The Hard Road Is The One That Moves You Forward

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today.

Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life.
From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey Show.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, Ramsey personality, and my daughter is my co-host on this Thanksgiving Eve.

If you don't know,

William Henry Seward,

William Seward, was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State. He was also the brains behind that presidency in a lot of ways, including he wrote a lot of Abraham Lincoln's speeches.

that became world-renowned and famous,

including this proclamation that was issued October the 3rd, 1863, right in the middle of the Civil War.

The Civil War would end about 18 months after this proclamation was issued by the President of the United States of America. Here's Lincoln.

The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so

constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations.

Order has been maintained.

The laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow,

the shuttle, or the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.

Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield.

And the country rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.

They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God,

who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It seemed seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next

as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him

for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble pentenance for our national perverseness and disobedience commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand

to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have heretofore

set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed, done at the city of Washington this third day of October, the year of our Lord 1863, President Abraham Lincoln.

Wow.

I've read that every year that I've been on the air for 30-something years, and I never get over it. Some of you people think I'm a cornball, but it's my show, so shut up.

I'm just signing up for head cornball. That's me.
But I mean, the President of the United States issues a proclamation to say thank you

to God

for his blessings.

And if you didn't hear that in there, you weren't listening.

That's exactly what this says. And

it's so far afield from the way people think today, and especially people in Washington, D.C., think today.

But man, what a great reminder of the greatness of these men

and that their source was their faith. Yeah.

Well, and the acknowledgement of where they were at. You know, they were not naive to what was going on.

And even the line with the, I don't know if I've ever, I mean, you said you've read this for every

Thanksgiving Eve.

It's part of part. The other part of the cornball experience.
I love it. The other part of the cornball experience is as you call in today, you have to tell us what you're thankful for.

That's your ticket to own the show.

There you go. One thing.
I love it.

But no, it was the part with those who are mourning and those who are orphaned and widowed. You know what I mean? Like it's the reality of the world.
And so I like that they

he doesn't shy away from it and yet

rising above to the greatest message of what can be and what we're all. You know what I mean? It rises you up out of it.
Yeah, it's a different.

Yeah. And even, I mean, Seward is Secretary of State, so he goes ahead and sends a message to the other.
countries that think they might come in while we're weakened and let them know

we're at peace with you and you probably want to keep it that way. He just sent a little

shot out over the bow there. This is it.
This is what caused Thanksgiving. Like Like this.
This is Thanksgiving. The official

formation. Now, George Washington did a proclamation that actually.

I don't know whether AI's got this wrong because it's picking it up out of Reddit, because nothing you read on Reddit's true.

But somebody posted a thing the other day that sounded similar to this from Washington. So I don't know

if that's a mess-up or if Seward stole some of Washington's proclamation. But George Washington did do a Thanksgiving, but this is the time that the actual made it a national holiday,

the third Thursday of november and it was in the middle of the civil war and it is so poetic and people don't say beneficent anymore i've never said beneficent in my life except when i've read this so um yeah that's just i mean it's amazing though when you just say the all the the hand of the almighty yeah i mean this is vernacular that we don't use and we probably should

hello we probably ought to step back and go who is really in charge here

guess what It's not a Republican or a Democrat.

Thank God, you know? I mean, because they could mess up Christmas and Thanksgiving. And so, I mean, my gosh.
But thank God, you know, thank God it is God that the

watchful providence of Almighty God and the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of a nation and to restore it. It's beautiful.
Yep. Beautiful.
Very poetic. Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Amen. Open phones here at 888-825-5225.

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 xander 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 xander.com or call 800-356-4282.

Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family.

Bradley is with us in Oregon. Happy Thanksgiving, Bradley.
What are you thankful for?

I am thankful to live in America. Amen.

A lot of countries in the world be like, you know what, for all the problems in America, I'd rather take take care i'm thankful that almighty god put me here amen amen thank you sir how can we help

yeah quick question this might be one of the shorter calls on the ramsey show my question is where in the baby's steps is a person financially secure enough to quit a job that they don't like and start doing what they do want to do my current job is paying decently well but otherwise i don't like it as soon as i get to the point where i know that i can quit i will hand in my resignation notice

what would you go do

with that what would you go do

training and um training horses and trimming their hooves I can make pretty good money underneath a horse the only problem is that I need to get the clientele built up and so there'd be a couple month time lag there that I'd need to have some so

is it called a fair a furrier ferrier what's it called a farrier farrier yeah

horse shearing trimming that kind of thing okay and so uh why can't you start that as a side hustle

I do that on Saturdays and holidays and evenings and stuff like that. As I do my current job, I'm working up to 60 hours a week.

So there's not always a whole lot of time in the evenings and stuff like that. Can you dial back the hours on the job you hate?

Unfortunately, no. Okay.

Because what I'd love to do is it's not a baby steps thing, and it's not really a how much money you have in the bank thing.

It's a, when you can get your income on the farrier side hustle up close to your current income, then it may, you know, you can make as much doing that and go do something you like instead of something you hate, right?

So what are you making as a farrier? What was your income last year?

Well, I don't, it's not a full-time. It's just full-time.
I know. Did you not pay taxes on it?

No, okay. So what did you make? Do you have any idea?

It's about $100 an hour when I do it. So a Saturday could be $300, $400 without any problem at all.
So let's say you're making a couple grand a month on a good month. Yeah.

What do you make at your day job?

About $5,000

a month. All right.
So how close do you want to get the $2,000 to the $5,000 before you walk out is the question. Pretty close.
I want to step into the boat. I don't want to leap to the boat.

Right, exactly. So I'm going to figure out some way to dial up the side hustle and get that moving.

And the only other thing you could do is just pile up a huge pile of cash to cover you to make the transition.

But honestly, I've had people that that screws them up because then they live out of that cash instead of making their business work.

And I want you to make this new business work and know that it's going to work and know there's enough horses in your area, enough business in your area for you to make $5,000, $6,000 a month.

And do you feel like realistically, Bradley, that that's possible?

Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's definitely possible.
There's quite a bit of money in this area and a lot of horses,

pastor ordinance kind of thing. For your

competition country.

Not very many people, unfortunately. Farriers have a reputation for not returning calls and stuff like that.
So anybody that returns calls and you're going to be able to get a lot of people.

So if you're price reasonable, you're price reasonable and return the call and show up, business is going to be all over you.

Probably. Bradley, for a month, how much does it take to operate your household where you're not stressed, but you're like, you're comfortable?

$4,000 is pretty tight. Okay.
Okay. Does your wife work?

She's a full-time stay-at-home mom. She works more than I do.

I didn't mean that.

I should have said, does she earn an income? I'm sorry. Okay.
No, is the answer. So

she does not earn an income.

Yeah, I just want you to get close to where you're not just, you know, jumping off and praying there's water in the pool, right?

So that, and the only way to do that is some,

I would prescribe, and I've done this, that's why I can say it.

I would prescribe that you take your side hustle and make it highly uncomfortable for a year because you're working like an absolute maniac to prove to yourself and your wife that you can make a living doing that by getting your income up to three, four, five thousand dollars a month on the side hustle and push back on your existing job.

Try to get as much time as you can away from them legally without hurting them in any way and that kind of thing. But 60 hours is pretty much a stretch.

If you can get dialed back towards 40, you could really use that extra hours to crank up. And that means you're not going to see a television or a sporting event.

You're going to be doing horses hooves for a year, dude, like all the time. Because if you prove to yourself that you can do this, walking out on the other thing is very easy.
Yeah.

Let me give you an example. Let's pretend, and this can't happen, but let's pretend that you could make $7,000 $7,000 a month with a side hustle.
You could quit your job in about 30 seconds, right?

That's what I'm trying to get you toward. You're not going to get to 7,000, but if I can get you close to the five, then it's easy to make this decision.

Well, and I assume, too, if there's people around, if you're making $2,000 to $3,000 on just Saturdays and nights, you can easily pick up another thousand. So to me, it

feels doable. Yeah, I think what I'm telling you is crank up the intensity about six notches on the side hustle to prove to yourself that it's okay to quit and make it your full-time gig.

That's the prescription. It's not a baby step thing, and it's not a, you got to have $10,000 in the bank.
It's not any of that.

Because if you had $40,000 in the bank and you burned $4,000 a month in 10 months because you suck at doing this business on the side and it doesn't pan out, all you do is quit your job and go broke.

And that's not what I want you to do. And sometimes people do that stuff.

So doing it this way makes you prove to yourself that the market is there, that you can make a living doing this, and you build it and grow it from there. And that's exactly the direction I would go.

Abby's with us in Virginia Beach. Hey, Abby, what are you thankful for?

Hi, I'm thankful for family. I have a husband and two little babies right now.
Yay!

Busy at your house. How can we help today?

So, I have a question about debt and then buying a car and then renting versus buying. But anyway, my husband and I are on baby step number two.
We have about $50,000 left in our debt.

And we have 202 right now. And we're thinking about purchasing a new car just because of two little kids.
Our cars are cramped right now.

And then also

we're renting currently. My husband's in the military, but we were thinking about buying a house.
So I was just curious what your perspective on those would be.

Are the cars, are they running okay, Abby?

Yeah, yeah, they're both 2015.

My car, I mean,

they're both 10 years right now. So they are starting to have little things.
Like I just replaced my AC a couple months ago.

My husband just had to get something done on his car. I can't remember, but they're both kind of like having small hiccups currently.
Yeah. And do you guys have any money saved?

We do. We have about $17,000 in like our savings emergency fund.
Okay. Okay.
And how much debt do you have? 50? Yeah. So I would say.
About 50. Yeah.
So student loan debt.

My husband went to law school, so we've paid about $25,000 of it. Or no, I'm sorry, about $30,000 of it, but we have $50,000 to go.

Okay. Well, yeah.
So I would, honestly, Abby, I would throw that money at the debt and I would, I would be driving the cars until you guys are out of baby step too.

So no, you don't need to buy a house. And I really wouldn't even buy a new car.
I mean, I would, I would push myself in it. I know there's probably so much stuff, but with two kids.

What's your household income?

It makes about $100,000 a year. All right.
So

if you put 16 of the 17 on the debt and had $1,000, which is the true baby, then you would actually be on Baby Step 2. Right now, you're not.
Okay.

Then you would have $33,000 left and you make $100,000 a year and you live on beans and rice, rice and beans, and you attack this debt with a vengeance. Aren't you out of debt in a year?

Yeah, I would hope so. I would hope so too.
And so one year from now, you move up in cars and then you start saving towards your emergency fund and then you start saving towards a house.

Okay.

I guess to not hold you guys up, but also with the like attacking the debt, is it,

I guess,

how do I say this?

