You Won’t Win With Money by Accident

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app.

Start budgeting for free today.

Normal is broke, common sense is weird.

So, we're here to help you transform your life.

From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show.

Jade Washall, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.

The number here, if you want to talk is triple eight eight two five five two two five and we're going to talk about you right in front of you.

Nancy's with us in Clarksville.

Hey Nancy, how are you?

Good Dave.

Thank you for taking my call.

My question is I have paid off all my debt in step two

but the problem is I got involved in a lease for an HVAC system.

The total cost of the system when paid off at 10 years will be

over $62,000.

So I'm wondering, do I pay it off using the snowball method and just get out of it, meaning I'm responsible for all that, or just leave it until I do the house stuff?

Wow.

Okay.

I didn't know you could do a lease on a heat and air system.

That sounds like

Attorney General, and I went through Better Business Very, and the Attorney General, Consumer Protection Department, said it is legal.

It's being done all across the U.S.

So, yeah.

But it's so bad that they, yeah, it's horrible.

Yeah.

Okay.

So a lease typically, I have no idea in this case, but typically would have an early buyout provision because leasing is simply financing.

And the early buyout.

The early thing is termination.

Okay.

What does it cost?

to terminate it.

The cost of the whole contract.

No.

But you have remaining yes.

Yes, sir.

No.

Yes, sir.

47.

Right now, my lease buyout would be about $47,000.

I've paid $15,000.

Now, you had an attorney look at that part also, right?

I'm getting there.

Right after I did this system,

I got diagnosed with cancer.

So I got kind of sidelined for a few years.

Now I'm like, wait a minute, I don't want to keep doing this.

This is thievery.

It's theft.

Wow.

But, okay, because I've, I mean, I know a lot of equipment leasing, certainly car leasing.

Um, and I've looked at the contracts on all kinds of leasing deals, even employee leasing they have out there now, uh, which is really strange.

And, um,

uh, uh, every one of those have

have a buyout provision that is less than the total of payments because you're giving them their capital early.

You're giving them their money early, And so they're not collecting interest, so to speak, even though there's not technically an interest rate.

And so almost everyone I've ever seen, but I've never seen a heat and air one, so I don't know.

My God, honey.

All right, so let's do two things.

Number one, I want you to reinvestigate that part of it.

Okay.

Because as suspect as this whole thing is, that part of it's suspect.

So if the total of your remaining payments is 47, a normal buyout provision would put you somewhere in the 30s.

And the way you would do that, if that's the case, is instead of paying them in advance, like double payments like you would in a debt snowball, you simply save the money up.

You pay yourself into a savings account and then write them one check

if there is a discount for early payout.

Okay.

And there typically is.

If there is not, either way, what is your income?

I just retired from federal service, so my income is roughly $2,400.

Okay, this goes in baby step six, then, because it is the equivalent of a second mortgage,

and it's a lien on your house

because it's a lien on your heating and air system.

And you would pay it off in baby step six when you're paying off the house.

Okay,

what is your interest rate on your home?

2.25.

Yeah.

No bueno there.

We leave that alone.

Okay.

Because if you had a higher interest rate, I would suggest refinancing and taking them out.

Okay.

My mortgage balance is $169.

Yeah.

$5.78.

When you get to baby step six, you knock out the lease first, either way, whether you get a discount or not, because it's more than half your annual income.

When a home equity loan or a second mortgage of any kind is more than half your annual income, income, we move it to baby step six.

Yeah.

I've never heard of such a thing as

now.

There's a lot of things that I get on this show.

This is where I learn about it.

And then I have to go look it up later and go, oh, it is a thing.

So

you know what else?

I didn't ask.

She said federal employee.

Clarksville is a base.

military base.

That's right.

So these may be morons that are preying on our military people.

Yeah, that's big.

That's

which makes us like double, yeah, a double negative for this company that does that.

So

if your son is out there, mom, and his new job is selling heat and air leases, tell him don't be a crook and go do something else with his life.

Oh, there we go.

There you go.

I helped with that.

Yeah.

Just throw a dart out there into the universe and see if we can hit a balloon.

Why not?

Yeah.

Man.

Oh, man.

Because I did have that happen one time.

I was ripping on the payday lenders at 800%.

Yeah.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah.

And a lady called and said, well, my son owns two of those stores.

And I said, well, tell him to sell them and quit being scum.

He's ripping off poor people.

He's oppressing the poor.

Read about what happens in the Bible when you do that.

It's not good for you.

It's not a place you want to be.

Messing with widows, orphans, and oppressing the poor.

These are not three things you want to do in the Bible.

And really, just as a matter of living your life properly, hello.

But yeah, they're scum.

They're scum.

So yeah, it shouldn't be don't be scummy and and then you're safe on this show we'll leave

you we won't talk about your kid we won't talk about you we won't do any of that yeah

so so uh interesting to side note the lease on a car and i suspect it's true on a heating and air system is the most expensive way to operate a vehicle several publications, including Ramsey Research, have done detailed research on this.

And when you run the math out, so you can take a financial calculator and say, this is what the MSRP is on the car, which is what it's calculated on.

Here's what the buyout is at the end of the lease.

A closed-in lease always has a number after three years, four years, seven years, whatever it is.

You can buy the car for $12,000, but it was a $64,000 car or whatever it is.

So you've got those two numbers, and then you have the number that is the monthly payment.

When you put those into a financial calculator, you can figure out what the effective

cost of capital is.

That's a fancy way of saying the interest rate.

However, interest rates are not disclosed on leases like they are on car loans because the Federal Trade Commission requires they hand you one piece of paper with your APR on it.

Even if they're screwing you, they have to hand you that piece of paper and you'll look down and you'll see 38% or 28% or 12%.

You don't know you got subprime, right?

On a lease, you don't have to do that because lease is not technically borrowing money, but you can run out, but it is borrowing money.

So that cost of capital, there's no cap.

No cap at all, and no knowledge of what it is unless you know how to run a financial calculator.

Wow.

And I've done it on probably 40 or or 50 leases over the years.

Every time I do it, it comes out between 14 and 17%.

And so those of you that are, I got my BMW on a lease because my accountant said that was the smartest way to do it.

You're an idiot.

You got hammered.

You're paying 17%.

You should fire your accountant and get rid of your beamer.

You're getting hammered, but you never did any math.

You just thought you were sophisticated.

Jeez.

No, you wanted a beamer.

That's what it was.

And there's a way to get a beamer.

Very little down, a lot a month, and very little at the end.

Yeah, this is the problem.

Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show where life happens.

One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits.

You know, we hear it all the time: a car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes.

Yeah, and that's why you've always said that having term life insurance from Xander is essential because it protects your family if the worst happens.

Yeah, that's right.

You need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage.

No gimmicks, no whole life junk, just straightforward term-life protection.

But there's another piece that people often overlook, and that's long-term disability insurance.

Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between them.

Life insurance steps in when you die.

Disability insurance steps in while you're alive, but can't work.

So it replaces a large part of your income so the bills still get paid while you get back on your feet.

Now, if your employer gives you free disability insurance, great, take it.

If it's discounted there at a better price, take it.

But if not, Xander can help you find the right plan.

Whether you're single or married, it's not optional.

If you're going to be out of work for a while, then you need to make sure the money's still showing up.

And that's why Xander is our go-to.

They make it super simple to get the right coverage at the best price, no pressure, no upselling.

I've trusted Jeff Zander and Xander Insurance for over 25 years, and so is my family.

So don't wait.

It's fast, it's easy, and it could make all the difference.

Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282.

Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family.

Penelope is in Georgia.

Hi, Penelope.

How are you?

Hey, I'm good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Awesome.

Hey, I was calling because I wanted an unbiased opinion.

I wanted to know, should my husband and I be responsible for my father-in-law's property taxes?

I think you know the answer to that.

What do you think?

I do.

I think I do too,

but I can't seem to convince you to connect to my concern.

Why does anyone think you are?

I can't seem to convince my husband that I'm not.

Why does anyone think you are responsible for someone else's taxes?

So my father-in-law doesn't work.

I think he has

disability,

but I think he can work a little bit

to cover his expenses.

How does he eat?

I don't know how he gets all his money.

Like, I think he gets some disability.

It's not clear to me.

I've asked questions, I don't really get a whole lot of answers.

How long has this been going on?

How long has your husband insisted on paying these taxes for him?

So, um,

backstory: um,

his

so his dad's brother used to pay them, and um, he died a couple years ago.

So, after he died, um,

he started asking my husband to do it.

And it was his only

meaning um I'm sorry his dad asked okay him he started asking his son to pay his property so he's been doing this how old how old is your father-in-law he's 60.

What's the nature of his disability?

Diabetes and DOPD.

Okay.

And

so he gets a disability check from who?

Do you know?

I don't know.

I've asked the questions.

I haven't received anything.

How long have you been married?

We've been married three years now.

Okay.

All right.

So this started happening after you got married.

Yes.

But for some reason, your husband doesn't think it's any of your business.

That's weird.

He just doesn't like to have these uncomfortable conversations.

Yeah, he doesn't like to have a conversation that involves him explaining to his wife why he's doing something stupid.

Yeah, I have that problem, too.

I don't like explaining to Sharon why I'm doing something stupid.

It never comes out well.

Right.

How much are the property taxes?

I mean, they're not crazy.

They're

about $2,100 a year.

And are you guys in debt?

We have a car loan

and we have, I can kind of consider it the daycare because it's just so expensive.

So we have daycare expenses.

What's your household income?

It's about $8,900 a month.

And you guys are what, $25 or $26?

No, we're $33 and $35.

Oh, my.

Okay.

I missed that one.

Hmm.

Okay.

Is your husband the sole heir?

No.

So, okay.

The property is in the deceased

uncle's name and his dad's name.

It's like 50-50.

But his dad, yes,

he's the only child of his dad.

And who's the only child of the uncle?

He has a couple kids.

Okay.

And his wife is the wife, his widow.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So at this stage of the game,

your best

way this turns out is you guys end up owning half of the property.

Right.

Okay.

So what does your husband do for a living?

He is

a field service technician.

He just got a different job in coordinating the field service folks.

Okay.

All right.

I have a 10%

problem

with him spending $2,100 to pay his dad's property taxes in an undefined situation.

I have a 90% problem with how he's treating you.

Agree.

This is disrespectful to you.

And don't give me the cop out that he's such a wuss, he can't have a difficult conversation with his own wife.

When

grow a backbone.

Well, yeah, because

marriage, there's a lot more difficult conversations than this.

So if he can't handle this, then good luck to you.

Yeah.

Well,

what I meant was what, well, yes.

No, that's exactly it.

That's exactly it.

He refuses to talk about it because he knows he's going to lose the argument because he knows he's wrong and he can't figure out how to weasel his way out of this.

And he's more concerned about his daddy's opinion than he is his wife's opinion.

This is a bad marriage situation for you.

Really, really bad.

This makes really negative comments about the quality of your relationship with your husband and his ability to navigate basic relational

bear traps.

He doesn't know how to walk around them.

It's either that or he, you've said your piece and he wants to do what he wants to do, and he's going to do it.

No, that's also a bad idea.

Either way, either way, it's not good.

Yeah, the problem is not the $2,100 with what you guys make.

Sure, you have a car loan, you can pay that off.

But this is really a very small part of your world on a month-to-month basis.

So it's truly not the money on this, it's the relationship.

Yeah, it's, you know, you guys can't sit down and talk about this and make a decision.

