper on them at night time.

That's a whole lot

less than what you're doing.

You're right. I'll look into it.

I will look into it, but I have no problem with it.

But it also keeps me humble. I think you'll never have an ego when you go to wipe your dog's butt.
That's just one man's opinion. That's why I stay so humble.
It's such an unnecessary step of humility. French Bulldog owners will support me on this one.
I guarantee it. Ken, if you live like no one else, you get to live like no one else.
And George is doing that. You know you know what james that right there i stand corrected if you because you are a baby steps millionaire you can buy all the dog how i choose wipes you want to you do what you do and i'm i know judgment over here i feel like there's judgment over here i'm not i'm gonna step away from judgment no judgment it's your deal listen i'm not it.
If you're paying cash, don't go into debt for a pet. Put it in the every dollar budget and make sure you're still hitting your financial goals.
That's it. And if you would like to donate some doggy diapers to George, send them to Ramsey Solutions, care of George Campbell, and we'll see if he tries it.
Yikes. All right.
More of your calls coming up. This is the Ramsey Show.
I talk to people every day who want to know how to do better in two areas, money and relationships. That's why I'm pumped to bring the Money and Relationships Tour to a city near you.
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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman and George Camel is joining me, 888-825-5225.
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Adriana is now joining us in Orlando, Florida. Adriana, how can we help? Hi, guys.
How are you? Good. How are you? Good.
All right. So I guess I have kind of a weird call.
I hear you guys always having callers saying, how can I get my wife or my husband on board? My call is, how do I get my 23-year-old son on board to do a budget and all that? How's he doing financially right now? He's doing really well. He does live at home with me now.
And he makes a little over $3,000 a month, which for me, it's a good amount for his age. For a guy with no bills, absolutely.
Pretty much, pretty much. I mean, he does, I do have him help me with some rent, and he does have a car payment.
I did buy him a car in December, but I told him he had to pay for it. So pretty much that's all he has.
His expenses a month pretty much is maybe less than a thousand. Okay.
When you say he has a car payment, are you saying he has a car loan? Oh, yes. Yes.
He has a car and he pays monthly for it. Okay.
Was this before you knew about the baby steps? Because I'm confused. You're trying to get him on board, but we just steered him off course.
Well, yeah, no, I knew about the Ramsey plan maybe 12, 10, 12 years ago. I kind of fell off myself and then getting back on it.
Okay. And actually at that time he was 11 and he, he did his own little budget because he saw me doing it.
There we go. That's what I'm getting at is more is caught than taught.
So when he sees mom telling him go get a car loan or she's got her car loan and she's saying, hey, you should be debt free. You should follow this guy, Dave Ramsey.
He's going to go, what? You don't even do that. So I think the key to getting him on board is for him to see the transformation in your own life, to see what it's like to live without payments, to see you doing a budget.
Right. Well, I am doing it.
I don't have, my car's paid off. It's been paid off.
Good. So, you know, and I do my budget every, every month.
So I'm like, okay, sit down with me, do, let's do yours. And, you know, he gives me the whole, I have my own budget and it's in my head and, you know, just like, wait, you did it at 11 what's the issue now yeah well part of this is he doesn't have he doesn't have a real adult life yet can I be honest as long as I lived at home the budget was in my head too until I had to pay my own rent my own bills my own insurance and went oh crap I gotta like figure this stuff out I can't have the cake and eat it too.
And right now he's kind of living in

this like purgatory false reality where his life is largely funded. So why should I do a budget when my bills are a thousand bucks a month? Does, is he working full time? He has actually two jobs.
Okay. Yeah.
One's a full time and then he works part time at a restaurant.

How old is he again?

And 23.

Yeah.