I don't work. I'm a stay-at-home mom.
So like sometimes

trying to attack debt is hard because I don't work. No, it's not hard.
You make a hundred, your husband makes a hundred thousand dollars a year. You need 33.

That leaves 67.

If you want to do some sad stuff, that's fine, but you have too littles. You being at home, we're not going to shame you for if that's what you're asking.

But you know, buckle the kids in the tight little car for a year and get yourself clear, girl, and then you can go live a good life.

This is Dave Ramsey. We all want to know that the money we give to charity is doing something that matters, that it's making a real change, giving someone lasting hope.

And here's one way to make sure of that. Give to Pre-Born.
They're the real deal. Proven, transparent, and changing lives every day.
I trust Pre-Born, and you can too.

They're on the front lines of the battle for life, partnering with clinics to offer free ultrasounds to mothers in crisis. Because when a mom sees her baby on that screen, something changes.

It's not just a decision anymore, it's a person. And 80% of the time, when a mom sees that ultrasound, she chooses life.
Your $28 gift provides one of those ultrasounds.

Just $28 to be the reason someone chooses life. And at every clinic, the gospel is shared, giving moms the chance to choose life and find real hope in Christ.
$28,

one ultrasound, one heartbeat, one mom who realizes she's not alone. That's the kind of life-changing impact you're giving makes through Preborn.

Go now to preborn.com/slash Ramsey or call 855-601-2229. That's preborn.com/slash slash Ramsey.

Brian is in Oregon. Brian, what are you thankful for on this Thanksgiving Eve?

Family, for sure. Amen.
How can we help today?

So

thanks for taking my call. My fiancé and I are having a debate.
We want your help with. So

May 8th of 26, we will be blending families, and

we have five children, 30, 29, 28, 27, and 23.

I have two life insurance policy, one that she is the sole beneficiary of, and then one that my children would be the sole beneficiaries of. So

she

thinks that I should leave both policies to her and let her distribute that equally, which I'm not in disagreement with.

We're just kind of looking for some direction that way.

Okay. The purpose of life insurance is not to leave an estate.
The purpose of life insurance is to support the people you leave behind that are counting on your income to eat.

None of those grown people should be counting on your income to eat.

Okay.

And so I would not keep a life insurance in order to distribute to them, whether directly or indirectly through her. That's not a reason to keep life insurance.

I wouldn't go to the expense. I would would use my money bill wealth and let that be distributed to either her or them in the will.

And you can decide that then. So what do you make?

A year?

Well, that's a great question.

Barely graduated from high school. Almost flunked out of college, but withdrew before they kicked me out.
And I make probably about $180 a year.

Well, sounds like you've overachieved. Well done.

Good for you, buddy. What do you do, man? That's awesome.

Well,

I'm blessed. I have a dream job.

I'm an electrical inspector, and then I have a side hustle. Good for you.
And what does your fiancée do?

She's a teacher. Ah, okay.
So she makes what?

She makes

maybe 60 to 70 a year. Okay.
Cool. All right.
So what I would do is put your new household together in such a way that if something happened to you, that she's in good shape.

That's what insurance is for. And the same thing, vice versa.

If you're dependent upon her $70 a year to eat, then we would want to replace that income by having a lump sum to invest, and that's what life insurance is for.

But to leave it to a 31-year-old child, no, not a chance. I'm not keeping that.
I'll put that money in my pocket.

I also also want you to know that she's probably smiling very good right now because she said that very same thing. Oh, wow.

So I do wonder, though, it's always hard with blended families when you get married later and you have adult children and a new spouse enters when you are redoing your will, your estate,

which is very difficult to figure out what's going on. So that would be more of a question, Brian, I think, for your kids of what's left to them of yours.

I mean,

let's say you had a million dollars in your 401ks, Rachel's saying, instead of life insurance, we're changing the discussion to keep the, but to keep the spirit of the question alive for a second.

Yeah, what would we do with that? How do you distribute that to a blended family? Well, the first thing I would do,

I don't know. Okay, so

or like if you came into this marriage with some money, as an example,

that kind of in your mind is allocated to your kids kids upon your death more than your spouse, but you obviously love this person and want to take care of them with some of the money you're bringing into the marriage.

So that's something, that's the same sticky wicket as they say that you've got to have that same exact discussion, but with a different product, not life insurance, but a pile of wealth.

If you don't have a pile of wealth today, you don't have to figure that out, but

it is a good thing. It's a healthy discussion to have, especially in the fiancé stage.
Well, that's what I was wondering with your fiancé, where the spirit was don't leave them anything. They're fine.

Or was it, oh, no, it's life insurance. They don't need life insurance.
Do you know what I mean? I'm sure that's what I was trying to gauge of.

Yeah, no,

I think it's more of what you said that they're 30-year-olds. They don't need any kind of large lump sum of money to and it's not that she wouldn't distribute it equally.
It's just that I just

had a notion that I just wanted to do it that way. Well, I mean, so what I what I would tell you guys to work through a similar question.

So the question is, she wins on the life insurance thing, okay? You don't need life insurance to do that. So let's don't do that.

But now, let's have a similar discussion that says, as we build wealth, if I die before you or you die before me,

how much of it's going to be left to the remaining spouse and how much of it's going to be left to the kiddos?

And

if you guys are starting without much wealth right now, you're starting your new marriage without a big net worth,

it probably would just be, it all goes to spouse and the spouse figures it out.

But oftentimes when you got blended, one of you is coming into the, like, I own a house and I got $400,000 worth of equity in that. Okay.

And the

fiancé's,

how does that go to the fiancé's kids? Right. You know, that doesn't make sense, kind of, you know, and you kind of got to go, ugh, I don't, I got to talk through that.

And these are good, healthy discussions because it makes you work through

because people assume things. Yes.
And you don't want to assume things. And what he just said a little bit of like, well, she just said they don't need a big pile of money.
Okay.

Well, they don't need a big pile of money from a life insurance policy because that's not the reason for life. But do they need a big pile of money from their dad who worked hard and has some?

And then you just get, you know what I mean? Like that's a different pile of money. Yeah.
And I don't know how to, I don't know,

but that's, that's a decision and discussions you guys have to have when it comes to your will and your estate and your assets.

But that's

hard. That's hard.
But it is, the reason it's important is to, if you can come into alignment on those kinds of things

when there are no

emotions or limited emotions, because we're not in the middle of grief or we're not in the middle of a cancer diagnosis or we're not in the middle of an argument after death with the ones left behind.

You know, well, daddy always said he's going to give it to me and now look at that gold digger. She took it all.
You know, that kind of crap, right?

And that's exactly how it sounds 99% of the time if you don't work this stuff out ahead of time.

So you need to work it out ahead of time because you guys coming into agreement on that is more important for your marriage and your relationship than it is actually about the distribution of the money.

Yeah, and the health of the family. Yeah.
After, you know, and everybody, and then everybody knows. Yes.
You know,

she and I decided, you get nutting, honey.

That's what, just like the cereal, you get nutting, honey. That's the deal.
What's that? It's a cereal. Cheerios.
Honey nut Cheerios? Yeah, nutting, honey. Yeah.

It's a thing. Probably in the early 80s.

Well, it might have been in the 70s. I don't know.
I have flashbacks these days. It's my age.

Flashbacks from commercials from the 60s.

Oh, my gosh.

Anyway, that's what you get, nutting, honey. I mean, you just tell them up front.
Everyone needs a will, and if you're going to piss somebody off with a will, do it while you're alive.

Don't leave it to the people left behind to do all the getting everybody getting pissed off thing. Go ahead and deal with it.
And do have it. Have the backbone to implement it.

Have a reading of the will while you're alive. It's highly uncomfortable.
I call it the Monty Python meeting because I sit there and listen to what's going to happen when I die

that I have planned out, and I'm going, it's just a flesh wound. I'm feeling much better.
You know, I'm really not sick. And so, you know, when Dave dies meeting, that's like basically what's on.

That's what we call it. When Dave dies meeting, you know, once a year.
And everybody knows that way. There's no freaking confusion.

And it's really healthy for everyone involved, but particularly for the husband and the wife. Which means to do a will.
We had our money in marriage event, Dr.

John Deloney and I, a few weeks ago, and we were walking through a financial checklist in one of the sessions talking through. I mean, it was kind of boring.

I was like, free spirits, you got to stay with me because it's kind of the boring, boring adult stuff.

But we talked about a will for a good bit of just what that looks like, what to do.

And then afterwards, at the end of the whole weekend, we had people write what they're going to do with their marriage when they leave, you know, certain things they're going to implement.

And we, you know, I was thinking like communication, you know, our thoughts about intimacy, like all these big discussions we talk about.

There were so many that said, we're making a will, which means they don't have one. So it's a reminder to all of you out there, make a will.
Mama Bear Legal Forms is a great thing.

I always need to get mama bear to throw that in in the package when they come all the way over am i kidding the amount of people that were like we're gonna do a will do a will while you're sitting here you like you have to do a will so do a state specific will if your estate's not complicated you can do an online one you can save the fees for all the attorneys and everything if your net worth's over a million dollars you need to do a you know a more detailed one but i'm telling you do a will when'd you do your will at a marriage conference

Hey guys, you know those too good to pass up holiday promos? Well, they can be great, but with every spin of the digital wheel, the newsletter sign up, the coupon code, you're giving away your data.

You think that info just stays with the store? I doubt it. It goes into the corners of cyberspace where data brokers grab it, repackage it, and sell it to spammers, scammers, and generally bad people.

The FTC just reported consumers lost over $12.5 billion to fraud last year. And that's not just a number.
That's your money, your time, and your privacy.

And that's why I recommend DeleteMe, your digital cleanup crew.

The Delete Me privacy pros dig through hundreds of these data broker sites, they scrub your info, and they keep it gone, which means fewer weird robo calls, fewer spam texts, and it's the gift that keeps on giving because it's an annual subscription.

And Ramsey listeners can get 20% off those annual plans at joindeleteme.com/slash Ramsey with code Ramsey at checkout. Do it today.
That's joindeleatme.com slash Ramsey code Ramsey.

Do you ever feel like you're doing everything right with your money, but you're still not getting anywhere? Well, you're not alone.

Maybe you've made changes and you had a few wins, but something still feels off because not because you failed, but because

money isn't just math. It's emotional.
And that emotional fight can quietly sabotage your progress. That's exactly what Jade Washaw's new book, What No One Tells You About Money, is all about.

It puts you in the driver's seat for your life.

And the problem with money is people think it's just math, and it's not. It's all about the person in your mirror, and that includes emotions.

It's a spiritual walk, an emotional walk, a relational walk. Jade deals with every bit of that and shows you how to win with it.