He doesn't even want to look at himself in the mirror on this because it's a really dumb idea.

He's paying 100% of the property taxes to get 50% of the property.

Hello.

Maybe, if it all goes right and his crazy cousins don't take him to court and try to get the whole thing later.

Because none of these people did a will either.

I was going to say.

I'm going to sniff that out.

Yeah, this is so screwed up.

So, no.

Let's say it was all perfect and it was a will and everything else.

I'd still tell you to change it.

The only way I'm paying property taxes on it is I want it in my name.

Go ahead and deed it to me.

I pay property taxes on property that I own.

That's all.

Jade, I'm not paying your property taxes.

I would never ask Dave.

James, I'm definitely not paying your property taxes.

Joe, I might think about it.

I'm sick.

I'm serious.

Come on, guys.

I know.

It's just cray cray.

So, yeah, the big problem, though, in this discussion, Penelope, is the way your husband is treating you and the way you're allowing yourself to be treated.

And so you guys got to get down to the bottom of that.

And that's the point, right?

He's afraid if he doesn't pay him, nobody's going to pay him and then they'll lose property.

And so that is the solution.

I'll bet you this bunch figures it out.

Exactly, like you want me to pay them, deed the whole thing to me, yeah.

And then we otherwise, otherwise, cousin Eddie, fess up your half.

Just roll up here in your RV with your part of the 2100, buddy,

because he got two cousins over there that are getting ready to pick it up.

Because the

widow aunt's not picking up nothing, she's used to the free ride.

Oh, free ride is the family script.

Oh,

and you never question the family script in a dysfunctional family because that might be saying the emperor has no clothes.

Oh, we're all crazy.

And now we have to talk about it.

Oh, God.

That's what's going on.

I know.

Once there's a dysfunctional family script in place, no one's allowed to argue with the lines.

You just say your lines and you stay in your lane.

You play your part.

Even if your part is screwed up.

And then comes along Penelope.

Right.

Who's that?

And then comes along, worse than that, she called us.

There you go.

So, yeah, guys,

these types of confrontational,

they don't have to be confrontational.

These types of conflicts, they have at their core confrontation.

Discussing uncomfortable subjects

is the ability to do that and still remain likable and still remain loving and still remain kind.

is the sign of a functional family.

And it's also a signal of whether you're going to end up with wealth or not.

That's right.

Because if you cannot handle and navigate these kinds of things, you're going to be broke all your life writing checks for crap that ain't yours.

Hello.

That's how this works.

It works in every family that way.

But the families that can figure out a way,

and the ones that I've observed that can break the old family script and shift and change, it usually has to do with the faith awakening of a key member of the family.

And they inject Christ into the discussion and they go, we're going to talk about this out loud.

We're not going to duck and cover.

We're going to be bold and kind and loving, and we're going to be proper and caring, but we're also not going to be a bunch of enablers and act like we can't talk about it.

Well,

that one's off limits.

Off limits, my butt.

You're my husband.

As a mom, I plan for everything.

I plan the budgets, snacks, lunches, backup outfits in the car for the unexpected.

I mean, everything because moms handle a million details every day.

So don't skip one of the biggest ones.

What happens to your family if you're not there tomorrow?

You guys, a lot of people put off making a will because it can feel a little scary.

But here's what we all need to realize.

Planning for the future isn't fear, it's love.

And creating a will turned out to be one of the most loving, protective things I could ever do for my family.

And Mama Bear Legal Forms makes it so easy.

No lawyers, no stress, just an online process that you can finish in about 20 minutes.

And now my husband and I both sleep better because we have taken care of the stuff that really matters.

And it isn't scary.

It's wise.

It's what moms do.

So if you've been putting off making a will, I totally get it.

But don't wait anymore because you're a mom first, which means you're always planning.

So go to mamabearlegalforms.com and use promo code Ramsey to save 20%.

MamaBearLegalForms.com code RAMSIE.

Our Every Dollar team is offering a free live budgeting workshops this month.

In Budgeting 101, you'll learn how to make a budget with Every Dollar, get tips from our experts, even ask your questions in a live live Q ⁇ A.

Plus, you'll get a step-by-step walkthrough of Every Dollar's features so you can use the app with confidence.

It will guide you through everything in the Ramsey Way, by the way.

Budgeting 101 gives you the support you need to stick to a budget and walk the Ramsey Way exactly right down the yellow brick road, baby.

Sign up for a Budgeting 101 for free at ramseysolutions.com slash workshop.

Paige is in Salt Lake City.

Hi, Paige.

How are you?

Good.

Thank you for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

My question is, my husband and I were looking to buy our first home here early of next year or middle of next year.

Cool.

And

yeah, my question is,

what are some things that first-time

homeowners like usually miss like cost-wise?

Like closing costs, realtor costs, inspections, what are some things that first home owners overlook in the buying process?

That's a really good question.

Okay.

The first way to make sure the question is answered is get a high-quality Ramsey trusted real estate agent in your corner because they're going to have the heart of a teacher because you're going to forget half of what I tell you in the next few minutes.

And when you do, then you've got that person that's the heart of a teacher that can walk you right through it.

Okay?

You ready?

Yes.

Okay, you get them at ramseysolutions.com slash agent, and you get somebody in your area that we trust and has been trained by us, and they will have the heart of a teacher, And

they will not walk around with their nose in the air acting like you already know everything.

They're going to make sure you understand every single detail.

Now, yes, you need to get a home inspection.

No, you do not need to take it super seriously.

If they say the front porch light is blinking on and off, that's not a reason to walk away from the deal.

You can fix a front porch light for a couple of hundred bucks.

Shut up, okay?

I want to know about water.

I'm always looking for water.

I want to know about major stuff in a home inspection.

Mold,

foundations, heating and air systems that are about to go kaput, that kind of stuff.

You always get a home inspection.

All right.

I'm guessing that you might be getting a mortgage.

Yeah,

we're going to do a 20% down payment.

Good for you.

Okay.

Now, then all of this stuff has to do with mortgages.

Number one,

You will have to set up at the closing the escrow account.

They will call it prepaids, and they'll typically collect about three to six months of the property tax amount and three to six months of a homeowner's amount.

And that sets up your escrow account for your insurance and your taxes.

And then each time you pay a payment, you add a 12th of each of those to that escrow account.

And when the taxes come due, they pay it from the escrow account.

But it's a pretty hefty out-of-pocket.

expense called prepaids to set up the escrow.

Okay.

The second thing is points.

If If you pay points, you will lower your interest rate.

One point equals 1%

of the loan amount.

It will lower your interest rate about one-eighth of a percent per point you pay, and it's not worth it.

Don't do it.

Because in other words, it takes you eight years to recoup your money.

So we don't do that one.

Okay.

The other one that's akin to that, the mortgage brokers a lot of times will charge an origination fee, and it typically is one to one and a half points.

And so what you can ask for from Churchill Mortgage, if you go to them, is what we call a par quote, which is a little higher interest rate because you're not buying it down with the origination fee or the points,

but it saves your out-of-pocket considerable.

Because all the origination fee is profit to the mortgage broker, and the mortgage broker also makes a profit when they sell the loan.

So you can get what's called a par quote.

They typically will jack your rate a tiny bit, around an eighth, and a par quote on no points.

So if you call me up and tell me you paid a point and a half origination and five points, you know, yeah, you probably lowered your interest rate like one and a half percent over under market, but you prepaid all the interest in essence.

That's what those two things are.

So we don't recommend doing that.

I'm looking for a par quote on my mortgage.

15-year fixed.

You already know the drill.

I can tell, Paige.

Okay.

Next thing is they're going to require you to get a survey, even if it's a stupid little subdivision lot where it's very predictable and you're never going to have any trouble with those lines.

And the survey is not worth anything because you're not going to even use it to put up a fence.

You've got to get a different survey to put up a fence.

But this is a loan survey.

It's typically 100.

maybe 200 bucks in your closing cost.

It's one of those mystery closing costs.

But the mortgage company simply wants to make sure the house is actually sitting on the lot and not on the neighbor's lot.

And I have had those things discovered where the corner of the freaking house is five foot over in the neighbor's lot.

And we have to kind of do something about that because the mortgage company is not going to loan the money.

Oh, and by the way, the buyer is not going to buy the house either if you've got a good real estate agent.

So the next thing is they will require that you buy a mortgage title insurance policy.

This is different than the MIP that you're avoiding by putting down 20%.

The mortgage title policy is title insurance that if the title is bad,

this insurance company has to write the mortgage company, not you, a check to cover if the title's bad or pay off the people that come.

So for instance, one time I bought a house on an investment deal many, many moons ago and

bought it from two sisters who had inherited the land.

They apparently forgot that they had a brother.

And we signed off on everything and the brother shows up.

The title insurance company did not catch that there was a brother in the estate file, estate, you know, the probate file.

And so the title insurance company, I had title insurance, ensuring that I had good, clean title.

I did not because I only had two-thirds of it.

The brother had the other third.

They came in, wrote Bro a check, and Bro went on his way.

That's called an owner's title policy.

So when you buy the title policy for the mortgage, title insurance for the mortgage company, they will allow you for a few dollars, typically 100 bucks again, something like that.

You can ask your title company for an extra 100 bucks.

You can also get a simultaneously issued exact same thing, costs them no more money, that's why they don't charge much for it, to give you the owner's title insurance policy so that if there's bad title, the mortgage company is covered and you are covered.

I highly recommend both of those.

I would never buy a piece of real estate without title insurance ever, and I don't.

Now, who pays for the title insurance can change from area to area.

And I don't, in our area, it's customary for the seller to pay for the title insurance.

And so then you can buy the simultaneous issue for $100 or whatever.

But I don't know who's paying for yours in your case.

You'd have to ask your local real estate agent that can tell you all of that.

You'll also have a document prep fee that pays the title company or the attorney that's closing it for prepping it.

They also, on top of that, will charge you a closing fee as if they didn't get enough for prepping the docks.

They also charge you a closing fee, but they're not huge amounts of money.

But you're going to look down through there and you're going to see odds and ends of those.

And then lastly, you'll see on the closing statement a proration

of

the taxes for the year.

So if you buy the house on the 1st of August,

you have

four months of the taxes, and the seller has eight months of the taxes.

Now, have the taxes been paid for that calendar year yet?

If they have, the seller is going to get a credit and you're going to get charged because they've already paid the taxes through the end of the year and you're going to own the house for four months that year.

Vice versa, if the taxes are closing in August, but the taxes are due in October,

you're going to get a credit for the whole first of the year from the seller for the first eight months, and then you're going to be responsible for the remaining taxes, and they're going to show up in that prepaid escrow account that I told you about.

All right.

So that's a couple of the things you look for.

But here's the point of that whole thing.

All this stuff is gobbledygook and it's all lumped into what we call closing costs.

And people go, oh, my closing costs were so high.

It's like it's a vague term.

No, you can get in there and dig around and understand what each item is and you can select to not do some of the items in some cases.

That can be part of the deal.

But everything I outlined for you is pretty standard, and you're probably going to do it.

Y'all, do you want to know a game changer for your grocery budget?

Start your weekly shopping at Aldi.

Seriously, by making Aldi your first stop, you can easily check off your family favorites-from fresh organic produce to grass-fed ground beef, marinated, ready-to-cooked chicken breasts, and high-quality dairy products.

You'll be able to make incredible meals while keeping your budget on track.

So, no overpriced gimmicks or membership fees here.

Now, real families like yours are saving up to $4,000 a year just by making Aldi their go-to grocery store every week.

