Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Best selling author Ramsey personality Joe Jade Washaw is my co host today as we take your questions about your life and your money. Triple 888-825-5225 is the number. Abdel is with us. I'm sorry. Hey, Abdel, what's up?

Yes, yes. So I have, I need your help, Ramsay. I have three different types of loans. I'm just going to break it down for you. My first loan is 20,525 in credit card debt. And second one is 22,000 in student loans. And the third one is a car loan of 20,211. Those three loans are equaling the same amount as my income. So my income is 63,000. And my question in particular is for the credit card debt. I'm about to max out my credit card. And honestly, I'm paying, you know, 1000, $502,000 a month, and it's not getting anywhere because of, you know, the interest. And I'm just trying to weigh my options here and see, you know, should I not pay and just settle it with the creditor, or should I find another option, especially for the credit card debt?

Is it just one card or is it several?

Just. No, just one card.

Okay.

What do you, what do you do?

Uh, so I work in the humanitarian sector. I help refugees.

Okay, uh, you work in the humanitarian sector and you help refugees?

Yes, but I work in the finance department.

I see. Okay. All right. How old are you?

I'm 28 years old.

Okay.

It's just you or you have kids? Wife and a son. What's your wife make?

My wife, she came from overseas, so she only has a high school education. So she's a stay at home mom.

Okay. How old's the son?

He's seven months old.

Okay. So what's been the situation in your life where you can't live on $63,000? Tell us more.

Mainly, you know, stupid mistakes. I, before, you know, before I got married, I had no debt beside the student loans, and I had $20,000 in savings. I think after I got married, especially, you know, the wedding in our, in our country is very expensive. The wedding cost me alone $30,000. And then on top of that, you know, diapers and, you know, gold for the, for the wife and, and just, you know, I brought the credit card.

I'm sorry, did you say gold?

Yeah, yeah. Have to buy gold. Yes. That's how you get married. And overseas. Okay. The gold was alone like $10,000.

Okay, so you got $40,000 that you didn't have to get married, and then you bought a $20,000 car you couldn't afford.

Yes.

Yeah. And I don't think diapers is even on the list here.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay, well, so the answer to your question is that when we have financial problems, including when I had them, the problems are not the problem. They're the symptom. And what I'm hearing is you have a tremendous ability to, you really struggle with saying no to anyone.

That's correct.

And so you're going to have to practice that word. No, no, no, we don't have the money. No. We're not in Congress. No. I don't care what the culture says. No, I don't have the money. No, I can't do something that I don't have the money to do. No, we can't go over there. No, I don't want to do this. No, I can't be here right now because I'm having to work extra jobs because I didn't say no before.

Correct.

So now you got extra jobs coming and you're going to sell your car, and that's where you can pay your credit card. So get rid of the car and get you a cheap car and take three extra jobs and work your brains out. And by the way, she can do something.

I agree.

And she needs to do something to create some income. Even with, even if it's while the baby's napping, she does something on eBay. I don't care what she does, but she needs to do something to create some income since we've invested $40,000 into her.

You're not wrong.

That's pretty cold.

That was pretty cold, but you're not wrong. That's true. You know, that's worth talking about. Stay at home mom. If that's the choice you want to make, that's true. That's fine. But there's something that you can do to earn money, and there's so many great. If you don't want to pay the full cost of daycare, there's great mom's day out programs where it can give you some time back.

Seven months old. Sleep a lot.

Yeah, there's time back.

Open up the computer and start doing something.

Yeah.

While they're sleeping, there's something you can do and earn some money. And Abdel, you're going to be working more because you need more money and you're going to be on a really tight budget. You're not going out to eat, you're not going on vacation, and you're selling a car that you shouldn't have bought, and then you can work through this and you can pay it. No, you don't let your credit cards go and then not pay a bill that you promised to pay when you have the ability to do it. Now the question is, are you willing to do those things? And that's going to be the $900 answer. That's so interesting to me. I mean, I come from the hillbilly culture, which. The noble hillbillies, by the way, which at no point in that culture would anyone have ever paid $10,000 for the opportunity to marry someone. You might have gotten paid $10,000 to get someone out of their house, but you wouldn't have paid for it. So it's so, so foreign to me. It's so. No pun intended, but, I mean, it's obvious. It's something that's a big deal in his culture. I'm not 100% not disrespecting that, but I just can't get my head around it because it's not where I come from.

That's right. Yeah. It's a lot of money.

$10,000, $30,000 wedding. So you're looking at a broke guy who's going to bring your daughter to America and be his wife. And the culture says you have to give $10,000 in gold.

Mm hmm.

Wow.

Well, you know, part of it is it just goes to show that culturally, no matter what culture, there's things that, if you really put some thought into it, you can say, well, that's a little bit backwards. Right? Like, we've got that in our culture. There's. I mean, we talk about it every day. Our culture says, hey, if you need something going into debt to get it, you want an education, get a student loan. You want a car, get a car note. And it takes a moment to, like you said, you have to look at that and go, does that really make sense for me or really for anybody? And it's a head scratcher. And then you say, no, I'm not gonna do that.

Yeah, I'm not gonna be normal.

I'm not gonna be normal. But this is a cautionary tale, I think, of how, you know, what seems like a small amount of debt in quotes, $20,000. That's. I can handle that. And then you do another $20,000. I can handle that. In a car loan. And then 20. $20,000 in student loans. That's not that bad. And then before you know it, like you said, it's the exact amount of your income.

It's scary to me how fast he went from having some money and no debt all the way to having no money and a bunch of debt. And it all centered around not saying no to something or not questioning the protocols.

That's right.

Put in front of you. And I don't know that you can. I'm not sure how this goes. I really don't know what he was facing on that. Cause I don't understand it. Yeah, but it still has to do with no. Can't do that.

Yeah, you can afford what you can afford.

Don't have the money. This, what do you, I guess I know. This is the Ramsay show.

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Jade.

Washall Ramsey personality is my co host today. Dave is with us, and Dave is in Orlando. Hi, Dave. How are you? Hi.

I'm good. Dave, thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

Hi. So my wife and I, so we are foster parents, and we were taking care of a baby pretty much from a newborn until about eight months. The moment did great. She got her kids back after she went through some struggles. Long story short, her case has been closed. She has all her kids back, and she is struggling again. So with pretty much all aspects of life. But financially, she made some poor decisions with a car ended up breaking down and she had to junk it. And she contacted us just for some help financially. We haven't helped her with money before, but obviously we love her very much. We want her to succeed. We know that giving her money is not a long term solution to anything. So we're really just trying to think about the best way to approach her, talk to her about what's going on, how her finances are, how she can get assistance, build a budget, etcetera. She's a very, very shy, closed off type person, so we don't want to scare her off, but obviously still wanting to help her. We're just looking for the best way to maybe approach that.

Well, I mean, all you can do that's reasonable is to coach her. And the only way you can coach her is to the extent she'll accept the coaching. Right?

Right. Yeah. And I talked to her yesterday, and she. I asked her if she would be opening to open to having a financial conversation. My wife and I are in, you know, good shape. We're very stable. And if she said she was open to having that conversation, she said she doesn't really understand debt and just finances in general. And on top of that, I mean, she has three kids now. She's not working, has a baby who's now a year, and her other two kids are nine and ten, and she just has absolutely no idea what to do. She can't get daycare for her, for her baby because in order to get assistance through the state, she has to have two paychecks before they'll provide daycare assistance. So she is just going crazy, and we feel like she's close to, you know, getting back to a point where she may make some poor decisions or drugs or something like that. And, yeah.

Well, obviously the financial situation is, again, the symptom of all the things that have gone on in our life. Okay. And so. But maybe you can coach some of the things in her life by using the financial door to go through. Having dealt with this a bunch of times over the years, the warning I would give you is, I would tell you to be very, very clear upfront, because when you said financial conversation, you meant coaching. She might have heard money. You're gonna have a conversation about how much money you're gonna give me? Yes, I'll be happy to have that conversation. When you. When it's very clear to her that you're not going to give her money. Cause you're not that then, because this is a messed up, toxic situation. If you start that, then she may cut you loose. So you need to be ready for that emotionally. Okay. And so I think you know what I would offer if I were in this situation with your wife present, I would just say in person over a cup of coffee. Look, we love the little boy, and that means that we would love to help you.

And our help to you would be that as your older brother and older sister here that are successful in a lot of areas of life that you're not yet, we can show you a better path in a bunch of these areas and help her get plugged into a good church. They can help her with the daycare, get started, let someone do that. But if she starts to see this baby as a ticket to get money out of you, this is going to get really ugly fast.

Right? Right. Yeah. And so she did move 2 hours away from us when. When the case was finally closed. I guess that was about a month. And we did at that time, give her $200 to help moving expensive and get a truck to go down there. So I'm hoping that she doesn't think that that door is already open and she does what I'm trying to avoid.

She does. But you're just. The trick is, can you. Can you make a trip down there? Sit down. Be very clear. We love you because we love this baby. We want to coach you and help you, but it's going to be. We're going to show you how to get on your feet, not we're going to give you money to get on your feet. And she may give you the middle finger. I mean, it's a better than a 50% probability, based on my experience. But if she. She may have been just. It's sad, but sometimes folk in these situation will use a baby as a method of manipulation.

Well, that's the thing I would probably caution against with David, just to be really careful. Cause obviously they love this little boy. And so there's probably a part in them that wants to try to control the situation because in their minds, like, we have the means, like, we understand money, we understand how to take care of this kid. And so I think that they have to really guard their hearts in this situation because, like you said.

Yeah. So sad.

Yeah.