It's the first Ramsey book that takes an honest, in-depth look at the emotions, the emotional side of money. It gives you practical tools to finally make progress for good.

We're going to show you how to do that. Pre-order right now for $24.99 and get over $100 in free bonus items, including the enhanced audiobook.
It's very cool. Early access to the e-book.

Instant access to an exclusive video, your financial checkup with Jade Washaw. And you can book exclusive three-week online book club and live Q ⁇ A with Jade about the book as well.

So pre-order today at ramseysolutions.com slash store. Or if you're watching on YouTube or podcasts, click the link in the description.
Jake is in North Dakota. Jake, what are you thankful for?

I'm thankful Christ died for my sins, Dave. Amen and amen.
Better get to that. Never gets old.
Never gets old. The greatest story ever told.
How can we help today? Amen.

Well, I recently read your book, Total Money Makeover. My wife and I have been kind of paying attention to your show for about a year now, and we've been able to merge our finances.

We used to have separate accounts, but we've merged everything together.

We've been paying down on our debt, but I would like to be more intense about it. And I don't know how to get her on board with that.
I don't want to be forceful.

It's not my will to be forceful about it with her, but I would like us to be more intense and get out of debt. Okay, so what does that, what does that mean practically?

Do you feel like you could be, I mean, how much more money do you feel like you could be throwing at the debt per month that you guys are just spending? Quite a bit.

We've got two car payments that I would love to get rid of. I'd like to sell both vehicles.
She's not on board with that, at least at this time.

Debt-wise, we have just under $300,000 in debt.

mortgage.

That's everything.

Yeah,

how much of that's your mortgage?

About $184,000 in a mortgage. You have $16,000 in debt?

No, no, no. No, no, $116,000.
Okay, I missed it. Okay, $116,000.
Okay.

That sounds about right. Yep.
All right. And is that what is that consistent? The second mortgage? Okay.

What's your household income?

About $160,000, $170,000 a year without overtime. How long have y'all been married?

Boy, since 2012. I got to think for a minute.
About 13 years.

Okay.

When did you guys just start this? You said you just read the book and you're starting this process. How long has it been?

We started this at about the end of March of this year. That's when you combine the finances?

Yes, sir. We've been talking about doing it for a number of years, but we just never pulled the trigger to get it.

What does she do? We've already got ourselves into a,

she works for,

I'm trying to find the words for it.

They deal with like

selling health insurance benefits to businesses.

She's like a consultant doing that. Okay.

And what's her

hesitation when you said, I want to sell the cars and she doesn't? What's her reasoning behind that?

She just doesn't want to. She likes the car.
And I don't blame her. I mean, we bought both of them brand new in 2021.
Yeah.

But,

you know, she doesn't want to sell that and get into something unreliable.

We live in the north where it's winters are harsh, and we neither one of us wants to be in something unreliable driving our kids around. Yeah, yeah.

Out of the 116, how much are the cars? What are the

car loans?

The 25,000 owed on hers and 23 on mine. So half of its cars.
Okay.

Yeah.

The other half, well, almost.

And again, 49 is the second mortgage. We have about 18,000 in credit card debt, which we've been hammering money and paying down a lot of credit card debt.

Have you cut up your credit cards?

I have not cut that one up, but it is not here.

How often do you go out to eat?

We don't. We cook at home.

I hunt and fish, so we provide as much of our food the natural way that we can.

That's nice.

Well, you got a good place to do that.

So, so do you so again, this not selling cars would not be gazelle intense. I understand that.
And then per month, how much could you where else could you be saving money?

What else would you cut out that you would if if it was up to you? Where are you guys spending that you want to cut?

I guess we budget

we budget a little bit extra in the each month for just you know

things pursuing our own interests, I guess. So this mainly comes down to the question of intensity or gazelle intensity.
It mainly comes down to the car discussion. Is that what you're saying?

100%.

Okay. All right.

That's fair. All right.
So here's what I would do. I would just sit and keep having the discussion.

Sell your car, Jake. Yeah,

you can lead by selling yours. Yep.
And not hers. And I'm looking into that right now.

But tell her, but we are making this decision, not you. Okay? We are, I'm willing to get rid of mine so that we can advance.
And here's the thing.

The reason that people don't cut up a credit card, the reason that people continue to go out to eat, the reason that people go on vacation is they don't think they're going to win.

If you think you're going to win, you'll sacrifice to win. But if you sacrifice

and don't win, no one wants to do that. That's psychotic.
Okay, so selling your cars and then being broke for the next five years is not a good plan. That's weird.

We're not asking you to do that. You're not asking to do that.

But right now, you're talking about selling a car instead of talking about the dream of what it's going to be like when we don't have a stinking payment accept our mortgage and we can actually build some wealth and pay cash for whatever kind of car we want.

We're going to live like no one else so that we can live and give like no one else. Talk about the second part.

The two of you dream together in high definition of what life is going to look like when we finally get all this crap away from us and we're not normal anymore because normal sucks.

And Jake, as much as you can, I think it's sometimes helpful because it sounds like she's probably more of the free spirit in the relationship. You're probably more of the nerd.

Would you say that's right? Very much. Okay.
So use your nerd advantage and honestly

make some scenarios. I feel like that's always helpful.
When people feel like that there's just like this is the only thing. And like, and exactly what Dave was just saying, like, sell the cars.

And then it's like, okay, well, what's after that? Like, what, what are we doing? There's something about having a scenario. Scenario one, Jake sells his car.

Uh, we find an extra $800 a month in the budget, like whatever it is, like boom, boom, boom, boom. We're out of debt in X amount of time.

Then we're going to be able to save X amount per month to upgrade the car. And here's the reality, right?

And then scenario number two, if we both sell the car, scenario three, if we don't sell either car and we just pay it off, here's how long we'll be in debt.

Like actually have some reality to it because sometimes just the idea can just feel a little bit like nebulous or something.

So if you can get some details down and you guys look at a couple of different options and different plans of how to get there, how to get to this goal of being debt-free, it feels more realistic to you.

Let me give you an example of what Rachel's saying. Let's pretend you didn't have a car and you're calling me and saying, I want to take out a car payment.

And I say, well, the average car payment is $500. It's not anymore.
It's a lot higher than that. $700 and $500,000.

Okay, $750, okay? So for 10 months, I want you to save $750. What is that? $7,500.
Buy a $7,500 car for cash 10 months from now. 10 months later, you'll have $7,500.

And a $7,500 car doesn't go down much in value, so you can sell it for $7,500. Put that with the new $7,500.
You got a $15,000 car.

A scenario is that 20 months from now, you are driving a $15,000 paid-for car instead of being saddled with a stupid butt car payment of $750.

That's a scenario. That shows you a way out.
It's taken instead of like drive a hoopty,

that doesn't take me anywhere.

I need something more than that. So where are we going with this thing? That's what Rachel's saying, and that's the way to handle it, Jake.
And you're a good man. She's a good woman.

This is going to work out for you guys. It's going to be okay.

Hey y'all, you know I'm all about keeping your budget in check, especially during the holidays. And that's why I always start my grocery shopping during the holidays at Aldi.

From fresh produce to holiday favorites and charcuterie boards for parties, Aldi has it all. And at prices that will help your family save big, up to $4,000 a year for a family of four.

So, do what I do for my family. Shop at Aldi first to save on groceries without sacrificing quality or holiday joy.
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.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.
Happy Thanksgiving to you. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, host of the Rachel Cruz Show.

Ramsey personality, my daughter, is my co-host.

Thanksgiving around Ramsey. We're pretty much a cheese factory around here.

We like celebrating this stuff and we like Christmas and we like anything that makes the kiddos smile, which makes Papa Dave smile and makes the mom and daddy smile, and that's what Turkey does. So

we are a thankful family. We believe in gratitude.
We believe in generosity. These are things that bring you great happiness.

So when you call in today, your ticket of entry is going to be what you are thankful for. The phone number is 888-825-5225.

Mike is with us in Tampa, Florida. Mike, what are you thankful for?

I'm thankful for my wife and the life we have here in Florida. Awesome.
How can we help?

Yeah, Dave. My wife and I have been using every dollar for the last 10 years.
We went through Financial Peace University, and we've been debt-free for five years.

I'm at retirement age now, and we have, we're a blended family with four adult kids. And one of my adult children, a daughter,

eloped with her now husband

to Hawaii last year and just sent me a text and said that they're going to have a wedding, a destination wedding in Spain this summer.

And traditionally, it's the parents' family's responsibilities to pay for that wedding or to contribute. And my wife and I discussed it.
We don't agree with that.

They will have been married over two years by the time this event takes place. And we don't feel obligated to

support that. Okay.
And just wanted to get your advice. I like it.
Yeah.

I mean, it's your money. So, where did this entitlement that she's entitled for this come from?

I think she was raised that way by

my ex.

Okay. Was there discussion?

There's some of that attitude. Okay.
Was there any discussion, Mike, a year ago before they eloped that you guys were going to plan a wedding and you were going to help with it?

And then they were like, you know what? We don't, we just want to elope. You know what I mean? Like, was there ever discussions, any expectations that was set at any point that you were going to help?

Or is this just a, okay, so that was never even talked about. Has another daughter gotten married and you paid for it and you took, well, whatever we did for her, we'll do for everyone?

Nope. Nope, I didn't.
I didn't.

My oldest daughter got married, didn't ask for anything. We went to the wedding.
Oh, wow.

Yeah, but this daughter, they waited a month to call us and even tell us they were married. And we went up as soon as we heard, we bought airline tickets, went to where they live.

We went up for the weekend to celebrate their wedding, took them out to dinner, spent the weekend with them. And we felt like that that was the right thing to do.
Yeah, totally. And now she's

in Spain. Wait a minute, wait a minute.
So,

how long have you been divorced from her mom?

20 years. Okay.
And she's how old?

33.

Okay. So she was 13.

Correct. Okay.

And

so a lot of times in that scenario,

you end up build rebuilding a relationship a decade after the divorce.

Does that sound right? Right. Huh? Yeah, yeah.

She we had a call last Sunday and she pretty much unloaded that kind of stuff on me that goes back to when I remarried. So, yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So

the reason I bring that up is the way you described she didn't tell you she's married, so we're going to go visit. That kind of felt like olive branch stuff from someone you're not real close to.

Yeah, I'm not, frankly, not close with any of my daughters. Okay.
For

pretty much the same reason. Yeah, yeah, because divorce is nasty.
Yeah. And

yeah.

Okay.

So So then this request is not entitlement. It's a guilt trip.

Partially and partially, I think it isn't. I think she does have what I call the princess complex.

She feels like she comes for money. And

I mean,

she'd have to go find that source because you're apparently not it.