Find a store near you at Aldi.us.

That's A-L-D-I.US.

Savings based on regional analysis of Aldi versus select competitors.

Prices may vary by location, product availability, and the market.

Today's question of the day is brought to you by YReFi.

If your private student loans are in default, you need a lender who sees you and meets you where you are.

YReFi offers low-fixed rate plans based on your real ability to pay.

This is for private student loans that are hurting.

Learn more at yrefi.com/slash Ramsey.

That's the letter YREFY.com/slash Ramsey.

Not in all states.

Okay, today's question comes from Amy in North Carolina.

She says, my husband and I have three children, ages 13 to 19.

We make around $125,000 a year.

Our combined take-home pay is $5,100 a month.

We have $5,000 in credit card debt, $5,000 in personal loan, and our monthly car payment is $1,275.

That's all their car payments combined.

We rent a home for $700 a month from our parents.

Oh, from my parents.

Our oldest is at her dream college on scholarship, but we have to pay the tuition balance of $1,000 a month over nine months.

We have nothing in savings or retirement.

How can we pay off debts when all our expendable income goes toward tuition?

Our second daughter graduates next year, and her dream school is also a private university.

We want our kids to go to college.

We want our kids to go to the college of their choice, but I don't know how we can pay two tuitions when we're struggling struggling to pay one.

Can you help me figure out a plan to make this work?

Yeah.

Oh man, oh man.

So

I hate to say this, but I'm also happy to say this because I think it's going to, it's going to help you.

They can't go to their dream schools.

They can't go to these private universities because you can't afford them and neither can they.

And it's really a simple answer.

My dream car is a Bentley.

I mean, come on.

I wish I had a G-Wagon.

I don't.

So that's kind of what it is.

You're going to have to draw some boundaries here and you're going to have to say no, partially because you can't afford it and partially because it's not the right.

Who cares if they go to a private school?

Who cares if it's their dream school?

Right.

So there's that.

That's what you've got to do.

And yeah, that's going to free up a thousand bucks a month.

You've got bigger fish to fry here because you've got a lot of debt.

So that's the first, I would say that's the starting point.

I agree with you.

I think I would talk to the oldest daughter and say, say, I have a dream.

I have a dream that you got a job.

I know.

And that you paid your $1,000 a month.

What a life.

What happens when dreams come true?

Yes, you're going to get a job, kiddo, if you want to go to that school because I'm cutting you off effective at the end of this school year.

This cannot perpetuate.

The second thing is the second one's not going to school there.

She can't afford it.

She can't afford it.

And let me tell you, and it's dumb.

I'm going to go $200,000 in debt because they want want to go to my dream school.

We have interviewed so many college students, like for the

borrowed future documentary, and asked them why it was their dream school.

My friend's sister went there.

She said it's awesome.

That's how they define dream school.

One said, I want to go to Mississippi and Oxford.

Why?

It's a really pretty town.

You're killing me here.

You're killing me.

Your lack of decision-making ability is killing me.

And you're going to go $200,000 in debt so they can go to this school because I've always dreamed.

Let's just say you dreamed of going there because it's a fancy, fancy school.

Yeah.

Like, you know, Vanderbilt, okay?

$70,000 a year, right?

Oh, gosh.

Okay, let's just pretend.

I mean, Vanderbilt's a good school.

Yeah, sure.

There's nothing wrong with Vanderbilt.

It's not horrible.

It's got a big name.

It's kind of the Ivy League of the South.

Generally, until this year, not very good at football, but they've got a good football team this year.

And, you know, that's $70,000 a year.

They've got a small undergrad.

It's about $3,500.

A population of undergrads is about $3,500.

University of Tennessee is about $3,500.

And it's $11,000 a year.

And you can mow grass and go there and pay for it.

But here's the thing, though.

She has, this is a long line of bad choices.

Yes.

This is just the most recent one.

You guys are, I'm guessing in your 40s, maybe getting ready to be 50s.

I don't know, but you're still renting.

You're still paying $12.75 a month for cars.

Let's just put that in clarity, Dave.

You would rather drive these cars and pay for your kids' tuition because your cars are $12.75 and the tuition is $1,000.

I'm just saying, if you were going to trade one for the other, there it is.

I'll just get rid of both of them.

But I'm just saying that this is showing the pro this is just showing a lack of clarity on decision making.

Yeah, we're still renting.

We've got these car notes and yeah, personal loans, credit card debt.

You guys have got to change your ways, not just with college, but.

Yeah, so you're going to have to disappoint your children so that they don't spend the next decade of their life being disappointed by student loans, getting a degree from a college that's worthless.

And where you go to school does not matter.

There is no data.

Zero pieces of research that say where you went to school causes you to be successful.

None.

Nada.

They went to a good school.

Prove it.

What'd they do?

Nothing.

Nothing, honey.

Just like the cereal.

That's exactly what they did.

They did nothing because the formula that makes you successful is called stirring up the person in your mirror.

And they'll go find the knowledge it takes to become successful.

There's no correlation.

None.

78% of the publicly traded company CEOs went to a state school.

Wow.

Not MIT, not Harvard, not Yale, not Vanderbilt.

I went to the University of Tennessee and people that went to Vanderbilt work for me.

Dave, you don't even know where I went to school.

I don't.

Where'd you go to school?

It doesn't matter.

Oh, there's that one.

I know that school.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah, where you went to school does not matter,

people.

So quit overpaying.

for where you went to school.

That's problem number one.

Problem number two is help people have a different dream.

And the dream is to get educated instead of living your dream at 18 years old.

The dream is to put some intellectual power in your tool belt so you can go out there, kill something, and drag it home.

That's the idea.

Okay.

It is not.

And I just, it just, the trees are pretty.

You're killing me.

And they have a great football team.

Do you play football?

No.

What's it matter?

None of the people that play football there are going to play football at the next level either.

So let's just call it, good God.

The college experience.

Yeah, and you're $85,000 in debt for your college experience, and you learned how to play beer pong.

This is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb dumb, dumb, dum, dum, dumb.

Okay.

And it's serious about education.

It's dumb.

That's weird.

So yeah, where you go to school matters.

Working while you're in school matters.

Getting scholarships matters.

And choosing.

to study something that actually has some use in the marketplace.

Getting a degree in left-handed puppetry and then saying you were victimized by the higher education system is bullcrap.

You were victimized by your own stupidity because you got a useless freaking degree and you overpaid for it from a useless freaking university.

It's just crazy, you guys.

So I believe in education.

All three of my kids got four-year degrees in something they can actually use.

And by the way, we paid cash.

And by the way, it was the University of Tennessee Govall State School.

Okay.

And so if you want to go to Vanderbilt and you've got an extra half million dollars laying around, go for it.

Then dream your little butt over there.

Okay.

But I'm telling you, ours didn't have that choice and I had the money.

Yeah.

I'm just saying, nope,

with a capital N, nope, not doing this.

So that starts and ends the conversation.

But you're right.

The big deal in this one is it's an extension of a series of bad decisions.

Yeah.

We're fighting credit card debt.

We haven't prepared these kids to go anywhere except apparently they've never been told no.

Well, and there's never been a conversation.

And I think for me, the biggest part when it comes to college, you just, you have to do yourself the service and your kids the service of talking about this early on.

Don't save it until, you know, junior year or senior year when it's like, oh, by the way, college, because that's what happened here.

You got to tell them ahead of time, hey, here's expectation.

Here's what, you know, your dad and I or your mom and I are going to pay for.

Here's what we're not going to pay for.

Here's what you're responsible for.

Here's the list of places that you can go.

Here's the list of places you can't go.

We expect you to work.

We expect you to have work.

Whatever that is, just say it out loud so everybody knows.

When they're 12, so they can start thinking about it.

Yeah, man.

I say it all the time.

My parents are not.

Here's the purpose of education, to make you more effective in the marketplace.

Uh-huh.

Right.

Yeah.

And my parents told me from the very beginning, you better be good at sports or school because you don't have a college fund.

So you better figure it out.

And I knew that that was my, it was on me.

Game on, game on.

And I'll just go ahead and stir up the rest of you.

A friend of mine that's got a lot of money.

He's taking his kid on a college tour.

I'm like, we told our kids, Knoxville, the University of Tennessee, it's over there.

Run over and give it a look.

If you've listened to me for more than five minutes, you know that being normal with your money is not a good thing because normal is broke.

And I want you to be weird.

That's why I love what we're doing with Fairwinds Credit Union.

Our friends at Fairwinds just launched a brand new Ramsey debit card.

And it says, debt is normal.

Be weird.

Right on the front.

I love that.

Because every time you swipe it, you're choosing to live differently with no credit card payments and no debt.

You see, Fairwinds has been helping people like you ditch debt faster and build wealth for years.

They're not trying to shove credit cards or auto loans in your face like the big banks do.

And they've worked with us to create the Smart Bundle for Ramsey fans.

It includes a no-fee checking account, a high-yield savings account to supercharge your emergency fund, and now the Ramsey debit card to help you stay focused on the baby steps.

We're excited for you to try it.

So check them out today at fairwinds.org slash Ramsey.

That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsey.

Insured by the NCUA.

Welcome back to to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio.

Jade Washaw, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host.

Sarah is in Virginia Beach.

Hi, Sarah.

How are you?

Hi, I'm doing well.

How are you?

Better than we deserve.

What's up?

I guess I have a question about debt and merging everything.

I'm a new wed.

Me and my husband recently got married in December 12th, 2024.

And I didn't know that he wasn't as financially responsible as I thought.

He has, I guess, been more secretive about his debt.

I'm a bit more like open about it.

And he wants to merge accounts, but I'm not comfortable with doing it as of yet because he's kind of been very secretive and has lied to me about certain debts.

And I'm working on now using like your plan to get myself out of debt because I bought a home before we got married back in 2023.

I have a car I'm working on paying off, which is supposed to be paid off later, maybe next year, and a couple other few debts, but he has many more that I wasn't aware of and some that I think he's secretive about still.

We're going to marriage counseling, but I just

I don't know how to be more comfortable with merging our accounts together and fear like we'll be deeper in debt versus trying to have more assets.

Give me an example.

so let's clarify because part of part of the solution to the problem is you merging accounts because when you merge them, then you can see everything that's going on, right?

There's transparency there.

So give me an example of

what that deceit looked like.

Was it, I asked him how much the bill was and he said it was 300, but really it was 3,000.

Tell me an example of what that is.

Yeah, so when we

when he moved into the home

out of his rental, it was that he wasn't making enough at the moment because he needed to still finish paying off

like electricity bills, gas bills, things like that.

So I told him, okay, how long did you need to do that?

And it was about two months.

And so when I was waiting for that timeframe, I had got a bill in the mail.

And it was from the gas company.

And when I had asked him if he paid it, he told me yes.

But when I ended up calling them, they told me that there was still a balance of $1,200 for a gas bill.

So when you asked him about that, what did he say?

He told me that it was paid.

I never informed him that I called them until a little later, and he told me that he would end up taking care of it.

I mean, when you said I called them and you lied, you didn't pay it, what did he say?

He just said that I did.

It was just from, he was firm about that he did pay it until I showed him like the bill.

And then was he like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize there was still an outstanding balance.

We're just really trying to get an, here's what I'm trying to get an understanding.

Are you dealing with a liar?

Are you dealing with somebody who's disorganized and chaotic?

Right.

It's more,

he, he has lied about many, many things.

Not just money.

It's just a part.

Yeah.