But I think what she's gotta have is she's gotta have some mentors and some people in her life. That's why I said, plug her into a good church. Let's get her started walking on a character path and let her get. Cause obviously, based on what you said, she's been struggling with that. And you're afraid she's going to fall back off of that. And when she gets that character thing straightened out, then you can show her the mechanics of the money piece. But. But she's going to have to go to work, and she's got to feed three kids, and we're going to have to figure out a way to cause her to be able to do that with some community support. And that community will help her if she's heading in the right way. And you can probably line that up. And if. And I think you're a wonderful person for investing into this, but. But just be very careful that you're not being manipulated, because that sometimes is the only skill someone has, and they're very skillful in some cases. I'm not saying that's true about her 100%, but it's just something I would personally be careful with.

If I was walking into this, I'd want my eyes wide open, open phones at 888-25-5225 Royce is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Royce. How are you?

Good. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I am a finance, or I guess you say graduate finance student. I'm getting my MBA, my undergrads in finance.

Cool.

And so you know how all of them are.

Yep, I do.

They teach you to go out and leverage and so on and so forth. Okay. The financial situation that I'm in is I'm completely debt free. I have 100,000 ish something dollars of invested money in Morgan Stanley. And then I have some other stuff. There's a 401 ks. I have $30 or 30,000 in on hand cash. And I have an opportunity to buy a $50,000 house. Would you leverage some part of it, the renovations, would you buy it off cash? Because my whole thought pattern is if I leave that money working and do parts of it, so, like finance, 25 cash, 25 cash on the restoration, it allows some of my work and some of my money to still be working.

Yeah, well, back when you had common sense before you got your MBA, you would have never done that.

Right. And so I agree with you on that partly then. So my thing is, is so do you think that there's ever situations where that would come in? Because I know the situation you got in, right?

No, I do not. I do not borrow money and I do not tell people to borrow money, especially for investment real estate. Pay cash for it or don't do it because the risk, you increase your risk. And what they don't teach you in the MBA program is to mathematically factor in the risk. They act like with the formulas they teach you. Their formulas, the formulas that I learned, same, same ones in getting a finance degree are fairly simplistic in that they do not address the risk issue. And the more you borrow, the more risk you have. We know that.

Okay.

And nowhere in anything you learned in that MBA program does it increase the, does it decrease the returns based on increased risk because of debt. There's not a formula that they have in that program that shows you that. And yet that is reality. So every time you borrow money, you increase risk. The more money you borrow, the more risk. The less money you borrow, the less risk. And risk does affect return over the scope of time. And so don't do it. Don't do it. The borrower is slave to the lender. God is smarter than your MBA professor. This is the Ramsey show. So here's a quick math. There are only 24 hours in a day, so your business needs to streamline tasks that are time suckers and focus on activities that make money. So to reduce headaches as they scale, smart businesses use Netsuite by Oracle, the number one cloud financial system. Netsuite helps you improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform. So join the more than 37,000 smart businesses like Ramsey solutions that have done the math and graduated to Netsuite. And right now you can download Netsuite's KPI checklist absolutely free@netsuite.com. Ramsey.

That's netsuite.com ramsey. Jade Walshall, Ramsey personalities. My co host. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Open phones here on the Ramsey show. Phone number is 888-825-5225 Emily is in Washington, DC. Hi, Emily, how are you?

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call today.

Sure.

What's up?

We just have a quick question. My husband and I are wondering if we are being selfish with a family financial decision that we're making. And I'm going to preface it by saying that we are in total agreement on this and he would be the one to have a conversation with his family. So the overall situation is that he has many siblings and we try to get together and go on vacations or just have family gatherings fairly often. However, his youngest sister does have a very different financial situation than the rest of us have. So we've covered her expenses anytime we get together. And particularly going on vacation, usually not a big deal, it's just a few hundred extra bucks. However, there has kind of been an expectation to pay and there is conversation around going overseas to where they are from originally. Where the family is from originally for a bigger trip in 2025, which would, if we covered her expenses, it would cost us thousands of dollars. That's just not in our budget. It's not something we can do. It would already be kind of at the top of our budget to begin with.

But in kind of expressing this decision, not being able to cover her, her husband and her five kids, it's really ripping apart our family because we're being told we're being selfish by not helping her out. Wait, sorry.

It's her husband and her five kids?

Yes. And who's telling you you're selfish?

The other siblings and her.

How much of it were they covering?

They were. We've always kind of split things fairly equally, and so if we split it three ways, it would still be a few thousand dollars for all of us.

Can I ask why? Can I ask why? What's the situation that everybody is floating them?

Yeah, that's a great question. So some of it, I would say, lifestyle choices, just in the fact that they live in a small town, her husband doesn't have a big income, and then she's chosen to stay home and homeschool the kids, have a bigger family.

The more you tell me, the more I'm laughing internally. Like, the more you tell me about this, the more I'm realizing how ridiculous this expectation is. Yeah, there's no obligation. Anything that you've done before, you kind of did set up maybe an expectation, but you did that out of the kindness of your heart, as it sounds like the other siblings did. But just because someone is kind and decide that they want to give one time doesn't mean that they're obligated to give every time and at whatever limit that other person decides. Right. If I were you, I would have no, when I tell you, I would lose zero sleep over saying, I'm not gonna fund this. It's too expensive, period. And you don't have to give a bunch of reasons. Just, hey, it was fun for us to be able to do that before. With this trip, we're not gonna be able to help out. And by the way, probably going forward, you know, we've decided that the faucet has turned off at this point, especially.

With the way you folk have reacted. Yeah, yeah.

No.

Gratefulness, entitlement.

Gratitude turned into entitlement. And so the issue is this what you're discovering? And it's sad. And I've run into this, everybody's run into this. Henry cloud talks about this in his classic book, boundaries, that when someone doesn't respect your boundaries, it means they feel entitled to walk in your yard, to take your money to. They feel entitled to your money. And then when you set a boundary with a boundary less person, roughly 100% of the time, it pisses them off almost every time. Right? And so once you say, you can't play in the yard, it's my yard, and you can't come over here, there's a fence here. You should stay on your side of the fence. That's a boundary. In other words, then the people who have gotten used to treating your yard like it's their yard, and they go, oh, but we like playing in your yard. And so, no, you can't play in my checkbook anymore. There's not room for both of us. And so I'm going to declare it mine, and I'm going to close the gate. The gate was open, and now the gate's closed. And since you're bitching about it, I'm going to leave the gate closed forever.

That kind of goes there, too. So that's the way I mean. And as far as the other siblings whining about it, it falls under the category of Nunya. Nunya business.

Go kick rocks. Exactly. And here's the thing. I thought you were gonna lay out some hardship or something that was kind of outside the box, but truly, it's choices.

Yeah, choices. And so you chose not to be able to afford to go on this international vacation with your five children, which, by the way, most people. I never even saw the ocean until I was a teenager. So, I mean, I grew up in Tennessee, so, I mean, come on. I mean, it's like, that's what people that don't have money do. So you don't get to do stuff that people with money get to do. It's how that works. And so, gosh, I'm sorry, though. I'm sorry it's bringing a pain to y'all. And I wish I had something other than smart alec things to say that would actually make this go away, because it.

They.

Because it won't. But it won't go away. And so you're just going to have to smile and say, gosh, I'm so sorry y'all feel that way. I love y'all, but this is our decision, and you don't have to. You don't. I would not justify it. I wouldn't talk about the decisions they need to make different. I wouldn't talk about enabling. I wouldn't talk about entitlement or boundaries, I would just say this is our decision. We love y'all. And gosh, I hope it doesn't. I hope you don't permanently cut us off. But if you do, then that's what you'll have to do. And, gosh, I sure hope not. But we love you all. And, no, the good news is you.

And your spouse are on the same page about.

That's the only way. And you already prefaced it with, he's going to handle his own family, bless his heart. So, yeah, it's a thing, man. It's a thing. So.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I've had some these conversations. I mean, when we went broke and lost everything. So Sharon has five brothers and sisters, and there's 13 grandkids, okay? Of which Daniel is the youngest, okay? So Rachel's one of the youngest, in other words. And so that family, they've all done very well, and they're wonderful people. And everybody gave everybody something at Christmas. Well, I completely screwed that up because I went broke, and I didn't have the money to give everybody everybody something. And so we were there at Thanksgiving, and they're talking about Christmas, and I said, guys, I'm, I'm sorry. I got bad news. I, we just can't do that. We just went bankrupt. We don't need money. And so we're gonna have to draw names and the kid. And my suggestion also is the children under twelve get gifts from other people, but everybody else is treated as an adult and gets one gift from another adult, and we all just draw names. And no, to their credit, I'm bragging on my wife's family. They all said, that's a really good idea, because I think this other one sucked. It was getting out of control. And I'm glad you brought it up, but I was kind of Sharon.

Sharon's like, they're not gonna like that. And I said, I know they're generous, sweet people. They're not gonna like it. But we don't have any money.

Oh, man.

So we can't play anymore. We don't have the, we can't pay the ticket to play in this. We can't get into this place anymore. We can't pay the ticket. And so this is the only thing we can do. And so we love y'all, but. And they were instead, they were all like, well, thank God, somebody else, you know? And so that, that family, that was 30 years ago. We've drawn names ever since for 30 years now. That's great. So sometimes it's a good result. But it wasn't someone that felt entitled.

That's right.

In that conversation, instead were mature, good, solid people who respected the pain that we were in at the time and how embarrassing it was for us to have to say that out loud. And all of that at that means you imagine sitting at your in laws Thanksgiving dinner and announcing, I have been.

There, and my story didn't go as well. Dave.

Oh, no. Oh, no. You know, you caused trouble with the in laws. Did you, Jay?

You said maybe we give names. We draw names.

I didn't know she was that way. I wouldn't have known it. All right, you know, there you go.

Well, here's the thing. We're still drawing names to this day, so.

Oh.

Even though there was some kicking and screaming to me begin with.

But it's okay. It's a good thing.

It's all good now.

It's a good thing.

Well, you know how I feel. Adults don't need to buy other adults gifts.