Maybe you have it, but that doesn't mean it's hers. Yeah.
Yeah.

You know,

so here's the thing. Pick up a book by Dr.
Henry Cloud called Boundaries,

and you and your current wife read that, because you need to be prepared. She does not respect boundaries, and when you set boundaries with a boundaryless person, they seldom react positively.

In other words, there's not any version of no she's going to be okay with.

Right.

And

so I just want you to be prepared for that because there's some heartbreak that goes goes with that. So, I mean, you've been trying to reach out.

You've been trying to re-engage as her dad, as an adult dad,

a dad of an adult daughter, and now she's coming in with this wild thing, and it's going to harm whatever positive moves you've made.

But that is also the proper, still the proper thing to do. But I just want you to know it's not, this is not going to be easy for you.
It's going to hurt.

Right. Because she's going to throw a fit and say, I'm never going to speak to you again or something like that well she's going to turn into the victim yeah

yeah it's already you've never been there for me and you're not there for me now you know and this kind of bullcrap right

yes sir exact that's exact conversation we had last week yeah yeah so you've already told her you already told her no

Yes,

she basically pushed it, so I called her to ask her, you know,

why this place, why they felt like they needed to have another event after they were already married. It didn't make sense to me.
And they both went and got

MBAs. And I don't think financially

that they should be spending money on a destination. I think they've probably got some student debt.
I don't know. I don't know their finances, but

I would assume that. And

so, so, yeah, I just don't think they're making wise decisions. And

I actually shared that. I thought maybe they could have made a different decision.

She didn't like my answer. Yeah.

There's no form of no. But piling on to their financial decisions, it probably didn't help at all.
So,

but the

anyway, I think I would just keep it very clean and very simple and just say, listen,

my love for you and my desire to have a relationship with you guys going forward has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with how you handle your money and it has nothing to do with Spain.

But I'm not, I don't feel at this stage, the way our relationship is today, the way your life is built today, we don't feel good about this and so we're not willing to pay for this. I'm so sorry.

I know you probably don't understand that and

I'm prepared for you to not understand that.

Yeah, and I almost would be, I would caution putting it on a condition

on her. I wonder if it's a, hey, we've talked and we've decided

we're choosing not to spend this money. We're looking at the situation.
And my hope is that, Mike, you you know, that there is some reconciliation in the relationship. But again, this is going to

be a barrier to that, which is so sad.

It was going so well until she started demanding that. Right, right.

We like the husband. We offered to come and support the event.

And we told her that, you know, we had put in our budget for all the travel and all to go, but that we just couldn't afford to also contribute.

I'm not going to pay for it. I don't think you're wrong.
I don't think you're wrong at all. I just want you to be prepared for the backlash.
I'm sorry.

Hey guys, it's open enrollment time for health insurance. And if you have ever felt overwhelmed trying to figure out your healthcare costs, you are not alone.

For a lot of families, healthcare is one of the biggest line items in the budget, and it gets more confusing every year. But you don't have to settle.

Christian Healthcare Ministries is a biblical and budget-friendly alternative to health insurance, and I am proud to recommend them.

With CHM, you are joining a community of believers who actually help share each other's medical bills. Yeah, it's true.

Members have shared over $12 billion in healthcare healthcare costs since CHM started nearly 45 years ago. And it's simple.
You choose your provider with no network limits.

You submit your eligible bills online, and other members help share your expenses. CHM has program options for every stage of life, whether you're single, self-employed, or raising a family.

Y'all, open enrollment has a lot of people scrambling right now, but CHM lets you join anytime. So go to chministries.org slash budget to check them out.
That's chministries.org slash budget.

Countdown to Christmas is on. Do you believe it? Ton of great deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday right now with us.

Special one day sales, and we're talking hardcover books, audio books, assessments, all stuff as low as $3.99.

What? Yeah, check it out. Go to ramseysolutions.com/slash store.
Click the link in the description if you want. That might be the easiest way to get there.
Thomas is with us in Austin, Texas.

Thomas, what are you thankful for?

Hi, my wife and kids. Cool.
How can we help?

Hey, so I'm on babies at three. I've been doing great falling off plan.
And recently I got a post by a family member about some financial advising.

So we did a couple sessions, but now they're trying to tell me that my term life policy is not great. And I should be getting disability insurance and term AD.

And it just all feels like more of a self-pitch than financial advising. And now that's a family member, I don't know how to think about it.
Am I crazy?

And I just don't know how to approach that.

Okay, so what you're telling me is that you smell stink.

Yes, sir. Okay.
Then end the conversation.

Absolutely. The five sessions are great.

I don't care what they're selling. Even if what they're selling is good, you always end the conversation around money when you smell stink.

Because your smeller is better than anything out there.

Trust your instincts is what I'm saying.

Okay. I don't know what this product is.
You haven't described it. I don't even know what the family member does.
I don't know if they know what they were doing.

Maybe they were changing oil at Jiffy Lube three weeks ago. Now they're a financial planner.
That happens fairly often. Okay.

I don't know any of that. But you smell stink, Thomas, and I trust your smell.

Just end it based on that. Just say, listen, thank you for the help so far.
We love you.

We're just going to remain good family members, and we're not going to move forward with any financial products with a family member at this time. Have you already put your money with them, Thomas?

No, not yet. Okay, okay.
Don't. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, so just stay with what I got, stay the course. Yeah, don't argue about the products.
Don't argue about family. Don't argue.
No is a complete sentence. This is a very quick,

calm, kind

sentence. We've talked about it, my wife and I, and we've decided not to move forward with any financial

at this time. Yeah, and we just want to keep our money and our family members separate.
Separate. And it just feels cleaner that way.
And thank you.

Thank you so much for offering all this. We appreciate it.
Have a good night. Bye-bye.

It's like a 15 or a 20-second thing here. We're not getting into a day-long debate about this.

Interest. Okay.
So what I want to do is give the power back to you. How close is the family member, Thomas? Is it a sibling? Is it an aunt or uncle?

It's a cousin. It's a cousin, okay.
Cousin Eddie.

Yeah.

It's got stink on it. So

listen, here's the thing.

How long has cousin been in the business? Financial business?

A couple months. Teachers graduate college this year.

Yeah. I think you're good.
Yeah, so you're smelling the right smell. Let me tell you about the business, okay, from the outside in, just to give you some more power.

I don't want you to share any of this with cousin. I just want you to have the knowledge base, okay, because it will give you some strength.
80%

of the people that start selling life insurance are out of the business in 12 months.

12 months. Yeah.

Here's what their life insurance business is based on. They hire your cousin so he can work what's called his natural market.
That's what they call it.

His natural market are people that he has influence with, not because of his financial ability, but because of his relationships.

And so he calls his old friends from high school, his fraternity brothers from college. He calls his wife's friend on the soccer field.
He calls all of his cousins and he sits down. And once he's

run through that list, he's out of prospects and he goes out of business because they don't furnish him any new leads.

They use people to get to their relationships. That's their marketing model.
It's called working the natural market.

And that's why 80% of them, once they run through their natural list, they're out of the business. And that doesn't mean they're bad people, but your cousin is quite frankly being taken advantage of.

You see what I'm saying? So if you put your money with them, you're not going to be working with him in a year. He won't be there anymore.

80% of the time.

So

he couldn't get a better job. This is the one he took.
Bless his heart. Or he fell for a sales pitch of how much money he could make and

all the things. And all that bullcrap.
So please walk away.

And especially,

and let me just give you this. I'm like, he just graduated college a few months.
I'm like, he's just a kid.

So like, genuinely, if he was like, had been in the business for 30 years and he had a reputation. Do you know what I mean, though?

And I think it would be kind of a harder kind of slap in the face of like, dude, this is my job. I've been doing this for 30 years.
And you know what I mean?

If it's your old uncle and he's good at it, it'd be kind of like, oh, sorry, that's awkward. But he's like a 21-year-old.
He just started this. So I'm like, yeah, you're good.

He's selling knives next week. And we don't want to buy the knives either.
Thank you.

No, Cutco is great knives. Yeah, but guess who sells them? Same exact model.
Which is great. Same exact model.

You go sell your grandma, you go sell your aunt some knives, and then you're out of the business. And that's when you work your natural markets.
The exact same pots and pans thing.

It's an old marketing distribution method. It's been around the same time.
It's wrong. It's not a, and it's not a.

Okay. Well, I don't know.
If you don't think the person's going to succeed once they finish working their list and you're only hiring them to access their list, that is wrong.

Yes, that's ethically wrong. I have compassion.
That's fair. That's fair.

Same thing about the Girl Scouts, you know? They go to the neighbors.

I don't know.

But the Girl Scouts are not making a career off of your money. Okay, that's fine.
They're just making you fat with the thin milk. It's very fat.
Yeah. We love the Girl Scouts.
We love you.

And so, yeah,

well, that's it. That's how the thing works.
Now,

so there's a good rule of thumb.

What I'm trying to get you to do, everybody out here, is trust your instincts. Okay.

I just love the proverb that says the simple sees danger and moves forward and is harmed for it.

The wise senses danger and seeks refuge and becomes safe.

And so when we go against this smell test, every one of us have that moment where we're in the middle of doing something stupid with money and you have the opportunity to not do it and you go,

I knew better. I knew better.
How many of you have done something dumb and you look back and you go, right in the middle of it, I knew it, but I just was caught up in the moment.

I was caught up and and it was a family member and I just felt guilty and I felt trapped and bad bad bad bad bad and you you knew though that it was bad and Thomas I'm just telling you man trust the smell and it doesn't mean your cousin's a bad dude I'm not saying that I'm not even sure these products are bad I think they probably are I think it's probably whole life bull crap but um but I'm not sure I don't know who what it is or who what he's selling um

Doesn't matter. The point is, you don't need to be doing business with him.
And because

the hair stood up on the back of of your neck rattlesnake in the bush that's what happens your your body has a physical reaction when you sense danger and it's it's the lizard brain prompting you and going don't do it smells bad

skunk in the bush don't get over there you know it's it's a simple thing and but we we we get all of us get all intellectual and sophisticated and rationalize our way past and want to be nice that's enough and we want to be nice we want to pass you know and we just walk right past the stink right into the skunk Yep, yep.

There's a book, The Gift of Fear, and it's a guy who was who used to do security, but he wrote this whole book, and mostly towards women about physical safety, but how many stories.

It's like, oh, I got a bad feeling, but I still let him help me unload my groceries to my door. You know what I mean? Like, bad things happen.

And it's like that whole, I mean, that's like his number one thing. And don't, don't be afraid that, like, you know, you want to be a kind person, but sometimes it's like, you don't have to be nice.

