Don’t Let a Lack of Boundaries Turn Into a Money Crisis

22:59Dave Ramsey:Okay. All right. So if you save 15 % of your gross annually into good growth stock mutual funds inside of your retirement plan, now you're in Canada, so it's a little different, but still, you can do all of that. And you do that for 10 or 12 years, you're 55 at the point you start, and you do it to 65, 67, you're going to be a millionaire. You're going to be fine. Wow. And no, you don't have to do it out of order. You do need to get your house paid off during that time as well. I don't have a house. Oh, okay. That's the other thing, too. Okay. And you start talking about how we're going to do that and what we can get paid for.

23:40Dave Ramsey:Because when you go into retirement, your most expensive line item in your budget is always housing. Yes. And if you don't have debt on your house, obviously it's no longer the most expensive line item in your budget. So you've got a lot of room then. But you're going to be fine if you just continue to follow through. And it sounds like you've got it really dialed in. So congratulations. Keep it up. If you need more help, call us anytime, brother. Nick is in Madison, Wisconsin. Hey, Nick, what's up? Yeah, hey, Dave. Just calling. I'm hoping that you can hear me well enough. I'm in a rural area right now.

24:13Okay. I've got a couple of questions here. I'm sitting, well, first off, I'm only 27 years old. I've got$123 ,000 in debt here. $81 ,000 is about the house,$81 ,000. $28 ,000 is my car. And then personal loans are around$6 ,000. Medical bills are sitting around$8 ,000. My main question today is I always hear you say sell your car. Because the car is worth about$12 ,000 today. Who said? I looked at Kelly Blue Book, and then I also looked at the dealership, a couple of different dealerships.

24:54Dave Ramsey:On private sale or trade-in? that sounds like a trade-in number i believe that would be that would be just just a sale because i'm trying to get out of this loan and not get a new one okay so if my math is correct i think we're sitting at like 17 000 underwater right now um so you owe i think 32 000 on this thing or$34 ,000 on this thing? Yeah. Yep, because we originally... Did you roll negative equity from another car into this deal? I did, yep. Yeah, that's how you got there. Okay. And what's your household income? So I... We do$70 ,000 before the taxes and then taxes come out, we get about$56 ,000,$57 ,000.

25:43Dave Ramsey:Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, you're stuck in that car. They're selling it as of no benefit because it's not worth anything compared to what it's owed. So, you know, it's not much help. But what that does mean, sadly, is that you're going to work six extra jobs and you're going to sell everything else in sight. Everything's going to put the cat on Craig's list and the dog on eBay. I mean, we're going crazy here. And beans and rice, man, no life. You've got to lean into this and start throwing grenades at it. harsh like your life depends on it it's not you can't wander out of this mess you're going to be extremely intense okay so the the monthly payment right now is 647 yeah and i i have been the past few payments to 1100 um that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about coming up with $34 ,000.

26:45Dave Ramsey:Extra. Okay. So you need to be making like an extra$2 ,000 a month and squeezing every dime out of your existing budget too. So you are, you're married. I take it. Yeah, I am. Yeah. Everybody in the house is working. The children are going to the salt mines. Everybody's working. We're all making more money and we're all going to throw it at this mess because this is not going to go away with just sitting down and tightening up the only budget you have right now. Because you've tried that, and an extra payment is not getting you out any time in this century. Because you probably also have a high interest rate on this thing, don't you?

27:26Yeah, it's about 10 % right now.

27:30Dave Ramsey:So you've got screwed coming and going. Yeah. You don't need to be on a car lot for a while, do you? What a mess. Yeah. You know, if I'm sitting in this situation and I have any cash, I'm going to go ahead and move this thing, and I'm going to drive a clunker because of the – If you can get the cash. If you can get the cash. But it's$17 ,000 upside down. If that number is accurate and the thing is worth$12 ,000, who are you going to replace it with? A$5 ,000? You only got a$7 ,000 move here. So, you know, getting rid of that thing and getting rid of the debt on it and getting rid of these other debts so that you can attack it with a vengeance is absolutely necessary here.

28:10Dave Ramsey:So any money you can scrape together that's not in a retirement, anything you can sell that's not in retirement, and any extra work you guys can do. And I'm talking about work that makes money, not just out there moving around. I'm talking about Uber. I'm talking about really making some money. And I want you working weekends, nights, overtime. I want your wife doing the same. Y 'all got a mess. And you're going to stay in the mess unless you throw some money at it. And so that's what it's going to take. It's going to take this crazy intensity, and then you can move the needle. Isabella is in New York City.

28:42Dave Ramsey:Hi, Isabella. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I need your opinion here because I need you to act as a tiebreaker. But I just got a new job with a higher salary, and my parents are really pushing me to buy an apartment. in New York City. Obviously, New York City, it's one of the most renter-heavy cities in the country. I've really never thought of buying or considered it, but my parents are not letting it go. I'm happy renting where I am. Why do your parents have a vote? Because they're my parents. That doesn't give them a vote. You're supposed to be like a grown woman and stuff.

29:20I do take a lot of what they say into account. Well, that's nice. That's sweet,

29:26Dave Ramsey:but they don't really get a vote. I do see where they're coming from. I think for me it's a lack of knowledge. How old are you? I'm 24. What do you make? What's the new salary? $95 ,000. What's the cost of the apartment? With$95 ,000, I could reasonably look at anything between$300 ,000 to$400 ,000 in the city. That's not in the city. That's in an outlying borough somewhere. If it's in a co-op, I would have to, it would be within that budget, but there would be co-op fees on top of it. In Manhattan? Correct. Are you talking, what, 400 square feet or something? My own apartment right now that I'm renting is pretty tiny, so I see where they're coming from that I could upgrade while owning at the same time, but I don't know.

30:19Dave Ramsey:I'm not sure you can. That number doesn't sound right to me. But, okay, I'm not a Manhattan expert, but, all right. I mean, you might be out in the Bronx or Queens or something and do that, but I'm thinking you're going to be on the island doing that. So here's the thing. You're 24 years old. You make$95 ,000 a year, and you don't really want to buy right now is what you told me. That's kind of what you said. For me, it's just I don't see how I can buy. I'm not sure how either. I don't think you buy right now. I agree. I'm okay with you waiting. someday you want to buy and maybe you're still in New York City, maybe you're still in Manhattan, but home ownership when you don't want to is a bad idea.

31:00Dave Ramsey:Home ownership when you can't afford it is a really bad idea. All home ownership is not good. Only when it's done properly is it a blessing.

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32:42Dave Ramsey:Colton is in Atlanta. Hi, Colton. How are you? Doing good. Hey, I got a quick question for y 'all. I have a small business, and I'm wondering how I should do profit sharing with my two team members. Okay. That's a great question. And I think it's really important that you start thinking about that at your size. We did then when we were that size. Now there's 1 ,000 of us, and we have 14 core values. One of our core values on the wall is share the profits. So we share with everybody in the building in one way or another all kinds of different ways. Now it's somewhat complicated because there's so much.

33:23The first thing I learned the hard way that I will teach you is to make sure that the two team members know that this is Colton's money and I am

33:38Dave Ramsey:sharing it. that's different than corporate profit sharing this part of my comp plan that i'm entitled to this is you out of the goodness of your heart setting up a culture inside my little company here that i believe in sharing with the team and i am doing that voluntarily you see the difference in the spirit yeah it's like like when you're in the kindergarten sharing you know what i'm saying this is not like profit sharing is part of my comp plan and they didn't pay it and so i'm pissed no you don't get that option you're not entitled this is me being kind and you smiling when i'm kind that's how this works okay so i've probably been doing it wrong yeah that me i did i screwed it up when i was your size and i had to go back and reset the second thing i do and we still do this to this day is we pay out profit sharing here once a month and our cfo gets on the stage and says hey profits were up over last month down over this month last year we had a good month here's a couple of bright spots in the company without going into details and numbers.

35:00Dave Ramsey:Here's how many people are involved in the profit sharing plan this month. And so your profit sharing check is going to be a little better than last month and not as good as two months ago. And here's why. And then we close that talk out with here's where profits come from. And everyone in the whole room, all 1000 people say profits happen when revenues go up. Everybody says up and when expenses go down so your job is to make revenues go up and expenses go down and then you get more profit sharing because i'll have more to share with you and we say that like like we're in kindergarten or something every wednesday or every monday morning that we do once a month we're doing profit sharing announcement so because we want everybody to remember this is not that santa claus is not delivering a bag of money this happened because we all work together to keep expenses down and revenues up and you have to reset that in people's minds over and over and over again because people forget and they're like oh well the company didn't give me any money no that's not how this works honey you're self-employed like the rest of us we as a group sucked so your profit sharing is down because there's less profit to share and so you know we talk about it and when it's up or down and so those are two things you want you reset the entitlement and the ownership aspect and then you can figure out from after those two things are in place how to do the calculation i used to do ours when i was your size once a quarter because it wasn't much money and it'd be like 500 bucks or something after a quarter right and so because there wasn't a lot of profit when a lot of revenue and there's four of us you know and so So and I wanted it to be a little bigger check.