I heard you talk. I heard Rachel and George talking about you the other day on their show saying that. I like that. So there we go.

Get your own blender.

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You can get 20% off and shop the sale@ramseysolutions.com.com. Store Joshua's in San Antonio, Texas. Hi, Joshua. How are you?

Hey, Dave. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So my wife and I, a few months back, were presented an offer or deal for my parents to buy their house from them. So through them and not a mortgage company, so pretty much like a rent to own, we had about $60,000 in debt. So we decided to sell our first home and take their deal. So we used that money to pay off about $30,000 in debt, the equity from our, the sale of the house. So my question is, after we pay off a little bit more debt, which we have about 30,000 left, is it smart for us to continue to pay the house through my parents or get a mortgage loan?

So you simply just took over the payment? There was no payment.

There's no payment. The house is paid for and you're paying them payments?

No. So my parents have a mortgage, and we're paying, we've agreed on a price to buy the house, the house that the price that they're selling it to us, quote unquote, is below market value. They're selling it to us at the appraised, the county appraised, which is what, 340,000? And market value is like 380.

And what do you guys make right now?

I make about $75,000 a year. My wife is with my two kids.

Okay.

And we were, we did have a house. We were paying. That one was about 240,000. We outgrew that house. That's why this house was a bigger house for us and we just outgrew it.

So your take, your take home pay is what, about 72,000? Oh, that's your take home pay. 72,000?

Yes.

Okay. All right. And so, um, we're dealing with like $6,000 a month. And your payment on this mortgage is how much?

2000.

2000. That's a lot.

It is a lot. And we. So we went from 13,000 at our.

You went from being able to afford your mortgage to not being able to afford your mortgage is what you did.

Yeah, we did get to pay off, like I said, $30,000. Yeah.

But you still have $30,000 in debt left, right?

Yes.

And, you know, and. And you gave your parents $30,000 already.

No, we have not paid. Then paid off your other debt.

That paid off the other 30,000 of debt?

Yes. That paid off $30,000? Yes.

I thought you got 60 out of the house when you sold it.

No, we got 30 out of the house when we sold. I had 60,000 in debt.

Oh, okay. So you got no money now?

I have a little bit of my savings. And then what we have what I need, obviously.

What's in your savings? How much savings do you have right now?

We have 3000 in savings.

Okay. So 3000 in savings. You've got a mortgage that you're paying. That's a third of your take home.

Dude, you guys have made such a big mess, I don't even know where to start. This is a disaster. Here's the problem, okay? You're a renter. You do not own the house and you're not on the mortgage, and you do not have the money to purchase the house because the purchase of the house to get a mortgage will require a down payment. Mortgage companies don't just give 100% loans. And so you don't have the money to purchase the house. And you can't put the house in your name with that other mortgage on there because that mortgage has what's called a due on sale clause in it that if they transfer the title to your name at the courthouse, the mortgage company is going to call that mortgage due in full and foreclose on your butt. And so you guys have made a huge mess because you didn't know what the flip you were doing, all of you just thought you could just slop around and this would work out just because you wanted a bigger house. This is awful. So I think the only way that I can see out of this is for you guys to take six jobs and quickly put together some money for a down payment.

How much is the balance on the mortgage?

90,000.

Okay. And you're buying the house for 300?

Yes. Yeah. They're selling it to us.

That's the agreed amount. Okay. All right. Yeah. You're going to have to sit with a mortgage company and figure out how you can either your parents gift you another 30,000 out of this remaining equity, and they show that as a down payment on this house, and you get a mortgage and get the house into your name, for God's sakes. Because if your parents have some kind of a problem that even they didn't mean to have, they are in a car wreck and get sued for $500,000 and the insurance doesn't cover it. The $500,000 lien will be against this house because it's in their name. It's not in your name. So everything that they do ends up on this house because it's in their name, not in your name. So every day that you sit there acting like this is your house, when it's not your house, you are in dire risk. And so that's why this is such a bad deal.

Well, my question is, why can't you just agree to be renters? Why did. Why. Why do we need to jump the gun to buy it? Why not say, okay? Because there's nothing that points to any form of ownership. The parents own the house. They're on the mortgage, they're on the title.

So you can just sit there and be a renter. You can do that.

Get in a better position to where you can afford.

You went and rented a house you can't afford.

Yeah, they did.

You went rented. I mean, it's, um. Yeah, well, they might have a $2,000 payment.

Did that.

What he said.

He said $2,000.

The 90 grand.

90,000. So they are. They're making profit off of them. They're not. It's not. It's.

Yeah. Okay, so this is, you know, there's. This was a bad plan, top to bottom, and I'm not real sure how you're going to get out of it other than quickly to come up with a down payment and try to qualify for the mortgage and get it. Get the house and the mortgage into your name. That's the only thing I can come up with. The sooner you do that, the better off you're going to be because in the meantime, you're just paying off somebody else's mortgage. You went from being a homeowner to being a renter. And if something happens with one of them and there ends up liens on this property, you're never going to get the property. And believe me, in 35 years of doing what I do, I run into that a lot. Because people who do bad deals have a tendency to do other bad deals.

Sure. Yeah, that's a good point.

Bad deal meaning don't know what the flip you guys were doing. You just wandered backward into this and thought you could pull this off. And so, yeah, you really need to sit down and start talking about how you can get a mortgage, how much, how quickly you can save up the down payment to do that. And if you can get any credit from the equity reduction, from the price reduction towards a down payment, as far as the way the mortgage company looks at it, in other words, if they're willing to sell it to you for 340, do we instead show it at 360 and the mortgage company shows that $20,000 as a gift from your parents. There's a possibility they can do that. So I would look into that, but this is a classic case of I want a bigger house, I can't afford it, I did it anyway. And that's what you got yourself into, Joshua. I'm sorry. Wow. I hope you get out of this with your skin. This is the Ramsey show, live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Jade Washaw Ramsey personality is my co host today. Open phones at triple H, 825-5225 Marcus starts this hour in Los Angeles. Hey, Marcus, how are you?

Thanks for having me on.

Sure. What's up?

Yeah, I'm budgeting for a wedding. We're in the final steps. I talked to my dad. The biggest perk asked me, what would Dave say? So we talked through that, but then I wanted to ask you and see what would Dave say?

Okay. You said, your dad's what he was.

I was. He sanity checks my ideas. So he asked me, what would Dave advise in this case?

That's neat that you guys have that kind of relationship. Pretty cool. Okay. And so how much is the wedding going to be?

So the wedding's going to be 80,000. This is everything. Dresses, venue, housing. And then we're getting family support for 30. So out of our pocket, it's 50,000.

And what do you guys make?

Combined, it's roughly three hundred forty k a year.

Okay. All right. And you have the cash?

We have the cash. We don't own a home yet.

So it's this.

Decision delays buying a home.

And you both looked at each other and said that out loud?

Yes.

And that's a trade off you're both willing to make?

Yes.

Okay. All right. I look at these things in ratios to start with. When I hear an $80,000 wedding, the first thing I do is pass out and I have to wake up. But after that, then I say, okay, you know, I'm really happy to hear your numbers are as good as they are. So the average wedding in America today is $34,000 annually. I mean, $34,000. And the average household income is about double that. And so if we say the average person in America spends half of their annual income on a wedding when they get married, then you're not spending that. You're not spending half your annual income. Right. So. But it probably would change, like, if the average person spends 10% of their. I'll just make up a number, 10% of their income on food. When you make a half million, you don't really want to spend 10% of your income on food because you'll be big as a house. Right. And so that wouldn't work. So somewhere these ratios start to break down. But, like, now, possibly, but. But you can afford to do this. You're paying cash to do this. It is not an unreasonable ratio as a percentage of your.

Of your income. And then you're willing to look at each other and say, we're willing to spend, you know, on this one day and delay our house. That doesn't sound right when you say that out loud. But it's not the end of the world. If you want to do it, you can afford it.

So how long would it delay? Because you do have a good income. I'm imagining there's maybe some money saved in addition to this. So how far does it set you back?

So I don't have a great answer on how far it sets us back. We're not in the immediate house hunting stage.

Step one is to get married, of course.

So it's unclear to me exactly how much it sets us back. I would guess it's setting us back by four months to six months.

That's nothing.

No, it's more than that. But how old are you? Two?

I'm 30. She's 29.

Okay.

You're living in Los Angeles, so. And by the way, when I asked that question. Yeah, I would say before, you know, I would not buy a house in the first year of marriage anyway, so I wasn't intending to rush you. I just wanted to know, you know, what your sights are set on as far as that's concerned.

This is doable. It's not insane. The fact that it causes you to gulp a little bit makes you want to stop and go, okay, what is. What's. What's my motivator? Why is it that I can do this? Like, I've got a friend that makes 10 million a year, his daughter got married. They spent a hundred grand on the wedding. Whoopi. Okay. No big deal. Right? But it's still shocking to those of us, you know, that are like regular people. And so. And that's kind of what your situation is. You're, you know, you're spending a shocking amount of money on a wedding, but it's not. It's not mathematically insane. Does that make sense?

Does this include the honeymoon trip as well? The trip?

It does not include the honeymoon. With points from credit cards, which we should get rid of. I don't think we'll end up paying much for it.

I revealed the skeletons in the closet. Sorry about that.

The truth serum came out.

Yeah.

I think if I were you two, I would just want to look at each other and say, why we are spending three times the national average on our wedding. Why? And if you can answer that question looking at each other and not say, because I'm an immature princess and I just want it, and I'm going to stomp my foot and have a red face, which I don't. I'm not accusing you of, then if you can answer that question logically and go, hey, it's something I've always wanted to do. We like a big party with family and friends, which is actually what my friend said that spent a bunch of money on his kids wedding, he's like, our family likes to party. We like to celebrate big milestones. This is a fun thing and it's why I work and I've got the money. Shut up. And, you know, yeah, that's great. It's a valid answer. It wasn't coming from some kind of entitlement or weird stuff or something, you know? So as long as you got all that stuff covered, your. Your math is not insane. It's more. It's three times what most people do, but you make more than three times what most people do.