It's okay. Like, it's real.
You're better being not nice than dead. Yes, the gut reaction is true.
So, Thomas, whether it's this or something else,

trust your instincts. It's God's spirit in you speaking up.
It's saying, don't do it. Don't do it.
And traumas,

you notice how quickly I took you there, Thomas. I didn't even know what was going on.
I was depending on that smell test.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The holidays are full of traditions.
Some of these traditions we love, some we just survive.

And in addition to the traditions, let's be honest, this time of year can also be a time of noise and pressure and loneliness. Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to ask yourself yourself what really matters to you this year.

And therapy can give you a space to do just that, to think, to breathe, to ask yourself what do you want this year and to make room for peace. That's why I recommend BetterHelp.

BetterHelp has over 30,000 licensed therapists that have helped over 5 million people worldwide with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars.

BetterHelp is online so it fits around your schedule even during the chaotic holiday times. You get online and just answer a few questions and they'll match you with someone who fits your needs.

And if your therapist is not the right fit, you can switch anytime for no extra cost. This month, start a new tradition by taking care of you.

Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Ramsey.

Well, tis the season. It's that time of year.
In a few weeks, we're going to be doing a special giving edition of the Ramsey Show.

We want to hear stories from you about how generosity has impacted you. Maybe you've been the giver or the receiver.

Maybe you've

had an incredible story that will inspire others to give by something that happened to you or through you. We want to hear about it.

Go to ramseysolutions.com slash ask and put giving in the subject line. We do this every year at Christmastime, and it is one of our most popular shows.

It's going to be December the 18th, so start sending in your stories now.

Ramseysolutions.com slash ask. Put giving in the storyline and in the subject line and tell us a little bit about the story and we'll get in touch with you and make you part of our annual giving show.

It's very inspiring. John is in Los Angeles.
Hey, John, how are you?

I'm doing well, Dave. Pleasure to talk to you today.
You too. How can we help?

So, a quick question for you, a little advice. I have a feeling I know what you're going to say, but I just need confirmation, I guess.

So,

father of six, been married for 15 years,

income around just north of 200. We have zero consumer debt.
I have a outstanding mortgage balance of about 220

with a mortgage rate of about 2.875.

I've come into a sum of money, which is about 200.

And so

what I want to do, what I think I know I should do is just

take out the house and move on with my life. But that's

easier said than done when you're sitting in the the driver's seat and you got that interest rate.

Okay.

Well,

there's several layers to the answer. Okay.

I'll give you a couple of the layers, a couple of the lenses through which you can look at this that reinforce the answer. Number one,

we did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America, Ramsey Research Team, 10,167 of them.

The number of them out of 10,000 millionaires, 89% of them were first generation rich, meaning they were not inherited money.

Nine out of 10 of America's millionaires are first generation rich.

Then we start asking, okay, how'd you get there? What technique did you use? Where did your money come from? Did you win the lottery?

The number of them that said, I had a good interest rate on my mortgage, so I didn't pay it off, and I invested the difference, and

that made me a millionaire. The number of them that said that is precisely zero.

Yeah. So this idea that you use borrowed money on your house to become wealthy is mythology.

It's not true. It doesn't happen in the real world.
So your theory is bullcrap, is what I'm saying. It's not your theory.
It's a theory that floats all through our culture.

Yeah, but you can just understand how that is. I can understand it, but I'm telling you what, I understand how you got there, but I'm telling you what the data says.

Okay, so that's one way of looking at it. The second way of looking at it is through a spiritual lens.

The borrower is slave to the lender, and people react to their careers differently and their generosity differently when they don't have a house payment.

Yeah.

Regardless of the interest rate.

And so they tend to maximize their careers because they're not trapped.

Yeah. And they don't feel like they have to put up with some unethical or inefficient or crummy job because they got this stupid house payment, even though the interest rate's great.

And John, out of all the people we've talked to throughout the years, whether it's at events, on the show,

and people that have paid off their house, and we ask them, do you regret it? Do you hate? having a paid-off house

precisely zero.

Nobody regrets it. And even if you do regret it, you can go

a lot of mortgages. If you want to Google Dave Rseamsey,

if you want to Google Dave Ramsey sucks, you'll see a lot of reasons that I suck. Oh, yeah.
But never, never one time will you see that Dave told me to pay off my house and I hate him.

There's not one. They'll tell you I suck for a lot of other reasons, that I'm awful.
Yeah, no, I don't think you suck. I know, but I'm just saying.

It's just weird.

Of all the trolling and all the critics we get, they're all people that haven't paid off their houses.

But we don't get people that paid off their house because I told them to that are mad at me. None, zero, nada.
So do it. Pay it off and enjoy your great life, dude.

And if you hate being debt-free, go get you a new mortgage later.

You know, you can always go back in debt. I promise you, they'll put your butt there if you want to be there.
Tyler is in Atlanta. Hey, Tyler, what's up?

Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.
What are you thankful for today?

Just another grateful day on earth.

That's all you can wish for. Amen.

How can we help?

So, me and my wife, we got married in May.

We are actually, we got

married at the courthouse,

but we're having a wedding in March of next year.

So, not a lot of people know that we're married. And we live in Atlanta now, and we're going to move back home down south.

We have a couple thousand saved up in the bank.

My wife wants to buy a house immediately when we move, but I want to live with my parents or her parents for a couple months and save up even more for a bigger down payment so we don't have more of a payment on a house

and be able to save for. How old are you guys?

I am 24. She is 26.
And what's your household income, sir?

Eight grand a month. Okay.
There's nothing evil about any of the choices that you put in front of me.

There's only things that are smarter.

One thing's smarter than another thing. That's the only question, okay? So in other words, if you do any of these things, you're probably not going to ruin your life.

You follow me?

So if you move in with your parents, probably not going to kill you for a little while. If you go buy a house, probably not going to kill you.
My answer is I wouldn't do either one of those things.

I'd go rent a one-bedroom apartment for a year, as cheap as I possibly could, over the garage of a rich old lady's house and mow her grass for half the rent and pile up as much cash as you can pile and don't be living with your mommy.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I'd pile up as much cash as I could pile up and learn the neighborhood and learn the area because it takes a year of being married to know how far from your mother-in-law you should buy.

Yeah.

I'm talking about your wife.

Yeah, Tyler, be newlyweds and not go share a kitchen with your parents.

Yeah, you make eight grand a month. You're killing it.
Yeah, just go. Y'all go rent somewhere for a year.
And you're going to a small town. I got a feeling.
Yeah, yeah.

And we're in the middle of the year.

Whose town is it? Yours or hers?

It's actually both of ours.

We both grew up there. Both of our parents are there.

Okay.

So you know the town. Are you, Tyler, are you guys debt-free consumer debt-wise? Or do y'all have payments?

So

we have a little bit of debt probably altogether. It's probably 10 grand, but we have 70 in the savings.
70,000?

Yes, 70,000 in the savings. Okay, well,

our six grand is for our honeymoon, and then we we have some other

pay that off tonight, honey.

Okay, it's not, it's not a pet. Absolutely.
Get rid of it.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's not the neck.

Yeah, and then you guys figure out your emergency fund, which is going to be part of the 70, and then beyond that, what you want to save in a year for a down payment because you guys are getting close.

And with a small town, hopefully housing prices, you know, it's not like the Bay Area. So hopefully you can get into something and y'all would be great.

Yeah, and I can modify it a little bit since I found out both of you are from there and it's a small geographical area. You already know the town,

so I don't have to give you a whole year, but at least six months. Just go rent something for six months, get settled in, become married people.

Everybody knows you're married, it's a March thing happens, all that stuff, and then you start looking for a house. And by then, you can have saved up a little bit more money.
And that's quick.

That time is fast. You guys are going to be fine.
You're going to be fine. Just, you know, it's a marathon.
It's not a sprint. You're You're doing good.

Sylvia is in Seattle. Hey, Sylvia, what are you thankful for?

Well, Dave, this is a hard Thanksgiving. My sister died a few months ago.

I'm sorry.

So

the holidays are difficult, to say the least, but I do have things to be thankful for. And so I'm trying, she would want me to live and not to,

you know, just survive. So that's what I'm trying to do.
And good for you. And so thank you for asking.

It's a healthy outlook.

Yeah, you know, people need to really, I'm a registered nurse, and so people need to understand how important your health is.

Dave, real quick, I'm a registered nurse.

I'm 66. I retire in June,

40 years, emergency and pandemic and such.

I was raised, I'm the youngest of seven Army brat and was raised by parents in the Depression telling us

to

pay yourself first, know the difference between wants and needs, and to save. And so that's what I've been doing.

Currently, I have a home I just bought a year ago after losing one in the recession in 08.

It took me a while to build back up, but I bought a year ago. That's my only

debt.

That mortgage is $3,400 a month. I have an emergency fund of about $130,000.
I have investments of about $1.2 million.

I'll get $3,500 in Social Security and $2,000 in a pension. My question to you, which is different from most, is

my whole life, my father's

voice is in my ear to save, save, save.

My financial counselor now tells me, Enid,

it's time to

rent or to

start spending.

So I don't know how because in my head, it's like, keep saving, keep saving.

And so I wondered if you could help me

or give me some advice as how I flip that switch and start to live. Because my sister would want me to get it.

One detail. What is the balance on your mortgage?

$500. Oof.
Okay.

All right.

To your question, then,

There are only three things that we can do with money.

We can save it and invest it, which you have done with glory. You're a millionaire.
Way to go. Congratulations.
By the way, what's the home worth?

About $850. Okay.
All right. So you're worth about $100 you're worth about $1.5 million is your net worth.
Okay.

And the um

so that's absolutely incredible. You're a millionaire nurse at 66 years old.
And you're obviously with the language you're using single. Were you ever married?

I was

part of that whole early on in my 40s.

We got divorced, and he had debt that I had to

pay off. So, you know,

that also left a mark. Yeah.
Okay. That makes sense.
Yeah. And so.
So, so,

again, there's three things that we can do. So, Rachel and I wrote a book years ago.
It was her first number one bestseller called Smart Money, Smart Kids, on teaching children how to handle money.

And we taught children that there are three things that they can do with money. And parents' job is to teach them to do all three things, to give,

to save,

and to spend wisely.

Okay?

And to teach them to work, which is where money comes from to do all three of those things. Okay.
So that's the lessons we teach kids. As adults, there's only three things we can do with money.

We can give it, we can save it, and we can enjoy it it or spend it, which is what your counselor is saying. Now, we don't want to ever do just one

because it's not a well-rounded life. And that's what your counselor is saying.
You've become an expert saver. Your savings muscle is really big.

You have big muscles on the savings side. Your spending muscle is puny.