36:48Dave Ramsey:But what I figured out was, was that people weren't they couldn't count on it because they only got it ever so often. And so it wasn't connecting in their brains. And so once we figured that out, we went back. We went to a monthly. What you could do is not do any of that. And you could say, hey, guys, ever so often we had a great month. I'm taking all of us and the wives and the kids out to dinner and we're all going to a movie. and I'm going to spend some company money just to say thank you because I'm going to share some of our profits with you that way. Or, hey, here's a$100 handshake. We had a good month.

37:24Dave Ramsey:And it's not formal and it's not a bunch of math calculation. And you can keep it fairly primitive and simple that way when there's three of you without getting into some kind of freaking spreadsheet analysis. And by the way, our team does not know how their portion of profit sharing is calculated. that way they don't have to back into and worry about what's going on all they know is we share with them and it's pretty dead gum sweet these days so does that make any sense what did you say you did wrong well so what i've been doing is we we do uh commercial residential remodeling and so by the time I take all the expenses out and after I pay myself and there's some left then I usually what I've been doing is just giving them three percent of that I didn't tell them this I just told them that they're going to get some sharing in the profits we make if there's a successful job that's a good that's a good move I like that what's wrong with that then they don't getting it, they don't get any.

38:31But then I'm also trying to figure out what percentage should I save back for retained earnings? Because sometimes we don't work for a while, and then I'm like, don't have enough there to save.

38:44Dave Ramsey:Yeah, the profits that we use to calculate, the number we use to calculate profit sharing is after we have set retained earnings aside. Okay, that's what I was kind of wondering. Yeah, so we set retained earnings aside, And that creates we have several layers of profit in net profit, NP one through seven. I have seven different layers of profit before or after certain expenses. And the only one that gets paid off the actual NP seven is me and a couple of our senior leaders. But everybody else are different layers in there as to where we're cutting profit in and out. because I've got some of the VPs, some of the vice presidents that get paid a percentage of the profits in their area as part of their comp.

39:27Dave Ramsey:And that's not technically profit sharing. I've got profit sharing in addition to that. So I've got all that complicated bull crap in there. But, yeah, it's after retained earnings. So you have to run your business. And when money's left after you run your business, you share with them. Okay. And I think it's smart to say, hey, guys, if we can keep the cost down on this job and keep our estimating sharp and estimate the job properly so we get the proper price on the job, and then we don't buy 73 tools that we don't need in order to do the job because we're all tool addicts and everything else in your world, then we're going to have some profit left, and I'm going to make sure some of that goes home with you.

40:05Dave Ramsey:And I'm making it up as I go, but I just promise you the spirit is I want to share it with you. Okay, so you think it's okay to do it by job like I've been doing? Oh, I think it's smart. okay because there are jobs times when we don't we don't profit yeah i mean like i profit but they the business doesn't profit and so then we just say hey we need to talk about why this didn't profit exactly we're all self-employed and if the job doesn't make a profit we don't have anything to share hello okay that's perfect how old are you thank you uh 24 man you're sharp you're doing Good job. I'm proud of you.

40:43Dave Ramsey:You spent some time thinking about this. Yeah. It's really good. Well, I read your book. I read your book. I want the audience to hear how your team members reacted when you first gave them some profit share. What was that reaction like? The first time it was like$6, and they were making the joke that they could go buy an ice cream. Right. But it's been up since then, and it really surprises them every time. Yeah. And so that's what I wanted to just emphasize by asking you that question is because that is the key to building loyalty. They appreciate, you know, even though it was six bucks, they still appreciated.

41:23That you put thought into it. The thought. You know, we've all heard it's the thought that counts. Our wives try to drill that into us husbands. You know, it's the thought that counts. Get the birthday card, write a note, you know, the whole drill. But I just want to make sure young leaders catch this. This is how you build a business on core people, is fundamentally showing people how much they matter to you. And I think that's going to serve you very well. So I wanted to applaud you as well.

41:48Dave Ramsey:That's really good. Yeah, you did a great job. Very well done. So, yeah, building a business you love, one of the things we talk about in there is the importance of being able to, you know, share. It's the beauty of small businesses. Most small businesses are not greedy people. They're not like corporate America. They don't piss on their people. Most of them take care of, they're like family. They take care of each other. And so, you know, the guy's like that right there. That's pretty cool. He starts with$6. That's pretty fun. I like that a lot.

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44:01Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and host of the show Front Row Seat on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. Monica's in Houston. Hey, Monica, how are you? I'm doing good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm calling. Thank you for taking my call, first of all. I've been listening to your show for quite a while. And it's primarily me that listens to your show. My husband doesn't at all. My question today has to do with the cash out refi.

44:40My husband and I are almost to the retirement age. He will turn 65 next week, and I will turn 64 in the summer. We have no savings, no retirement. Our joint income is around$116 ,000. We have debt, personal loans, credit cards, and automobiles of$83 ,000. And we have a$28 ,000 mortgage lien that we disagree on, but we do have it against our primary residence. So my husband looked into getting a cash-out refi to roll all of our debt into one loan to free us, essentially, of all the debt.

45:19Dave Ramsey:Well, it doesn't free you of it. It moves it onto your house. Right. It moves it onto the house. You're not paying off anything. You're just moving it. Right. Okay. And so I was trying to explain that to my husband. I said, look, this is a 30-year loan, and our mortgage is at 53K right now. Why would it make sense for us to roll all this debt into another mortgage loan? We're almost at the finish line. So the loan officer is tag-teaming me with my husband, trying to get me to agree that it makes sense to finance this loan again and put all the debt into one pot. and he's saying that I would be walking away with an extra$3 ,000 a month if I were to go this route.

46:05And if we added an extra$2 ,000 a month, we could pay off the mortgage in six years. I don't know if that makes sense to me or not. I need you to help me to sort this out.

46:16Dave Ramsey:Well, what's bothering you is that nothing changed in your habits when you do this. Correct. And so when you're 70, you're going to be back in debt. I don't like that idea. I know, but that's what you're going to do because the system y 'all are using now puts you here, and you're not changing anything in the system. You think – and your husband thinks he can borrow his way out of debt, and you can't dig your hole – dig your – you can't dig out the bottom of a hole and get out. That's not how it works.

46:52Dave Ramsey:So how much of the 83 is his truck? Uh,$32 ,000. Isn't that weird that I knew that?

47:06I'm prepared to sell my truck and just drive the other one. How much do you owe on the other truck? The Jeep is$24 ,000, and we have an F-150 that we paid cash for that he drives occasionally when he doesn't drive the more expensive truck. and I told him. How many cars do you all have? We have three vehicles, two trucks and one Jeep.

47:29Dave Ramsey:Okay, and truck number one that he drives occasionally that's paid for is worth what? Maybe$6 ,000. Okay, and the other truck is worth$32 ,000 and owes$32 ,000 on it, right? And then there's the Jeep that you owe$24 ,000 on, right? Correct. Mm-hmm. I think I found the problem.

47:57Dave Ramsey:If I was 65 years old and getting ready to retire and I was stone-cold broke, I'd be scared.

48:07Well, I am scared.

48:08Dave Ramsey:Not looking for a six-year plan that some freaking loan officer gave me. That gives me chills. so y 'all probably aren't going to do this because I don't think you and your husband are aligned on this but mathematically what y 'all ought to do is sell both these cars both of them and not do a cash out refinance instead pay your way out of debt and be debt free sooner than six years that's what makes sense to me that's what I've been trying to talk to you about I think you can pay off the house and everything in about three years at 68 years old, but you're going to be not driving these two cars.

48:52Well, I tried to explain that to him. I said, look, you know, owning two vehicles with two notes didn't make sense to me to begin with. We have a concession trailer that we use occasionally, and that's why he bought the truck to move the concession trailer around. But now that we have one spot, you know, I don't see us moving it all the time. I see us trying to use it to get out of debt. So I really feel like not giving up the 53K that we have left on the mortgage and sacrifices for$185 ,000.

49:23Dave Ramsey:So$85 ,000 if you sold these two cars gets you completely out of debt, mortgage and everything, and you make$116 ,000. You can do that in two to three years. And you should because you're freaking retirement age and broke. Can you say that one more time? I'm because I'm not here, and I want to make sure that I got it written down. Well, I mean, you said you had$83 ,000 in debt, right? Not counting the mortgage. Yes. Okay, and if I take 32 from that, I have 51. And if I take 24 from that, I have 26. 26 and 53 mortgage is 78. You make 116. How fast do you pay off$78 ,000 making$116 ,000? If you paid off$35 ,000 a year, you're done in two years.

50:15Dave Ramsey:If you pay off$25 ,000 a year, you're done in three years. Okay. And that's a six-year plan that makes your banker rich. That's what I told him. I said we could do this in three years. Yeah, the last financial planner you need is a loan officer. That's what I thought. So that's why I've been listening to your radio station so I don't get into these. I don't know if you're going to get Hubby to do all this. Well, you know what? I think it's time to try. Yeah. And by the way, the timeline Dave gave you speeds up if you guys are working extra. Yeah. You can do it in two years. Be done in two years.

50:55While you got health.