So you can afford to do it. That's the idea.

That's the answer.

And Joe Jade, you know, that's a good segue, almost, into a lot of answers to questions. You know, it's sometimes in the neighborhood I grew up in, people would say stuff like, no one needs a car that nice. You ever heard people say stuff like that? Of course, no one should ever. You ever heard people, they usually say with that country accent, but it's like, you know, but nobody oughta. Nobody oughta. No Christian oughta. Every. I mean, everyone knows that the accord is the christian car because Jesus said they're all in one accord. So it's.

There's.

Anything older, anything better than a 1993 accord is not Christian. We know that nobody ought to spend that. There's starving children in the world.

That is called hater aid.

That's exactly sipping on that haterade. It's bitterness and it's envy. And so I had to kind of work through that. Once I started knowing wealthy people who were good people, and they had nice stuff, and I'm like, okay, like, another buddy of mine made 17 million, and he drove up in a $480,000 Lamborghini.

I need to be friends with these people.

Like, sweet, you know, and. But if you do the ratios, I mean, so take a zero off, it's 107 or 1.7 million, and you buy a $48,000 car, or take another zero off, you make 170,000, and you bought a 4800, $4800 car. It's the same ratio. So, of course he should buy that car. It's nothing. It's like you and me buying a biscuit. This is the Ramsey show. Jade Washaw Ramsay personality is my co host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're with us. Hey, guys. The private student loan refinance is available. If you've got private student loans, you can refinance them with. Why refi now if you don't know about these guys? We've been advertising with them for a while, and I just started hearing, there's always chatter again. It comes and goes about the government forgiveness of student loans, and it just never really happens. And you still sit there with your student loans. And, of course, government forgiveness is all about federal insured student loans. It's not about. Not about private student loans anyway. So the average interest rates with y refi, it's the letter Yrefy, the average interest rate.

If you've got a private student loan with them and you refinance it with them is 3.9%. So a lot of you have got private student loans and you're getting hammered with these guys. So don't. Don't do it. Go to why. Refi.com ramsey, yrefy.com Ramsey and Jay, that makes a huge difference when you can get that lined up.

Oh, 100%. Because those private student loans, they can get in the double digits.

And if you're behind, they can even take that loan over, reset it, and get you going fresh.

Oh, that's excellent.

And quits destroying your credit. So it's a big deal. Ed's with us in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hi, Ed. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Dave.

How you doing, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Yeah, our church is growing and we're being blessed, and they're wanting to build a bigger sanctuary. And being a financial peace graduate, this sounded a little off to me, but they want to do one third in cash, one third in pledge, and one third in loan, which will really work out to be two thirds loan until the pledges come in initially. So using debt to grow a church is the question.

Okay, well, start with. Let's be very clear that this is not a salvation issue or a issue of blasphemous or something like that. Okay? I've got friends all through the church world that borrow money in their churches, and they're still friends of mine. They know I don't agree with them, but they're still friends of mine. Just like I have friends that borrow money to buy a car, they're still friends of mine. Okay. So it's not that kind of a thing. But my question, or my. I would want to make two major points in this. Number three. Number one, I don't think you're going to stop them. I don't think I'm going to stop them because I don't think they care what we think. Okay. So they're going to. They're probably going to do this. It's probably not going to stop. But conceptually, or if we wanted to discuss it, as if we could discuss it, first thing I would say is, I can find, and I've studied it for 40 years. I can find nowhere in scripture that there's one single positive reference to debt. Every time the Bible mentions debt, it is a negative connotation.

Again, it's not blasphemy. It is not a sin. It is not at that level. But there's all kinds. The borrower is slave to the lender. You know, there's a lot of mentions of fool around the word debt, and it's a curse. When Moses is not able to take the children of Israel into the promised land, JOshUa instead does. God says, you know, here are the blessings, and here are the curses and the blessings. If God is blessing you, you will be a lender to other nations, a giver to other nations. If not, you'll be a borrower. It's one of the curses. And so it's a curse, and it's all those kinds of negative things mentioned because you're doing something you don't have the money to do. It's pretty simple. The other thing then is, how does that play out when we escape the scriptural or when we sidestep the scriptural discussion of this? Because you really can't find it in there. LarRy BurkeTt used to say, there's no place in DeuteRonOmy where the Israelites were hemmed in the valley by the Amalekites, and the Amalekites are getting ready to kill them. So they did a bond issue, and they beat.

They beat their way out with pledges. It's just not in the Bible anywhere. God is never in his word. He has never used debt to cause his kingdom to expand. It's never once in there. As if your church is the only place that someone can meet Jesus. And if we don't build this sanctuary, they're going to go to hell. That's absolute arrogance. Okay? Absolute arrogance. It's not in the scripture. Now, aside from that, the other problem you get is that, well, before I get, before I leave, that Larry Burkett also used to say, and I've experienced this personally, that what happens is a lot of the men, sometimes the women in the church that are successful in business are appointed to the elder board, the deacon board. And so it's not unusual for your governing body inside of a church to look like the chamber of commerce. It's a banker, a car dealer, an insurance agent, whatever. And so they then start to run the business of the church the way they run their business in the world. Rather than using scripture to make the decisions, they use their MBA to make the decisions. And that.

That's a theological breakdown right there. A doctrinal breakdown. It's. You shouldn't run a church the way you run a business. There ought to be some overlay. There ought to be some leadership skills, that kind of stuff that there is an overlay on. But operationally, and the financial principles are not the same because it's a different. It's a different calling. So now back to the other. Okay. So that's all under the heading of, it's simply not scriptural. You can't find it in the Bible. Now, the second thing is, how does that play out in the real world? Well, 50,000 churches in America have now taught financial peace university. So you might guess that I've had this discussion before. You might even further guess that we've got an amazing amount of data of what happens, the amount of times that a pastor is no longer the pastor. 36 months after the building project and capital campaign, it's like 85%.

Wow.

85% of the time, the pastor's gone within three years after a major capital campaign and building campaign for one reason or another. And we can't necessarily tie it exactly to that, but they just, it's. It puts a strain. What you're doing is you're putting an entire strain on the entire organism called your church. And part of that is the head of the church or the. The leader of the church, the pastor. And it's a big deal where I've, on the other hand, have had the wonderful experience of being around churches where they went the other way. The church I attend merged with a local church and took on at that time, seven and a half million dollars worth of debt that the church they merged with already had. And our pastor said, we're going to pay it off in 14 months. And they did raise money to do that instead of building buildings. And they're doing a $40 million project right now, and they raised 100% of the capital, zero debt. Not gonna go back in debt, not cause I go there, but I might go there cause of that. Hello. And might have something to do with it.

So take it a step further. So this is Ed's church. So if they. If the church goes ahead and does this, a third pledge, a third cash, a third loan. If you're attending that church and you're listening and you go, man, I agree with what Dave said. What do you, do? You participate as a person who's attending the church? Do you say, yeah, you know, I'll pledge, you know, I'll give my. I'll pray about it, and I'll do whatever God lays on my heart. Or are you, Dave, are you, like, I'm not contributing to that?

Well, there's two types of giving that we do. Tithes and offerings. Tithe is a 10th of your income going to your local church. That's not a negotiable for me.

Right.

If I have to not tithe because I don't believe in the church. It's time for me to leave the church. I got to go to a different one. Okay. And I would not leave a church over this.

No, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't either. I mean, I just.

But usually these pledges are obviously, I'm.

Not going to donate to the campaign if it involves debt because I'm not going to give the money that God gave me to manage so they can give it to a stinking bank.

Okay. There you go.

Because stinking banks are just that. They're stinking banks.

Ooh. Dave, I love when you just drive a hard line in the sand.

It's just, you know. And that's why the Ramsey family Foundation doesn't donate to ministries that run debt.

I didn't know that. That's great.

That's one of the things that Denise has to look at when we're going there. Do y'all run debt we can't give to you because you're giving God's money to a stinking bank?

Wow.

Can't stand stinking banks. This is the Ramsey show. Thanks for joining us, America. Jay is with us in New York City. Hi, Jay. How are you?

I am good. How are you doing, Dave and Jade?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

So I'm calling regarding. I started, I read your books early on in my career, and I started following the steps and then got married. Just did not make a. Me and my ex spouse did not kind of align on our same financial values, but just kind of moving forward to today. I'm 40 years old, I'm divorced, mostly due to financial reasons, just different alignment. But right now I'm in a situation of rebuilding my life back. And I started going back through all the baby steps, and I skipped step one because they already had more than a. Started focusing on step two. And then I started jumping between step two and step three because I was trying to build a six month sort of like emergency fund in case I lose my job. I work in tech. I'm a product designer. And the industry for the past few years has been sort of volatile, where it's like six months, I don't have a job, and then I have a job. And that fear of not having a job, I still have to pay more.

You're in tech and you went six months without a job?

Yeah, it happens. Not really friends right now. I mean.

You can't find tech people, man. I got six jobs on the board right now trying to hire people.

It kind of depends on what whatever you're trying to do. I have friends right now currently that are from Google and Microsoft that are still unemployed, and it's been eight months, so it happens, you know, the markets kind of flooded, but.

So, anyway, you're skipping between.

So you're making up your own plan. How can we help?

All right, so I'm not making up my own plan.

Yeah, you are.

You made up.

You're not following ours. You're doing your own yours. That's okay. How can we help you?

I'm just jumping between.

No, you're jumping between. The concept of a baby step is you don't move to one till you get to the other one. And you start with a. Anything over a $1,000 that you have, you put on the. On baby step two, and you pay off your debts, smallest to largest. That's the concept. But if you're not gonna do that, it's okay. You can do whatever you want to do. How can we help you?