Your giving muscle is probably underdeveloped.

Am I right?

Not accusing you of being greedy. I'm just saying you don't give a lot of money.
I, you know,

give to my church. What I have done, I don't have children.
And

my will, I finished my will.

I'm talking about your monthly giving in your budget.

Yeah, so it's other than to my church and what have you, yeah. Yeah, and that's 50 bucks or 100 bucks or something.
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Okay.
That's what I'm saying. So, uh, and you're a millionaire, almost a multi-millionaire.
So I want you to increase your giving.

I don't care to what,

and I want you to increase your spending. Now, I don't want you to be irresponsible.
If your 1.2 million is invested in mutual funds, it should be producing about $10,000 a month in income.

You don't need that much income.

Yeah.

How much income do you're going to have $3,500 already coming in? And $2,000 with a pension.

And so you're going to be at $5,500 coming in. Can you live on that comfortably?

I'm living on that now.

Okay.

All right, good. I mean, do you want to live on that or do you want to spend more than that?

I mean,

both my sisters, you know, as I told you recently, past, were going to do some things once I retired. They already had.
Now they're gone.

You know, I guess I'll, you know, I don't know what I'm, I've got to start thinking about what I'm going to do when I retire

as a nurse.

Travel? You know, I

right, I don't want to travel by myself, but yes,

I can travel.

Yeah, I got to start thinking about this stuff. And yes, I will be giving away my money.
My father did. I don't mean

that. I'm not saying, all I'm saying is, is that I want you, instead of giving $100 away a month, I want you to give away $1,000 a month.

Yeah.

And just find somebody that needs some groceries, you know? Right. And just because there's great joy in that.

And then I want you to look up and I want you to say, I'm making $10,000 a month on my investments above what I need to live.

What does that look like on spending? What are we going to spend that? Some of that on. I don't want you to spend it all.
But here's the point. If you spend $15,000 a month for the rest of your life,

including your pension income and your investment income, you will die with $1.2 million.

You're okay. You did it.

Okay.

And if you get that math in your head, then it gives you permission not to be crazy. I don't want you to go spend $300,000 on a car.
That's not what I'm saying. Okay.

But I am saying $15,000 a month is way more than you ever thought about spending it. That blows your mind just saying that, doesn't it?

Yes, it does. I can't imagine.

And I don't think you're going to do that. The chances of you overspending are zero.

Now, what about this mortgage? Yeah, I'm worried about this mortgage. I want this mortgage to go away.

That becomes a second part of the goal is we need to clear this debt because it's the most destabilizing thing in your life right now. It's a big mortgage.

And I don't really feel good about taking $500,000 out of your 1.2 and paying it off today.

But I'm going to start working out of that $15,000 a month and work that mortgage down too.

Because I'd like you to have no mortgage.

So

I want you to build up your generosity muscle and your spending muscle up to

and your debt reduction muscle, those three things, up to $15,000 a month once you start drawing down on the 1.2.

So you sit down with your financial advisor and you start drawing the income off of the 1.2 to go with your pension and go with your other stuff and you throw it in a checking account.

Any part of you would just take like 200 of it and just kind of make a dent? I'd like to get the mortgage down a ways and then just knock it off. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't want to make a front-end dent.

I'd make a back-end dent. Probably.

I just,

she's,

yeah, we've first got to get her enjoying the money a little bit. Yes.
It's time for sure. So I think you've got a good person in your corner, whoever that is, counseling you.
I like their advice.

Good question. Sylvia, the chances of you overspending are almost zero.
No chance we could get you in Congress.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studios. It's Thanksgiving Eve here at Ramsey, so we are asking you what you're thankful for.

And there's always something to be thankful for. And stopping and, as the old saying says, count your blessings is not a bad idea.
By the way, it's your entry to the show today.

If you want to get on, we're going to ask you what you're thankful for. That's how it works.
Open phones at 888-825-5225. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author.

My daughter is my co-host today. Noah is with us in Cincinnati.
Hi, Noah. What are you thankful for?

Oh, gosh, too much. My family and friends and everything in between.
How are you guys? Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help today?

Well, I have been wondering for, gosh, a year or two now if I should buy a new car.

My wife has a nice car. It's probably worth about 20 grand.
It's kind of the family car.

I drive a van for work and I drive when I need to. I have about a $2,000 car,

and there's nothing wrong with it, and I drive it all the time. And I guess

I've just

bought a new car because it feels kind of frivolous because I don't need it. And I've been looking at them for so long, and I just am not sure if I should do it.

How much money do you have, Noah?

Well, I know what you're going to say. You're going to laugh at me.
I've got

probably about $540,000 between investments and a brokerage account.

Okay.

Why would I laugh at you? That's great. Well done.

Yeah, I just

guess because I'm just so hung up on buying a car. So we're going to say you guys do have enough money.

Do you have any debt? Yeah.

No, just a house. Okay, what do you own your house?

About $200,000. Okay.

All right.

I'd buy a $10,000 car and pay off your house.

I thought you might say that.

How about a $30,000 car? I don't care. You got the money.

Okay.

I don't know why you want to go from a $300 to $30,000, but if you want to, I don't care.

Yeah. And what's your household income, sir?

About $175,000. Okay.
And so the two cars together would be about $50, and that's way less than half your annual income. And yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.
That fits.

Pay cash for it and pay off your house.

And so,

yeah,

you're not doing anything wrong, but I would move up in car just from a reliability standpoint. And, you know, it's just they don't make them like they used to.
Thank God.

New cars and the newer models are a lot nicer. I mean, I've got a 1960 Corvette rebuilt rebuilt, and

I've got a fairly new Corvette, and the new one's a lot better.

So, yeah, I'd move up a little bit, you know. And

the other one's kind of a cool antique, I mean, but it's not,

you know, it's, yeah. The other one's a better ride.
You'll, yeah. Enjoy it, Noah.
Yeah, enjoy it. You're doing a good job.
Have some fun this holiday.

But it's just, you know, we're going to give you permission to have lived like no one else so that somehow, making $100 and what was $175,000 a year, you amassed $550,000.

Now let's do something smart with it. Now, if you said $5 million, I probably would have laughed, but I won't laugh at half a million, Noah.
That's not the laugh level.

The laugh level has seven figures.

But you can afford it, Noah. So do it.
Enjoy. Y'all worked hard.

You've done a great job. Saul's in Boston.
Hey, Saul, what's up?

Hi there. I'm very good.
I'm so excited to be in the phone with you guys. You too.
What's up?

Oh, by the way, what are you thankful for?

Oh, I'm thankful for my friends.

Yeah, definitely. I have a great group of friends that I'm super thankful for.

Very good. How can we help today? Yeah.

Yeah, so my husband is 25. I'm 26 years old, no children.
Our household income is $110,000 a year. We are currently living on my income and saving his income, which is $4,000 a month.

Next year, we're planning to start a long journey of savings to buy our first home cash.

We made our minds that we don't want to owe a penny to anyone ever. And our goal is to save $500,000.
We live in Massachusetts, so the real estate here is very expensive.

We concluded that we will achieve that in a max of seven years. As long as I leave my current job, I have a master's degree and I'm currently working with a career coach to get a higher salary.

Additionally, while saving for the house, we're thinking of maxing out both of our rough IRAs every year so that we don't fall behind in our retirement goals and then save more aggressively afterwards.

But the reason why I'm calling is one of the biggest arguments in this journey is a house that is worth $500,000 now could very much be worth like $900,000 in seven years.

So I just would love to hear your expertise and perspective on that.

And do you have any recommendations on how to invest those savings so that they can grow between now and then?

Okay.

Well, the savings, if you're going to leave it alone three years or more, we would move a bunch of it towards something like an index fund into a good mutual fund, like an S ⁇ P 500, so that it's growing a lot faster than a high-yield savings account.

But if it's three years or under,

and a portion of it, either way, I'm going to leave in high-yield savings so that you're earning some. But really, the interest rate or the return on your money is not going to get you the house.

It's your savings rate, the amount you put in that gets you the house.

So, if you make 3% or you make 10%, it's not going to be that big a difference in a short period of time, like three to five years, before you get a house.

The second thing is that life never works on a straight line.

And what you've done is you have taken the current life that you have, the snapshot of today, freeze frame,

and you projected that out. And life doesn't work that way.
Okay.

100% of the time, five years from today, your income is going to be different than it is today. Usually it's going to be more.

Yeah. Okay.

And we don't know what exactly, but typically on a career track like you guys are on at your age,

your income is going to hockey stick. It's going to go on a curve upward, and that's going to impact the five to seven year and probably turn it into a three to a four year.

And that changes the discussion on how much houses will have gone up in value.

I don't borrow money for anything ever.

So it doesn't matter to me what they go up. I simply cannot buy until I have the money.

Now, the one thing on this show that we, there's only one thing on this show that we, that I don't do personally that I tell other people they can do, and that's take out a small mortgage on a 15-year fixed and pay it off as soon as possible.

I won't do that, but I don't yell at you for that one thing. I don't borrow on anything else, and I will yell at you for borrowing on other things because it's dumb.

Okay. But if you saved up half of this money and you bought in two years,

that would truncate even more of the

weight and the increase in value during that one up. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's a good plan, Sol, but I would be, yes, I would still be investing 15%, even if that's more than maxing out the Roths during this plan. I would be saving in retirement.

Yeah, I think you got too long. If you're going to be more than three years, you need to be maxing, you need to be putting your 15% baby step four aside.

Do you want to keep more money in your pocket and not Uncle Sam's? Then listen up.

There are tax deductions and credits you could maximize before the end of the year by connecting with an experienced tax professional like a Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro.

They know the tax code inside and out, so you don't have to, and they can help you file when tax season rolls around. Get a trusted tax pro by going to ramseysolutions.com/slash tax pro.

Ramseysolutions.com/slash tax pro.

Our question of the day is brought to you by YReFi. Defaulted private student loans don't define you and they don't have control of your future.

Why ReFi helps you start fresh with low fixed rate refinancing made for real people. Go to yrefi.com/slash Ramsey.
That's the letter, Y-R-E-F-Y.com/slash Ramsey. Not in all states.

Today's question comes from Vince in North Dakota. I have followed your principles for years and do not believe in debt personally or in business.

My career has been doing HVAC and plumbing for an employer who has always pushed financing.

I recently opened my own business, and I don't want to add to the slavery of debt, but I also don't want to lose out on jobs because I refuse to play that game. We charge a fair rate, but I know that

I'm running the numbers myself, and I see how expensive it is to grow a real business. How do I compete in this industry without resorting to pushing debt on my customers?

There's plenty of heat and air guys that run huge businesses without being pushing debt.