50:56Dave Ramsey:And if you got no house payment, no payments at all, I got your$3 ,000. Now it's$4 ,000 freed up to start saving some money. You start saving 50 grand a year and you do that for four or five years, you're going to have a decent nest egg in your 70s. And you won't be retiring eating dog food. Alpo, the breakfast of champions. It's like, oh, my gosh. You know, I mean, yeah. But here's the thing. We've been buying crap we can't afford because we wanted it. And some loan officer told us this is a good idea. the guy at the car lot said look i got you approved and like we're supposed to celebrate that hello you owe more on your cars than you do on your house oh ouch in fact pinch me

51:49Dave Ramsey:it's true what is wrong with this picture right yeah well she's been controlling the house thing and he's been doing the other stuff, and now he's tinkering with the things she's been controlling. That's right. And that's why she rose up. That's right. It's good for you, kiddo. Yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to cause some marital discord, and I'm happy to.

52:30We'll be right back.

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54:18Dave Ramsey:Charles is in Sacramento. Hey, Charles, how are you? Doing well. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve, sir. What's up? Hi. I was wondering if pulling out an SB lock for an investment property would be the right move for me. Okay. Well, I'm guessing you're fairly new to our show.

54:43I've been listening for a while, but my financial advisor presented me with the option of an SB lock. He's not pushing me towards it, just presenting the options.

54:52Dave Ramsey:But, I mean, if you've been listening to this, you know I don't borrow money or tell people to borrow money, right? That's right. Okay. So the answer would be no? Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, I mean, I love real estate and I love investment property. I hate debt on it, and I really hate the Small Business Administration. They suck. and for you to get tied in with them and what that's going to do to the rest of your whole portfolio and all just to get a rental property is the risk level that you just took on neither one of you two are thinking about what you're doing here the risk level is through the roof so your investment guy's risk meter is broken because the s the sb lock is always tied to other assets as well.

55:40Dave Ramsey:And so you're putting all of that at risk to screw around with a rental property in California. Well, that's, so that's the thing. The rental property actually isn't in California. Oh, that's worse. It's a lot farther away in the Island of Guam. Oh, that's really bad. It's my wife's grandmother's house. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, we do not have rental property that's investment property that's long distance. And we certainly don't buy grandmother's house for rental property in Guam. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're trying to figure out a way to do something you can't afford.

56:19Dave Ramsey:And this guy's presenting you an option to finance something you can't afford to do. And really, it's God just yelling at you, don't do this. So true. It's a long distance headache. That's what you're looking at. Well, and it's foreign country. Hello. I mean, if you're going to invest in real estate, you want real estate to be a very predictable environment. OK. And so if you're going to invest money in a foreign country situation, you've completely left the stability of the U.S. economy. And so you can do that, but you need to be able to burn that amount of money down. And so if you want to buy a property in Mexico, you want to buy a property in Guam, Costa Rica.

57:00Dave Ramsey:I got a friend of mine bought a place in Costa Rica the other day. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But somehow we Americans think that everywhere else in the world still functions the way the United States functions, and it doesn't. It's a freaking banana republic. Hello. And so, you know, they may just come over there and take your property. So you need to be able to just abandon that amount of money at any point if you're going to do that. And I'm not saying Guam is going to do that. I'm not saying Costa Rica is going to do that. But we cannot make the assumption that their governmental processes, their ownership, private property rights function the same way in that culture in that country as it does in the U.S.

57:38Dave Ramsey:It doesn't. And so these things turn socialist or communist in about an eye blink. And all of a sudden, yeah, you're one of those evil property owners. So you just have to think about these things. You need to be able to burn that amount of money down, and you don't borrow on a small business line of credit to buy in a foreign country. No, for sure, for sure. So you do whatever you want, but you call and ask us, and we're always going to tell you the truth because we love you, and we don't want you to get hurt, and you're going to regret that one if you do it. I promise. Albert's in Phoenix. Hey, Albert, what's going on?

58:16hey hey doing well so i'm 25 and my girlfriend's 23 friday is our five-year anniversary so happy for that um with that timeline comes marriage and i do want to propose to that girl good but my main concern really isn't that it's what comes with that marriage so the potential in-laws and they're fantastic people don't get me wrong love them but i've noticed that their finances are all out of whack from like the last three years. So they're in their early, mid-50s, and they have nothing saved up for retirement. They owe$178 ,000 on their house, and they make a combined household income of$70 ,000 to$75 ,000 depending on overtime.

59:07Dave Ramsey:Is your girlfriend sane?

59:11Dave Ramsey:Is she going to be a wife that wants to do what they've done? No, no, no, no. That's what I mean. We're definitely financially on the same page, so we're good there. Okay, so the two of you are going to be okay. The only question is you've got this potential liability off in the distance. Yeah, so they're going on three to four vacations a year while we're living with the army. Honey, you can't fix them. If you're going to start out your marriage trying to fix the in-laws, you're going to have a long life. Okay, gotcha. It's just that we're in this situation where we've been asked for money personally for the most basic necessities.

59:43I would just say no.

59:44Dave Ramsey:Groceries. Say no. And if she doesn't get comfortable and you don't get comfortable saying no, then we've got other problems. But it's the two of you that are the problem, not them, because they're a known quantity. We know what they're going to do. They're going to piss away money and ask you for money. That's a given. Has your girlfriend given in and given them money?

1:00:08Dave Ramsey:We lost you. Did she give them money or not? Say it again. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, no, that's what I'd be worried about. This is the person we need to be talking to, not them. Yeah. You're not going to fix them. The only thing you're going to determine with her is the two of you are going to hold hands, lock arms, and say this is how we're going to handle life. And life includes your crazy butt parents.

1:00:34Gotcha. My only concern is I don't want to be a pocketbook for their retirement. Don't be. It's hard to say no.

1:00:40Dave Ramsey:Don't be. Just plan on it. I'm planning on saying no. This is the premarital counseling stuff. This would be issue number one for me based on what you've presented. That's what you called us about. Yeah, I agree. You should have a concern. But you got to hear what Dave said. The concern is with your girlfriend, potential wife. And you. Yeah, you both have to be locked in here to say, no, we're never going to say yes again. We made that mistake once. We're not going to do it again. These are not poor, pitiful people. These are people who don't manage their money well. So it's hard to feel sorry for them when they need money.

1:01:13Right?

1:01:17Dave Ramsey:and you need a new phone okay it's about the fourth time i've been through that all right so guys learning to set boundaries with your in-laws and with extended family of any kind and extended families anyone that doesn't live inside of our home you your spouse your personal minor children you have to be able to set boundaries with them and create quality kind, compassionate boundaries to say, we're not able to do that. It doesn't match with our goals. I'm sorry. We're unable to do that. And about the fourth time they'll get mad and they'll say, but I deserve, no, I'm sorry. We're not able to do that.

1:01:57Dave Ramsey:I'm just, I'm so sorry. We're not able to do that. And we've looked at our budget and we just don't have room for that. Well, well, you're a millionaire. I know, but we looked at our budget and we don't have room for that. So, you know, that's, I mean, you just, you just got to be kind about it and go, no. And, you know, now I'll be, listen, I'll be happy to get you into Financial Peace University and, you know, I'll help you sell your car and, you know, I'll help you get an extra job and I'll coach you. I'll be your biggest cheerleader. I love you. I want you to win, but I'm not able to enable.

1:02:31Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I love that. That's really good. I would say, hey, let me tell you about these baby steps. I'll walk with you. I'll hold you accountable. You up for that? But you can't. But that's only after they ask for money. You don't just go marching in there and suggest that. They're not going to hear it. That's an exchange. They come in and go, you know, we're not able to do that. But I'll tell you what it can do. Yes. And even if you want to go super crazy, you could go, listen, if you get on a plan and you're real intense and you're starting to work, I might even throw in some towards the plan after I see the plan working.

1:02:58Dave Ramsey:But the plan right now is you just spend piss away money and then you come over here wanting some, that's not a plan I'm in for. You pissing away money and then tell me I got to make it up. That's not something we do here. So, you know, but dude, this is you and your girlfriend being grown up stuff and setting boundaries with people that you love but don't respect. That's hard.

1:03:34Thank you.

1:04:02Thank you.

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1:05:28Dave Ramsey:One of our favorite things to do around here is a debt-free scream in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. We even have a debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, so we can see the people and talk to them when they're doing their scream. And our super favorite thing to do is when it's one of our own Ramsey Solutions team members, which will be true of Josh today and his wife, Holly, are with us to do their debt-free scream. Welcome, guys. Thank you. We're so excited. Hi, guys. Very cool. Cool. All right, Josh, tell people what you do here and how long you've been with us. Yeah, I've been here at Ramsey for about five and a half years, and I am on the Ramsey education team.

1:06:02I'm a relationship manager for our sponsors.

1:06:05Dave Ramsey:Okay, and that's the high school curriculum primarily, and we get sponsors that pay for that to go into the high schools, and you help get that done. Yes, sir. Very cool, because the high school curriculum has had about six million students do it now, I believe. Yes, sir, and counting. Yeah, there we go. Good stuff. Well, congratulations. All right, how much debt have you two paid off? We paid off$175 ,000 just north of that. Goodness gracious. In what period of time? 18 months. Whoa! Okay. Now, we don't ask incomes because your team members are all standing around. That would be unfair. Otherwise, we always put everybody else on the spot.