So, I got that anxiety, and I built out the fund, and then now I've been focused on step two fully. I paid off my car. I paid off all my credit cards. I had no debt.

You're 100% debt free now, outside of my mortgage. Okay.

Okay. So now you're on baby step 300% out of debt because I'm still paying my student loan, which is $70,000. I thought you said that was my last full focus. Right. So I was like, that's what I'm going to focus on.

Okay, Jay, how can we help you?

But I just need my consumer debt.

Like, well, that is consumer debt, honey. But anyway, how can we help?

Okay. So, my mom went into debt and her credit cards, and I started helping to pay her credit cards. I take care of my mom and dad. They live with me because they're ill. They are ill. My mom recently just had four strokes and three months not well.

They don't have any money.

They don't have any money. They only have Social Security, which is $600 per person. So I'm kind of. And then she spend money. I. I cut up her credit cards.

Mm hmm.

She only has one that I'm aware of that I just go, okay. If there's anything you need, just as long as I can watch it.

Just.

Just cut that one up, too.

I should probably.

Yeah, she need.

Yeah, she buys weird things on Amazon, and Amazon has that one click buy yep. Thing, and it's just like, random things show up to my.

She doesn't. My point is, she doesn't need anything? How old your mom? Honestly?

My mom is 76 and my dad is 84.

Okay, I'm gonna sit down with them tonight and I'm gonna say, mom and dad, I love you and I'm here for you, and I'm gonna take care of you under this. Under this condition. Under this condition that you're gonna assign the Social Security checks to me in return for rent. And I'm gonna feed you and give you a place to live. And you're not gonna use any debt at all, ever. You're not going to make a mess here because those people aren't going to get paid. When she's borrowing money, she doesn't have the money to pay them. She's stealing because she doesn't have the money.

Gets more complicated.

Okay.

So started paying fifteen hundred dollars a month to knock out our credit cards quickly. Did she write $20,000 worth?

Don't pay them. Don't pay.

Well, she went ahead and reached out to my older brother, going, I feel bad causing your little brother so much burdens. Can we just consolidate this into a lower payment? And they worked out something. And he got a Citibank loan. But his agreement with my mom was that he, me, will pay the minimum payment, which is 500.

That has nothing to do with you. A. That has nothing to do with you. The brother got involved. Now he's created his own mess. That is between him and your mom. Here's the thing. Your parents are getting up there in age, they have zero assets whatsoever. If I would take the credit card so she cannot spend on it anymore. But what debt is left there? When the time comes and she goes and leaves this earth, there's nothing there. That debt is not going to fall.

To you because there's no money.

Yeah. And again, that's why I said your problem. Right, but that's not your problem.

It's your brother's problem.

But it because of family politics, and I just don't. And then this is another thing with politics and then something watching your show, it's don't borrow money from family. I would have never agreed to this setup because now I have a son and I've had child support, and anytime I try to do an activity with my son, you're not. Why are you doing.

Good lord.

You're adding yourself to the situation. And you don't have to add yourself. By the, by the goodness of your heart. You said, mom, dad, you can come live with me. I agree with Dave that you take the Social Security checks, cut up the credit cards, and these are the stipulations in which you can live with me, and I'm happy to take care of you, period.

They want.

You want to use the Social Security money each month to send it over to your brother to pay that bill, that's your prerogative. Don't let him run up any more money, honey. Because every time your mother borrows money, she's stealing. Cause those people are never gonna get their money.

Never.

Cause she's broke and she's ill health, and she's approaching 80 years old. And when she dies, they get nothing. So when she's borrowing money and they're going to get it back, that's stealing. Because you and I know they're never going to get their money, and I'm not going to participate in her doing that. That's wrong. It's morally wrong. And you're not liable for any of this.

Nope.

So what you need to do is get your freaking act together, including paying off this ridiculous student loan, and use your emergency fund to do that. And get yourself on a budget and set your parents issues over to the side. You are not responsible. If you want to take them on and feed them and clothe them and house them, that's fine. You got $1,200 a month to your budget to do that, minus whatever you decide to send your brother for the stupid mess he made. But you guys have got to quit running this stuff in circles. You're taking each other down. You're all going to go to the bottom of the ocean and drown together. If you keep this up, you're just creating this whirlwind. It's. I mean, this. This funnel, and it's just going around, and you're going right down the toilet together, riding around, going, whoopee. Look at you. Look at you. You're stupid. Everybody pointing across the toilet at the other one as they go down the drain.

Gravitational pull.

Yeah. And it's like, you did it. No, you did it. No, you did it. No, you did it. And it's like, jeez, and I would have never agreed to that. And all this crap. Just say, no, we're not doing this. Calm everything down and quit putting your money in the middle of this stuff.

Yeah, because he mentioned he has child support.

You got to take care of yourself, that baby, and you got to get yourself straightened out. And you're very generous to offer to take care of them, but it doesn't sound like you're really doing it out of the goodness of your heart. It sounds like you all have a ridiculously toxic family, and you got pulled into it for that reason. So you guys need to relook that whole situation, set some fresh boundaries, get some help with the relational aspects of this. And you need to really draw some lines, man. But definitely do not use your money for this. Definitely. You didn't cause the mess, and you got a big enough mess of your own. This is the Ramsey show. Here's the thing about investing advice. You can find it just about anywhere, but that doesn't mean it'll always help you with your personal goals. Here's another option. Check in with a smartvestor pro. These financial advisors can review your plan or help create one that's perfect, personalized to you. To find a smartvestor pro in your area, go to ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor. Go to ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor.

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Learn more@ramsaysolutions.com smartvestor Jade Washaw Ramsey personality is my co host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Your host, Jade, when Rachel Cruz was a brand new baby, can you imagine that little Rachel Cruz, her older sister was two and a half, barely walking. Good. We put these wonderful little angels to bed, and their mother and I were watching a perfectly good tv show. We glanced up the top of the stairs. The toddler is standing at the top of the stairs with the brand new baby in her arms, bringing her down the stairs to us. Because as you might imagine, Rachel Cruz was making noise and Rachel Ramsey at that time. And yeah, I did the same thing you're doing right now. For those of you looking deeply into the radio, Jade is gasping and holding.

Her, clutching my pearls.

Clutching her pearls. That things are going, this is not going to go well because we all know that the weak can't help the weak. Adults should carry children down the stairs, not toddlers. Broke people can't fix financial problems for broke people. Y'all get the metaphor yet out there? Hello. Look deeply into your podcast and get this, when you're broke and dysfunctional, taking on the rest of your broke and dysfunctional family is not going to make you less broke and dysfunctional. It's going to make you more broke and more dysfunctional. So if you're, I'm not ever. I have been broke and dysfunctional and at the same time and separately at times. So I know what this looks like. I'm not above that. And everybody gets a different starting place. Some people get a better start out of the gate than other people?

Sure, 100% sure.

You know, Jade was saying, you know, at the break, you know, thank God my mind allows me to make decisions, and I can see things clearly. And not everybody gets that starting point.

That's right.

You know, but it doesn't matter where you start. You can choose from today forward to make different decisions because, you know, down inside of you, you can feel it when your stomach tightens up and those muscles across the back of your shoulders tighten up, that you're getting ready to do something stupid. And then later on, when it turns out to be stupid, you know, when you look back, I've done this, and all of you have done it, you know, when you look back and you go, you know, when I was doing that, I was thinking, this is stupid. But I went ahead and did it anyway. How many of you can everybody testify? Amen. Right? I mean, everybody, right. Everybody's done this. So the trick is to stop that pattern, because the proverb says, a wise man sees danger and stops a fool, goes forward and suffers for it. So I get the right. If I come out of a background, a family, if you come out of a background or a family, or you come out of an area of the country or a socioeconomic way of thinking, whatever it is you're coming from, you have the right to put the negative parts of that in your rearview mirror.

You have the right to say, I'm not going to think that way anymore. I'm going to do this other thing this way. And that may mean that some of the people around me are not going to understand when I make different decisions. Because I remember one of the famous things that you say, and it's. It's because it grabs me around the throat. Every time you talk about it is. And you talk about this in your book, that, that around your family, they had a saying, and you had to say, okay, I'm not going to have that saying, yeah, talk about that.

We ain't got no money. That. That was the phrase. That was the phrase. That was the reason that we couldn't go forward. And, you know, you ain't got no money. You ain't got no money.

It was the answer to everything.

The answer to everything in all the various forms. I ain't got no money for that. You know, I ain't gonna do that. And it was just the constant, you know, kind of stop the door slamming in your face. And I think that, to your point, Dave, no matter where you come from, those things they get inside of you and they feel like they're part of you until you rip them out. And that is painful.

And you say things like, people like us.

Yeah.

Ain't got no money.

Yeah.

People like us. That's the way they do it. I don't know what people like us, but if there is a people like you, whoever, you are listening, right. And you can. You can. You can say, okay, people. People that come. You know, people that are. Come out of this type of situation. This is. Yeah. And it's like a buddy of mine said he grew up in the hood, and he said, you know, getting out of the hood is easier. And getting the hood out of you 100%.

That's what I'm saying. It gets in you, and you. You have to do the very hard work of separating yourself from. From that previous identity, you know? Cause I used to look and see.

People, and it's not looking down on someone.

No.

It's just saying that crap don't work.

Well, it's like you said, it's a different starting point. Some people came into the world, and, you know, if you were a second generation Ramsay person, your parents taught you sense with money and taught you a sense.

Yeah. Rachel had a better starting line than I did.

That's right.

And I had a better starting line than my dad.

That's right.

And so on, you know? And so that's one thing you want to give your kids, is a better starting line. But it's not just math. It's the ability to make decisions, the wisdom, the ability to look at something and think differently. The ability to think in abundance rather than scarcity.