It's been a long time.

You know, three months?

Yeah, it's been,

I guess, 10 months now, but three months into, yes, the marriage, I found out that he was lying.

So everything before was being deceived in two separate homes while we were courting and things and then got married and now everything's in the home and I'm seeing it more vividly.

Okay.

So

here, here's, here's what I'm trying to be clear about, because there is part of this to Dave's point where some people are just extremely unorganized with their money.

And as they learn to get more organized, things get better and better.

And then there's another part of you guys are married.

And I'm wondering what the communication sounds like because of the communication is, did you pay the bill?

Yeah.

And you're keeping it to yourself.

no you didn't it's this money right

that all of that matters in this in this situation now what i do think is if he's lying and it they weren't past lies but there are lies that are continuing on now and you know about them and if he's lying in other areas not just money then you do have a big problem on your hands

yeah you have a big enough problem you need to be in the marriage counselor's office early and often right now because your communication style isn't good because if at my house if i said hey sharon did you pay that she says yes And I went, I'm going to check.

And I call and they go, no, it's not paid.

I would go, hey, I called them.

They didn't pay it.

I wouldn't wait three days and stew about it.

I'd walk in there right then and go, hey, what's up?

You said you paid this.

Right.

Like right then.

And she would be going, I thought I did.

I screwed up or I was ashamed or I was scared or whatever.

But at least we get to the bottom of it right then.

We don't carry it around for four weeks and then label her a liar.

That's a bad thing to be married to.

And what I'm trying to understand from the beginning of your call is you're saying now he wants to combine money, but you're the one who's afraid to.

So I'm trying to understand if he's trying to make it right by saying, okay, let's just put everything together.

Then I don't have to try to, you know, keep something over here while you have it over here.

But you're saying, now I don't feel comfortable doing that.

So are you.

It's too late.

You're married.

Right.

Are you worried?

What can he do?

What do you think he's going to do if you combine finances?

Let me ask that question.

I think he's going to spend more because I'm

like, what is the term people use?

Like the breadwinner.

So I make majority of the funds.

He helps pay, like since we didn't have a merge account, he would just send me like $200.

What does he make?

That's another thing.

He's kind of private about that too.

So he works for a cable company and it's supposed to be quote-unquote $12 an hour, but they have a point system.

So week to week, sometimes he says he makes $500.

Sometimes it's only $300.

So, would he be direct deposited into your joint account then?

If you combine finances, is it, hey, now we direct deposit all of our paychecks into this account, not you get paid and then put money into a merge account?

All direct deposits go into the same account.

That's how it works.

And that's the only way we're doing this.

Right?

Then we know what he's making.

And what do you make?

So I make $62,000 and some change a year.

How long did y'all date before you got married three months ago?

It was

two years, about two years.

And how many times have you sat with your marriage counselor in the last three months?

We've been going consistently,

it's like once every three weeks, and now he's going one-on-one with the counselor, and I go one-on-one with a woman counselor.

Okay.

Well, that's good that you're doing that.

And at some point, we have to combine that process, too.

All right.

He's a bit of a spender as well, so it kind of makes me that's, I guess that's where it gets me a little nervous.

Here's the thing.

Okay.

If you put all of your money into one account and you make a list of all the bills that have to be paid on every dollar and you both agree to them, and we agree where every dollar of our income is going to go this month before the month begins, he has agreed to his spending level, and you have have to before it occurs.

If he does otherwise, you're dealing with someone who can't keep a contract now with his wife.

And then we got a problem there.

That's a different kind of problem.

But you're not solving a spender by staying separate from them.

Combining is the only way to get transparency and accountability.

on where every dollar is going.

And you need to talk to your counselor about the language you are using towards your husband.

You have contempt all in your language.

Exactly.

You're rolling your eyes like you're so much better than him on every subject.

And that is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the primary reason people get divorced when contempt rolls in.

So you've got to solve for that or this marriage isn't going to make it.

Let me ask you something.

Do you believe in helping people and doing the right thing even when no one's watching?

Then you need to hear this.

Churchill Mortgage is hiring loan officers, but they're not looking for just anyone.

They only want people who believe in serving families the right way.

I've been recommending Churchill for over 30 years because they don't trap customers in debt.

They don't use slick sales tricks or take shady shortcuts.

Churchill offers smart, real-world mortgage solutions that align with Ramsey principles to help families win.

And when you join the Churchill team, you'll get true mentorship and real opportunities to grow your career without compromising what matters most or mortgaging your soul.

So if you want your work to actually matter, this might be your next calling.

To get started, go to churchillmortgage.com and click the join the team button.

That's churchillmortgage.com.

Because when your work and your values align, you don't just make a living, you make a difference.

This is a paid advertisement, NMLS ID 1591, NMLS ConsumerAccess.org, Equal Housing Lender.

Justin is in Chattanooga.

Hi, Justin.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Thank you all so much for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

So I'm going to throw some numbers at you.

My wife and I currently have total investments of approximately $875,000 in retirement accounts.

We owe $390,000 on a mortgage at 5.875%.

Home estimate conservatively probably $600,000.

We are

inheriting a windfall from an unexpected death in the family.

And I'm going to break that down for you because that's where the bulk of my question comes in.

We are getting approximately $700,000 in a traditional IRA,

approximately $300,000 in a Roth IRA,

approximately $100,000 in a brokerage account,

$12,000 in an HSA,

and $150,000 that's in an annuity with two payout choices: one either lump sum, which is what I'm leaning towards, versus leave it in the annuity for 10 years, let it grow, and then there's a payout at the end of 10 years.

Okay.

So

who passed away?

I'm sorry.

It was an uncle that was very

much in excellent health, and it was a very big surprise.

Wow.

Yes.

I'm sorry to hear that.

But we found him.

You're the guy that had the rich uncle.

Who knew?

Yeah.

I've listened to you for 15 years.

I thought I would never be the one.

Yeah, that's crazy.

So

you want me to walk through that?

What you want us to do?

Yeah, well, the two goals are one is to pay off the mortgage, and then we're also looking at possibly having my wife stay home with our children.

So meeting those two goals is kind of where we're heading towards.

And how do I prioritize these accounts, yes, sir?

Yeah, in terms of using them, yeah.

Yes, yes, yes, sir.

Okay, the annuity lump sum, you can roll that to a traditional IRA and have

wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

You're the beneficiary on the annuity.

That's correct, yes, sir.

Okay, that's just clear money then.

Okay, that's the, we're going to use that and the brokerage towards the house.

That gives me $250 of it.

Okay.

The Roth, you can roll to a Roth and it can grow from the rest of your life tax-free.

It's the last thing I'm touching.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

12,000 HSA, I don't remember the rules on that, on an inherited HSA.

I suspect it's going to be just like your traditional IRA, which under Biden's new laws, the Secure Act, he called it,

inherited traditional IRAs or 401ks have to be liquidated over a 10-year period of time because the taxes have not yet been paid on them.

And when you liquidate them, you're going to pay income tax on that.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So that one you've got to take out over 10 years.

And I would sit down with your Smart Vestor Pro and determine how fast I'm going to take that out, but I'm going to take out enough now

to get the mortgage paid off.

Okay.

And probably in the process, if I can't roll that HSA over, it's probably got to be cashed out too.

It's small.

I'm just going to go ahead and cash it out just for cleanliness.

Okay.

So the brokerage, the annuity, and the HSA are gone.

The Roth is going to move on.

We'll take enough out of the traditional plus taxes to finish off the amount to pay the mortgage.

Okay, because I only got $250 in the first two, brokerage and annuity, right?

How much was the annuity?

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, 150.

Yeah, 250 total, yes.

Yeah, 250 total, and I need 390, and so you're going to pull some of that 700 out enough to get to there and enough to pay the taxes that it creates.

And then I'm going to pull the rest of that out gradually over time to avoid bracket creep on your income tax brackets.

So probably about a five-year pull on the balance of that, not a 10-year.

And just as you pull it, it's just yours then.

You can do what it you don't have to roll it.

You don't have to do anything.

But that Roth is sweet because it can continue in the Roth.

And as young as you are, that 300 could be millions and millions, just leaving it alone in good growth stock mutual funds, right?

Now, as far as your wife being at home with your house paid off,

which is really all that's happening here, the rest of this is not going to create any cash today to amount to anything.

Can y'all live on your income with your house paid off?

We can live on just my income alone.

To kind of maintain the same lifestyle that we've had, we would need $1,200 to $1,500 a month,

which wouldn't cause a major drawdown on any of this.

I wouldn't assume that's counting the house being paid off.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Well, you've done a great job of analyzing it.

You know exactly where you are.

If you're not working with Smart Investor Pro, sit down with one and map through what we talked about, see if they agree with me.

Maybe I'm missing something.

I don't think I am.

But then you could pull that $1,200, $1,500 off that $700.

What's left of that $700 real easy?

Okay.

It's just taxable.

It's just taxable.

Yeah,

my big concern was not bumping up in tax brackets and paying the government

what we could use for other things.

Yeah, you're going to pay the government some this year to get enough out to pay the house off.

Okay.

And you might bump your tax bracket this year, but I'm going to go I'm I'm not going to worry about this year.

In the coming years, 26 and beyond, I'm going to map out what you're talking about and avoid bracket creep.

Yes, sir.

If possible.

And you can do that on it's $15,000 a year, it's $1,200.

You can do that.

That's

that's all we need, really.

Yeah, that's not going to destroy your life or I mean, mess up your bracket creep or any of that stuff.

And I mean, and you're aware that the bracket creep is just a, it's kind of a math riddle.

It's not like if you move from 36 to 39%,

I don't know what your income is, but that does not move 3%

on everything.

It's 3% on the last dollar.

Yes, sir.

Okay, so

the first number of dollars are already going to be what they are.

That doesn't change, but it just means I'm going to pay 39% on it instead of 36% on it because I didn't put a dial on it, right?

So you want to dial it to where you just get right up to the edge and then don't pay that extra 3% on that bracket jump.

And again, somebody that's doing a little bit of tax work with you can help you do that and your Smart Vestor Pro can get that dialed in.

That's very cool.

That's very good.

Wow.

I mean, it sucks that someone had to pass away, but to your point, somebody somebody had the rich uncle.

Yeah.

Man.

Yeah.

And he's already a millionaire, by the way, before we got here.

It just goes to show what you can do to change someone's life when you yourself have your finances in order.

You know.

So he's now worth $2 million.

Yeah.

Good for him.

But he did not become a millionaire because of inherited money.

No, he was already.

He was already there barely.

Yeah.

Barely.

And then he just doubled it.

Yep.

That's what it amounts to.

So got about a million three there, I think.

Looks like.

This guy's not changing his lifestyle hardly at all.

He's going to be the same.

You know what I'm saying?

His wife will stay home.

They'll pay off their house, but he's not going to go out and do something crazy because he's been disciplined his whole life.

Yeah, I've always wanted to buy a yacht for $12,000 a month.

And he didn't call me with that question.

This guy's going to be fine.

He's got it all dialed in.

He knows his numbers, knows exactly where they are.

See, that's the thing.

Even if you didn't do stuff exactly the way we teach, if we can just get you to pay attention.

Yeah.

That guy's paying attention.

He knows exactly where he is.

He's already had thoughts about every one of these things and he's paying attention.

And so you have to be proactive and happen to

your money, not have it happen to you.

And when you're teaching the budgeting classes, that's what you talk about.

That's right.

It's about you for the first time looking at everything and you stare step on knowledge, right?