1:06:41Dave Ramsey:But how in the world do you pay off$175 ,000 in 18 months? That's like$10 ,000 a month. A lot of Chick-fil-A. But then also working here, working our jobs. But it's been so fun. So, yeah, when she says Chick-fil-A, we picked up some side hustles. We worked at Chick-fil-A. It's been super fun. I've always done Instacart. So did Instacart on the side. And yeah, when we first got married, I had been saving up money while we were engaged to put down. You know, once we got married, we wanted to start knocking out the house. So you had a chunk to throw at it. Exactly. And how long y 'all been married?

1:07:14A year and a half.

1:07:15Dave Ramsey:18 months. 18 months. So thus this begins. Yes, sir. Okay. So this is starting to sound like Holly brought this debt in. I did. I did. Okay. I came with a lot of baggage, which was the mortgage. But you're worth every penny. I hope so. He's done regardless. So this is your mortgage? It was our mortgage, yes, sir. You paid off your freaking house? Yes, we did. Oh, I was thinking student loans. Oh, my God. So you married a woman with a house. I got it. Okay. Yes. That's a lot better. That's a lot better deal. Okay. Good job, man. Wow. Yeah. And you pay off the house. How old are you, too? I'm 27.

1:07:49Dave Ramsey:I'm 29. And you haven't paid for a free – what's this house worth? Just under$300 ,000. Jeez, so you guys are going to be millionaires in no time. Yeah, we're excited. I'm so proud of y 'all. It's been awesome. So you just – you got married and then just went, we're game on. We're not going to – you went gazelle intense on the house. We did. Yeah, yeah. We treated Baby Step 6 like Baby Step 2, and that's kind of something – before we got married, we went through FPU, and we just wanted to – you know, we dreamed. We said, like, hey, what could life look like if we had no payments? And so – So neither one of you had any consumer debt coming in.

1:08:19That's right. No, no. When I first started working here, that's when I.

1:08:22Dave Ramsey:You cleaned all that up. I cleaned all my, I had about$40 ,000. And she's obviously responsible because she had no debt in a house. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a shout out to mom and dad for. Yeah. Thank you guys. No, she was listening to Dave Ramsey growing up in the car. In the backseat of the car asking lots of questions that I didn't know what I was asking, but she was answering. And it got us here today. So a financial peace baby and a financial peace employee. There we go. That's how this happens. Okay. Wow. Look at y 'all. I'm so proud of y 'all. Thank you. Your mom and dad got to be proud, too.

1:08:51Dave Ramsey:I think so. I mean, y 'all went kind of freaky, though. I mean, you went after this mortgage. Were people making fun of you outside of here? I know in here they cheer you on, right? Yeah. They were making fun of us, but they were definitely like, you know, this is the wisest decision on paper. And I was like, yeah, but it's like the best decision for us. Yeah. It's always, you know, the answer is always just we're solving for peace. Yeah. Yeah. And that was important. How many hours a week at the height of all of this were you guys putting in? Total, probably 70, probably 15 to 20 at Chick-fil-A.

1:09:23And so you guys were working together at Chick-fil-A? At the same Chick-fil-A. Did you work in the back of the house? I worked in the front of the house. It was so fun. It was. It was a blast. So shout out to her Chick-fil-A family. Why was that so fun? Well, I've never worked in food, so I was like, they just seem so happy. Like, whatever they've got going on, I want to be a part of that. So on our honeymoon, I was like, can we please get jobs at Chick-fil-A? And then we did. And it was so fun. I think that's fantastic. Yeah. I got to tell you, of all the couples we've interviewed. This is a strange honeymoon.

1:09:52It really is. Hey, but can we get jobs at Chick-fil-A? Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, sure. Yeah. But you guys cut your food budget, I imagine. Yeah. They feed you every time you work. So like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, like meals were checked off the list. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. I knew that was part of it. I could just tell. Are you saying something about, you know? No. No. I mean, you look like a great diet to me. No, I'm just saying when you both decide to work at Chick-fil-A and you're a gazelle in tents, you have figured out that there's some free food in here. That's right. And that's a really good deal.

1:10:23That's better than rice and beans. No offense, Dave.

1:10:26Dave Ramsey:Chick-fil-A chicken is, that's pretty good. Jesus chicken trumps it for sure. It does. It's true. Yeah, it does. You guys are amazing. Way to go. All right. Now, so when people say, how did you pay off your house at 27 years old? What do you tell them? Yeah, I mean, there's the obvious, you know, get on the every dollar budget. That was something from the get go. We had to make sure we knew where every dollar was going. Otherwise, this doesn't happen. So that was, you know, everybody says that. But I would say biggest thing for me is just taking time to be grateful throughout the journey. Looking back on how blessed we are, how blessed we're able to have jobs, we're able to have side gigs.

1:11:03And we hit a milestone and we were just thankful to God that, you know, he put us in a spot where we can do this, you know. So that was big for me. Yeah, I think it was really fun to like lock arms in the first year of marriage. And like we are naive, like life's going to get hard, but it does feel like we can accomplish anything together. So that was kind of like being on the same page was really, really fun together.

1:11:26Dave Ramsey:It's obvious that you guys were really dialed in together and there wasn't one of you dragging the other one along. And that's, you're right. You can take on anything if you do that. You can do anything you want to do. So I'm so proud of y 'all. Very, very well done. Very well done. What was the hardest part? Yeah, we were thinking about this question. There were definitely some nights, like when you're in the grind of like Thursday night, we're eating chicken again. Again. And we're like, I've got to go make chicken after this. He's got to go sell chicken after this. And we were just exhausted.

1:11:56So we were looking at each other and we were like, we're shells of humans. Like, is this worth it? um so there were moments of really really hard but you get a good night's sleep and you wake up and you can go again the next day yeah i can handle that but i think the biggest the hardest thing for me was uh i i am traditionally a spender yeah so when we have most of our budget going towards throwing it at this every month i'm like ah dang it you know i can't go buy a new pair of shoes or something like that so it was hard to have that disappointment to just say no to a lot

1:12:26Dave Ramsey:lot of things but you got there we did and now you're so worth it what's the first big thing you're gonna do to celebrate i mean you got your i think have a cheeseburger no more chicken in and out burger baby going across the street yeah yeah we well we kind of already celebrate we went to uh we kind of redid our honeymoon we went to universal studios in orlando uh last month and so we we had that kind of we like cash flowed that and did that before we even, you know, had made the last payment. Exactly. So we did that, but yeah, we'll save up for a new car. My car is getting old and, um, you know, boost up everything outside of that.

1:13:04Dave Ramsey:What are you driving? I'm driving a 2008, uh, like a little infinity SUV. It has 250 ,000 miles. Yes. And he wants a Ford Raptor. So that's next. Okay. So, okay. That's great. I want people to hear this. How long is it going to take you to save up for the Raptor now that you're debt free? Eight months to 12 months, I would say. Yeah, it would probably be a year. Yeah, because we'll let off the gas. We'll not work as much as Chick-fil-A. Like, we'll relax a little bit, but we'll get there eventually. You say that until he wants that Raptor a little early. He's identified that he's driving a piece of crap, so that's good.

1:13:37Dave Ramsey:Yeah. That's good. I like that. Obviously, it'll be a used one, Dave. You know about these cars. I've heard about them. Heard about them. Heard the rumor. Yeah. Yeah. I'm proud of y 'all. Way to go, guys. You're rock stars. This is absolutely amazing. Very well done. Josh and Holly Ramsey Solutions team members and apparently Chick-fil-A team members $175 ,000 paid off house and everything at 27 years old in 18 months of marriage man don't tell me you can't do it when you're Gen Z these guys are just going mic drop count it down let's hear a debt free scream 3, 2, 1 we're debt free yeah Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

1:14:23Dave Ramsey:Man. Makes me proud he's working here. Yeah. What a sharp guy, man. No question. We knew that already, but you put all that underpinning, all that foundation under it. My gosh. And let me point out that when you marry someone that is aligned with you financially. And that is sharper than you. Well, that's true, too. I wasn't going to say that part. But, hey, that is really cool to see their values align and now look at them. Boom.

1:15:35Dave Ramsey:Your personal and professional growth Hinge on one skill more than anything else It's communication And we're excited about this new book Stop Talking, Start Communicating that I did. It's now available for pre-order. The book unpacks the DISC assessment, the DISC, and shows you the results of your test. So you get the test and the book. You can pre-order for $34.99 and$30 in pre-order bonus items, including the e-book and an additional assessment for your friend or your spouse. If you've never taken this, we use it inside the company here when we're hiring, and then we put the results on each person's wall.

1:16:21Dave Ramsey:So when you walk up to the area that they're sitting in or into their office, you see how they think, whether they're a D, I, S, or a C. And without going into the full teaching on it, I took the test, I think, 40 years ago or so the first time. I was in a volunteer thing at a church, and the church said, hey, take this. and I read it, the results, and I went, whoa, this read my mail. And so I came home. It was the first time I'd ever seen an assessment like this. I came home and I handed it to my wife and I said, look at this thing. This thing is amazing. And she read it and she said, uh-huh, uh-huh.