Yeah. And really just to be able to take that moment, like you said, where something occurs and you take the moment to reflect on that and go, you know what? Like you said, I felt that that wasn't right, or I felt that something about that didn't. Didn't feel right. And when you take the moment to reflect, then you can go, okay, next time a thought like that pops up, I can kind of grab it before it makes me go in the wrong direction again.

And so John Maxwell uses this example. He tells the story in terms of a leadership story, but it also applies to this discussion. Years ago, before laws were the way they were. Now, these researchers in a psychology department put a group of chimpanzees in a room, a big pole in the middle of the room with some bananas at the top of the pole. If a chimpanzee would climb up the pole to get the bananas, they would take a water can and a fire hose and shoot him. Knock him. Knock him off of there. Every time a chimpanzee would try to climb the pole to get the benez, they knock them off. Different ones would look around, they talk about it, they'd huddle. They'd make all these decisions. And finally, a brave one would go up again. Boom gets knocked off. Boom gets knocked off. Boom gets knocked off. So any. And then pretty soon, they didn't have to shoot the water cannon. If one tried to go up, the others would pull it down.

Cause they said, we know what's gonna happen to you if you try.

And then they changed the chimpanzees out a little bit at a time to where, after a while, they had changed enough of them out that none of them in the room had the memory, the communal memory of the water cannon knocking them off the pole. They didn't know why you weren't allowed to climb, but it was just, people like us don't climb. And so if someone tried to climb, the other chimpanzees would pull them down, and they didn't even know why it had been ingrained into the community. And so that's how. That's how this stuff can work in such a negative way. And a family can do that. A family system that's broken can do that. They'll pull you back down, and they don't even know why.

Don't even know why. Oh, Dave, that's so good. That's so true. It's so, so true.

And, you know, in the south, people will say stuff like, you're getting above your raisin. You ever heard that one?

No, that's different. I'm not.

That's different.

That just means you're. It means you think you're too good.

Yeah, you think you're too good.

I think you're too good. You're getting above your raisin has nothing to do with raisins in a box. It's like the way you were brought up, the way you were raised. And so you're getting above your raisin. And so, yeah, that means you think you're haughty or you're. You're something else. Oh, yeah. And I always. And after a while, when I heard somebody say something like that, I thought, yeah, absolutely.

I feel that way.

That is absolutely the freaking goal. That's exactly what I want to do. And by the way, it's what I'd like for my kids to do, and I'd like for my grandkids to do better than. Yeah, absolutely. Every one of you ought to get above your raisin.

I know that's right. Wow.

Everybody. Because these toxic systems in a community that are brought based on scarcity and fear and lies and mythology, and the community could be your family, the community could be the area of the country, the type of folk you were raised with, whatever they'll tell you to fail. And we just spent the last seven minutes telling you eight minutes that you don't have to fail. I don't know where you start from, but I do know where you're going. Not everybody's got the same starting line, but they all got same finish line. Get after it, boys and girls. Get it. Get you some. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Washaw Ramsey personality is my co host today. Thank you for joining us. We're glad you're here. Open phones at triple 8825-5225 Jesse is in Phoenix. Hi, Jesse. How are you?

All right. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Amen. I just called in so recently, I just got out of prison. I have no debt, I have no kids. So I'm just trying to find out where I can direct my life to a better. To a better path.

Good for you. How long were you in prison for?

Two years.

What'd you do?

Instead of being a businessman and other things, I became a businessman in there and started selling drugs. I got caught with, like, illegal enterprise. Just a bunch of stuff that I should have never. Should have never done in the first place.

Okay, cool. So you had an entrepreneurial spirit and used it in the wrong place.

In the wrong place, yes.

Well, that's good news, because you can. You're right. You can use those same set of skills in a legal, not an illegal enterprise and probably prosper. How old are you?

I'm 24.

Okay, good for you. Cool. So are you working at all?

Right now? I'm working as a tow truck driver, but this is, like, my first real job, so I do like it, but it's not the same money where I was making, but it gives me the courage or the ambition to chase it. I'm making 30k year.

And is that what's your living situation?

I have to go back with my mom, and I'm happy to God I still have her, or else I. I don't know what else I would have done.

Okay. All right. How long have you been out? When did you get out?

I've been out for six months.

Okay, good. Good. So, so far, you got a place to live and you got some money coming in, and you have a job that's legal. That's a really good start. That's a good start. So. And like you said, while you're doing this, you start to think about what's the next step? What's the next step? What's the next step? And by the way, you're probably going to be thinking that for the rest of your life. We all do. What's the next step? What's the next thing? What you got next for me? God, where are we going from here? And so who you running around with these days?

I have no friends. Other than friends, I say. I mean, like, I have zero, like, true friends.

Yeah.

I'm just. I just have my girlfriend. I've been together for eight years. I mean.

I mean, you're starting fresh because, you know, you know better than to go hanging around with the folks you were hanging around before, so you're starting fresh. Listen, I love that to Dave's point, you know, you've got a place to live. You've got a job that's paying you something. I like the fact that you're going, okay, I'm not going to be a tow truck driver forever. What's the next step? What are you interested in?

That's the thing. I don't know. I sit down and I really think about it. I really don't have family that has prospered, like, in life, like, as in the business, anything like that. Honestly, I'm like the first person that graduated from high school. And. And I have five. Five. I have two sisters and three brothers. So, I mean, I'm just the only one that never really did. So you're looking like.

But you're looking for a mentor. You need somebody that you can look to.

Yeah.

Yeah. Tell you what. I'm gonna hook you up with a friend of mine that's. I'm gonna hook you up with a friend of mine that's a pastor there. His name's Cal, and he's a pastor of a big church there in Phoenix. And I'm gonna hook you up with him, and he's gonna get some guys around you, because here's what I know, Jesse, and you already know this, too, you become who you hang around with. And so you've got to be very selective about who you put around you, particularly at this time in your life. And so plugging you into a good church community with some good men who can show you a direction to go and some next steps. I don't think we can do everything you need to do in one radio call. You got a lot of things. You're, you got a lot of potential. A lot of wonderful things can happen in your future. And I don't think we're going to be able to line up everything for you to do in one call.

That's right.

But we got to get. First thing we got to get, or the next thing is get some community around you. And then I want you to continue to do what Jay just challenged you to do. And let's think about, all right, what is something that I see out there? What's a problem that people in Phoenix have that I can help them with their problem? Because as an entrepreneur, Jesse, I'll tell you, when you help someone with their problem, they give you money. Okay? I mean, if the, if it's lawn care, you solve their problem. If it's pressure washing, you solve their problem. If it's fixing their car, you solve their problem. In your case, right now, the company you're working for is removing cars from places they shouldn't be. You solved a problem. Or taking someone's broken car somewhere, you solved a problem. So when you solve a problem, as an entrepreneur, people pay you money for that. And it's amazing what you can do to create income. When you see something and you go, gosh, if I helped people with that problem, I could probably charge for that and they would let me do that.

And I want you to start thinking along those lines because I do think I wasn't joking around. I think your entrepreneurial spirit that got you into trouble could also, when applied, right, be the biggest blessing that ever happened to you.

I agree 100%.

Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to hook you up with cal. I'm going to put you on hold, and christian's going to pick up our phone screener, and I'll get you. He's going to get your information, and we're going to get you hooked up with that community. And the other thing I want you to do is I'm going to give you a code to take Ken Coleman's assessment, his career assessment, and it's a free, it's a. It's gonna be free to you because I'm gonna pay for it, test for you to start to say, okay, these are my strengths. And that could maybe spark some ideas of some next things to do, and then patiently saying, God, thank you for this tow truck job, even though it doesn't pay much, because at least I got one. And then patiently, while being grateful for where you are, start making the steps to be where to never be there again and to move to a better place. And then to a better place. And then to a better place. Don't jump. Don't, don't try to get to moving too fast. There's no easy money out there.

It's all hard money.

I want you to get hooked up with betterhelp, too, because your life has changed greatly over the past two and a half years, and that's a lot to work through. You don't, your family, the way you interact with your family is different. You said you didn't have any friends. And so I think it would be good not only to get plugged in with the church, but really to be talking to somebody on a normal basis about how to navigate this.

Yeah, that's a good plan. It's a good plan. So hold on. We're going to take care of all that for you. We want to be part of this next chapter of your life. That's a good chapter. And we're going to help you solve a problem. There you go. That's how this works. Hang on, Jesse. We'll take care of you. This is the Ramsey show.

Hey, good folks, doctor John Deloney here. Listen, the Ramsey cash giveaway is back and you could win the $3,000 grand prize. Go to ramsaysolutions.com giveaway and enter every day. Plus, save 20% on bestsellers like my latest book, building a non anxious life, my questions for humans, conversation cards, and my friend Dave Ramsey's baby steps millionaires. Listen, don't miss these deals. Get 20% off@ramsaysolutions.com.

Store.

Jade Washaw Ramsey, personality is my co host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. Today's question of the day comes from Rebecca in Wisconsin.

Yeah, she says we paid off our home in 2021. Since then, we've struggled financially and have not been able to budget for paying our annual property taxes. Should we save up for this through the year and pay it in a lump sum, or should we try to save a certain amount to pay it quarterly? Could we really lose our paid off home over unpaid property taxes? Yikes. Honestly, for me, this question, property taxes are the least of your concerns. You guys have got some things going on financially that this shouldn't be an issue. But, yeah, whatever you want to do, if you want to do a sinking fund, get into your every dollar budget and say, okay, what do I need to save up every single month. What do I need to set aside every single month so that when these become due at the end of the year or whatever the money is there, you could do that using a sinking fund if you wanted to pay them quarterly. If you have the money in your budget that you want to do it quarterly, usually you get a little bit of a discount in some cases.