That guy said he's been listening on and off for 15 years.

And that's the way it goes.

The first step is just getting on a budget and starting to pay attention to your month ingo, your monthly outgo.

That's the first step.

And then after a while, that knowledge starts to compound on itself.

And before you know it, you're just like, you know, the fellow that just called in here.

Yeah.

Fully in control.

A couple of million, million, two and a half million in a heartbeat here.

Wow.

Very cool.

Very cool.

So, by the way, though, some of you out there that are doing all your talking and your theories and everything, Roth IRAs are not subject to the Secure Act when they're inherited

because they're tax-free.

And so I have moved everything I have.

I'm 65 into Roth at my baby step seven.

I heard you answering a question about that the other day.

You were correct.

You know, you pay taxes and convert to Roth, pay taxes and convert with extra money because then it grows not only tax-free for this generation, but also for the next generation.

And they're not required to withdraw it.

They can just let it grow.

Like that 300 Roth he had.

He can let that one run.

The other one, he's got to cash it out because Biden wants his money.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

I have awesome friends.

I got a great faith, and I have an amazing wife and family.

I've also got two PhDs worth of information about how to be well.

And yet, the times that I've spent with great therapists over the years have made all the difference for me.

The right therapist can change everything about your mental, emotional, and relational health.

And this month, my friends at BetterHelp are shining the spotlight on the therapists, the people who truly make the world a better place.

With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world.

And BetterHelp works.

They have an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.

They work.

Plus, BetterHelp is totally online, so it's easy to fit into your schedule.

To get started, just answer a few simple questions and BetterHelp will connect you with a licensed therapist.

And if it's not the right fit, you can switch at any time for no extra cost.

This month, we celebrate the therapists who've helped millions of people take the next right step.

If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey.

Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey.

If you're out there running around and you're in the Nashville area, stop by and see us at Ramsey Ramsey Solutions.

We're down by Franklin, Tennessee, just a little bit south of Nashville.

We've got a big, beautiful campus and a wonderful reception area with a little museum in it and free cookies that are homemade, yum, yum, free coffee that's homemade, yum, yum, smiling people.

And there's always 50 to 200 folks sitting out here watching us do the show.

We do it on the glass from 1 to 4 Central Time every Monday through Friday.

And among the people sitting in there, or among the area where you sit in to watch the show is the debt-free stage.

People come there to do their debt-free screams.

It's our favorite thing we get to do around here is to celebrate with people when they have won.

The only thing that's more favorite is when it's one of our own

from Ramsey Solutions, one of our team members.

And that's the case now on the debt-free stage.

Shauna McCulley, her husband, Chad, Shauna's been with us for 17 years in the finance and administration department of Ramsey for a long time.

We've been watching this family win, and now they're here to do a debt-free scream.

Congratulations, guys.

Thank you.

So proud of you.

Now, you actually did this in a staff meeting the other day when I was leading staff meeting.

I got to be there when you did that, and our staff just goes bananas.

I mean, 1,100 people screaming when you did your debt-free screen.

Plus, she's been here 17 years, so everybody knows Shauna, right?

Right.

And loves her and so forth.

And you too, Chad.

Oh, thanks.

All right.

So, how much debt have you paid off?

$336,000.

And how long did this take?

It took us 17 years.

And house and everything?

House and all.

Okay, very cool.

Very cool.

But there were a few stops along the way, shall we say.

I won't spill the beans.

I won't spoiler alert.

I'll let y'all tell the story.

Yeah.

So

just a few stops along the way.

We have a new baby in the beginning of that.

We've paid cash for eight cars, two transmissions, over $100,000 in home repairs,

and six years of cancer treatment.

For two different people.

Yeah.

These two.

These two right here.

So how old is Lexi?

Alexa is about to be 20 in December.

Wow.

I remember when Shauna walked into the office and tears run down her face and said, my baby's got cancer.

And I went, whoa, I can't breathe.

And she said, well, try being me.

I can't breathe either.

And I'm like, well, we got your back.

We're going to walk with you, whatever it takes, as you need, whatever you need through this.

And for a little while, we had a little bald toddler running around here.

And she was cute.

She was a cute little bald cancer survivor.

It was very cool.

The fact that you were surviving made everybody happy.

We weren't worried about your hair, I'll tell you that.

Neither was she.

Yeah.

She wasn't old enough to even care, hardly.

And then we get the word that she's beat it, and it comes the other side of it.

And then.

So then, so she was three years old.

Her treatment went for three years.

Then I think five years later in 2017, I was actually diagnosed with the same cancer that she had and beat.

And so I went through three and a half years worth of treatment to get through that.

And so I'm now five years out.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

And we walked with y'all through that too.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It was incredible.

And watched you change from

deputy sheriff to real estate extraordinaire agent.

Yeah.

There we go.

And, you know, the whole thing.

So 17 years we've been doing this together.

Yeah.

It's been a wild ride.

Yeah.

And now the house has paid off.

The house has paid off.

And so that's why we say $336,000 over 17 years.

Now, we don't ask what they make because

50 of their teammates are standing around, so a little bit unfair to do that.

So we ask the rest of you what you make, and you have to tell everybody in front of everybody.

But we let them off the hook on that.

But I mean, needless to say,

quite a bit of cancer in that 17 years and quite a bit of the rest of normal life in that 17 years, and you still managed to walk through and get the house paid off.

How's that feel?

It feels incredible.

But I mean, even through cancer treatment and new cars and unexpected home repairs, we never went back into debt.

We always had an emergency fund or just really great people around us that made sure that we never had to want for anything.

Wow.

So how do you celebrate what happens next?

You've come 17 years to this moment.

So travel.

Yeah.

Immediately we're going to be getting some new cars.

We got to update some of the cars that we're driving around.

And so we're going to do that.

And then we're...

I mean, the first thing that we did after, or the first budget that we did when we didn't have a mortgage, is we decided that we are going to give a heck of a lot more.

So we doubled our giving.

Nice.

What we were going to, you know, what we've done in the past and then

went back put a little bit more into retirement and then

yeah now we're just we're out having fun and we're doing it cool

very cool I'm proud of y'all

I think your story is a story of perseverance

sticking with it forever

and now you and now you get here What's the secret to sticking with it?

Because most people just quit.

They just throw up their hands and go, well, it's too hard.

Yeah, and for us, we had, you know, it was student loans and a mortgage.

So we never really got those small wins, you know, like the credit cards.

We didn't have credit cards.

So we didn't get the little small wins along the way.

It was two big, huge numbers.

And the only thing that made us go is like the reason why, why we're doing this, what's going to be on the other side of it.

And we just had to keep going, just get up every day and go and do it.

Having a support system here and having friends and coworkers who really understood the why was huge.

Yeah.

Well, they also understood you were fighting a bear with a switch.

I mean, it was hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was hard.

It was a process, man.

And the team made sure that everything was good all the way, all along the way.

I watched them take care of y'all and they did a great job.

Yeah, I mean, we have friends in the lobby today.

We have one who paid our mortgage for two months.

We have a friend who, when our transmission went out, let me use his car for free for a month.

Wow.

I mean, we just had people love on us so well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the only way you get through it.

And that's incredible.

Wow.

So proud of y'all.

Proud to call you friends.

Proud to call you family.

Glad you're on the team here.

And yeah, you definitely need to do some traveling.

You've earned it.

You've paid the price to win.

You've lived like no one else, and now you should, by God, live like no one else.

Absolutely.

I want you to get her a good car, Chad.

Come on.

We're working on it.

All right.

$336,000 paid off in 17 years, including two different bouts of cancer, several other items that are more normal that went at them, but they stuck with it and pushed their way all the way through.

I'm so proud of you guys.

Chad and Shauna from Nashville, Tennessee, count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two,

one.

We're debt-free.

Wow.

Now, all you co-workers that are in here cheering them on, get back to work.

Dang, Dave.

The whole lobby is full of Ramsey out there.

Everybody loves Shauna.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

That's fun, man.

That's good for them.

So many people would have given up.

They didn't.

No, they didn't quit.

They didn't quit.

And sometimes, and they didn't go backwards.

That was another thing.

They never stopped and said, oh, well, you know, we got to buy a car and we've got cancer and the transmission went out.

And so we had to take on a car payment.

They didn't say that.

They just figured out a way to cut it through.

Somebody loaned them a car.

Somebody helped them out.

Somebody did that.

Sometimes team members, sometimes neighbors, sometimes church members, whatever.

And walking through the whole, whole process.

Pretty incredible.

Very, very well done.

And they're just neat people.

They're just fun to be around.

They're excellent.

And obviously her, again, the team just loves her.

Everybody's known about her story and their story all the way for years now.

Again, been on our team here for 17 years as well.

And that's when they started the process.

So very cool stuff, man.

House and everything is paid off.

It took a while.

So what about you?

What are you going to do?

Yeah, talking to you.

You know who I'm talking to.

What are you going to do?

You keep being normal?

Have you not noticed that normal sucks?

Really, you don't want to be normal at anything.

Gross.

No, we won't be normal.

We want to be weird.

Like Shauna and Chad, Addison, and Alexa.

Top questions people have about online wills.

How do I know if I need a trust or if my estate is too complicated for an online will?

Well, unless your estate is over a million,

I would actually say five or ten million, you probably don't need anything but a will.

If you have a special needs child, you might want to put a special needs trust in the will that is formed upon your death.

And how is that funded with life insurance typically until you've built some wealth?

What do you need to start your online will?

Well, you need to think about things like who do you want to get your stuff?

Who do you want to take care of your kids?

Who do you want to make decisions if you're incapacitated, the medical power of attorney and so on?

Is an online will legally valid?

Absolutely they are.

They're valid with your state.

By the way, probate law, the law that dictates whether a will works or not, is state law.

It is not federal law.

And so it's different from state to state.

What is required

for a will to be legal and valid.

If you move states and you're residing in a different state when you die, your will from the other state might not be valid.

So you need a new one.

And so

jump on ramseysolutions.com slash willsquiz.

You can find out if an online will is right for you.

We can help you with that with the Mama Bear folks.

They do a great job.

And

or, you know, hook you up with an attorney even to get your, if you've got a super complicated thing.

But most of the time, wills are not that complicated there's just a few items in there that you've got to get right and that includes the signature and notary pages which some states have different witnessing requirements and notary requirements and that that's the one biggest thing that causes them to become invalid yeah and so yeah just jump in and get that stuff done folks jay's in phoenix hi jay how are you

Hey, I'm doing great, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

So I'm 27 years old.

My fiancé is 29, and we are $85,000 in debt.

I make $100,000 a year.

She stays at home raising our two kids, doing full-time schooling, and we are also going to be having twins here

in about five months.

Wow.

So

I'm, yeah, I got a lot going on there.

But

so I'm looking to get into homeownership after getting out of debt, of course.

Right now, we just rent an apartment.

And, you know, real estate's always appealed to me.

I definitely want to start off with like a duplex or a fourplex.

But before that, obviously, I just want to figure out how we should prioritize paying off all this debt that we have.

And also later on

towards, you know, my early 30s, I'm looking at switching careers and pursuing a pilot's license, which obviously I have to pay about $100,000 for and definitely don't want to go into debt for that.

All right.

Any advice?

Yeah, I do have some advice.

You got a lot going on.

So my first first piece of advice is just to focus on one thing at a time or at least whatever the matters are at hand, because you're talking about a Foreplex, talking about flying planes.

You've got twins coming in five months.

And the first thing I think on the table is the debt to talk about.