1:16:55Dave Ramsey:That's what's wrong with you. No, that is me. Wait a minute. So there's a lot of ways you can assess and tell what the way people think and the way they tick. None of them are perfect and none of them are a fix-all. But if you know how someone is wired, it's easier to communicate with them. And if you think through for a minute, you'll know how they're wired. And this book will help you do that. Stop talking. Start communicating. You can preorder today at RamseySolutions.com slash store. Or if you're watching on YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the subscription. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Why Refi?

1:17:35Dave Ramsey:Defaulted private student loans don't fix themselves. but you can fix them. Y-Refi helps you refinance into a low fixed rate payment that fits your budget so you can get back to the baby steps and move forward. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Kyle in Kentucky. My wife and I have been told by our financial planner that it's better to invest in the market than to pay off your mortgage if the interest rate is less than your average rate of return in the market. He explained that market gains can be used to pay lump sums on the principle of your mortgage to pay off your home sooner that way.

1:18:15Is this the best course of action? Well, Kyle, I don't know if you've been listening to us for a while. If you have, you know our answer. If you haven't, there's a reason why Dave developed the baby steps many, many years ago because of the momentum and the strategy actually pays off because it's disciplined action. And so The answer is we disagree with your financial planner. That's a numbers game. It's a manipulation. It's fancy math to try to make you feel good to invest with the financial planner when the discipline of the old – Dave, you've used the adage so many times, the tortoise always beats the hare, right?

1:18:53The idea of just discipline action.

1:18:56Dave Ramsey:Then there's the other thing that the financial planner's math is just – it's not fancy. It's just wrong. Yeah, right. Okay. So if you make 10 % on your investments and your mortgage is 4 % or 5%, he's saying you make 6 % difference and that you're going to get out of debt faster. Well, that's wrong because he left out a key mathematical figure in this equation. This equation is very naive and very primitive and very simplistic. If you did a sophisticated analysis of this, you would factor in risk. and risk is not factored in here. You just took risk. You put money in the stock market, which is risk.

1:19:38Dave Ramsey:You didn't pay off your mortgage, which is risk. And so if you adjust for risk and taxes, because you do pay taxes, by the way, on that investment return. So those investment returns that you're going to lump sum and throw with this are taxable investment returns. So he didn't adjust for taxes and he didn't adjust for risk. So your financial planner is full of crap Is the problem And it's typical financial planner Too many of them are this naive This primitive, this unsophisticated And so when you adjust for risk and taxes There is no benefit And here's the way you know this in your heart, Kyle Let's pretend your house was paid for And your financial planner says Hey, you should go borrow$300 ,000 on your house And give it to me to invest in a good mutual fund, and I'll make 10%, 11%, 12 % on it.

1:20:33Dave Ramsey:And you can borrow that money at 3 % or 4%, and you'll make the difference. It's the exact same discussion mathematically. But when you say, you want me to borrow on my paid-for house, you know what happens? Your heart jumps, which is where you measure risk. You do math in your head, and you measure risk in your heart. And your heart skips a beat and goes, not just no, but hell no. I'm not borrowing on my house. It's paid for, you idiot. Why would I borrow on my house to invest with you? And it's the exact same equation. So when you reverse it that way, it makes you realize this guy's not playing with a full deck.

1:21:15Dave Ramsey:He's not got all the parts of the math equation in there. So, yeah, you need a new financial planner. This guy's more worried about what you invest with him than he is what you're going to end up with at the end of the day. You're going to end up with a lot more with a paid-for house and increase cash flow that you can invest in good mutual funds, which is what I have done, what Ken has done, what all the Ramsey personalities have done, what millions and millions of people have done that became Baby Steps millionaires, and they didn't have your financial planner. So you need one that can do math.

1:21:42Dave Ramsey:You got left out. God, man, the arrogance of these guys. It's unbelievable. Tim is in New Jersey. Hey, Tim, what's up? Hi. How are you doing? Good. How can we help? So I'm a baby step five now. So I'm debt free. I do have a car lease. That's the only thing that I might. Well, then you're not in baby step five. You have debt on your car. You're right. So I have two questions. One, if I should pay it off. But my main question is the reason why is because I would like to have a nice car. I can afford it. But if you come out more money, it's going to be a bigger headache for me to have to sell it and everything like that.

1:22:29And I don't have a big payment on it compared to what I make. But my main concern is my wife is very concerned when it comes to spending. So we used to be, we didn't grow, like we had a lot of debt, and I paid everything well.

1:22:45Dave Ramsey:No, you paid off everything but the car. True. Okay. So let's say I pay off the car. I will pay off the car. I make enough for my wife to be able to spend nicely for stuff, personal stuff. I work at night as well. So I do music and I work at night. What's your household income? So I make$170 after taxes, roughly. Good for you. So it's not in the night, so it's not in. Good for you. You work hard. Good for you. And you have no debt except the car lease, and you're paying it off. Good. Yes. Okay. And how much is it your wife has trouble spending? How much money? Any purchase that is like$250,$300 for clothes or something like that.

1:23:33Dave Ramsey:Well, if you do a detailed budget where every dollar has an assignment before the month begins and she's in agreement with that budget, she'll be able to look at that budget and say, if I spend this$250 on some clothing, we still have the money for groceries. We still have the money for investing in retirement. We still have the money for X, Y, or Z. And as long as she knows she's okay, she can spend it. But when it's all discombobulated and it's just kind of swimming around in your head and you don't have a detailed plan. She doesn't know it's okay to spend it. When we were broke, Tim, Sharon and I would go to the grocery store, and when we're buying groceries to feed our family, we wondered, because we didn't have a budget, we didn't have a plan, we wondered if we just spent the money to keep the lights on at the house.

1:24:28Dave Ramsey:So it was stressful to buy groceries. That's what your wife is experiencing. But once we had a plan, we said this much is for groceries, this much is for electricity, this much is for the house payment and we have that plan laid out, then when we spend money on groceries, we're not stressed because we know it's a part of an overall plan and we're going to be okay. She needs to know she's going to be okay if she spends this money mathematically. Yeah. And hang on the line. We're going to give you Rachel's book. It's a number one bestseller, Know Yourself, Know Your Money. My guess is your wife's background, in other words, the environment she grew up in, plus her experience with money to this point, is shaping some of that fear.

1:25:06I think that book will help.

1:25:34Dave Ramsey:Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, host of the Front Row Seat Show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. Josh is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Josh, how are you? I'm great, David. It's a pleasure to talk to you. You too, man. What's up? So I had a question. We're in okay shape financially, the wife and I. We have combined finances. And I've got some extra side hustle cash that I've got coming in. And usually I just use that to play golf or buy some beers or whatever. And, you know, no questions asked. But I want to start, like, surprising her maybe with a trip here or there, just something that's a little bit more than just, you know, you don't pay for it in cash.

1:26:19You might need a debit card or something like that. So I guess my question is, without opening another account, what's the best way for me to go about doing that, surprising her, while also, you know, making sure our finances kind of stay together and in one place?

1:26:34Dave Ramsey:Yeah. What's your household income? Right now we're at about$140,$150, I would say. How much debt have you all got? Nothing but the house. Good for you. Well done. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, you certainly can do whatever you want to do. You're not doing a bad job. You're managing well. What Sharon and I have done and what we teach is that all monies are combined. okay now then that begs the question how do you surprise sharon with something okay or how do you surprise your wife with something and um if it's all in the budget it's kind of boring it's all you know surprise there's your surprise fund you know and so um you know the way it ends up working at our place honestly um we do a lot of travel today particularly it's kind of one of our things we're doing at this stage of our life.

1:27:31Dave Ramsey:And so in my case, I've actually figured out my wife does not like surprises. So that's a little different. But aside from that, she does not want to do all the detailed work of planning the trip. And so we would have in our case, you know, maybe a modified way of our thing into you would just be that, you know, you could have a surprise line item in the budget. This is money, a sinking fund that is for me to surprise you with. And I'm going to do different things. And I might buy a trip or I might buy you something else or whatever. And the fact that the money is in the budget is not a surprise, but the item or whatever I buy is going to be a surprise because it's a surprise fund.

1:28:18Dave Ramsey:That's what it's for. And you guys are grownups. She's not four years old, so that probably will work good enough. If she has to be tricked into thinking you have money you don't have, that one, I'm not good with that idea. It's not an idiot. It's not about tricking her. I know, but I'm just saying you've got to hide it from her so she's surprised. Well, is the surprise when you reveal that you have booked the trip or the surprise when you just put her in the car and say, hey, we're headed to the airport? What level are we talking about? Well, I mean, yeah, it'd be nice to, you know, I don't think we'd get as far as because we have, you know, a child and all that.

1:28:58Like, I can't just put her in the car and say, hey, we're headed to the airport. But it'd be nice to have something booked a few months out and then go to her a couple weeks in advance and say, hey, you know, that pre-weekend that we have, it's not free because we've got something. That's great. You can do it.