Right. If you can pay them in a lump sum. But I read this, Dave, and I.

Just don't think that I have more questions than answers.

Yeah.

How do you struggle financially when you don't have a house payment?

That means you don't have a job.

Means you're not working much.

Yeah.

Yeah. So something's got to give. You got to go create some income, kiddo.

This is a symptom, as you would say, Dave.

Yeah. You got to go create some income. And then when you do that, this property taxes, if you don't have a house payment and you're struggling financially, there's something really going on. I mean, I guess it's possible that you went on some kind of ridiculous spending spree and screwed it up, but it's most likely that this is an income problem.

Well, yeah. And the fact that she's projecting it out over the course of, you know, a year and a quarter for me. Yeah. You could really lose your home. I mean, if you don't pay your.

Taxes, you have to pay the taxes.

They'll put a lien against you.

Every state in America, they will sell your house for unpaid property taxes. Every state. So, yeah, yeah, yes, yes. It's very possible. But here's the thing. You know, it's a glaring, honking, horn blaring whistle when you say, I've paid off my home and I'm struggling financially. Everybody, everybody listening to this right now is going, what? And so it must be income. And so then, so we know what we got to fix. And it's not how you budget for property taxes. It's your problem. Your problem is you've got an income problem. And yes, then I would just set it up in your every dollar budget and pay it monthly. Any of us that have paid for properties, that pay our insurance on the properties, we pay our taxes on the properties, we set up a monthly withholding out of the, you know, out of our budget, and it builds up, and then when it comes due, the money's sitting there in a sinking fund, in a savings account, a labeled area in your every dollar budget, and you'll have the money. It's very easy to do. And then you just pay it on time and annually, and you back into it.

Same thing as Christmas. All right. They don't move Christmas. You know. You know exactly how far it is to Christmas right now. You can look it up, the exact number of days.

Yeah.

And, you know, how much do you need for Christmas? It doesn't sneak up on you. They don't move it.

That's right.

So if you're not ready for. How can we afford Christmas? Well, you start thinking about it now.

Yeah.

And you start saying, okay, out of the income. Hello. That I'm creating, I set some aside. Walker's in Jacksonville, Florida. Hey, Walker. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hey, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Yeah. So the root of my issue is I took out a loan for $17,250 for a car that Kelley Blue book says it's worth 6500.

Why did you do that?

Well, the salesman was really convincing. Obviously.

He's so convincing. You paid three times what the car is worth.

So that's just. They kept all that under the table and didn't show me. They actually told me that was the wholesale price. And I'm like, that sounds kind of.

Funny, but that doesn't even make sense. What kind of car is this?

It's a 2018 Ford Ecosport, a compact.

How old are you?

I'm 20.

So you walked in there by yourself and you had somehow enough sense to get to the dealership, but while there, did not realize that an $18,000 car is a $6,000 car. That seems kind of weird.

It's very weird. Did you do any research on this car on, you know, before you walked in? Like, this is what I want to get. This is what they cost?

I walked in with my only criteria being four doors. So did I have a phone with me? No.

Wow.

Now, they pulled up the. They didn't have the carfax or anything like that. So what's even worse is this car is eleven because I bought it with 68,000 on it and it already had an engine put in it, and now it's in the shop long term for an issue that the manufacturer hasn't even like. Ford hasn't released repair instructions for the mechanics. So they, like, I'm on a. I'm on a long term dealership loaner right now. So my follow up question is, obviously, I want to get rid of this car because I'm going to have to throw a bunch of money in it if I keep it. So questions are, should I keep it in the, you know, and just hope and pray that it's reliable enough that I can pay the loan down to where I won't have too bad negative equity. Because that's about what? About 8000 negative equity.

What do you make, Walker? About 22,000 a year, working 40 hours.

Working? Well, I'm active duty military and I really don't work that much, but 22,000 a year. So I have, in the credit union I have about six.

When did you buy this car?

October.

Okay. What branch of the military are you in, son?

Maybe.

Okay. I want you to go see your senior officer in your area and tell them about this car company screwing you. And I want him to go with you over to the dealership and see if he can't help you work this out. Because this company is praying on young, stupid new enlistees and the senior officers don't take kindly to that. And I want you to solicit some help from someone who knows how to talk to people who are crooks, who take advantage of his men.

Okay?

So if someone sold you a car that is worth $6,000 for $18,000 and you're 20 years old in your newly enlisted navy, they were screwing someone who's serving our country. And your senior officer knows that they are preying on the guys just like you. And he will help you and he'll bring Jag involved if he needs to or whoever else. Because these guys are crooks, right? And you need some help with someone that's got more life experience than you to walk in there and really more muscle. Honestly not sure he can do anything legally. And I'm not suggesting he would physically threaten them, although it's probably possible. But I want you to get your senior officers involved, JAG involved. And I want you to go physically over to the dealership and I would like for them to just write canceled through all of this and take care of it. And you walk away clean. That's what my goal would be. It might be that you end up having to write a check for three or 4000 $5,000 to get away from this. But I want you to get away from it. As far away from these people as you can get, as fast as you can get.

And then start fresh. And next time you get ready to make a major purchase, do your homework and have some people who are more experienced than you about that major purchase in the room with you.

Okay?

Does that make sense?

Yes, sir.

I'm not making fun of you, Walker. You were a innocent lamb led to the slaughter. And I'm not okay with that. As a taxpayer who loves the military, it pisses me off. And so I want you to get some people in your branch there, some of your senior officers and JAG involved, and I want this stopped because this happens. Folks, if you don't know outside military bases all over America every day, they're stupid on both sides of the road. Just soon as you leave the gate and all up and down the street, they will screw these guys and gals, and they do. It's awful. I'm sorry, welker. You deserve better from your fellow countrymen. This is the Ramsey show. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back. The first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you@ramseysolutions.com. Agent ramseysolutions.com agent the best way to make the most of your money is by telling it what to do instead of wondering where it went.

That's called a plan. Living intentionally with your money. The only way you win at anything is intentional. No one accidentally wins. And you have to tell your money what to do. You need to give every dollar of your money an assignment, a name, a mission every month. That's why we called the world's best budgeting app every dollar. It makes it simple to plan your spending, to track expenses, to save what matters most. It's an easy to use app, fits into your busy life. Keep a pulse on your spending. Make progress on your money goals. We'll show you how to do every bit of it. Help you walk the baby steps, help you do the sinking funds we talk about. Everything's there. Download every dollar for free in the App Store or at Google Play today. Every dollar. Tens of millions of people are using this. Thank you, guys. By the way, it's a huge success. Are you doing another webinar soon?

Not a webinar, but I will be doing a demo of every dollar at our total money makeover live weekend event.

So that's coming up May 10 and 11th, week from week from the Friday and Saturday. Yeah, coming up fast. Yeah.

You know the thing, let me just say this. About every dollar that I like, especially for couples, is I feel like, because it's on your phone, it's on your mobile device. It can be on your desktop. I feel like it bridges the gaps of communication that sometimes you have with money when it comes to your spouse, because you might forget to say, hey, I did this or that. But because it's on everybody's phone, it's kind of happening in real time. You can see, oh, they went to publix. They spent, you know, $15 or, oh, he did pay the mortgage.

You don't even need an iPhone tracker. You'll know where they were based on their pattern of spending. Oh, you went to the mall today.

Okay.

What were you doing over there?

I love every dollar.

So fun. Very good. Dan is with us in Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Dan. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi, Dave and Jade. So I obviously have a problem, but I want to give you some background on our financial situation that I think will be important context to the problem we're having. So, I'm 33. My wife is 32. Our combined household income is 375,000. We have 150 in my wife's four hundred. One k. Eighty five in mine. And the reason there's less in mine is because I use the COVID forbearance to pay off $82,000 in student loans. So I'm student debt free now. After law school, we have about 210,000 in the money market account. We have 40,000 in a reit. We owe 188,000 on our house, and it's appraised at 475. We have 20,000 in our daughter's 529. We have a 15 month old daughter who's beautiful.

Sounds like you're doing good. Congratulations.

Thank you. But we also owe 20,000 in my wife's car. The issue we're facing is we're outgrowing our house. It's like an 1800 square foot house. It's 120 years old. And we moved here because it was a young, professional neighborhood. We loved the neighborhood. But eventually, we're going to want a bigger house for a bigger family with a yard and things we want our daughter to have. But the issue we have is it's a blessing in a lot of ways, too. In about 18 months, I'll be up for a partnership at my law firm, and the buy in is $250,000. And so we're kind of at this crossroads where we want to figure out how and when do we upgrade a home. Do we hang here as long as we can? Because we want to be able to pay as much of the partnership cost upfront as possible, because the options are the firm gives us a loan that we would then pay back through essentially garnishments. We pay with cash upfront, or the percentage of the revenue we bring in through billing or otherwise is taken away. So we want to make sure we can pay as much of the partnership up front as we can.

How long ago you have 210,000 in a money market. Way to go, Dan. Of the 375, how much is your income at the law firm?

300.

Okay, so when you become a partner, if you wrote a check for 250,000 and pay them, what will your income be? Instead of 300, how much will that increase your income?

A first year partner is typically around 450.

Okay. She'd add 150,000 by writing a check for 250, correct?

Yeah.

So, wait, that's great. That happened quick.

I like it. Now, how long ago did you have? Zero before. And now you've added 210 to your money market?

I didn't make more than $15 an hour until I was 27.

Uh, 33. How long ago did you have? Zero. And now you have 210?

Six years ago.

Six in. So.

So I took you six years to save.

You didn't add the 210, and you added it in the last four years or three years?

Yeah. And my wife came into this with savings, too, before we got married. She might if you're 75. I think she had 75. Okay, so she's a great saver.

Okay, so you guys have saved 150,000 of the 210, I'm guessing, in the last 24 months.

Yeah, 24, 36 months.