I mean,

I don't plan to kick him out. Exactly.
I think Ken needs to help on the career side. If he wanted to leave, you couldn't.
He needs something to sink his teeth into. Well, we've got a couple of issues going on here.
Uh-oh, and there's that one too. You spooked me.
You keep saying even if he wanted to move out, he couldn't. Well, that's the problem.
It should be very natural for a 23-year-old to want to move out. That is natural.
Something about this whole situation is unnatural. I'm not trying to be unkind.
I'm not blaming you. I'm just telling you that it is very normal for a kid to go off to college and be very excited about this new life that they live.
And he's now 23, your son. But it's normal for 18-year-olds to go off.
George and I were just talking about this during the break. I'm experiencing this with our oldest son.
It's normal. He's loving his college life right now.
And he's coming home for the break, but he's already talking about how quick he came back. And I remember back those days where that was me too.
And when I got done with college, I didn't want to move back in with my parents. So I think there's a bigger issue here that's not just the baby steps.
you've got a you've got a grown man who's

really not adulting to use a current term and i think mom i think it's time for you to kind of go hey babe i love you um you got six months you got six months to get out and i've not done a good job you need boundaries you need to move i mean that's what needs to happen i think and then this idea of how you get him on board.

I mean, I think George is right.

Model the way.

And... That's what needs to happen, I think.
And then this idea of how you get him on board, I mean, I think George is right.

Model the way and be supportive.

And I'm not saying you're nagging him, but the days of him listening to mom like he used to are over.

And right now, you're just a big, giant, comfortable safety net for him, and that needs to go away.

Because he's not going to grow up until you do it.

And part of this is going, let's look at the reality of the numbers and why you can't move out.

Part of the numbers and why you can't move out. Part of that might be the car payment.
And you go, okay, what if we could get rid of the car payment and we aggressively pay this down? Then you'd be able to move out. Look at the budget.
It's showing you that you could afford this. But I don't think he wants to move out.
Why would he? Are you doing the laundry? Are you well yeah hey i'm staying but that's and but that's adriana that's the thing i mean with this car i i i can't even get him to understand he can literally pay this car off in within a year living at home or not but i mean living at home he could yeah but adriana you're missing the point that i'm making but he has nothing to show for adriana he hasn't had to work hard he hasn't had to deal with reality you're wanting this kid to think in terms of reality and you're part of the problem he's not living in reality does that make sense i don't mind if you push back on me here No, no, no. I get it.
You're expecting...

I'm trying to push him.

No. Does that make sense? I don't mind if you push back on me here.
No, no, no. No, I get it.
You're actually acting. You're expecting.
I'm trying to push him. No, you're not.
You're not. You've made it too comfortable for him.
You're making it too comfortable. The growth comes from discomfort, and right now his growth is stunted because he's living in total comfort.
His frontal lobe is not developed. The experts say

it's like 26 or 27 for men, and I doubt that. I'm 50, and I think mine's still probably not there yet.
My wife would probably agree from day in and day out. Okay? In the South, we say your cornbread's not done in the middle.
Thank you, George. There you go.
But in all honesty, Adriana, you're expecting him to function like you, a mature adult. Number one, his frontal lobe's not developed.
And in lieu of that, he needs real responsibility to get him in line. And you've taken all that from him.
That kid's got it easy. You've put him on easy street and you're going, man, he just doesn't have any gumption.
I don't know why. I'll call Ken and George today.
The reason he doesn't have any gumption is because he doesn't need any gumption or grit, if you want to put that word. Let's get him some resources, Ken.
I'm going to send him your resource. Find the work you're wired to do with the Get Clear Career Assessment.
That'll help him with direction. And my book, Breaking Free from Broke, to show him a path out of this and show him what could be.
But again, George, don't you agree? If she doesn't make life uncomfortable for him by saying reality is coming, it's time for you to adult, he won't use any of those resources. 100%.
Yeah. I'm big on this.
What can I say to him? George told you. I love you.
You've got six months to move out. He wouldn't be able she didn't hear you okay just give him an ultimatum that yeah and out of love this is not an angry thing it's saying hey we're going to do a budget i want to i want to make sure that when you leave this place you're not going to fall flat on your face let's do a budget based on what reality would be out there when you're covering your own bills and if you can't do that then we have to go we need a better job we need something a more of a career versus part time jobs that that are funding the bills coaching coaching based on reality yeah july of 2025 here's what rent's gonna be on your own here's what your car payment is put a put a quickie budget together for him show him and it's not in his head say no i want to do this on paper because i care about your future i I think you're more scared than he is.
I don't think he has any idea what reality looks like. And I think you know what reality looks like.
So there you go. Hey, that is going to do it for the portion of the show, unless you're listening to radio, that you're going to get on podcast or YouTube.
You can get the rest of the show. We have more calls lined up at the Ramsey Network app.
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Show. Hey, you're still here?

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