1:29:12Dave Ramsey:Yeah, you can do that with an anonymous category. We can name it whatever we want to name it. anonymous trips or surprise trips or surprise for this. I like doing this for you as husband to wife. And so I'm going to put it in the budget and I'm going to give it a name. I don't care what it is. I mean, we got, we have so many friends like, you know, we've talked about it. Sam and Jade Orshaw. I mean, Sam, we talked about on the show recently, Sam, they put money in their budget away for each other. And it's just, this is Jade's fun category. It's his fun category. Well, Sam never spends his, and he just stacks and stacks and stacks, and he does something really awesome.

1:29:50So you could do it that way too, where as long as it's in the budget, we're communicating, and it's like this is the old blow envelope is what this is. And if it stacks up, then you can surprise her with that.

1:30:00Dave Ramsey:So there's a lot of ways to do it. But I'm always putting side hustle money in the budget. Oh, yeah. Period. I'm not going to run it as a side deal with the money. No, not a separate account. I'm saying it's a line item. I know. That's what he was doing. I'm not going to do that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's certainly up to you, Josh. And again, we've been married 43, almost 44 years. And so there's very little that surprises her. Right. That is a different deal. I agree. She's not four. Yeah. It's hard to surprise them even for a birthday party. She doesn't even like a surprise birthday party.

1:30:39Dave Ramsey:This woman. What about a gift? Does Sharon tell you what she wants for her birthday or do you surprise her with that? I was surprised with that. Yeah. And most of the stuff that we do on a trip, I mean, she may know the location and the date. Right. But most everything else, she's like, yeah, surprise me. Oh, that's fine. That's okay. So she wakes up and you're like, here's the agenda. Here's what we're doing. That's great. Here's the plan. That's right up your alley. And you know I got a plan. Oh, believe me. From sunup to sundown. It's ridiculous. But it's fun. Jack is in New York City. Hey, Jack, what's up?

1:31:10Dave Ramsey:Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So about three years ago, I took out a SBA 7A loan to purchase a specialty coffee roasting business. And now that I'm about three years into this loan, there's about 100 grand left. It's a 9.75 % interest rate. And I feel like I'm finally catching my breath a little bit with this. So I'm trying to figure out where I should start putting any extra money I have. Catching your breath, meaning you're just not profitable? Uh, yeah. So what kind of profit are we expecting in the coming 12 months? It's about 20 % of our revenue. Our revenue last year was$660 ,000, and we're projected to do about a million this year.

1:31:59Dave Ramsey:Okay, so you may make$200 ,000. And is this a side hustle, or is this your full-time gig? Full-time gig. Okay. And so what are you all living on? What's it take for you all to live out of this? Yeah, so last year we brought home about$77 ,000. And you lived on that. Does your wife work outside of this? No. Okay, so you lived on$80 ,000 last year. About, yeah. So if you made$200 ,000 and you lived on$80 ,000 this year, you could pay off the loan.

1:32:40Yeah, yeah.

1:32:40Dave Ramsey:$200 minus$80 is$120. The loan is$100, right? Right. Okay.

1:32:48Dave Ramsey:So do that. Why not? Why would you keep this loan around? It's not a pet. Yeah, yeah. No, I get what you're saying. It's, yeah, okay. That makes sense. So hold on. Weigh that really quick with what you were thinking about doing. What were you thinking of? Well, we're actually looking to move into a new space. The spot that we're in right now is very small, and that's obviously going to be another expense. It's going to cost about$60 ,000 to get the new space built out. So what I was actually thinking was potentially refinancing this loan because the interest rate is so high. I could get 6.5 % if I were to say to take out another$150 ,000 loan, and then I'd have$50 ,000 of capital to put towards the build-out.

1:33:36Dave Ramsey:And then the more debt that you have in business, the more unstable and unsustainable you are. The less debt you have, the more sustainable you are. So I would go with everything you're talking about doing, only I would just pay off the loan first, and then I would cash flow the move. And where do you feel how easy it is to breathe in? Yeah. And if you got this move completely cash flowed and you've expanded, now you're making$300 ,000. and you got no payments in the world and we're, what, 24 months, 36 months from now? It's a lot better place to be in business. It's too volatile out there, man.

1:34:24Dave Ramsey:It's that time again, folks. Tax season is here. I know some of you would rather bury your head in the sand until April 15th than face your taxes. But here's a better idea. If your tax situation is complicated, get in touch with a Ramsey Trusted Tax Pro today. That way they can take the stress off your shoulders once those tax forms come in and teach you how to keep your tax bill as low as possible. But don't wait. Ramsey Trusted Pros can book up fast. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash tax pro to find one who serves your area with excellence. That's RamseySolutions.com slash tax pro.

1:35:23Dave Ramsey:If you're working the baby steps, the best and fastest way to do it is by using EveryDollar. It's more than just a budgeting app. It is now the whole plan, the Ramsey plan, built right in. You track your progress. You get personalized recommendations and coaching for your situation that will help you free up more money and work the plan faster. It's like having one of us walking with you every day, showing you the next right step and holding you accountable. Start every dollar for free by downloading it in the App Store or Google Play. Adam is in Seattle. Hey, Adam, what's up? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call.

1:36:01I appreciate it. So I just feel lost in life. You know, I am 26 years old. I have no degree. I'm unemployed. and I haven't been able to hold down a job since I graduated high school. I've had 10 jobs and, yeah, yeah. What is your assessment? And give me a single one or two words at most. What has kept you from holding down these jobs? What is it? Just a lot of –

1:36:42I think it was a learned helplessness and then also just a lot of anxiety. Did you self-sabotage? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what's at the core? And again, don't worry about how you word it. Just be as gut-level honest as you can. What do you think is at the core of all this anxiety, this fear, this worry? It's my fault. But, you know, I took ownership of it. I just don't know how to move forward. So, yeah. Well, the first way to move forward is to realize that you're not a failure. And I think it would make a lot of sense for somebody in your shoes at 26 who's never had anything stick. It doesn't feel like you've had much stick in your life.

1:37:25Is that a fair assessment?

1:37:30Things haven't really been – it hasn't been sticking. And I think it's just the severe anxiety that I have, and I am in therapy for that. Are you making progress? Do you feel like you're making progress in therapy? I want to believe that, yeah. So I'm going to tell you right now, instead of this big philosophical and big strategy answer, I think you just need a win. And I think you need to redefine what winning looks like. and I think winning, if I were going to prescribe something to you, is go get a job and go get the hardest job you can get. I mean that. I don't mean something that pays you very little.

1:38:11I mean hardworking, maybe some manual labor, working the trades, and have one clear win, and that is I'm going to keep showing up. I'm not a screw-up, therefore I'm not going to screw up. And I got one thing. I'm going to show up, and I'm going to keep a clean nose. I'm going to do what they tell me. I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn how to do more. I'm going to be hungry, and I'm going to keep showing up. And I'm going to put one month and two months and three months. While you're getting this therapy, I think you need to do something really, really hard because I think you need to prove to yourself that you've got grit and that you're actually tough and that you're not a victim.

1:38:49But I want to bring Dave in because I know he's got some great insight on this too. But I'm trying to simplify for him to get him a win, Dave. What are your thoughts?

1:38:57Dave Ramsey:Where's your family? Um, so I, I, I am with, um, a relative of mine. I live with a relative of mine and, um, yeah. What relative? Uncle, aunt, brother, sister, what? Yeah. Um, uncle. Okay. Where's your mom and dad? Um, it. Physically, where are they located? Are they located like in the same city? It's just where, you know, I've failed and I haven't been a really good son. So, yeah, I don't really talk to my mom much, but, yeah. What did you call for today? What did you want from Dave and I? I just feel lost in life because I'm 26. sakes and, you know, I have no degree. You know, it's, I'm just trying to...

1:40:03No, listen, I can tell you right now, you're so ashamed of yourself. You are just covered in shame. So Dave and I aren't therapists. I'm glad you're with a therapist. I cannot preach that enough. Do the hard work. Keep digging in. Don't stop that. But I'm going to go back to what I think. I think instead of, I don't think someone who's in your state of mind can have great clarity. I'm going to give you a resource. I'm going to give you my book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. I want you to take the assessment, but I'm going to caution you that I think you're so down on yourself and you are so loaded down with shame that I think you're going to have to do a few little things at a time to build up belief in yourself.

1:40:43And that's why I'm prescribing hard work. I mean like brick crew working on a construction site to where your body aches all day and you just get some confidence to go, I'm showing up doing the hardest work possible. I really believe that's what you ought to try. Try it for 90 days and get that back stiffened up to say, I just did the hardest work on the planet for 18, 20, 22, 25 bucks an hour. Hard work. Work two jobs. Don't do anything but work. and stack up some cash for the whole purpose of beginning to believe that you're not at utter failure.

1:41:21Dave Ramsey:That's what I think you ought to do. Yeah, so this is a real hard assignment. Get a job doing anything that's tough and show up every single day and work your butt off. Yeah. You can do that. Okay. You can do that. So what? To build cash or build grit. And stop partying. Yeah, build some grit. You're partying your butt off, aren't you? yeah yeah that's got to stop you're killing yourself man yeah okay yeah it's it's dripping off of you so if i was you i'd plug into a great church and get some men that are walking with god that are clean they're sober and they'll walk alongside you put their arm around your shoulder and kick your little butt and get you in a job and hold you accountable for staying clean and working your butt off.