Some of them just let their, you know, the financing, the customer get their own financing. A lot of people put it on a credit card or they run over at the bank and borrow the money.

But the heat and air company doesn't have to furnish the financing to be successful.

You know, now, if you're going to work a, you know, a lower-end market, you're probably going to struggle because the people you're competing against there are probably signing up the thing.

And, you know, for instance, on the car lot, okay,

the car dealers today on new cars make more money profit per car on the financing package than they do on the sale of the car.

And that could be true of some heat and air companies that are

pushing financing hard, that they're selling the paper

and or they're getting paid a kick from the finance company for pushing the paper. And they're making as much on that as they are on the actual heat and air unit.

But that's not normal in the industry. You know, your father-in-law is is in the heat and air business.
Yeah. And your brother-in-law with him.

And they don't push financing and they make a really good living.

And we know a bunch of other people in the business over the years. And so,

but I do know some people that are, quote, more retail.

And you can kind of tell by their advertising.

When you hear their ads or you see their ads, you kind of can tell, oh, they're going to want me to finance this because they're going to charge a lot.

And so, you know, I think you provide a fair rate. Some customers are going to finance, and I wouldn't not do business with them because they chose to go pay for it the way they wanted to pay for it.

That's not your, that's not your obligation. Yeah.
Yeah. But in terms of, you know, you're in the heat and air business.
You're not in the banking business.

As long as you stay there, you're going to pay. And know that the product you're selling is expensive, Vince.
I mean, like, that's one of the biggest expenses.

So you can't be shocked if people don't have the cash because 40% of Americans can't even cover a $400 emergency. So you are in an industry that's expensive.
So it's,

yeah, you shouldn't be shocked if they,

a lot of people use it. You know, you can't do it.

I think the difference is where you get the icky factor in the heat and air world is where they think they're in the banking business, where they're peddling it hard.

And your old employer was one of those.

Yeah.

That's where you get the ick factor, okay? So if it's somewhere around your business or in your business. So for instance, I talked to a guy the other day.

He owns two pizza locations. He makes pizzas, restaurants.
And he said, am I doing something wrong by taking credit cards for the pizza? And I'm like, good Lord, no. You know, it's not.
Now,

would Ramsey Solutions be doing something wrong to take credit cards? Yeah, because we're telling people actively, like our brand is, telling people not to have a credit card. Okay.

So if you came into our bookstore and used a credit card and we let you do that, that would be hypocritical on our part because it's straight up unethical based on our advice. It's hypocritical.

But now, when you're in the pizza business, I'm in the get-out of debt business. I'm not in the pizza business.
You're in the pizza business.

If you take credit cards at your pizza restaurant, it's the same machine you use a debit card on. And so, either way, you're going to be paying your merchant fees on both of them.

It lowers your profits.

It'd be weird if you were a diet company, but then you were selling ice cream as they're walking out the door. That feels hypocritical, right?

I mean, like, you know, so I mean, it's, but that's not your industry. So, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, if you have a health food store, store,

but you sell Snickers, you know, I mean, that's a problem. You know, I mean, but that's the thing you're looking for on the ethics side of things.

So I would have it available or have a local, you know, hey, the bank,

this credit union over here finances for some people, and you can call George over there and Henry over there. They'll do it.

You know, I'd have that available if I were you, but I wouldn't be peddling it. That's the difference.

You know, I'd say this is how some people do it. They put it on a credit card.
Some people do this. Some people, I fix it and just get it to where it limps along so they can save up the money.

And then I come back next year and put in the new unit.

And sometimes we do that with people. And those people are going to remember you as the person who helped them with their heating and air, not who got them into debt.

And so that's, you know, you're fine. I think, you know, just remember what business you're in.
That's what screws up. I mean, like, Victoria's Secret forgot they were in the small underwear business.

What? You know, they make more money on their credit credit card lines than they do on the small underwear. Okay.

And so the girls that work in Victoria's Secret, if you don't sell a certain number of credit cards per shift, regardless of how much small underwear you sell, you don't get to keep your job

because they got in the credit card. It used to be like that.
I don't know how it is now. Well, I mean, but that used to be a big deal.
That was a big deal. Yes, I remember.

And so there's all these companies that got confused. Sears got in that business and then they went bankrupt.
Yeah. Pennies got in that business and then they went bankrupt.

And so you just see this stuff. They get confused about what business they're in.

Be in the business you're in and if there's financing around it, so what, unless you're teaching people like we are not to go into debt.

And then that would be the, you know, the diet place selling ice cream, as Rachel said. That's true.
All right. Up next is going to be Dave in San Antonio.
Hey, Dave, what's up?

Hey, how are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

Well, I am currently living in South Texas.

My family and I, I have a wife, three, two well it was two, now three kids

looking after my nephew. We would like to move to Nashville,

and I want to do that as soon as financially feasible. I have two jobs at the moment.
I was active duty in the Marine Corps for 14 years. I still do that as a reservist.

That do you want net or gross figures typically

a month?

Gross.

Gross.

The military is grossing me about, where'd it go?

Sorry, I'll get back to you in a second. It's around five grand or so.
And then I also fly for an airline, which would make it very convenient for me to be your neighbor in Franklin.

That's grossing me about

just under $21 a month. Oh, I'm sorry, there it is.

Military, about $4,400 and

airline, about 21,000.

Okay. So why do you need to, what do you need, what are you waiting on to move if you want to move?

Well, unfortunately, the military thing that I do down in South Texas

is very convenient because I do. Oh, I thought it was military retirement.
I'm sorry. Okay.
No, no, no. It's actually

a side hustle. Okay, so you go from $25,000 to $21,000 income if you moved without the military thing?

Yeah, roughly.

But

it also makes the 20-year retirement for the military a lot harder to get

because,

you know, a full schedule for me flying for the airline is working about 12 days a month, which is great. I have great flexibility.
I can pick up extra.

I also have to fly on base

about five days a month.

Now, that's easy. Take the kids to school, go fly on base, and then I'm done by like two.
So that part's simple. If I were in Nashville, that's two legs on a plane.

So why would you want to move to Nashville?

Variety. We can't.
South Texas is not a place we want to be for the next 30 years.

We're in our early 40s, and we'd like to. How much longer do you have to do the military gig?

Two and a half years. We'll do that and then move.

That's kind of what we're thinking. And a bigger question that I've heard you have different had opinions on as far as building or buying up in the Tennessee.

I'd probably just buy. You got enough going on without getting in the building business.
Building a house is a lot of work for the consumer.

You guys, Cyber Monday is here. And for today only, we're bringing you the lowest prices of the year on some of your favorite products.
Seriously, we're talking deals as low as $3.99.

Best-selling hardcovers are just $10.

Questions for humans cards are marked down as well. Plus, we've got deals on Rachel Cruz wallets and so much more.
Don't wait. Grab these deals while you can.

Go to ramseysolutions.com slash store today.

The all-new Every Dollar is here, and now it's way more than just our world-class budgeting app.

Ton of advanced features to lead you through the baby steps, teach you the Ramsey way while you're simply doing the budget.

So it's pretty much like taking you through Financial Peace University in the app. It's pretty cool.
We're going to teach you everything you need to do while you're doing this.

The average person finds thousands of dollars in margin in just the first 15 minutes. Start every dollar for free today.

Get it in the App Store or on Google Play. It's the eve of Thanksgiving.
What are you thankful for, Jenny in Savannah?

Yes, hi.

Yay, so excited to connect with y'all. You too.
What are you thankful for today?

Yes. Very thankful for my family, my two daughters, and my health.
Cool. Good for you.

How can we help?

Okay, so I am 54 years old. I have $75,000 in legal fees, about $12,000 in credit card debt.
I have two car payments that total about $28,000.

I make

about $86,000 a year.

I'm paying rent for $2,300 a month. The reason why I'm in such horrible financial is because I went through a divorce in 2016 and my ex-husband is an attorney.

And so like every time I wanted to try to get child support, I had to go back to court. So this has been going on for 10 years.

So my question is... How old are the kids now?

Sure. Okay, so I have one's a senior in high school and then the other one's a junior in high school.

So my question is, I have them on scholarships at a private school.

I have a 90-year-old father who has, you know, asked us to move back in with him

to help me pay off all my debt, but that would put my kids about 30 minutes away from their school. And it's kind of a very rural town where he lives.

And so I'm wondering, you know, should I stick it out for another year? for until you know my younger one finishes high school and then move in

Or should I just try to move in now just to because it's my rent is really high. It's $2,300 a month.
Yeah, for Savannah, Georgia, that's really high.

Yeah, yeah.

So

you're kind of looking at your numbers. It's you don't have a lot of margins, so you're kind of spinning your wheels right now and making huge progress.

because of all these different high rent, you've got all these debts looming over you

and so forth. What What are the boys' plans as they come out of school?

Yeah, two daughters.

I'm sorry. I don't know why I thought they were sons.
I apologize. No, that's okay.
No. So, okay, so I have my oldest daughter just got into

Georgia. Well, she wants to go to Northwestern.

She applied early decision for Northwestern, but she got into University of Georgia and the honors program so she would qualify for the Zelle Miller Scholarship and the Hope Scholarship would be practically free.

The younger one, you know, they both definitely are settled college, but the in-state tuition for Georgia is absolutely amazing.

But my ex-husband is,

he lives in Chicago, and he's,

you know, just kind of

a bug in their ear. And I'm going to be responsible for half of their tuition.
No, we're not going to Northwestern. You don't have the money to send a kid to Northwestern.

Sorry. Yeah, I agree.
I've been trying to talk her into it. I don't have to talk her out of it.
The answer is no.

I'm a broke single mom. If your freaking father wants to pay for this, we'll talk about it.

But he ain't paying for nothing.

No, he ain't. And so you're going to Georgia, kid.
Now, you can couch that a little nicer if you want, but that's the bottom line message. Sure.
Go dogs.

They're playing football. I mean, it's life school.
I'm a little fan, but that's what I want for her,

which hurts my heart a little.

Yeah, in-state tuition.

I mean, I'll never forget Rachel having two people come off the stage, and they were $200,000, both of them in debt, getting married and saying they wanted to be missionaries at Northwestern.

It's not the well-known Northwestern. It was one outside of Minneapolis.
Oh.

Excuse me. Okay.
I think so. I think it's Northwestern.
But it was, you know, they both come off the stage making $200,000, getting married.

They got $400,000 in debt and sociology, and they want to be missionaries.

So, no, she's not going to Northwestern. She can't afford it.
Her mother's broke. She says that she, Well, she says, I don't care.
I'll take out all the money.

I care.

I care.

I am not participating in this. I'm your mother.
This is your destruction. No.

This is stupid.

I 1,000% agree. It's 100% stupid.