But the biggest thing is these twins that are on the way, right?

Absolutely.

Okay.

So I agree with you.

I think the $85,000 in debt needs to be paid off.

However,

focusing on the matter at hand is these twins.

And so I think the first thing that you're going to need to do is stack up the money as though you were paying off the 85,000.

But instead of paying it off, just set it aside because we want to make sure that everything is good with your wife, with the twins, with the hospital bill, everything like that is square before we take all of our income and start, you know, pounding the step with it.

Make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whose health insurance is covering this?

That's a great question.

So unfortunately, I don't really have any health insurance.

My fiancé doesn't either.

She's actually in the process of getting

state insurance, which is kind of difficult in Arizona.

So worst case scenario, if she's not able to do that, then I will just figure out how to pay for an insurance policy for her.

A little late, she's already got two babies coming.

So getting that covered is going to be an interesting process.

All right.

So the first thing I would do is get married this weekend.

I am really worried about your fiancé.

She's getting ready to have four children,

no income, and no husband.

That ain't cool.

You owe her more than that.

So I'd get married this weekend.

She's so exposed right now financially and legally and everything else that it is terrifying to me.

I know you think everything's going to be okay, but the only thing I'm sure of as an old man is that everything is not ever okay.

Nothing ever turns out exactly like it's supposed to, ever.

And so you have to put everything in place you can to make sure you play defense as well.

And so I'd get married this weekend.

I'd get this insurance thing straightened out.

And then I would do what Jade's saying and then start stacking cash as high as you can stack it.

Because if you're ever going to have a problem with a pregnancy, the probabilities are much higher when you've got multiples.

When were you planning to get married?

When was it on the books for?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So the only reason why we hadn't actually legally got married yet is because, you know, her schooling right now,

she's not going to get the financial aid or assistance to be able to do that for free if we get married.

So I don't want my wife to get off of welfare.

So I don't want my girlfriend to get off welfare, so I'm not going to marry her.

That's what you just said, dude.

That's not okay.

So, her schooling is way not a problem.

She's full-time taking care of kids.

So, she didn't need to worry about school right now, anyway.

You said she was going to be a stay-at-home mom, so that's a moot point.

Yeah, I'll send we'll go back to school when we get out of debt and can save up some money.

But if the only way you get money is appearing to be poor by shacking up versus being married, that's insincere.

Sorry, I'm going to call you on that one.

And so, sorry, not sorry.

So, yeah, I'm telling you, man, for her sake, I'm begging her to force you into the preacher's office this weekend.

Yeah.

And let's get this solved.

Now, then I'm going to pile up cash as high as I can pile it up.

And then, when babies and mommy come home and we pay whatever medical bills that we don't get covered by this forced place insurance policy, and I don't know what you're going to end up with there,

but you've got to cover those bills.

And again, twins are more than twice as expensive as singles.

And so there's just stuff that's going on there.

And so we just want to be prepared for all that.

Then when whatever money is left from that stack, when mama and babies come home healthy and everything's good, we apply to the debt snowball.

And that's where we list it, Jay, smallest to largest.

Pay minimum payments on everything but the little one.

Attack the little one with a vengeance.

When it's gone, attack the next one.

When it's gone, attack the next one.

Every time you pay off one, the payments that you don't have there anymore will help you pay off the next one.

The snowball rolls over picks up more snow you're making a hundred

thousand dollars a year if i wrote this down yeah that's right but he needs to be going

in phoenix arizona and you have now five children yeah i i heard that right he needs to be going hard in the paint until these twins are born and even after because this is about to be an expensive life Yeah, you're getting ready to have an expensive life after they come,

before they come too,

and as they come.

And so we've got to take care of every bit of that.

And then

when we get out of debt, we'll start worrying about an emergency fund.

When we get that done, we'll start talking about a down payment on a house.

So you're three to five years out from home ownership.

And that's if you work a lot and you get good raises and you're very, very, very careful with your money.

That's about where you'll be.

somewhere in there.

And it's doable.

It's not impossible, but you're going to have to start making better plans and better decisions than you've made to this point to push these things away.

If some of that $85,000 is a $55,000 car you drive, sell it, my friend.

Sell it and get your life back.

It owns you.

You don't own it.

But if it's just $75,000 in student loans, you can't do that.

So that's the thing.

All right.

I have now interviewed personally

thousands and thousands and thousands of millionaires.

Ramsey Research has interviewed over 10,000.

I've talked to multiple billionaires that are first generation rich.

The number of them that got there

because the government paid for some part of their life

is zero.

If your best plan is to figure out the way for the government to pay some part of your life, you are not going to be successful in this life.

Reset your thinking.

Success does not come from Washington, D.C.

Santa Claus does not live there.

I know him.

He lives in the North Paul.

Many of you listen to the Ramsey Show because you're sick and tired of getting nowhere with your money.

You work too hard to live paycheck to paycheck with no money in the bank.

But here's the deal.

Just listening to the show won't change that.

If you want different results, you have to do something different.

We've helped millions of people save money, ditch debt, and build wealth.

And you can too.

But you got to have a game plan.

And that begins with our get started assessment.

Go to ramseysolutions.com/slash start now, take the free quiz and get your free step-by-step action plan.

If you've had it with money stress and are ready to take control of your money for good, go to ramseysolutions.com/slash start now

welcome back to the ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studios jade washaw ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today open phones at triple eight eight two five two two five Lucy is in North Carolina.

Hi, Lucy.

How are you?

Hi, Dave.

Thank you so much for talking to me.

Sure.

What's up?

So, I wanted to reach out about just a situation that my husband and I are in.

I don't really know what to do from here.

So, the back story is in 2020, really at the peak of COVID,

we actually moved to the mission field.

We were missionaries for two years in the Dominican Republic.

And once our two-year contract with the ministry was over, we flew back to North Carolina.

And my husband went straight back to work.

And I actually got pregnant over there while we were on the mission field.

So we came back with another little one.

And

I actually started working in North Carolina as well.

We put him in daycare.

We quickly realized that the amount that I was making did not justify me working.

So my husband and I agreed that staying home, me staying home with our child was the best option.

And things got a lot better for us just in our marriage.

But soon we realized that we were running out of anything that we had left.

We were missionaries, so we didn't have a lot to begin with.

But

we really just don't know what to do from here.

He's currently getting his

license to be an electrician.

So he's getting his hours and then he can take the test to be certified.

I also stay home with our second child.

We've had another child since then.

And we use our credit card

to pay for things like gas to put in our cars and groceries.

We just we ran the numbers about six months to a year ago and we're in the red.

So like we don't have anything left over to put into savings or to put anything extra on a bill.

We're about $50,000 in debt.

So that's both of our student loans combined.

And then his truck payment, which he owes about $7,000 on that.

And then we owe about $5,000 on something on, or I'm sorry, another $8,000 on our credit card.

So that's what that is.

But we're renting our little house right now.

It's two-bed, one bath.

So it's very small.

We don't live beyond our means.

Yes, you do.

You just said you did.

What do you mean?

You spend more than you make.

Oh, yes, yeah

that's the definition of living beyond your means what exactly well what exactly do you make i know you said your husband's studying to be an electrician but what's he making now

so his gross income is about 70 grand he works two jobs to help keep me at home um

but like when i say that we don't live beyond our means what i meant by that was you're not living fancy right right we're not i didn't think you're living fancy but you are spending more than you make that's not sustainable mathematically you're that's why you're calling because it's freaking you out, and rightly so.

What job were you doing before you had the two kids?

So

when we moved back from the mission field, I got a job

at Chick-fil-A, actually, but I was their office manager.

So I did all of their numbers.

I did their credit.

And what do you make?

I did all of their bills.

I did,

let's see, I was making $19 an hour.

Okay, what'd you bring home every month?

I don't remember.

Okay.

I worked 40 hours a week.

So, I mean, I can do the math really quick.

Well, the reason I was asking is because you guys need money.

Like, there's two parts of this equation.

When things are tight like this, you can cut everything from the budget, right?

But if you're not bringing in enough money, the next part is now we have to.

work more.

And you said your husband's working two jobs to bring in the 70K.

The first thing that you said earlier was when you had the one who was in daycare, you guys said that you weren't making it enough.

And I'm like, I have two kids.

You know, I know it costs twelve hundred dollars for one kid to go to you know daycare for the month and i'm like surely you were making over twelve hundred dollars a month um now with the second kid i don't know how old are they now

so my little my oldest will be four this month and then my youngest will be two in january okay so next year

yeah you do next year one of them will be going to daycare or to kindergarten but my question is do you i guess my bigger question is can you make more than three thousand bucks a month which is what daycare costs

or can you work from home while the kids nap that's another question well i do sell i do sell sourdough on the side so i do bring in you know sometimes it's a hundred dollars a week sometimes it's twenty you do what she sells sourdough which that's great but i'm talking about no i'm talking about solving your big problem yeah different kind of bread

like real bread yeah

$20 or $100 does not solve this problem.

No, I'm talking about

you get an extra job that you work from home four hours a day while the kids are napping.

Yeah.

or a call center thing that you pick up at night when they've gone to bed yeah and your husband's not doing that much extra when does he pass his license

um i believe he has about two years left oh geez here's the thing i want to i'm going to level set this because uh there's part of this if you know you called us there's not going to be a quick fix for this and everything that we're going to suggest is going to be uh it's going to feel very off-putting and none of it's going to be convenient so that's part of this that you kind of have to if you can accept that point and get to acceptance there, then you'll be able to do this.

But if you're looking for something that's going to kind of allow you to keep doing what you were doing and not really notice, then we don't have that solution.

You're going to like, this is going to hurt because you need the money.

You know what I'm saying?

And that's the hard part.

Yeah, you're in a mess.

And it's, it's an, it's an income versus outgo issue.

And your outcome, as you said, is not fancy.

You're not doing, you're not buying coach purses and doing all that kind of stuff on the one hand.

On the the other hand, you've got two babies and only one person in the family is working, and he's not making a ton.

And so he's making good money, but not great money.

You didn't call me up with him making $170, making $70, and two years before he gets a bump.

How much is rent?

It's $1,100.

Not bad.

Not bad.

Okay.

I know.

So what's his extra job?

You dropped out.

Come back again.

He does trash valet.

So he goes goes to apartment complexes and he picks up their trash.

Why does he not do electrician as his extra job?

I don't know.

I don't know that he's ever really looked into that.

That's a lot more than trash valet.

I don't have to look into it to know that.

You'd be surprised.

He makes $25 for electrician right now, and then he makes $22 for his trash.

Okay.

Yeah, but I'm saying I'm going to guess and say if he helped guys wire houses, because I'm thinking he's running the union track, right?

No, sir.

He works,

no, he does residential electrician right now.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Yeah,

I'd be shocked if he couldn't get some overtime doing that or work for someone else to do that on the weekends

because he has the knowledge.

He just doesn't have the license.

Correct.

Yeah.

But I don't care.

He's going to have to work until he's just completely exhausted to get these numbers fixed.

And you are going to have to pick up some income of some kind that's not $20 sourdough bread that's real money and I need you doing something that's three four hours a day and you're making a couple grand a month and you put that in there this thing starts to turn right side up and you can begin to pay extra on these things make sure you're putting nothing in retirement make sure you're not getting a tax refund If they're taking too much out of his checks and you're getting a tax refund every year, you need to correct those W-2s and bring the right amount home, which is more than you've been bringing home.

Don't loan the government money year and then get it back.

That's called a tax refund.