1:42:10Dave Ramsey:And you got to get a community that's different. The community you're running in is a bunch of losers. Amen. And you're going to become who you hang around with. So you need to change who you're hanging around with. And that's a mess. So yeah, the thing is this, Ken's prescription, I think, is exactly right. You need some wins. You need some confidence and some dignity. But that means you got to walk away from the stuff that's been taking it from you. Yeah. And that's the partying. And the reason you're not showing up at work is you're hung over, you're strung out, and you can't wait for happy hour.

1:42:43Dave Ramsey:Can't wait for smoking of the joint while I'm on the job. Well, of course you're getting your butt fired. No kidding. You can't pass a drug test. And so that's what's going on. I mean, so you step in there and you stay clean, dude. And I'm telling you, get a whole new crew to run with. Get into a good church. and that's why I was asking about family and so the reason your family is upset with you is not because you're a bad son it's because they love you and they hate watching you destroy yourself with your bad habits that's what they're they're not mad at you that they love you and they can't stand watching you kill yourself so what I would just walk away from that stuff and go completely clean and just let's go for a whole new direction.

1:43:29Dave Ramsey:I mean, we're going from drunk to monk right now, man. I mean, game on. Time to make a move, right? You got to make a shift here. And if you do something radical like that for 90 days, you can do all kinds of stuff. That's absolutely right. Absolutely right. And I can't say this enough. At some point after the 90 days, I want you to do something that you're afraid of doing. Yeah. Something that you're afraid of. That's like really a stretch. I don't mean something stupid financially. I just mean something you're afraid of. Which right now is everything. It is. But I cannot tell you how much hard work will do for the soul.

1:44:05Oh, yeah. And by the way, your only goal, by the way, is stack as much cash as you can in that 90 days.

1:44:11Dave Ramsey:Staying clean. Staying clean. Yeah. Get a goal. Staying clean. I think you can do this, Adam. I know you can. I really don't think it's as bad as your brain has told you it is. But yeah, you're going to have to walk away from some stuff and towards some new stuff. If you want a different thing, you've got to change the recipe. Keep doing the same thing over and over again. Expect a different result. That's the definition of insanity. That's what the 12-steppers say. And they're quoting Einstein, by the way.

1:45:09Dave Ramsey:Hey, guys. Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now you can get that same kind of help anytime with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to RamseySolutions.com and try Ask Ramsey today. That's RamseySolutions.com.

1:45:59Dave Ramsey:in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions one of our own Ramsey Solutions team members Brandon Ray and his wife Madison to do a debt-free scream welcome guys hey how's it going good man how are y 'all doing well cool so how much debt have you two paid off 118 ,000 wow and how long did did that take? Four years. Good for you. And you've been here about four years, right? Yes. Okay. Tell folks what you do here at Ramsey. Software engineer, untrusted. All right. Yep. And so if you're getting a tax, getting help from a tax pro or real estate agent, it's very likely that Brandon Ray might have written the code.

1:46:36Dave Ramsey:Sure. That caused you to be able to do that. So that's how it works. Yeah. Way to go, guys. Well, congratulations. What kind of debt was the 118 ,000? So we had two cars, student loans, four credit cards. We also owed some family some money. So you were normal? Normal. Yeah. How long you two been married? Almost 10 years. Okay. So where did you move? Did you move from somewhere to come here four years ago? No, we're from here. You're from here. Yeah. Okay. And so you joined the Ramsey thing and around here, the peer pressure is all positive to get you out of debt. It's the opposite of most places.

1:47:09Dave Ramsey:Yes. Like it's kind of over the top. It's like like a cult or something. So, yeah. But the yeah. So we're pushing you because we love you to get out of debt. Everybody in the whole team's cheering you on. Right. Yes. And so you didn't have a choice hardly, but to get on the plan. Right. Exactly. Yeah. OK. And so, Madison, did you know what your husband was getting into when he joined this place? No. No, I didn't know we were joining a cult. But it's okay. It's the good kind of cult. It's a good one. Yes. There's good ones. There's bad ones. We're one of the good ones. That's awesome. So you guys decided about the time you came to work here, okay, we're going to attack this dad.

1:47:46Yeah, it was kind of a little bit before that. It was like, hey, I've been, well, I'll go back a little bit. My mom actually introduced us to you when we were, when I was like a little kid. We were listening to you and Susie Orman, and we were doing all sorts of stuff there. And she introduced me to like the envelope system and all sorts of stuff. but like a kid, you know, I didn't listen to any of it until well into our marriage.

1:48:09Dave Ramsey:Yeah. And I was like, Hey, you know, and by then you're normal, you got all this debt. And I'm like, Oh crap, we're starting to have kids and things are starting to stack up and we need some room. And then I was already starting to look into the baby steps. And then I was like, Hey, I really want to work here too. So that, that kind of went hand in hand. Okay. Yeah. All right. So Madison, how did you, how did you play into this story? He suggested and I followed. That's simple, huh? Yeah. I love my husband. Could you teach a class on that, please?

1:48:41Bible 101. So no questions at all? No struggles with it? You just were like, okay. Well, I did a little bit of kicking and screaming. Oh, okay. When he told me I had to stop ordering the cheese dip at the Mexican restaurant, I got a little frustrated. but yeah because she's more of a dreamer and i'm more of a realist so it's like she comes with me with dreams and i'm like there's no room in the budget so we need to like do some work to make

1:49:06Dave Ramsey:those dreamer and dream killer yeah and apparently queso killer as well queso killer whoa that's worse than dream killer wow it is hey but we're debt free so we could yeah now we can get that she's bought in now we got it okay so what do y 'all tell people the secret to getting out of debt is 118 ,000 in four years so you did like 25 ,000 dollars 30 ,000 dollars a year right yeah that's pretty substantial it's doing lots of late nights we did I did two side jobs to make that happen so it was a lot and you gave up a lot because you had to like get the kids to bed do different things it was it was a lot of sacrifice queso and queso so there was just a lot of a lot of sacrifices a lot of late nights a lot of coming here eating beans and rice the taco bar looks really good on tuesday but lots of beans and rice we ate a lot of lots and lots and lots yes yes so that was probably the hardest part too is like giving up time with the kids giving up time with family at night and giving up just we like food so was it was it worth it now that you're free oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah how's it feel now that you don't have any debt except the house it was weird at first because it's like oh is it is it over is it actually over it doesn't feel real yet and then yeah it's still kind of getting to that real part but it's like hey wait a second we can actually the kids want to go do something we can do it right it's not a no immediately it's like yes we can go do that all right for a guy who works here you know it you've lived it you've done it now what do you say to people that this is the key to winning on this debt-free journey well you got yourself into it you got to get yourself out of it just do it put in the work get it done.

1:50:46Dave Ramsey:Love that. What about you Madison? What do you say the secret to getting out of debt is? A lot of patience and a lot of trusting your partner. A lot. There has to be good communication between both of you about where your money's going. All those random subscriptions that you forget you have have to be canceled. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a constant thing. Yeah. Way to go guys. I'm so proud of you. So proud of you. I know your parents are proud of you. I tried to get you to do this 20 years ago. Now you're really doing it. That's good. That's good. It's very good. Very good. Well, congratulations, y 'all.

1:51:20Dave Ramsey:Congratulations. And thanks for being on the team. We appreciate it. And when the taco bar is open, you get all the queso you want, okay?

1:51:30Dave Ramsey:Okay. And it's your birthday. Yes. No way. Yeah. Well, happy birthday. Very nice. That's quite the present. Yeah. Yeah. How are we celebrating tonight? We're going to ice cream after this. Wow. There we go. There we go. That's good. Two scoops are okay today. There we go. Maybe a waffle cone. Easy. I'm crazy. Let's go crazy. That's it. I like it. Very well done. All right. Brandon and Madison from the Ramsey Solutions team living right here in Nashville. $118 ,000 paid off in four years. Oh, what are the kiddos' names and ages? We got Beckett, he's five. Cecilia, seven. And Adeline is five months.

1:52:10Dave Ramsey:Oh, perfect. Very cool. And they look like they've been practicing their debt-free scream. Yes. So y 'all ready to do your debt-free scream? Are you ready, Adeline? Okay. Ready to do it? All right. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah!

1:52:30Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

1:52:33Dave Ramsey:That's how it's done. Wow, man. That is fabulous. Congratulations, you guys. well and the team's out here cheering them on yeah it's fun it's the good news about the team here they love each other and they're always praying for each other helping each other uh you know passing on tips and encouragement and everything else versus tearing you down and uh it's one of the beauties of the culture and at ramsey i'm real proud of our team and uh how many of them came out you can see them if you're watching on the youtube man that's a huge number of people come out to cheer them on so very cool stuff and isn't it interesting that You can grow up right here in the shadow almost of this building.

1:53:11Dave Ramsey:Yeah. And mom telling you to do this stuff. And then you look up and you're$118 ,000 in debt and you're married. And we've been married five years and, oh, this is not working. And, oh, I got to do it too. And then joins our team four years ago and actually applies the stuff and goes crazy. So the interesting thing is with all this stuff, it's just a matter of a decision or three to decide. I'm not going to do that anymore. I am going to do this. I'm not going to do that. I am going to do this. And this is, I'm identifying what works, what doesn't work. And I'm going to plug into what works. I'm going to walk away from the things that don't work.