Not even 99. It's 100% stupid.
Okay, so should Jenny move back home? Yeah, no. I mean,

whether you move now, when do you want to start making progress?

Well, i'm up every night about like just sweating over all the the debt i have and um you know i've been working three jobs i'm gonna call what are the car loans jenny who's are they you said we had two different ones

yeah so those are two those are both ours like we have three drivers and we had one car and then i was whatever you said earlier about the the car land i went in there with five thousand dollars and somehow got sucked into financing it so um i have two yeah we have two cars what are the what are the two car loans break them down.

There's an $18,000 for a Hyundai Kona, which is probably worth way less than that. And then

there's about a, let's see, I think it's about $10,000 for a Hyundai Santa Fe that's got 125,000 miles on it.

That's the one you got next to me.

Is one of them the girls? Yeah, the second one is the girls. Is dad helping at all? No.
No, I don't get any child support. I don't get anything.
He got the marital home.

He's an attorney, so he really knew what he was doing.

He would just file frivolous warnings.

Here's the thing.

It scares me

that you did a bad car deal

for your daughter, that you're going to do a bad college deal for your daughter.

Okay, please. I need to hear that.
Remember the car deal when you couldn't look at her and say no.

Right.

This time, you've got got to say no. You're going to bankrupt your kid.

She's going to spend the next 15 years of her life pissed off at you because you don't stand your ground and not let her go to a college she cannot afford. And Georgia's a great school.

Georgia's fabulous.

Great. And Georgia Tech, too, because she's a hottest air as well.

These are both world-class academic institutions. I don't care if they're in-state tuition or not.
They really are. They're incredible.

I would hire her to work at Ramsey in a heartbeat, more graduating from there debt-free than graduating from Northwestern with $200,000 because she's stupid.

I don't want to hire that.

Okay, as an employer. I'm serious.
We look at somebody. No, she's not stupid.
She's making stupid decisions.

It's just dumb. Okay.
Don't do it.

I don't want to leave this call unclear.

Okay. So now, then this, yeah, if you want to go ahead and move to dad, the deal is you just got to drive 30 minutes.
Is that right?

Yeah, it'll it'll be 30 minutes. And so they'll be sad that they're not near.

I'm like, yeah. But it's saving me $2,300

a month. And he's getting older and he really is like out there.
And you could probably help him. I mean, 90 years old.
For sure. Yeah.

I'm sorry that these children have hard times, that they have to go to an in-state school and drive 30 minutes to school.

But their mother is a single mom who's deeply in debt because of a nasty divorce. Yeah.
And such is life.

Yeah. They will survive these 1%

problems.

Exactly. Seriously.
Okay. And Jenny, and it's probably a level of guilt on your end as a mom

because of the divorce and everything that you're trying to provide a great life for them, right? Your motivation is totally understandable. Totally understandable.

But you can't let the guilt override really bad financial decisions. When emotions get caught up, that's what we find.

When people are fearful, guilt, shame, all of it, they end up making bad financial decisions. So don't let a level of mom guilt of what they've gone through with the divorce continue.

What you think in the moment is a good decision for them because it makes them happy ends up being a bad decision long term for them. And so, and for you.

How far do you drive to work?

It's about 20 minutes. Yeah.
25 minutes.

Well, it is the same thing for you. It's kind of like 30 minutes.
Yeah. Like you drive that far to work, they can drive that far to school.
When

seriously. You're going to have to do some smart things for your family, honey.
Even if it's short-term, it creates a little drama or pain. I love you.
I appreciate you.

You're stronger than you think you are.

Hold the ground, girl.

When you're tired of feeling stuck with money, there's just one solution. To get different results, you have to do something different.
No one accidentally wins with money.

You have to have a game plan, and that begins with our get started assessment. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash start, answer some questions, and we'll show you what steps to take next.

Don't stay stuck. Take control of your money starting today.
Go with ramseysolutions.com slash start.

Our scripture of the day is Proverbs 19, 21. Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand.

Thomas Edison said, just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. Woo, there's interesting.
Okay.

So let's go back for a second.

Rachel,

when we were doing the documentary several years ago called Borrowed Future, which by the way, you can still watch. It's award-winning on YouTube.
It's free.

And it's fabulous on the student loan crisis.

And

one of the things things that you said when we were putting all of that together, you and I were taking one of those calls on the air, was that we don't have a student loan crisis, we have a parenting crisis.

You remember that? Yes.

We'd say that in live events. Yeah.

Yeah. Well,

and we always kind of, you have 3,000 people in the audience, they kind of go, ooh,

when you say that, right? It's like a slap. Well, it is because

I think there is a level of wisdom as parents that there's certain things you see that are going to harm your kids.

And when they're 18, their

frontal part of their brain isn't even formed of how to make cause and effect decisions, right?

And so you have to be able to step in on really big things in your kids' lives to be able to speak the truth.

And I think sometimes you draw a line in the sand and it's black and white and it feels harsh at times. And

what you have to realize is you are loving your kids even when it's a hard decision and even when there's emotion and they may get mad, they may get frustrated.

But what you have to remember is they're 18. They don't understand.

They don't understand the life that you have lived.

They don't understand what they're about to do is about to put them financially in a hardship for years and years and years where a lot of people regret it.

So many people that come out with high student loan debt and they're just, you know, got their MBA and they're just trying to find a job.

And they look back and they realize, oh my gosh, I don't even know if the ROI was right on this, right?

So whether it is a master's or advanced degree or even an undergrad degree at a school that is a private university, that you could literally get a four, you could pay a fourth of what you got for the exact same degree somewhere else.

An eighth. Yeah.
So it's just,

it's a conversation about not only the future of them, but also just make smart financial decisions now, the ROI on what it is. And so,

yeah, college is one of those things. You can choose as a parent to

build your influence throughout your child's life so that you can persuasively lead them away from a college choice that causes student loan debt. Let alone you participating by a parent person.

And if that won't,

and you don't participate, you don't borrow money.

borrowing money is off the table, and we're going to go to a school we can pay cash for, and we're going to go to a school that gives us a return on investment for the education.

Okay? In other words, is the extra cost worth it in the sense that you make more or have a higher probability of success due to that? That's the return on investment.

It's not, I've always dreamed, and my daddy wanted me to, and it's a pretty town, and oh my God, the stupid stuff I have heard here on the air on college choice.

The number one reason for student loan debt is choosing to go to a school that you can't afford.

It's not choosing an education.

It's choosing a school that you can't afford. So we just had this example.
This young lady is an honor student. She can go to Georgia, the University of Georgia, fabulous Southeast School.

Business school is strong.

She can go there and go for free with the Georgia scholarships that are available and with the fact that she's stinking honor student and walking in there, they're going to, you know, and she can go virtually free to,

you know, one of the top schools in the nation.

Or she can go to a name-brand school that's more expensive, that's ya-ya.

Okay, now let me tell you what the data says. There's zero credible research that says where you went to school causes your success.
Zero.

None.

None ya.

You cannot find any data that says Vanderbilt and Harvard over Georgia, Northwestern over Georgia causes success. No data.
There's no one has ever been able to find a credible study on that.

It doesn't exist. It's bull crap in the marketing and in the aristocratic sticking my nose in the air so my upper lip gets sunburned about where my stinking kid goes to college.

It's a parent's ego a lot. It's parents' ego, and it's the ego of the individual going, saying, I went there.

But the actual data says 78% of the Fortune 500 presidents on the publicly traded big board went to state schools.

Eight out of 10.

State schools.

So there's actually data that says going to a state school has a higher probability of leading a Fortune 500 company than going to a Muckety Muck with a name. So

the biggest pushback I'm hearing now is it's the people that you get to meet. I've heard that my whole life.

And

so far, those people have not caused anyone to be successful. We can't find any research that says that.

Success comes from grit, perseverance, character, integrity, and knowledge base, not hobnobbing with a bunch of snobs that is book my fraternity brothers caused me to be successful horse crap it didn't happen ever on this century ever once never

but these people all act like this because they have to rationalize these stupid dollars they paid for this so vanderbilt right now is eighty thousand dollars a year to go to school university of tennessee is twelve thousand dollars a year to go to school i went to the university of tennessee and people that went to vanderbilt work for me

Now figure that one out.

This is just, this is the way the life works out here, boys and girls. So

in other words, I got enough knowledge base at the wonderful Haslam School of Business at the University of Tennessee.

I got enough knowledge base to build a $300 million company and my character and my grit and God's blessings and the stuff we've all been through to get here. Okay.

And to be honest, the education you got was probably a fraction of you actually succeeding. It is the perseverance.
It is the hard work. It's the never give up.
You know what I mean?

The education I use, I use accounting every day. I use statistics every day on the air with you people.
And I learned that academically there. Yes, yes.

So it is an actual education that has value, yes. But where I went to school, the number of times someone came up to me and goes, here's a million dollars because you went to UT is zero.

It's quite the other way around. UT says, could we have a million dollars?

That's exactly what it is. I mean, this is, y'all,

this is where we get our problem from. And as parents, you need to speak into this and not participate in all this mythology.
Love your children enough to give them a big nope.

Nope.

Nope.

You're not doing that. If you do that, you're not taking this car that's got my name on it.
If you do that, you're not taking a dime of my money. You are on your own.

If you're going to go live in the land of stupid, I'm going to wave at you from over here.

I love you and I'll watch you wreck your life, but I will not help you wreck your life and I will do everything I can to talk you out of it and to stand in your way.

My child tells me where they're going to school. My kid didn't tell me nothing with my money.
I told them stuff. And Rachel can attest to that.

We had discussions and we talked persuasively and I talked adult to adult until they weren't acting like an adult. And then I just told them what we're doing.

And that, oh, that's, you can't do it. Yeah, by God, you can do that.
Tell your counselor when you're 30, but you're not going going to be in student loan debt

because your dad's a butthole. Great, that's fine, but you're not going to be in student loan debt.
You're not going to have a therapist because you don't have loans. Well, I mean, that's it.

You can afford one because you don't have student loan debt.

But, you know, this is

how to control you guys. Yes.
And again, this is on the borrowing side. If you have $5 million, you want to send your kids somewhere, that's fine.

But don't do it on the basis of it's going to cause them to be successful. Oh, totally.
Oh, 100%. 100%.
That's mythology. Yes, 100%.

It's absolute mythology. The reason I'm successful is I went to MIT.
Said no one ever.

Really? Seriously?

Well, possible exception of Trump. But anyway, there you go.

That was fun. That was a fun little rant.
Good. So we need to work on our system.
Well, happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Everyone was worried about you.
You're in good health, good spirits.

You've seen it here. Everything's good.

That puts this 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.