Don't do that.

And look around and figure out what else we've got that doesn't fit this scenario anymore.

And

yeah,

I'm with Jade.

This is going to hurt.

It's going to be harder before it gets easier.

Yeah, that's right.

Hey guys, George Camel here.

Do you ever feel like insurance companies only care about your money and not what you actually need?

Well, there's a better way.

When you go to Ramsey's Insurance Resource Hub, you'll start feeling confident that you're getting the right coverage that's truly best for you.

You'll find helpful info on everything from life insurance, health insurance, identity theft protection, and more.

And when you're ready to get the coverage you need, you can connect with a Ramsey trusted insurance pro who will only get you what you need at the best price.

Go to ramseysolutions.com/slash insurance, ramseysolutions.com/slash insurance.

Real estate's wild out there.

Interest rates are dropping, boys and girls.

If you notice, we're down to five and a half on 15-year fixed.

Wow.

Market is picking up.

Prices are starting to tick up already.

Inventory is ticking up already.

It's a crazy time.

If you're going to list or sell a house, you need a pro in your corner, high octane, high protein, not Aunt Sally, who got her license three weeks ago.

She's going to screw up the deal.

Oh, boy.

I know she's your aunt.

I know she's sweet.

And you might want some of her sourdough bread, but don't buy real estate from her, okay?

That's it, period.

So don't do that.

Now go to Ramsey Trusted, and we have vetted these agents.

They're the top agents in the nation.

They'll help you.

get the right house in the right way, the Ramsey way.

And you can trust them.

We've spent a lot of time coaching them, training them, doing due diligence on them.

They are the top performers in your area.

To learn more for free, go to ramseysolutions.com slash market and we'll help you out with all of that.

Lynn is in Philadelphia.

Hi, Lynn.

How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure.

What's up?

So my husband and I currently live in the Philadelphia area, and we're talking about moving to the Charleston area once the school year is over.

The issue is that, because that's where his parents are and his family and we've been up here for 20 years, we kind of want to be down there now.

Like,

no family ties in Philly.

None at all.

My whole family is East

in Maryland and yeah, no family ties in this area.

Is there a job there in Charleston?

For him, he is work from home.

So home is where the Wi-Fi is.

It doesn't matter where he is.

The issue is my job.

My job, I can't do, my job is specific to my area.

I can't do this job in another state, and this job doesn't quite exist in the same capacity in the Charleston area.

What is your job down there?

What's your job?

I'm a supports coordinator.

I help individuals with intellectual disabilities get funding to Medicaid and Medicare to pay for staffing and supports and living expenses, expenses, and things like that.

Medicaid and Medicare are federal programs.

Yes, but

the fed, so it's a weird, like the state pays a certain amount.

Yes, that's true.

Okay.

Yeah.

So and South Carolina doesn't have the same program.

It doesn't.

It doesn't at all.

It doesn't have the same infrastructure.

It doesn't have the same kinds of jobs.

It has similar things.

Yeah, what do you make?

similar, I make 50K right now.

You can find 50K in Charleston.

Yeah, I was going to say

at the lowest, like at the most common level, what is the job?

Is it management?

Is it logistic?

Like, is it project management?

What is the act?

Does that make sense?

What's the task?

Social work.

Social work.

Okay, so there's something social work existent in Charleston.

It just may not be exactly in the field that you were before, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I've been looking at, like, I'm already like preemptively job hunting and looking.

It's there would be anywhere from a $10,000 to $20,000 pay cut.

You haven't finished your job search yet.

I've been to Charleston, South Carolina.

It's not 50% of Philadelphia.

I'm sorry.

What's your husband doing?

Wrong, wrong.

Bad.

No, no.

My husband makes about $120,000, $125 a year.

Okay.

So, no, I, I, you know, but he makes that wherever he goes.

And you're going to sell the house.

You have own, you own a home there in Philly?

We own a home.

Yeah.

So

I'm going to make my decision.

My flowchart is when I get a job, we move.

And so I need to get a job now.

And I don't have to take a pay cut to get a job.

I disagree.

I want a pay increase.

Now let's reset our mind.

I love a pay increase.

Yeah, well, I mean, let's be realistic.

You have a unique set of skills, but the nuanced information that you have is useless there.

You told me, and I believe you

in Charleston.

But the big picture type of information you have and the ability to manipulate programs and pull them together for other people's benefit is a skill not many people have.

Now, I don't know exactly where that applies in Charleston, but I want you to start thinking a little bit broader.

I'm going to send you a copy of Ken Coleman's book,

Finding the Work You're Wired to Do, and I'm also going to send the book, Proximity Principle,

which

might be like our worst-case scenario if you don't get the job with the raise like i'm suggesting that you get a job close to your old pay with the potential for a raise by getting in the proximity of people doing what it is you want to end up doing

but once we kill the idea that you're going to find the exact program which i'm buying you on that one i think you're right um because i did leave out the part where Medicaid and Medicare is state, half of it is state funded.

And some states are more sophisticated in their application of that stuff than others.

So I'm going with you.

South Carolina probably doesn't have that program, but they've got other ones, and they've got stuff that's so,

to the layman looking in from the outside, that's so similar, but to you, it looks way different.

And that's the one you need to be doing.

And I don't know what it is exactly, but you have the unique

gifting of working with special needs.

and working with the government program to pull things together to cause people's lives to be benefited.

That's a gift.

And not many people can do the things that you do.

So I've just got to find a place to apply that that adds enough value that they're paying a measly 50 grand.

It's not like you're trying to look for a half million dollar job.

It's a $50,000 job.

You can make that almost at Target working 40 hours a week.

I mean, it's 20 bucks an hour now at Target.

So,

you know, that's, I want you to kind of get in that mindset that this is not a, it's certainly not a $20,000.

I wouldn't accept a $20,000 job that's a cut by 20,000 no no no no so hang on we'll have the Christian pick up and send you all that stuff I think you're better than you're giving yourself credit for

but you need to pan back and have a broader vision of how your skill sets can apply

and when you do that you're gonna land the job and when you do that you're gonna move

and that's how I would do it don't set yourself up to end a we had to move you don't have to move there's no hurry The only hurry is emotions.

You're wanting to move.

I don't blame you.

Yeah, that's true.

Once I get my mind already in Charleston, it's hard to do anything.

It's hard to do that.

But yeah, think that through that way.

Folks, let me tell you something that Ken Coleman and I have talked about for years, and Jade has been in on these discussions.

There's something about

changing jobs

against your will.

Oh,

you get laid off or your husband moves and gets transferred, so you got to go get a new job

or

get fired or

whatever.

It's interesting that the human brain, for some reason, we've noticed this with people, immediately thinks that I have to get paid less.

That I lost my job and I couldn't find another job and so I get paid less.

As opposed to you were sitting there in the job, everything's going good, and somebody calls you up and offers you $20,000 more than you used to make.

Right.

Why can't it be a glass half full?

And you go, you go, well, of course I'm going to do that.

And so you leave and you go take the new job with a $20,000, $30,000, $50,000 raise, right?

But that job was there for the person that does the same job you do that got laid off two weeks ago somewhere else.

And they don't think about the $70,000 in her case, $20,000 raise.

They think about the $30,000 for some reason.

It's something about, well, I just can't do that.

And so I end up with less.

And

that is just a mindset thing.

And I remember a motivational speaker many, many years ago telling the story.

He said, let's pretend that you went to New York City and you were interviewing for a job and you really didn't think you were good enough to get the job.

Your confidence wasn't strong.

The morning you get ready to walk out of the hotel room to do the interview, the phone rings and it's your wife and she says, we just won the lottery.

We got a million dollars.

Don't go interview.

Just come home.

And you go to your, well, what have I got to lose?

I'll just go down and talk to him anyway.

But now you don't need the job anymore.

Right.

And you walk in and you get the job plus a signing bonus because you didn't need the job.

Then you come back to your room and the wife says, oh, you know, we made a mistake.

We didn't get the money.

What changed there?

Nothing except your mindset.

Yeah, that's good.

Your mindset changed and how you approached, how you walked in to do the job interview, the way you carried yourself, your voice tone, the pace of your voice, the energy level you had, that last little shine on the shoes, whatever it was.

That's good.

What's up, guys?

George Camill here.

What if I told you that you had thousands of extra dollars hiding in your budget right now?

Listen, I know how crazy that sounds.

You're thinking, dude, I'm broke.

My money's tighter than the middle seat on a spirit flight.

But believe it or not, you've got more margin than you think.

And our Every Dollar Budgeting app helps you find it.

In fact, the average person finds $3,015 on average in just the first 15 minutes.

That's like giving yourself a huge raise without an awkward conversation with your boss.

Now, look, this isn't magic.

You're not hitting the lottery.

This is just your money that we're helping you reclaim and reorganize.

And Every Dollar shows you how to make the most of it so you can make faster progress on your goals.

So don't miss out on thousands of dollars of margin.

Go start Every Dollar for free by downloading the app in the App Store or Google Play right now.

In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage,

Jose and Janine are with us.

Hey guys, how are you?

Good.

Good, Dave.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

Where do you guys live?

Live in Rynch, New Hampshire, which is about 40 minutes west of Manchester, New Hampshire.

Cool.

Welcome to Nashville.

That's a bit of a haul.

Good to have you guys.

How much debt have you two paid off?

So we paid off $283,218.

Wow.

Wow.

Good for you.

How long did that take?

Took us nine years.

Good for you.

And your range of income during that nine years?

So our starting income was $112,973.

Our ending income was $133,577.

Cool.

What do y'all do for a living?

Customer service.

And I'm in sales, sell packaging.

Very cool.

Good for y'all.

And is the 283 your your house?

283 is our house.

I'm looking at weird people.

Yes, you are.

Why you've got the t-shirts on that say it's okay to be weird.

I like it.

Congratulations, you two.

What's this house worth?

So the house is worth $466,000.

I like it.

Good for you.

And how much money is saved in retirement?

We've got $587.

saved in retirement.

We're looking at Baby Steps Millionaire.

Way to go, guys.

Y'all are so weird.

I'm proud of you.

Well done.

Well done.

How many millionaires in your family?

Zero.

Zero.

One.

Wow.

One.

You.

Jose, how old are you?

I'm 52.

Wow.

Way to go.

Good job, you guys.

That is amazing.

I'm so proud of you.

Thank you.

Did you ever think when the two of you pups got married a couple years back, how long y'all been married?

We're celebrating our 20-year anniversary.

Congratulations.

20 years ago, you looked down and did you ever think?

Never.

No.

No, we kept saying someday.

Yeah.

But how?

Realize someday wasn't on the calendar.

So

what sparked it then?

I mean, what caused you from going from someday to today's the day?

So I was lucky enough to have a really good friend, Jason Gardner, a mentor of mine, who actually shared your podcast with me.

We'd go to the gym regularly, and he said, hey, I think you should listen to this guy.

And kind of had me in the car locked for a half hour or so.

So we'd listen to your show.

And I made the big mistake.

I, you know, got on board and came home.

And I said, I got this great plan, honey.

We're going to sell you a car.

You want to know?

You did it.

I did it.

I stepped in it big.

How long did it take to get your foot out of that?

Oh, a while, actually.

Yeah.

Took a little while.

Janine, I want to hear that from your side.

He said, I have this plan.

I want want to sell you a car.

And I went, oh no, you're not.

You need a new plan.

So how'd you get on board then?

What happened?

How did you bring that around?

How'd you straighten that mess up, Jose?