That's what I'm guessing. That's what I was. That's where I thought you were going to tell me. Okay. All right, so this is an easy one.

Very easy.

You mean you've got write a check and pay off your wife's car today and get on a tight budget and make sure you have 250,000 in the money market account. You've got 40 in a reit. So you've already got the money to do this today, and it's 18 months away. So set 250,000 aside in a money market to pay cash for the partnership. And above that, start saving for the next house.

Yeah. Which is not going to.

You got 18 months, making 375 to save to move up in house. So the year you become partner and your income goes up 150, you're going to be able to move up in house with cash and write a check for cash to buy out the partnership. What am I missing?

Yeah, it's the timing of it. Like, we went and saw a house.

Oh, there's the problem. Quit looking at houses. You're broke. You got 200. Hey, man, you don't want. You don't buy a house and not buy this partnership position. No way. No way. Suck it up, buttercup.

The houses will be there.

No way. The 250 here is that money's earmarked because 250 is going to pay you 150 more in one freaking year. You're break even on this like 16 months.

Yeah.

This is like gold, man. This is like printing money in your basement.

We just. We want to make sure our daughters.

Your daughter. Your daughter has parents that make 400k. Your daughter is going to make it this much space. Seriously, she's inside not getting rained on and being fed. She's going to be okay. How old is your daughter?

15 months.

God, she doesn't even know.

That's why I said she takes up this much room.

She's okay if she's got cheerios, for God's sakes. Oh, my gosh. It's not. No, no, dude, really, you're fine. Don't use your. Don't blame this on your daughter. You and your wife went and got house fever.

Y'all already have it picked out, don't you?

Yeah, don't go to the freaking. Pray to homes, man.

It's.

It causes me. Every time we go to the Prado homes, it causes me to buy a house. It's awful. No, don't. Don't go. Yeah, you just. You just listen. Yeah, you. Your brain. Quit working for a minute because you got house fever. And so we're here to help you with that.

Just. Just delay it.

I appreciate it.

Hey, you, Dan. You have done so good. You're. You. Listen, here's the thing. You got two big things on the plate. House law firm. Okay? Partnership, right? Partnerships. Done with the math you gave me?

Yeah.

So you write a check today, pay off hers, move some of that reap money or don't move it, but earmark the reap money and 210, that's your 250 you need. You don't need it for 18 more months. It's going to sit in a high yield. Make some money between now and then, that money spent, pretend like you don't have that money. Now I make 375, headed towards 500. I want in 18 to 24 months. Based on that, I'm gonna start saving to move up in the next 24 months into a better house. And about the time you get to become partner and your income goes up 150, you're gonna be able to make the move.

Right.

But I'm not putting that partnership in jeopardy for stinking house. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Yeah, this is too sweet.

I also like that they'll be buying a house then, based on the income that they actually have versus a projected income versus someday.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's exciting.

Wow.

What a great job you've done, Dan. You guys are awesome.

Ring the bell.

You go buy this house and then don't have the money to buy the partnership when the time comes.

Oh, that's a regurgit.

That'd be a bad one.

Yeah, that's a regret right there.

Right there. That'd be bad news. This is the Ramsay show. Our scripture today, Isaiah 32, eight generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity. I've never read that. I know I've read that because I've read scripture, but, oh, my. I have to go back and look that one up. Maya Angelou. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. Oh, that's good. Chris is in Athens, Georgia. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hi. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can I help?

It's. I've listened to you for years and love your show.

Thank you.

My question is, I'm 50 years old. I've got, I think I owe about 40, 40,000 on my house and about one year on the car, and I'll be debt free. And I have the opportunity to leave my job at 50 years old with 30 years. And I have a little over 750 foot. Well, a little over 700,000 in my 401k, in my pension. And I'm just scared that I can't, you know, make it okay.

What do you make a year?

I make about 60 and my wife makes about 45.

Okay. And you can't touch your four hundred one k to your 59 and a half without penalty. Will your pension pay out because you've had there, been there so long and retire, will you start receiving on it?

I can take a lump sum of, like, 245,000 on my pension. And I've got about 483 in my 401K.

Yeah. Which you can't touch until you're 59 and a half. And you said you're 50. And if you take a lump sum on the pension and you, and you use it, you're going to pay penalty on it. So we don't want to do that. What will the pension pay out monthly if you don't take the lump sum?

Well, my, my financial advisor there's a tax thing that you can use that will only put it down to 10%. So if I take my. He said. He said that if. When I decided to leave, that the full amount of the 401k will go into iras and the pension, which is a little over 77, 40. And I'm just scared if I'm doing the wrong.

If it goes into iras and you take it out before you're 59 and a half, you're gonna be penalized and taxed. There's not a. There's not a tax thing that allows you to use it early. I mean, you can do some minimum withdrawals, but they're so small you won't be able to eat on them, so. Well, let me just move on then. Okay. Here's what I would do if I were in your shoes. It sounds to me like you're ready to be done with this job. Like, past ready. So you're only 50. You're only 50 years old. What do you want to do with your life, dude? You're not going to sit on the fish and sit on the bank and fish.

No, I'm going to get another job. Okay?

That's what I want to do. So what I would do is, yes, I would retire. I would roll this money to an IRA, the lump sum pension, and let it continue to grow. Don't touch it. Don't worry about it. And then you and your wife go make a living.

Yeah.

Then you don't have to have the money, because between your new income and her income, you all can make a living. You're just fine. You're millionaires. You've done a great job.

Yeah. My question is, you know, if I'm doing the right thing because they froze.

Our retirement, what do you think? I mean, what do you want to do? What are you going to do with your income? I mean, what are you going to. What career are you going to go into when you retire? What's your new job?

Just making three or $400 a month.

Why? You know, you're worth a lot more than that. Why would you only do that?

My financial advisor, he told me that, you know, I can bring home more after I leave off of the earnings of my money.

No, you can't. Okay? You can't take $60,000 a year out of 750 without. Without penalty and taxes. At 50 years old, there is a minimum withdrawal process, but the numbers are very, very small that you can get out of there. I would not do that. I want you to go make 60 or $100,000 a year in your new career. Crap, you're only 50 years old. Yeah, go make some money, dude, and leave this money alone and let it grow. And you and your wife making 40 and you making 60 or 100, y'all go have a great life, and then just let that money. Because here's what will happen. If you leave that 750 alone instead of screwing with it and put it into good mutual funds and let it every ten. You know, if you put it in, an average is 10%, it'll double every seven years. So at 57, you're gonna have a million and a half. At 64, you're gonna have 3 million. At 71, you're gonna have 6 million. If you keep your hands off of it and let it sit there and grow and double and grow and double. And the way you do that is you go have a life.

You don't sit on your butt at 50 years old. So, yeah, I would go get me a next career. We call it an encore career. Chris, you take a bow. After the first act, the curtain comes up, and there's a whole new segment to the play, the encore. It's what they do. What? The artist comes back out after the crowd is cheering so loud, that's when.

They play what they really want to. When they really wanted to play.

Yeah. And that's when they play the songs they wanted to play. That's exactly why we call it an encore career. So you come back out and do what you've always wanted to do. I don't care if you open a business. I don't care what your new career is, but go make you some money, and you and your wife leave this money alone. Yes, I would retire, but under those circumstances. The other thing is, it's not good for you at 50 years old, to plan to spend the next 40 years till you're 90 doing nothing.

That is not good. Mentally, it's not good.

It's not good spiritually, it's not good mentally, it's not good. Relationally, you'll get fat. It's not good for you.

Your wife will get annoyed with you. Like, go do something.

Exactly. Yeah, go. Go figure out. You got the half your dad gum life left. What are you gonna do with it? You're just middle aged, man. Go do something big. What is it you always wanted to do? You got this other thing in your. In your rearview mirror. Made yourself a millionaire. Way to go. Now leave this other money alone and go have your. Go be somebody. Go be somebody. Go do something.

Dave, if you had to have an encore career. What would it be?

Me just saying, well, here's the thing.

What's the other thing you would do?

You're going to be just like Rachel because Rachel plays these games when we're at Thanksgiving. It's like, if you had a secret life, what would you do in your secret life? And I'm like, listen, you know what I do? I do what I want to do. So if I was going to do something different, I would already be doing it.

Come on, Dave. Like, I got to know.

Would you be. Rachel's like, yeah, that's just no fun. You're no fun at this game. And I'm like, if I wanted to be a secret agent, I would have already been a secret agent, okay? If I wanted to be a rodeo writer, I would have already been a rodeo writer. I would have already gone and done it. Why do I have to wait until no go?

You don't want to be a stuntman or.

I jumped out of an airplane the other day.

You did.

You did.

I mean, it's like, no, I don't want to be a stump, man. They get all broke up. I don't hurts. I don't like pain. But, no, I mean, it's. If I don't like this, I would have already been doing something else and y'all wouldn't have a job.

It's a game, Dave.

I know. It's no fun. It's not good for the game, but it's.

It's.

But it's the truth. So the point of the whole thing, though, is you do get to choose.

You get to choose.

Get the choose. You don't have to be one of those.

That's right.

You're not stuck. Just stop doing that. Go do the other one. You know, it's like, wow, you're ain't stuck. It's pretty cool. It's no fun for the game, though. Spoil all those spoil all those dreamer games because I've been living the dream.

You've been living the dream, all right.

If I wasn't me, I'd want to be me.

That's pretty freaking awesome, Dave.

Oh, that puts us our, 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, you, Jesus. If you're a leader, your personal growth matters for your organization, because whatever you lead can only grow as much as you do. I know from experience I've been CEO of Ramsey Solutions for over 30 years, and now I'm sharing that leadership and business coaching experience with you on the entre leadership podcast. I'm taking your calls and helping you figure out how to overcome challenges within your organization. One episode could change your business. Check it out on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or on the Ramsey Network app.