1:53:46Dave Ramsey:And this, you know, using these credit cards to get my airline miles, bull crap. You know, I'm not, I'm not paying attention to what we're spending at restaurants. I'm not paying attention. And then all of a sudden, boom, it gets serious and everybody turns their life around. You know, it's interesting when I asked Brandon the key to get out of debt, he said, you got yourself into this. Now you got to get yourself out. It really ties into our last call, that young man who had done some things where he created all the shame and guilt, and he's telling us multiple times he's lost. And it's very similar to people that feel lost financially because they just do what the culture kind of tells them is normal to do.

1:54:23And they wake up one day and they feel lost, stuck financially. And the advice is so great. You got yourself in it. You got to get yourself out. There's a lot of empowerment there. So So a great message to a lot of you that are new to the show and are in a lot of debt and you're just feeling like this is a pipe dream. It's really not. It's that simple, that mindset and crazy discipline that you heard there.

1:54:43Dave Ramsey:So you can do it. Larry Burkett used to say it takes you about as long to get out as it did to get in. So if you spend three years making the mess, it takes you about three years to fix the mess. And my experience has been different than Larry's. Yeah. I think maybe because we've got the whole gazelle intensity thing going. I agree. It's roughly about half. So you figure if it took you five years to make the mess, it's probably going to take you two and a half to get out of intensity. And so how quick do you clean up the mess? In their case, they cleaned it up in four years. It took them about six years to make the mess.

1:55:13Dave Ramsey:They've been married ten. So that's how it worked out. Very interesting. Proud of you guys. Well done.

1:55:30Thank you.

1:55:50Hey, good folks. Dr. John Deloney here. Don't you think life is too short to hate Mondays? Listen, you're worth loving the work you do and where you do it. So guess what? Ramsey Solutions is hiring. If you're ready to join an amazing team that's all about changing lives and spreading hope, we want to see your application. Right now, we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. Check out all our job postings at RamseySolutions.com slash careers. That's RamseySolutions.com slash careers. slash careers.

1:56:31Dave Ramsey:Our scripture of the day, Hebrews 10, 23, and 24. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. John F. Kennedy said, too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Yeah, that's really good. Oh, ouch. Ronnie is in San Jose. Hey, Ronnie, what's up? Hi, thank you for taking my call. I've been listening for you guys for years. Well, thank you. And I really appreciate your words of wisdom. So I'm going to be 59 in July, and I'm trying to think how I'm going to retire.

1:57:17I'm working right now part-time as a teacher, and I own my house. But I don't think I can maintain the house here in California. I have a little farm, and there's always something happening. You know, the septic system and then the well is going bad. So every time there's something else. So I'm not sure I can keep this house for retirement. And I was thinking to renovate it. I don't have enough cash to renovate the house. And I was offered to take a HELOC. And by listening for you for so many years, I know that you guys are not pro HELOC or taking any loans. So at this point, I just don't know what to do.

1:58:02What's the best way to go?

1:58:04Dave Ramsey:What are you thinking of doing? I'm thinking to move to a different state. So either Nevada or Arizona or somewhere I can hold, you know, it's too expensive here. There's no way we can stay here with the taxes and everything else. It's just crazy. We, are you married? I'm not married. I'm single. Right now my son lives with me and my adult son is going to finish his studying and he's going to move out, but right now he's still with me. Yeah, I'm sure about moving to a different state because I don't think there's no way I can retire where I am right now. Okay, so what is your property worth? My property is about 1.6.

1:58:49Dave Ramsey:Okay. Well, that'll buy a nice property in another place for sure. Yeah, but I still need to leave me with some nest egg for retirement because I don't have, except the house and I have some money market. How much do you have in a money market? Right now, it's still collapsing, but it's about$600 ,000. Okay. So if you sold your property, I'm just thinking about the math only, not the emotions, but if you sold your property for$1.6 million and you bought a property in another location for$600 ,000 and you paid cash, and that would give you$1 million to invest for your nest egg, how would that sound?

1:59:33I am not sure. I'm only 59.

1:59:36Dave Ramsey:Yeah. I'm not sure it's going to take me all the way if I end up in 90 years. Oh, it'll take you all the way. You don't make$100 ,000 a year now, do you? I am definitely not doing$100 ,000 a year now. What do you do? No. She's a teacher. A teacher. I'm a teacher, but part-time, yeah. So what do you make? Why are you just working part-time?

1:59:58You know, I've been working for so many years full-time, and I want to do other stuff, so I'm working part-time. How much does it take for you to live? Yeah, I'm making right now about$5 ,500 per month.

2:00:12Dave Ramsey:Yeah, how much does it take for you to live? $3 ,000. Okay. So you can work part-time as a teacher somewhere else. So if you had a paid-for house in another market and you put$1 million or whatever,$800 ,000 in a good investment, and you're working part-time from$59 ,000 to$69 ,000, you'd be in great shape, wouldn't you? Yeah, but I don't want to work the 69th. I mean, you're going to have to make some money somewhere. Yeah, it's too much, yeah. So I think your plan will work. It's just you're just going to have to be limited on what you spend on the property that you're going to move into in the next state.

2:00:49Dave Ramsey:Yeah, I mean, look, if the whole place is your oyster, if you can go anywhere, then I would go to a state that has no state income tax. I'd go to a place where I could buy something that's more than enough room in the$300 ,000,$350 ,000 range. Up to$600 ,000. Up to$600 ,000. But I'm saying you don't have to spend$600 ,000 and invest the rest of that. That's going to do fantastic for you. It's going to double every seven years, and you're going to be fine. Yeah. Just don't touch that nest egg and let it grow, and you continue to do a little work. It won't kill you. You're not dying. You're 59. It's not like you're 89.

2:01:25Dave Ramsey:and so yeah um there's a lot of stuff you can do here but yeah i got a feeling though that it's very emotional for you to leave that farm and leave california after all these years and so the math says to do what you're doing but then you've got to decide if that's where you want to live in the next place whether it's idaho or nevada or arizona wherever you're going you know you need to go house shopping over there you need to buy an airline ticket go over there look at houses and, you know, start talking about, you know, where, where will they accept your teaching credentials so that you can teach part-time over there, create some income, and then sit down with a SmartVestor Pro, go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor and sit down with one of them and say, gosh, if I put$800 ,000, a million dollars with you, what kind of an income would that generate for me to live on in my retirement years if I pay cash for a$500 ,000 or$600 ,000,$400 ,000 house.

2:02:22Dave Ramsey:You're going to have some taxes on this probably too. I don't know what you paid for that property, what your basis is. But either way, that all makes a lot of sense. But I also have a sense that you're kind of stuck there emotionally. And you're going to have to unstick. And that's kind of the process you're going through right now of going, this is smart. It's going to make me sad, though, to leave this farm after all these years. It's going to make me sad to leave California after all these years. but their taxes and the cost of living is driving me out. And, you know, it's sad, but that's a reality, and people do it all the time.

2:02:57Dave Ramsey:As a matter of fact, people have left California and New York and Chicago at record rates and have navigated to low-tax states in the past eight years like never before in the history of the U.S. Pretty crazy. It's like a reverse gold rush. You know, in the old days there was all this migration to California. in the 1800s, right? The famous gold rush. And now it's like a reverse thing. They're running away from, running back to the gold, which is no longer there apparently. Or if it is, the government takes it. Yeah, so there's that. And that's what's happening. Nicole is in Boise. Hi, Nicole.

2:03:36Dave Ramsey:How are you? Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm trying to figure out if my ask to my husband is one realistic and two reasonable right now um financially i'll spit it out before we run out of time what is it um so we i'm trying to what we're doing is not working and we need a parent home with our three kids um i just don't know i i after paying for daycare for the three kids my income is$1 ,500 a month. I don't know if it's realistic to ask him or if we can even financially afford for me to... Can you live on his income if you didn't have a daycare bill? We're$500 a month short.

2:04:31Dave Ramsey:Okay, what do you do for a living? On his income. I do finance right now. I am finishing my master's. I am done next month with my master's. But you got to stay home with three kids. Yeah. Well, the goal is to work remote from home teaching at an online school. Why would that not make more than$500? It would. Okay. The problem is that that wouldn't start until July without a paycheck until August. We have a$1 ,000 rainy day fund right now, and that's it. We don't have car payments, but we do have a little debt. and basically my last day of work is in April. Oh, you already quit? No. They need a full-time person.

2:05:24I cannot do full-time any longer. And so I had to step back because of medical issues with my son.

2:05:31Dave Ramsey:You already quit? You already quit? Yeah. Okay. Okay. And so it's... So you've got to find some way to stopgap the difference between now and August, right? Yeah. So how many hours extra is he going to work to cover that? He has offered to work one to two extra days a week. He doesn't have a choice. Somebody's got to feed your family. You all just made a decision. You just quit your job to go be with the kid that's sick. But I don't blame you. That sounds like the right thing to do. So you've just got to find a stopgap, and then you can make it work from there. That puts us our The Ramsey Show in the books.

2:06:09Dave Ramsey:We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.