So actually listening to someone else's debt-free scream, I remember somebody saying,

your why has to be bigger than your butt.

And I just found that comment to be funny, but it stuck with me because we needed to have a strong enough reason for why we were going to do this and why we wanted to get out of debt.

And ultimately, that reason was we didn't really know anyone who

was debt-free.

But we knew that we wanted to do this journey because we didn't want to grow old and still be working beyond our retirement years.

We wanted to be able to enjoy our retirement.

As David, as you say, live and give like never before.

So later you can live and give like never before.

And that was our main goal.

Yeah.

way to go you two so janine when you all sat down started talking about the why that's when we figured out what we got to do right yes yeah yeah

it it took a little while of sitting down and budgeting and letting my guard down

the wall was was there yeah sure sure that's fair well it should be yeah you got you have to have you have to go what you got another scheme yeah

we're gonna have a yard sale we're going to sell your car.

We're going to sell everything.

And somehow it was all your stuff.

Who knew?

Oh, boy.

That's so great.

That is great.

Well, I'm proud of you guys.

Very, very well done.

Who was cheering you on while you were doing this?

So we've got our friend Jason, and

there's a couple other guys that I was able to work with that are also cheering us on, Mike Leone and a few others of Nguard.

And they're actually following your plan now because

of our story.

And so it's exciting.

Yay, it's spreading.

That's great.

What are you going to do to celebrate?

We're going to have a really good dinner tonight.

We are going out to eat.

I like it.

Go for it.

Have you booked a restaurant already?

You're in Nashville?

No, not yet.

Oh, well, you got to get on it.

There's some good food in Nashville now.

You can go big here now.

And guess what?

You're millionaires without a house payment.

Go big.

That's right.

Go big.

Enjoy that bottle of wine.

Yeah.

I want you to.

That's fabulous.

Congratulations, you guys.

Thank you.

Very cool.

So what do y'all tell people the key to getting out of debt is?

Submit.

Submit to somebody else's plan

that is a proven success because it wasn't until I did that that I started seeing my life change.

When I came to Christ, I submitted to him.

When I came to to my finances, I submitted to this plan.

And

it's been just beautiful, beautiful.

Very cool.

What do you tell people, Janine?

Intentional.

You need to be intentional.

Yeah.

Those are good words.

Intentional and submit.

Good words.

Good words.

That is exactly how it works.

And so, yeah, if you're going to hire a personal trainer and he's got a six-pack and you got a keg, you probably ought to listen.

Probably ought to submit.

There's something going on there.

There's a difference between these two things.

This is a Sesame Street moment.

One of these things is not like the other.

And so, yeah, that's the thing, man.

It's true about everything we do.

We all have to find something.

And it's,

you know, and it is helpful when you have...

Christ in your life because you've already learned how to submit to a greater power that loves you.

It's got a plan that's, you know, and it's to bring you hope and not bring you harm and so on.

And so then when you come along to something else, it's a biblical concept, like these concepts, and you go, okay, I'm going to submit to that, and we're going to do that that way.

And then you can do another one, and then you do another one.

And it's amazing what happens to your life.

That's how people's lives get transformed.

So, so proud of y'all.

Way to go.

Very, very cool.

I don't know if I've talked to a millionaire today.

That's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool.

I need to get my daily quota.

That's right.

All right.

Jose and Janine, Manchester, New Hampshire, $283,000 paid off.

House and everything.

Babysteps Millionaires by 52 years old.

Making 112 to 133.

Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream.

Three, two,

one.

We're debt-free!

Oh, look at them.

I love it.

So good.

I love it.

They've been 20 years married, came from New Hampshire to do this, dressed the part, had the t-shirts, the matching dress, the whole bit, and got it dialed in, man.

But look at, like, you can see it brought them together.

Like, you can see that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Once he got over trying to sell her car.

Right.

You're right.

Wow.

Very well done.

Very well done.

That's what it is.

I mean, we almost never find a couple, like never, that are

at odds with each other, that hate each other, that do this.

Of course.

You know, we never find people that it's easy.

I mean, occasionally we run into one of those.

Something happens.

They get some easy money.

But most of the time, these debt-free screams, I mean, this is nine years.

Yep, yep.

You know, in a world where people can't stick with something for nine minutes.

And they stuck with it for nine freaking years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the number one character quality of successful people, perseverance.

They don't quit.

They don't quit.

They don't quit.

Nine years.

That's where all that emotion comes from.

Nine years.

Yeah.

And now they win.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

Our scripture of the day, Romans 16:19, everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you.

But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil.

Thomas Sowell said, Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked

with what sounded good.

That's interesting.

He's just dead on right there.

He's a quote machine.

Beth is in Texas.

Hi, Beth.

How are you?

I'm good, Mr.

Ramsey and Jay.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

I'm a long time fan.

Thank you.

How can we help?

I'm hoping to make this question efficient because I feel like a lot can be packed into it.

But my husband and I both come from,

I would say, extreme wealthy families, and we have five children of our own.

And our older ones are dating it with the purpose of marriage now.

And excuse me, how we can navigate potential marriages and prenuptial agreements.

And just, I was just wondering how you handled your children getting married.

What a great question.

So, how much

extreme wealthy?

So, you and your, it's all in your husband's name now, right?

No.

Um, so what my my side and his side both is

they both have wealth of their own.

And so

one side has given all of our children a lot of stock.

I mean,

you know, between 150 and 200,000 in stock.

And then when they're 16, they get a vehicle.

And then they're possibly going to get a house.

And so just things, things like that.

With me staying on top of entitlement, I promise you.

I promise you.

I'm really working on that.

But, you know, letting them enjoy their grandchildren and seeing them getting to enjoy it but also

making sure that they stay servant-minded and and not

you know there's just a lot in that there's just a lot in that

there is there's a there's a weird combination between it is it's hard it's um

i i now that i'm the other side of it and we're on the grandkids and the kids have all been married for at least a decade all through all gen two ramseys have been married at least a decade and i'm so i'm kind of past it I look back, and I used to say I hit the son-in-law lottery, and then I went, uh,

no, I actually told my girls, taught my girls how to pick.

And they picked good ones because I run off the losers, you know.

And

so the instruction and the lack of entitlement and the spiritual underpinning

is more responsible for ours

picking well and more responsible responsible then as a result of that for not

having the need for a prenup and not having

the attitude that it matters.

Right.

So

I want to jump in as

devil's advocate a bit.

So sometimes we get the call from the actual spouse, the person who's going to marry someone, and they say, hey, I have a lot of money and I have a lot of money in my family and I'm thinking about doing this prenup.

And we're not necessarily against them when there's a certain number of money involved.

So how do you mainly if there's a large discrepancy?

Yeah, where do you, where does that line fall?

Beth, you and your husband both had wealth in the background.

You're both second-gen wealth.

Right.

And we both, we signed a prenup and we've been married 21 years this month.

Okay.

And that's okay if you just do that.

If you just do that straight up.

If there's a concern and you just do that straight up, because you're talking about a million dollars or something, you're not talking about 10 million.

You're not talking about 100.

No, no, we're talking, I mean, it's over 50 million each side.

I mean, not yet.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm just saying potential and okay.

Now, there's two different subjects, okay?

The subject number one is the current asset base of the person getting married.

There we go.

Yes, sir.

I'm sorry.

And that's under a million.

It is.

$200,000 in stock, maybe a house, right?

And so

that's not as big a concern.

If they lost all of that in a nasty divorce because there was no prenup, then we would be no big deal because they're getting 50 million.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So that's.

It's the difference between their personal wealth and your family's.

So I would spend 90% of my energy on training the child, even as an adult.

prior to marriage,

that they are not the owner.

They're the manager of God's resources.

And it sounds like you're already doing doing all of that.

Okay.

Because you leaned in immediately on no entitlement.

You know,

you're not raising trust fund babies.

Damn it.

You know, it's what you said, right?

I heard you.

Yes, sir.

I heard you.

And I like that.

Okay.

So now that solves part of it.

Now, then the second part is the generational wealth.

I can give you a fix for that.

That's no prenups that we did.

Okay.

We did that with the Ramsey

company, Ramsey Solutions Company.

It goes to the Ramsey Ramsey Children's Trust.

Yes, sir.

The stock is owned by the trust.

Okay.

And the terms of the trust are you have to be blood relative.

Okay.

Or you can't touch it.

So they're out.

So the outlaws are out, period.

And no divorce court judge can interfere with that trust in any state.

And so the trust has more power than divorce court judge.

So that trust,

no, if something happens with one of my kids and they get divorced, their spouse is not going to end up owning part of this

because this is in the trust.

And so you could take portions of that wealth, whether it's a large piece of property or a series of properties, the ranch, whatever it is,

a segment of whatever, and leave it into a children's trust.

There's other estate planning benefits to that too, by the way, that your estate planner can help you with.

And you need some estate planning if you're sitting on 50 million because you've got a problem generational.

You got a problem.

You're going to blow out the exemptions and have estate tax unless that stuff's already in a trust of some kind.

So you've got some generational skipping trust stuff to learn about and do.

But anyway, the way we, one of our largest assets is this company.

And probably our second largest asset is this campus.

And both of them are owned by the Children's Trust.

And so some of the other stuff they might get or not get in a divorce because it's not in trust and there's not any prenups.

But that's how we did it.

We put the big stuff in the trust at death or before death.

And the trust has a no blood, no one but blood.

So grandkids are in, but

if you're, you know, you weren't born a Ramsey, you're not in it.

Yeah, I think my husband's side is got quite a bit of that.

Like what he's he's got a trust that has some sort of that stuff in it.

Yeah.

And that

my side,

it's not talked about as much, but we're getting there.

You need to because it's going to cost you $10 million if you don't.

Yes, sir.

I know.

Believe me.

Yeah.

But anyway, once you get that settled, once it's in your control, your will could state that it's left to a children's trust,

whatever it is.

And you could have that same provision I've got.

And then there's no need for a prenup.

Okay, so, I mean, but they still can end up trust fund babies if you don't do the other stuff.

Oh, I'm telling you.

No, we don't need that.

Yeah.

No, they can be.

I mean, you leave them money, they can be idiots, right?

I know.

Yeah, you've got to train them to not.

Preach to them, it's not ours.

Like, we are stewards of God.

And you'll know that they get that if they feel the weight of the wealth rather than the celebration like they hit the lottery.

Yes, sir.

For sure.

Sometimes I see our kids' shoulders drop.

Like there's a burden of this.

There is.

It's a burden to it.

It can be.

You have to manage it.

You have to manage it for Jesus.

That's your job.

And to honor my parents for working so hard.

To honor, it's a big responsibility, but

he didn't mess up.

God didn't mess up.

He knew.

No, it's not.

It's not a mistake.

It's not a mistake.

And somebody's got to manage it.

It might as well not be the other side.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah, I mean, this idea.

So you can manage it for God's glory, and that includes taking care of your family.

And that includes some enjoyment of the money, but not exclusive enjoyment of the money.

It includes working.

Our kids have to work.

You're not in the trust if you don't work.

So if you're on the back of a yacht doing cocaine with your girlfriend while you're married to somebody else, you're not in the trust anymore.

You're done.

You can lose that too.

So, yeah, I mean.

We put provisions in there to take care of this stuff because we want it to be a blessing and not a curse.

And that's the bottom line of what she's asking.

Right, right, right.

And it can be done, but most of it is in the training of the next generation.

Most of it.

That puts us hour of the Ramsey Show in the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.